Throughout the empire’s history, if one were to name the most influential families, the House of Monferrato would rank first as the Grand Ducal family, followed by the House of Ricata, the major landowners of the east, and finally, the prestigious political family, the House of Lowell.
Their positions, stable for centuries, underwent a massive upheaval in just a decade.
The Grand Ducal family faced an unprecedented dark period due to a carriage accident, while the House of Ricata was completely annihilated following Empress Melophe’s death.
While these two houses tumbled endlessly downhill, the House of Lowell rose to become one of the empire’s most powerful families.
Too perfect to be mere coincidence, indeed.
Declan’s lips curved into a smile too obvious to conceal.
Declan decided to revise one fact. While he had always considered the Princess’s half-blooded siblings to be utterly useless, he thought he might have to make an exception for the youngest princess.
****
“Your Grace. I’ve brought the documents you requested.”
Just as all preparations for returning to Monferrato territory were complete, the Count quietly approached Declan and handed him the documents.
Though the confidential stamp was clear, even it couldn’t resist the passage of time, having faded considerably.
Long fingers carelessly began turning the pages.
As Declan scanned the documents, his gaze stopped somewhere, and he smiled slightly.
The Count’s face showed confusion as he received the papers back.
It was a record of Duke Lowell’s palace entries from a decade ago. Finding it odd, the Count glanced at where the Grand Duke’s gaze had lingered. The Count’s expression gradually hardened as he read the words filling the document.
At first glance, the document seemed unremarkable, but certain phrases filling the blanks suddenly caught his eye.
[Deleted for other reasons]
The Count checked the dates with a disbelieving expression. Hurriedly flipping through several more pages, he found two week-long periods that had been deleted in this manner.
Since these were incidents that had caused huge ripples throughout the empire, it was easy to recall what had happened during those times.
The day of the Grand Ducal family’s carriage accident and the day Empress Melophe was executed.
“That’s not all. When I checked the military records, it seems the Duke personally visited on the day the former Empress was executed.”
The Count raised his head with a confused expression as he read through the records.
“Are you suspecting Duke Lowell?”
“It’s suspicious behavior, isn’t it?”
Declan replied dryly.
“It is strange that someone who accepted retirement to escape the former Emperor’s suspicion would visit the former Empress…”
They weren’t dealing with an easy opponent to push based on circumstantial evidence alone. The Count groaned with a complicated expression. Just thinking about that nasty old man was already giving him a headache.
“But the Duke wouldn’t have had any motivation to do all this.”
“Who knows.”
Declan replied casually.
“There might have been something we didn’t know about.”
****
Meanwhile, at the Grand Duke’s residence, Sienna was spending her time in complete leisure.
Unlike her peaceful demeanor as she browsed through a geography book, the atmosphere in the room was ice-cold.
In the silence, only the clock’s second hand ticked regularly while Theo’s gaze toward Sienna was sharp. After fuming for a while, Theo could no longer contain himself and shouted.
“Your Highness, isn’t this too much!”
His voice was so thunderous that Jane, who was nearby, flinched, but Sienna’s gaze as she turned to look at him was utterly emotionless.
“What is?”
“What do you mean ‘what is’…? What do you mean ‘what is’!”
Theo was so agitated he seemed about to foam at the mouth.
To explain what happened:
Thinking it would be better to hear it from her own mouth since they would find out anyway, Sienna had revealed everything to Theo and Jane in quite a frank manner.
That the published will of the former Emperor had been fabricated, and that perhaps the Grand Duke too had confined her here on the Emperor’s orders to find it.
“And if that weren’t enough, you’re conspiring with a foreign royal…no, a king!”
Theo let out a big laugh of disbelief. Thinking about it, she had seemed overly intimate with that pretty-faced prince. Though he never dreamed such schemes were being exchanged.
But still. Weren’t her current actions nothing short of treason?
Theo even felt betrayed that she had planned such dangerous things alone without saying a word to him.
“How could you take such bold action without saying a single word to me…!”
“If I had told you. Would you have quietly gone along with my words?”
Even her voice as she said this was level. But it seemed to hit the mark, as Theo couldn’t say anything. With a slightly deflated expression, he remained silent before asking in a more subdued voice.
