004
“He really is the most emotionally barren man I’ve ever met.”
How could the Marchioness have loved someone like that?
I could admit he was handsome, in a cold and distant way. That deep navy hair, those sharp blue eyes—they suited the clean angles of his face, exuding a certain aloof charm. His features were striking, sculpted, and masculine in a way that women found irresistible. It wasn’t hard to believe the rumors that he’d left a trail of lovelorn noblewomen in his youth. One look at the Marchioness, still obsessed with him after all these years, was proof enough.
Though time had carved faint lines into the corners of his eyes, they only added to his gravity. He wore age like a well-tailored coat—dignified and precise.
Though he came from a martial lineage, the Marquess himself had been trained as a civil official. Still, his body, honed by his family’s traditions, was no less refined than a knight’s. And with his remarkable competence, he had risen from that military house to become the Empire’s Grand Chancellor—a feat achieved on merit alone.
Yes, the world was nothing if not fair. He had beauty. He had brilliance. What he lacked was the basic decency of warmth. That icy disposition, that utter disregard for anyone around him—it couldn’t be called anything but a flaw.
And the more I looked at him, the more I felt it: I couldn’t possibly be his daughter.
Not just because of the lack of resemblance in appearance—but in temperament, too. We weren’t even made from the same elements.
“Would you like some tea?”
The steward, perhaps moved by the sight of me standing silently and watching the Marquess, offered me a gentle smile. A tea service had already been laid out on the desk—for the Marquess, I assumed. Likely in anticipation of another long day of paperwork.
I shook my head. I had no intention of staying long. Without another word, the steward poured a single cup and placed it before the Marquess.
Steam curled from the cup in delicate spirals, filling the air with the faint scent of herbs. The Marquess didn’t even look up. With one hand, he signed a document; with the other, he lifted the cup.
The motion was seamless, elegant, precise—every inch the nobleman. The line of his throat moved as he swallowed, revealing the firm shape of his larynx, and the tea disappeared down his throat with quiet finality.
All while his eyes remained on the page.
Apparently, he had no intention of even acknowledging me until his work was done. And I had no intention of waiting to be acknowledged.
Who knew how long that would take?
Besides, I hadn’t come just to stare at the back of his head.
Once you’ve drawn the sword, you might as well stab the radish, as they say.
So I asked him—plainly, clearly, without flinching.
“Am I really your daughter?”
“Gasp!”
“What…?”
“Cough!”
A chorus of stifled exclamations burst from behind me. Even the unshakable steward flinched, still holding the scalding tea kettle in midair. If not for his fast reflexes, the kettle might’ve shattered on the marble floor.
The Marquess’s pen stilled.
For the first time since I entered the room, he lifted his head to look at me.
Those sharp, cool blue eyes met mine—calm, emotionless. Not a flicker of surprise. Not a twitch of alarm. Just an unblinking, glacial stare.
It was the kind of reaction only he could have—to face such a bombshell of a question with complete neutrality. And honestly? I had expected no less.
So I met his gaze evenly.
He spoke at last, voice smooth as ice.
“What exactly do you mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.”
He frowned—just slightly. A twitch of the brow, a minute dip between his eyes. A subtle shift, but on his face, it was monumental. The man was famous for being impassive. They called him the Iron Chancellor, the Ice Heart, the Man Behind the Mask.
His frigid stare cut through me like a winter wind. But I didn’t flinch. I let it pass over me.
He was trying to measure me. Gauge what I really wanted. The room hung heavy with silence, broken only by the sound of someone swallowing behind me.
“…Does it matter?”
“No.”
His brow twitched again. Two expressions in one day—I might as well have witnessed a miracle.
Maybe that’s why he sighed. Quietly. Almost imperceptibly. And for a fleeting moment, he looked—tired.
“Take your jokes elsewhere,” he said coolly, dismissing me like a child who’d spoken out of turn. His gaze dropped back to the papers. His hand resumed its work. A clear signal that this conversation was over.
But I wasn’t done.
“Maybe it doesn’t matter to me, but if I’m going to rise to the top, uncertainty about my bloodline is a problem.”
