Chapter 116
***
Lucas observed the Empress closely.
Senevier Taren Ghirta sat at the head of the long banquet table, calmly chatting with the eastern nobles.
And the nobles, who ought to have been wary of the Empress, were all listening to her every word as though their souls had been stolen.
Lucas let out a hollow laugh at the absurd sight, then glanced toward the woman seated on the Empress’s left.
While the Empress held the entire hall in her dazzling charm, Thalia Roem Siarkan silently tilted only her wineglass with a face like a sheet of ice.
The stark contrast made him uncomfortable.
“Why does that woman always look so miserable?”
At a glance, the two looked so alike that one could believe they were twins.
If Thalia had smiled brightly like the Empress and deliberately tried to enchant people, probably no one in this castle would have been able to resist.
However, the woman was always busy raising her thorns like a hedgehog and pushing away everyone who approached her.
Even so, for a while, she had seemed to be making quite an effort to play the role of Grand Duchess, but over the past few days, she had not even pretended to mingle with people.
Even the nobles who had shown goodwill toward her had become fed up and turned away.
“Has her health worsened again?”
At the thought that suddenly rose in his mind, Lucas narrowed his eyes.
Thalia Roem Siarkan had a paler complexion than usual and was staring only at the candle on the table with empty eyes.
She certainly looked sick somehow.
He was seized by an oddly anxious feeling and shifted in his seat, when Varkas suddenly entered the banquet hall.
Lucas tensed without realizing it.
It felt as though the excited air lingering in the banquet hall froze solid the instant he appeared.
Apparently, he was not the only one who felt that way, as everyone seated around the table watched the confrontation between the Empress and Varkas with tense faces.
“If it is this difficult to see your face, I may begin to feel a little hurt.”
The first to break the strange silence flowing through the hall was Senevier.
The woman lifted her wineglass and wet her lips, then put on a deliberately disappointed expression.
“It is good to reminisce with old colleagues after so long, but do pay some attention to me and my daughter as well.”
“If I have caused Your Majesty discomfort, I can only apologize.”
Varkas, who had arrived at the head seat, answered calmly and sat down.
“A great many things seem to have happened in the imperial palace in the meantime. As we exchanged various stories, I delayed my return. Please forgive me.”
At those meaningful words, a chillingly smooth smile settled around the Empress’s lips.
Lucas inwardly clicked his tongue at her relaxed appearance.
At present, the Empress was practically standing in the middle of enemy territory.
On top of that, half of the envoys who had escorted her here were knights belonging to the Roem Knights.
In short, the Empress was effectively surrounded by her political enemies.
So how could she remain so calm?
The Empress, whose eyes curved like crescent moons, spoke softly.
“I sincerely hope you had a meaningful conversation.”
An uncomfortable silence pressed down on the banquet hall again.
The Empress seemed well aware that Varkas was moving busily to stop her.
Varkas also did not even try to hide it.
Lucas glanced sideways at Thalia.
With a hardened face, she was tightly gripping her wineglass and chewing at her lips.
She must have already heard that her husband was pouring all his effort into rescuing his former fiancée.
Lucas brought his wineglass to his lips and glared at his brother’s face, whose thoughts he could not read at all.
After their father’s sarcophagus had been buried in the mausoleum, Lucas had been formally appointed as an aide to the Grand Duke of Siarkan.
Thanks to that, over the past few weeks, he had been able to grasp in detail not only the political flow of the East but also that of the imperial palace.
At present, cracks were beginning to form between the East and the conservative nobles.
And the northerners were trying to wedge themselves into that gap.
The problem was that their ambition did not lie merely in expanding political influence.
The Balto people had recently been increasing their military strength and expanding their power at an unusual speed.
That was not all.
Signs had even been detected that they were secretly gathering military funds through several merchant groups.
If their goal was Balto’s independence, then in the worst case, Ayla Roem Ghirta could end up reduced to a hostage used to pressure the imperial family.
The new marriage proposal for the First Princess had more than enough potential to become a spark that would cause the Empire to split apart.
Because of that, Varkas had even set aside the work of the grand ducal house and was pouring all his effort into persuading the Crown Prince and the conservative nobles.
“If Brother had married Ayla Roem Ghirta from the beginning, there would have been no problem at all.”
Lucas grumbled inwardly.
If Varkas had upheld his loyalty to the Crown Prince instead of yielding to the emperor’s pressure, he would not have had to run around like this now.
Raedgo Castle would have been much more harmonious than it was now.
Perhaps Raina would have endured Father’s death much better too.
Ayla Roem Ghirta was famous as a lady of gentle character, so she would surely have comforted the girl well.
Thalia would not have pointlessly damaged her body in a strange land either.
“No, it doesn’t matter whether that woman damages her body or not.”
Lucas hurriedly put a brake on his own thoughts.
The only things he needed to care about were House Siarkan and Raina.
The Empress and her daughter were merely troublesome burdens threatening the East.
After gathering his scattered thoughts, Lucas quietly left the banquet hall.
If he kept watching his brother, who gave off cold air, the foxlike Empress, and his ghostly pale sister-in-law, he felt as though his head might explode.
He crossed the hall while tugging at the collar of his suffocating doublet.
He already missed the days when he had ridden across the fields without a single worry.
He even felt sympathy for his brother, who had suffered from such troublesome matters his entire life.
He rubbed the stiff nape of his neck and looked down at the rear garden through the corridor window.
“Should I go see Turgan?”
As he thought of his beloved horse, who had already been left alone for nearly two weeks, and massaged his stiff muscles, the shadows of two people standing on one side of the rear garden caught his eye.
Servants wandering around the backyard was nothing more than an ordinary sight, yet Lucas stopped walking and looked carefully at them.
A woman with a somewhat familiar face was speaking with a serious expression to a young man who seemed to be an envoy.
Only after quite some time did Lucas remember that the woman was Thalia Roem Ghirta’s personal healer.
“Do they already know each other?”
He tilted his head.
Judging by his attire, the man seemed to be one of the Empress’s attendants.
The healer was also said to be from the Taren family, so it was not particularly strange for her to have met someone she knew among the Empress’s close aides.
Even so, a strange sense of incongruity tugged at the back of his head.
“What are you doing in a place like this?”
As he was staring intently at the shapes of the two people’s mouths, a deep voice came from behind him.
Lucas turned his head.
Tyrone, loosely wearing a khal made of black satin, was strolling down the long corridor toward him.
It seemed he had followed Lucas, who had left the banquet hall without a word.
Lucas opened his mouth to explain what he had just seen.
Then, remembering that there was no particular reason to find the scene suspicious, he closed it again.
When he turned his eyes back to the window, the two had already disappeared without a trace.
Lucas swept his gaze over the garden with an uneasy expression, then shook his head as if it were nothing.
“It’s nothing.”
***
The imperial envoy delegation left after staying exactly one week.
Thalia, who had been sitting on the windowsill watching the procession move farther away, soon lowered the curtain.
Even until just before leaving, Senevier had repeatedly urged her to follow her will.
Thalia had not answered in the end, but the Empress seemed certain that she would not be able to defy her order.
No.
Perhaps she was not completely certain.
She had left after stirring up her faithful believer to her heart’s content.
“You absolutely must share the bedchamber tonight.”
The nanny took out the translucent piece of fabric that the Empress had given as a gift from the chest and spoke in an unyielding tone.
“Now that the funeral events are over, there is no longer any reason to delay it.”
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