18
“I am honored to meet you, Marquis of Hagen.”
In the end, breakfast came before the royal messenger arrived.
Eliza was only able to take her seat after her father had pressed her relentlessly to confirm whether what she had said was true, and she had even sworn on everything she had.
Despite her nervousness, the meal passed quietly.
It was when they moved to the drawing room for tea that—
“Something has come up with the family, so would it be all right if I excused myself?”
“Please, do not trouble yourself.”
“Ahem, then I shall take my leave. You come with me as well. Eliza, make sure you attend to the Marquis properly.”
Count Waluer left with his wife. Eliza watched the direction her father had gone, then noticed the butler standing there.
‘Has some news arrived?’
She naturally turned around and escorted the Marquis of Hagen to the drawing room.
As they slowly walked down the corridor, the Marquis asked,
“Come to think of it, Eliza. I heard you ran into Leopold that day.”
“Leopold? I haven’t seen him much lately, but if you mean that day…….”
She composed her expression as though lost in thought. Eliza’s steps moved slightly ahead of the Marquis.
“Ah, do you mean when I visited the Marquis’s residence? Come to think of it, is Leopold all right? He looked quite ill.”
“You seem concerned.”
“Of course. He is my dear friend and my fiancé.”
Eliza covered her expression as though she were shy.
The strange state Leopold had been in several days ago was still vivid in her mind, sending a chill down her spine. In the past, she would have rushed to check on him immediately, but she could no longer do that.
“Leopold has been looking for you. Desperately.”
“Me?”
“Come visit him. The doors of Hagen are always open to you, Eliza.”
The Marquis of Hagen glanced back at her, smiling pleasantly as usual.
This was not the first time she had heard those words. In fact, whenever Eliza visited the Hagen residence, they had always welcomed her.
But now, she could no longer trust that those doors would still be open when she left.
“Or perhaps, would you come with me now? I will not make you take bridal lessons immediately. Since that seems to be weighing on you, just go and see Leopold’s face before you leave.”
It was true that she was worried about Leopold. But why did the Marquis’s words now sound as though he were using him?
Eliza swallowed dryly and looked down through the window. She could see servants rushing about in a hurry.
And then she spotted her mother in an extravagant dress, recognizable even from afar.
“That would be difficult.”
The Waluer family walked in one direction and stood side by side.
The person who had dismounted from his horse in front of them said something to them.
“I have an appointment to meet His Highness the Crown Prince today.”
They had said they would send a royal messenger, and a carriage that had followed directly behind the messenger’s horse came into view.
Magnus had arrived almost simultaneously with the royal messenger.
***
The moment Magnus entered the drawing room, Eliza sprang to her feet. Her head naturally bowed with genuine sincerity.
“Your Highness the Crown Prince, thank you very much for visiting today.”
“I should be the one thanking you.”
“What do you mean…….”
“The accusation you made has proven to be true. The objects Lady Waluer brought were sufficient evidence.”
Some high-ranking priests possessed mysterious abilities. Miracles brought about by pure faith in God were called ‘Divine Powers.’
Magnus had already brought a priest who possessed the Divine Power of memory over to his side.
And after reading the servant’s memories, he had spent quite some time retching. The place the servant had witnessed was already dyed red with lingering resentment.
“It is horrifying. How could humans do something like this…….”
The beings worshipped by the black magicians had no life. As beings closer to thought-forms, they craved the life force of living bodies.
Extracting the heart and blood of a living person was more effective than using the corpse of the dead. There was no need to mention how horrific that process was.
The objects Eliza had brought were implements made in that manner, used to communicate with those wicked beings.
“You have accomplished a great feat, but…… there is one last thing I need to confirm.”
“What would that be?”
“Whether you are truly not their accomplice.”
The kingdom had been fiercely punishing black magic all this time. Yet, a conspiracy of this scale had suddenly been uncovered.
And the one who had first provided the clue to this case was none other than an ordinary lady.
“I will do anything to prove my innocence.”
Eliza clenched both fists. She was entrusting the punishment of those people to the Crown Prince, so she was willing to undergo at least this much of a test.
She also knew that things had gone unusually well for her to have made it this far.