His pen froze again.
He set it down slowly, deliberately, then looked up—this time with a blade behind his eyes.
“You aiming to become Empress?”
“Gasp!”
“What?!”
“Cough!”
“…Hic!”
More shocked gasps echoed from the corridor. I hadn’t even noticed that the door was still open. I should’ve shut it when I came in, but I wasn’t exactly used to handling doors myself.
Too much pampering makes you soft, I thought dryly.
The Marquess must’ve found them distracting too. He cast a single glance at the steward, who responded instantly to the silent command.
With graceful efficiency, the steward bowed to us both and ushered out the knights and maids who’d been lingering. The door shut firmly behind them.
Now, it was just the two of us.
He gave me a moment’s pause, then repeated the question.
“Let me ask again. Do you want to be Empress?”
“…Would it matter if I did?”
He looked at me strangely, his blue eyes reflecting my image like the surface of a frozen lake.
“You’ve got a dangerous imagination.”
A faint smile ghosted across his lips. No—not a smile. A sneer. The flicker of amusement that came not from delight, but from condescension.
He was watching me now. Truly watching, like I was some curious animal behind glass. It was, in its way, a minor triumph. But it left a bitter taste in my mouth.
“Whispers about bloodlines can become a fatal weakness,” he said at last.
And he was right.
When I did become Empress, the rumors of my uncertain parentage were one of the first weapons they used against me. Even though the issue had never been raised publicly, I was flayed with gossip and scorn—by people who wielded smiles sharper than knives.
Throughout all of it, the Marquess remained silent. He never acknowledged the whispers. Never refuted them. Never spoke a word.
And by doing so, he rendered them untouchable.
His silence made the matter beneath discussion, unworthy of formal address. It protected me from open attack—but it didn’t stop the bleeding. It merely drove the knives underground.
And in the world of nobility, especially among women, what festers beneath the surface can kill more thoroughly than anything out in the open.
No matter how high your title—even as Empress—you cannot escape the rules of society. In fact, the crown binds you tighter to them.
That world is all grins and gowns on the surface—but every smile hides a sharpened edge. And in that world, the question of lineage isn’t just gossip. It’s a loaded gun.
Truth didn’t matter. Not really.
All it took was doubt. A sliver of uncertainty, and they tore me apart.
“I’m not foolish enough to hurl myself into a fire with a weakness exposed.”
Beonne had long resented the Marquess for his silence.
Because he never once spoke up in her defense, she was forced to wage battles she never needed to fight. That silence bred whispers. Whispers became rumors, and rumors became enemies. Of course, most of those enemies had more to do with Beonne’s thorny personality than his reticence, but the rumors were the spark that lit the flame.
She blamed him until her dying breath.
No—she blamed everything. The whole world. She cursed it all. That bitterness, that bone-deep despair… even now, fragments of it lingered, like smoke clinging to your clothes after a fire.
I don’t mean I still resent him. Not quite. It’s more like the way you feel after leaving a film that moved you to tears—an emotional residue that refuses to fade, even after the credits roll. That’s what Beonne’s hatred felt like now. Lingering. Dormant. Echoing.
In truth, whether or not I was biologically his daughter no longer seemed important. So long as he remained silent, I was still the legitimate daughter of House Elient—and I remained so until the day I died.
What I’d really come here for, what had driven me all the way to his study, was something else entirely.
The Marquess handled matters with obsessive precision. His decisions were swift, clean, final—allowing no room for doubt or ambiguity. Except when it came to one matter: me. Me, and the Marchioness.
That was the only time he ever chose silence over action.
Officially, the subject had never been raised. But unofficially? The rumors were endless. He had to have known. Why, then, had he stayed quiet?
Even a single word from him could have smothered the worst of the gossip. Maybe not entirely, but enough to lessen its sting. So why hadn’t he?
“What I want to know is…” I paused, locking eyes with him. “Am I the rightful daughter of House Elient?”
“That question isn’t even worth answering.”
