Chapter 41

Chapter 41

“Even if it’s Count Matthias himself coming here instead of a messenger from the Matthias household, do not let him into my palace. Do you understand?”

“Your Highness…”

“Why aren’t you answering me?!”

The reply came from beyond the open door.

“Well, well… It seems I’ve once again arrived at an unfortunate time.”

“Uncle?”

The Second Prince sprang to his feet in surprise, and the red-haired man he had addressed as Uncle bowed gracefully.

Only then did the attendant standing by the door belatedly announce,

“Your Highness, Duke William has requested an audience.”

“…There’s no need to invite him in.”

And indeed, there wasn’t. Duke William had already stepped into the room.

Even when his breach of etiquette was pointed out, Duke William merely smiled.

“I can only hope my discourtesy hasn’t further aggravated Your Highness.”

“Never mind. There’s no need to make such a fuss over it.”

Far from getting angry, the Second Prince actually felt his agitation subside at the mere sight of him.

As though all the strength had drained from him, the Second Prince sank into his chair and ordered the attendant beside him to bring tea.

The attendant, who had been waiting for an opportunity to escape, hurriedly bowed and scurried out.

Perhaps worried that the prince might find another reason to reprimand him, he returned with the trolley in an unusually short amount of time.

After exchanging a few brief pleasantries with the Second Prince, Duke William dropped a sugar cube into his steaming coffee and asked in an amused voice,

“Who is it this time that has incurred Your Highness’s displeasure?”

“As it happens, there’s quite a lot I’ve been wanting to discuss with you, Uncle.”

Seizing the opportunity, the Second Prince immediately turned to Duke William.

“Why on earth did you introduce that young master Matthias to me? Because of that fool, the Empress Dowager has ordered me to remain under house arrest!”

“Oh, dear… Her Imperial Highness the Crown Princess mentioned it to me as well. She told me not to visit Your Highness unnecessarily, since you’re currently under house arrest.”

“Hah! So my sister said that, did she?”

“Strictly speaking, I am not permitted to visit Your Highness while you are under house arrest.”

There were only three people in the entire empire who could visit the Second Prince after the Empress had personally issued an order confining him to his palace.

The Emperor, the Imperial Consort, and the Crown Princess.

Their commonality was simple: they were all members of the Second Prince’s family and his superiors.

The reason Duke William did not fall into that category was equally simple.

“Honestly, even my sister is too much. She already has everything. Why does she begrudge me even the chance to grow close to you, Uncle?”

“I, too, find it deeply regrettable every time this happens. That I am not related to Your Highness by blood, I mean.”

Strictly speaking, he was the Crown Princess’s uncle, not the Second Prince’s.

The late Imperial Consort, who was now deceased, had been his elder brother. Consequently, he and the Second Prince, who was the son of the current Imperial Consort, did not share a single drop of blood.

Then how had the Second Prince come to address Duke William as his uncle and grow so attached to him?

It would never have happened if Duke William hadn’t whispered to him that, since he was the Crown Princess’s uncle, he was the prince’s uncle as well.

The Empress Dowager, who restricted his freedom under the pretense of acting in his best interests. His father, who urged him to live quietly and stay out of the Crown Princess’s way. And his half-sister, who never did anything but scold him.

Like a wildflower struggling to sprout between the tiles of a barren floor, the Second Prince was utterly, utterly lonely.

For someone like him, rejecting Duke William, who treated him as though he were his own nephew, was about as impossible as a man who had wandered the desert for days simply walking past a mirage.

“But Your Highness, surely you understand.”

“Sometimes, there are bonds stronger than blood?”

Following Duke William’s languid smile, the Second Prince burst into a hearty laugh.

“You’re absolutely right. Indeed, there’s nothing more meaningless than blood ties.”

As he spoke, he had no idea why Duke William was able to sit there despite being someone who should have been barred from entering the Second Prince’s palace during his confinement.

It was because the Empress knew that she was the only person her son, whom even his own father barely acknowledged, could truly rely on.

“Now that I’ve got that, please answer my question. What exactly did you see in Lloyd Matthias that made you think he would be of any use to me?”

“He is a gifted young man who graduated at the top of his class from the military academy. As things stood, he could easily have claimed the honor of becoming Anuf’s champion, had it not been for Count Elpiers.”

To be precise, Count Matthias would have eliminated every obstacle standing in his son’s way.

In fact, that was exactly what he had done. Quietly, behind the scenes, he had used his wealth and connections to secure an unparalleled honor for his son.

But then his son stumbled over an obstacle he hadn’t even known existed. It was the Count’s fatal miscalculation to assume that a bastard born of a mercenary was not even worth bribing or persuading.

“Besides, Count Matthias is a wealthy man. Unless something extraordinary happens, all that wealth will eventually belong to the young Count Matthias.”

