“Empress. What brings you here without prior notice?”
Joseph, who was in the middle of a late meal, welcomed the Empress with a pleasant expression. When he offered her a seat, the Empress did not refuse and sat opposite him.
“Can’t we take Leo to the hunting festival too?”
Joseph’s gaze turned to the Empress as he was lifting his wine glass. The Empress added, unable to hide her urgent feelings:
“I don’t feel comfortable leaving the child behind.”
“The northern lands are not suitable for a child,” Joseph declined politely. He wasn’t wrong. The smell of blood from the animals, and Sendelk, located in the northeast, had a lower average temperature. It wasn’t an environment that a child’s fragile body could endure.
Moreover, considering that it wouldn’t just be beasts dying in this hunt, it was certainly no place for a young son.
Which gun should I take? Perhaps the one inherited from the late Emperor would be best. Continuing these trivial thoughts, Joseph brought the glass to his lips. As he tilted the glass, the sweet grape wine flowed into his mouth.
The sensation that awakened his taste buds and wrapped around the tip of his tongue was excellent. Only then did he lower his gaze to check the origin of the wine written on the bottle. As expected, when he saw it was labeled as from Monferrato territory, a low sneer escaped through his teeth.
“Though I too find it regrettable to be apart from the child for a while, you know well that the hunting festival is the most important annual event for the imperial family.”
“……”
“So, wouldn’t it be better for the Empress to take this opportunity to go to Sendelk and focus on preparing for the hunting festival herself?”
Joseph slightly raised his gaze while staring at the wine bottle. Despite his well-intentioned offer, the Empress showed no sign of happiness.
Joseph’s brow furrowed slightly at this incomprehensible reaction. Given the significant meaning the hunting festival held in the empire, entrusting it to her should be a great honor, yet why was she responding this way?
“Before that, I have something I’d like to ask, Your Majesty,” the Empress’s face darkened further.
“The medicine for Leo that I mentioned before… do you still have no intention of obtaining it?”
Despite her mustering the courage to ask, the Emperor showed little interest. Just as a servant brought in meat, Joseph, gripping his knife, repeated words that seemed to have been uttered thousands of times before.
“It’s not such a serious illness, is it?”
“Yes, so getting the cure shouldn’t be difficult either.”
This time, the Empress would not back down easily. At her firm attitude, Joseph paused his cutting and let out a long sigh.
“You should know that if the child’s weakness spreads across the Kralto continent, it won’t be good for Leo.”
“I’ve heard that taking medicine early can improve the symptoms significantly. If he receives proper treatment now, the disease need not hold the child back.”
Silence fell when no answer came. Eventually, the Empress spoke quietly with a resigned face.
“It may be presumptuous, but sometimes I feel that Leo and I are not part of Your Majesty’s family.”
It was the first time she revealed her true feelings. Even Joseph, who had maintained an indifferent attitude throughout, couldn’t hide his surprise.
“Empress. What are you—”
“You said the child’s weakness would become the empire’s weakness.”
The Empress raised her reddened eyes to look directly at the Emperor.
“Aren’t you afraid that the child’s weakness might reveal your own weakness?”
Joseph’s face subtly distorted. But the Empress didn’t stop there.
“I won’t go to the hunting festival.”
She played her strongest card among those available to her. Whether it worked or not, his previously calm voice rose.
“The Empress not attending the hunting festival? Don’t be absurd.”
“If it’s such an important occasion, you can attend with the First Princess instead of me.”
The Empress shot back without backing down. Joseph looked at her with a speechless expression. He seemed unable to comprehend the current situation.
That was understandable, as the two had never had a single argument since their marriage.
Joseph, in his own way, cherished his wife. Except for the fact that he excessively doted on his younger sister, he was quite a solid husband. In reality, even his blind support for Marianne couldn’t purely be described as affection, as it sometimes included political calculations.
Joseph always took his father as a counter-example.
Not giving the Empress excessive power to prevent the interference of her family was also part of this approach. Perhaps there was such calculation in marrying a princess from an insignificant kingdom.
Whatever it was, the Empress had fully understood his intentions. But…
“My son is most important to me, Joseph.”
The Empress’s voice grew increasingly tearful. Though emotions she had suppressed for so long suddenly surged, she tried not to cry. She bit her slightly trembling lips firmly, but eventually her face contorted.