His deep blue gaze, unwavering, locked with mine. Not a flicker of doubt. Not a shadow of hesitation. In that moment, something clicked.
I finally understood.
He had never been silent. Not really.
He had simply seen no reason to answer a question whose answer, to him, had always been obvious.
He had never questioned my place. Never considered denying me. To speak on it would have been to lend it legitimacy—to entertain nonsense.
His coldness earned him the title of Iron Chancellor, the man with an icebound heart. A being so void of feeling, so rarely moved, that many wondered if he was more myth than man. And indeed, his emotional restraint was matched only by his reticence.
This, in fact, was the longest conversation I’d ever had with him in my life.
All that time, I’d been interpreting his silence through the lens of my own insecurities.
I’d been projecting doubt where there was none.
“If all you’ve got are ridiculous questions, get out,” he said.
I smiled without meaning to.
That was it. The answer I’d been searching for.
I was his daughter.
His expression shifted—the smallest lift of a brow. I suppose I must have looked strange, smiling like that in such a conversation. But I couldn’t help it. In fact, I was even beginning to feel… cheerful.
“You asked if I wanted to be Empress,” I said lightly. “Honestly, how many noblewomen in the Empire don’t dream of becoming Empress?”
It was, after all, the highest position a woman could hope to attain.
For most girls born into nobility, it was a fantasy no different from the idea of marrying a prince on a white horse. A dream of love, power, and perfect happiness. Just like them, Beonne had once dreamt of that crown.
She had imagined herself standing beside him, beloved, respected, adored. She thought that if she could become Empress, her life would become a fairy tale—forever enchanted.
It was a lovely dream. The kind that felt like honey on the tongue just to imagine.
Her tragedy wasn’t that she dreamed it. Her tragedy was that she chased it. And worse—she could.
Beonne Lossa Elient had the background. The status. The means. She dreamed of being Empress—and she became one.
But reality is no fairy tale.
And she learned that lesson the hardest way of all: by dying.
I remembered everything. What it felt like to sit on that throne. What it cost to wear that crown. I had all the memories of Empress Beonne.
And not once, in any of those memories, had she been happy.
So now the question remained:
Do I, knowing what I know, still want to be Empress?
Do I want to walk the same road, toward the same ending?
What do I want?
“Is that a yes, then?” he asked.
It was a yes. I had wanted it. Fiercely. But the throne is not something you reach for alone. You don’t become Empress just because you desire it—or even just because the Emperor does. The path to the throne is tangled with interests, politics, and power plays.
Even if I tried to turn away now, that wouldn’t change the fact that others had already set things in motion.
I was made Empress not just because I had ambition, but because my marriage had served the agendas of many powerful men.
And those agendas still existed.
“Does what I want matter?” I asked quietly.
“You—”
BANG!
The study door slammed open, sharp and violent, interrupting him mid-sentence.
It was almost theatrical—so much so that I nearly laughed. It mirrored exactly how I’d kicked down the Marchioness’s door just a short while ago.
The Marquess scowled, visibly displeased. I turned toward the door, curious.
There were only a handful of people in this household who’d dare storm into the Marquess’s study uninvited.
First suspect: the Marchioness. The knights might be stationed outside, but they wouldn’t physically restrain her. Not because they couldn’t—but because they weren’t allowed to. No matter how wild she became, she was still a Marquess’s wife, the lady of the house. No one could lay a hand on her.
Second suspect: me. I’d just done the exact same thing.
But since I was already inside, I could be ruled out.
That left… no one.
No one else in this mansion could barge in like this and escape unscathed.
So naturally, I turned, expecting to see the Marchioness.
But it wasn’t her.
It was someone I hadn’t expected at all.
The steward.
But not the pristine, rigid man I was used to. This time, he looked utterly disheveled. His face—usually blank and unreadable—was twisted with distress. His perfectly combed-back hair, his trademark style, was in wild disarray.
The man who once seemed too stiff to even bleed looked like he’d just run through a storm.
Even the Marquess blinked, momentarily thrown off. He didn’t scold the steward for barging in. He simply asked:
“Why?”
Because even he had never seen the steward like this.