‘They must have let their guard down. They never imagined I would betray them.’
The Marquis and Marchioness of Hagen had kindly supported the girl who had never received her parents’ love since she was young.
So they must have known better than anyone how much Eliza had trusted them.
The more irritable and ill-tempered she appeared outside, the more she must have seemed to Hagen like a tame girl wagging her tail.
She sometimes wanted to demand an explanation, furious that her precious memories of the past were being defiled.
But if she did, she might have been killed on the spot.
‘I haven’t even been moving for that long, and they’re already acting strangely. The Marquis has never tried this hard to take me away before.’
Magnus, who had been staring at Eliza’s tightly clenched fists, murmured,
“Anything…….”
His gaze, which had lingered on the bruised back of her hand, moved away.
It was a tiny hand that seemed incapable of doing anything except lifting a teacup.
“How far?”
“Pardon?”
“For the sake of proving your innocence, if I told you to walk into the Hagen residence yourself and fight them, would you do it?”
The man’s voice was neither loud nor soft. His tone barely changed, sounding almost as though he were reading from a book.
Yet, upon hearing that indifferent voice, Eliza’s heart began to pound violently.
“You said you accused them in order to survive. You spoke as though you would be killed immediately if you were taken to Hagen, Lady Waluer.”
Magnus carefully observed every one of her reactions. The trembling of her eyelashes and the slight quickening of her breathing.
“It means Hagen is after you. What do you possess? Why would they want your life so badly that they would abandon their longstanding loyalty and reputation and even be prepared to make an enemy of an entire family?”
“……That isn’t true.”
“You were the one who mentioned your life first, yet you intend to deny it?”
“No, I mean, that Hagen will kill me…… I’m not denying that.”
Eliza suddenly realized that her breathing had grown ragged. She placed a hand over her chest and lowered her gaze.
“I mean that even if I die, Hagen’s reputation will not change. Waluer will not hold Hagen responsible.”
“Ridiculous. A family would not hold responsible the family that killed their only daughter?”
“If my parents simply keep their mouths shut, my death will be treated as nothing more than a disappearance. No, I don’t even know if it would be discovered that I died. If Hagen says I ran away because I didn’t want to marry, Waluer won’t question it or demand an explanation. They would blame me, if anything.”
That was why Eliza had no choice but to act alone. She knew all too well that without a family to protect her, even her death could become something that meant nothing at all.
“What is the basis for that claim?”
“My mother and father are the kind of people who would do it if they could repay their debt with my life.”
“That is merely an emotional inference.”
Eliza bit down hard on her lip. She had no intention of explaining the humiliating history of begging her parents for love until she finally gave up.
How could a man born into royalty understand such misery? To royalty, love must be an emotion of little value.
If she had been raised that way as well, she would never have been hurt. Why had she been born wanting her parents’ love, thirsting for affection?
She was ashamed that after leaning on adults outside her family in place of parents who would not give her love, she had been forced to abandon even them, leaving nothing but her own wretched self.
“Yes. Is that not allowed? It is merely the complaint of an emotional and sensitive woman, so this is not something you can simply dismiss as such, is it?”
Eliza covered the sense of injustice pooling where her agitation had subsided with a sharp voice.
Because the way Eliza had learned to hide her bare self was by putting up thorns.
“You already said that my accusation had proven to be true. Then you should grant me a reward befitting my achievement. Rather than suspecting me like this.”
Eliza snapped at him as she glared upward.
The careful and courteous demeanor she had maintained disappeared, replaced at once by a prickly attitude meant to protect herself.
Magnus noticed that this was closer to her true self.
“Yes, I shall stop.”
A curve appeared across his previously stern face.
Before she could be surprised by the first fleeting smile, the man spoke as steadily as ever.
“You need not worry any longer. You are already my ally.”
The woman’s eyelids trembled at his sudden change in attitude, as though she were bewildered.
The smile she had layered over her emotions to conceal them was gone. Magnus found the sight of her with one layer of her shell peeled away pleasing.
Why had he demanded honesty from her in the first place? He quietly erased the unnecessary questions from his mind and said,
“You will have nothing to fear. Before your life is lost, Hagen will fall.”
It was the assurance Eliza had longed for so desperately.
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