“You’ve already taken him away from me several times, haven’t you?”
It was a mournful murmur.
After that, silence followed. Joseph looked at her as if he had been unexpectedly drenched.
His eyes, wandering somewhere between bewilderment and astonishment, were directed at the Empress. After silently enduring that gaze for a while, the Empress let out a faint sigh and stood up.
“I’ve clearly conveyed my intention, so I’ll take my leave now. I believe Your Majesty will certainly understand my words.”
She gave Joseph a flawless bow and immediately left. Her attitude suggested that even facing him any longer was a hardship.
Joseph did not stop her.
His gaze, fixed on the Empress’s back, only returned to its original position after the door closed. He regrasped his knife as if nothing had happened.
But contrary to his inner desire to maintain composure, the speed at which he carved the meat gradually slowed. Finally, he irritably put down his knife and wiped his hands on a napkin.
Instead of returning to his meal, Joseph picked up the wine bottle and poured the drink into his glass. Then he drank it in one gulp. As he wiped his damp lips with the back of his hand, a cold laugh escaped from him.
Joseph certainly considered himself a decent husband and father. He hadn’t had children with other women, and furthermore, hadn’t even taken a single concubine. Wasn’t that enough?
He was the Emperor, and what he could have was limitless. Nevertheless, he always tried to be faithful to his family.
Because he hated the idea of becoming someone like his father.
Separating Leo from the Empress was due to the political reason of thoroughly preventing the interference of her family, and the consequential fact that Leo spent more time with his aunt than his birth mother was a derivative issue.
He thought it couldn’t be helped. Joseph was a man with narrow vision. He viewed Marianne’s growing obsession with Leo as affection and dismissed the Empress’s anxiety as excessive.
Everything stemmed from Joseph’s complacency, but he himself couldn’t understand why all this situation was wrong, or where it had gone wrong.
****
The imperial villa where the hunting festival was held was quite distant from where villagers lived. While Sendelk had rough terrain, the road leading to the villa was excellently paved.
Though the path was all wet due to the heavy rain that had poured yesterday dawn, the carriage wheels rolled stably along the well-maintained gravel road. But the dense forest visible on both sides created an atmosphere where it wouldn’t be strange if wild animals suddenly jumped out.
The Sendelk villa reached by this road was an antique mansion built of wood.
Being deep in the mountains, and because of the heavy rain yesterday, a fog hazily enveloped the villa, which also blended well with the surroundings.
Dahlia, who had been suffering from motion sickness during the long journey, immediately went up to her quarters with a pale face as soon as the carriage arrived. Instead of going straight up, Sienna wandered around the villa with slow steps.
Behind the magnificently built villa on the cliff, the scenery of the Sendelk mountain range shrouded in mist unfolded. The dark-colored exterior of the villa blended quite well with the desolate atmosphere characteristic of this region.
From afar, the faint cry of a beast could be heard.
Sienna, who had been blankly staring at the towering mountain, tightened her fur coat and hunched her shoulders. In truth, she had been afraid for a few days before coming here, but now that she had actually set foot in Sendelk, she felt strangely peaceful.
Nothing could be guaranteed. Only now, after setting foot in Sendelk, could she fully accept that fact in her heart.
Sienna’s gaze, while fiddling with her clothes and looking at the mountains of Sendelk, eventually turned to Declan who had approached beside her.
“I do hope this ends peacefully. Should I offer earnest prayers to my late parents?”
Despite her pointless joke, his expression remained unchanged. Instead, he looked up at the sky once and then pointed somewhere with his chin.
“That would be the eastern direction.”
Following his gaze, she turned her head and faced the overlapping mountains. Sienna let out a soft sigh.
Those mountains were the boundary. Just beyond them was Ricata.
The fact that all borders of Ricata territory were strictly managed, Sendelk was no exception. Moreover, since the front mountain of Sendelk where the hunting festival was held was clearly the private property of the imperial family, the mountain was only open during the hunting festival.
So it was a perfect time to uncover the truth about everything.
“Though it looks rough on the surface, the lowlands are quite gentle, so it won’t be too difficult to move around.”
“I know. We’ve talked about this several times already.”
She responded with a smile. It was an attempt to lighten the mood, but Declan’s face remained dark as he looked at Sienna.
“I…”
“Grand Duke?”
Both of them turned their heads simultaneously at the voice from behind.