“So what are you going to do now? How will you find the original… and even if you find it, will the Emperor willingly give Ricata to Your Highness?”
Theo pressed with an impatient voice.
Sienna’s actions were justified. But regardless of that, this was a fight with no chance of victory. The Emperor was one thing, but if the Grand Duke had taken his side…
Theo’s face darkened dramatically.
Though it was just a suspicion, having observed him for many years, it was hard to believe the word that the Grand Duke had sided with the Emperor.
Anyway, while Theo wasn’t unsympathetic to the Emperor’s actions, he didn’t think blindly supporting Sienna’s actions was the right way to help her either.
While Theo was lost in his own worries, Sienna, who had been focusing on reading the geography book, suddenly spoke.
“Theo.”
Her blue eyes were fixed on the center of the geography book. Her neat brow furrowed as if she had discovered some major error.
“If I were to die suddenly, where do you think the Emperor would bury my corpse?”
“What kind of preposterous thing are you saying all of a sudden?”
It was an absurd thing to say while looking at a map. Sienna muttered as if talking to herself, her gaze still fixed on the map.
“The Valley of Igris would be most likely.”
A valley that never dries up in a cold and wretched land. Though to the empire, it was nothing more than a garbage disposal site that had become the final stop for wretched lives.
Her eyes moved slowly along the thin stream flowing from the valley. The water flowing from the valley joined with the great river in the east. Her gaze following the stream stopped at the name Ricata.
The land where her mother was born and raised, and where indiscriminate massacres occurred centuries ago. Ricata, once praised as a fertile land, was now considered cursed land, and people even avoided speaking its name.
The preposterous stories passed down through its bloody history came to Sienna’s mind one by one.
It wasn’t hard to deduce. For Joseph, who wanted to trample her honor by any means necessary, there would have been no need for deliberation.
That northern valley was where the bodies of those who met miserable ends, like her mother, were scattered.
Sienna’s gaze darkened as she looked down at the map.
‘Then is that the reason I came back in time?’
That ridiculous story – that if you bury part of your body in the ground, it will grant the dead person’s last wish.
They say the women who once lived in that land cast spells in such ways, and for that reason became targets of the empire. Countless lives were shattered under the unreasonable stigma of being witches.
While Sienna was a Princess of the empire, she also carried Ricata blood. The blood of those who met miserable ends after being accused of being witches in ancient times flowed faintly in her veins too.
Though she was half out of her mind when her breath was failing, she vaguely remembered her final thoughts.
How bitterly she regretted meeting him. That it was none other than herself who had ruined Soliet and Declan’s lives – such regret was her final remaining impression.
Sienna’s gaze blurred as she recalled herself driven mad by unbearable pain.
If that was truly the reason she had traveled back in time, was this a curse or a blessing?
****
The reason the Duke finally left his sickbed after nearly two weeks of confinement was rather anticlimactic.
After hearing what had transpired between the Duke and Grand Duke, the Emperor personally arranged a meeting for the Duke. This alone would have been enough reason for Duke Lowell to reluctantly get out of bed, but furthermore, the Emperor had summoned Marquis Richelieu to the palace.
To briefly explain about Marquis Richelieu – he was one of the empire’s wealthiest men, and one of the suitors the Duke strongly pushed for Dahlia.
Though his reputation was far from good due to rumors about his unsavory divorce history and sadistic tendencies, he was an incredibly wealthy man.
Dahlia’s face turned sickly pale the moment she spotted the Marquis, having been pushed here by the Duke without knowing why.
“You’re even more beautiful than the rumors suggested, My Lady.”
He was supposedly twenty years older than her. Marquis Richelieu whispered with an oily face.
No, appearances aside, what sane person would take a wife twenty years younger? Moreover, from what she’d heard, the cause of his previous divorce was also due to this man’s abnormal preferences.
That’s not all. There was even a joke circulating in the empire’s back alleys that all the money flowing there came from the Marquis’s pockets, showing how unsavory his private life was.
Dahlia’s complexion grew increasingly pale as she recalled one by one the stories surrounding him.