In other words, once he inherited his father’s title and fortune, the prince could use him as a convenient source of money.

“So, in short, he’s useless to me for the time being.”

“That’s how farming works, Your Highness. You don’t water the crops and thin out the seedlings expecting them to bear fruit by tomorrow.”

“I need someone who can be of use to me right now!”

The Crown Princess’s claim to the throne was sturdier than the pillars supporting the Imperial Palace’s Great Hall. Unless some untoward incident claimed her life, there was no chance of the Second Prince ever inheriting the throne.

To begin with, he was the only prince in the entire empire, so why had he been given the title of Second Prince instead of First Prince?

The First Princess and the First Prince.

The mere fact that they would appear equal when standing side by side was enough to give cunning nobles ideas. The Empress had refused to allow even the slightest possibility of such discord.

In truth, the surest way to prevent such discord was simply not to have another child in the first place.

The First Princess was intelligent and healthy. The Empress had no intention of bearing a second child merely to prepare for a hypothetical contingency.

The current Imperial Consort had only been permitted to marry her after signing an agreement promising to drink contraceptive tea whenever he shared her bed.

And yet, the Empress became pregnant. Against her will.

The current Imperial Consort had thrown himself flat on the corridor floor outside the Empress’s bedchamber. Weeping and pleading, he insisted that he had no idea how it had happened when he had already drunk the contraceptive tea.

But there was no way the child she was carrying could have been fathered by another man. The Empress’s chief lady-in-waiting, her royal guards, and the scribes who recorded her every movement all knew that she had never shared a bed with any man other than the Imperial Consort.

Even so, the Empress forgave this mistake. More precisely, she tried to erase the entire incident as though it had never happened.

In other words, she had intended to terminate the pregnancy.

But the Imperial Consort had once again begged and pleaded with her. He implored her not to kill his child, even going so far as to make the childish declaration that he would take his own life if the child died.

To prove beyond all doubt that he harbored no ulterior motives, he severed all ties with his family. He swore that he would live in obscurity, never meddling in politics or even participating in social gatherings.

But the Empress was not satisfied with that alone. She imposed one additional condition. More precisely, she imposed it not on the Imperial Consort himself, but on his elder brother, Marquis Waindal.

‘Go to the great Weinberg Forest along the western border, find Keltenaha’s ancient royal palace, and present its relics to the First Princess.’

If he failed to find the ancient palace, he was to search every corner of the forest and at least complete a map of the region.

He was not to return to the capital until the task was done.

It was an order that amounted to exile.

The Empress had given Marquis Waindal a choice. But it was a dead end from which there was no way to refuse.

After all, the person the Empress had ordered him to demonstrate his loyalty to was not herself, but the First Princess.

Refusing the order would mean declaring that he would not recognize the First Princess as the next Empress. In other words, it would mean supporting the child growing in the Emperss’s womb—his own nephew—as the next ruler.

This was the exact opposite of what his younger brother had tearfully sworn would never happen.

And so, Marquis Waindal humbly accepted the Emperss’s command and withdrew to his own territory.

Everyone whispered that Marquis Waindal would never return to the capital. After all, the vast Weinberg Forest had never been conquered by anyone.

Yet he eventually discovered the ancient royal palace deep within the Weinberg Forest and presented the Crown Princess with the royal seal of Keltenaha.

That had happened just last year.

Around the same time, a mercenary named El rose to fame under the epithet ‘The Golden Lion of Weinberg.’ He had single-handedly defeated a gigantic black lion that commanded the ancient beasts of the great forest.

“That lowly mercenary bastard promised me a magical artifact in exchange for helping him humiliate that wretched fellow…”

“What are you talking about now?”

“You don’t know Count Elpiers? You know, the one who was born a bastard…”

“No, that’s not what I mean. A magical artifact?”

Duke William tilted his head to one side, as though he had just heard something utterly ridiculous.

“If you’re referring to ‘that one,’ then it must have been stolen about fifteen years ago…”

“Stolen?”

“It’s a well-known story among those in the know. There was quite an uproar about it at the time, and Count Matthias is still searching for it even now.”

The fact that he was still searching meant that he had yet to find it.

“That bastard! How dare he make a fool of me?!”

The Second Prince flew into a rage, furious that someone had dared to bargain with him using an item that didn’t even exist. Duke William struggled to calm him down.

“Perhaps that family possesses another magical artifact. If he turns out to have lied, you can always have him thrown into prison for the crime of insulting the Imperial Family.”

“Uncle, you’re right.”

The Second Prince ground his teeth.

“If that bastard has lied to me, I’ll make sure he regrets it for the rest of his life.”

After draining his cold tea in several large gulps to cool his temper, the Second Prince suddenly seemed curious about something.

“But what exactly was this stolen magical artifact? What kind of object is it that they’re still searching for it instead of giving up?”