“All the book cart vendors were taken away. The passage was blocked.”
It was Eden.
Then I heard my father responding.
“The crown prince dug through it to the end and cut off the tail.”
What was this all about?
Book cart vendors?
A book cart?
!!!!!
No way… The book cart at the night market?
At that moment, I remembered meeting Eden at the night market, and how Calix had scarily accused me of leaking imperial secrets. A sudden chill ran down my spine and I shivered.
Eden’s voice kept coming in.
“There’s nothing we can do. Anyway, the passage wouldn’t stay hidden forever. It might be a bit burdensome to have people come and go directly in the future.”
“I’ll use someone from the marquis’ side since Prince Calix’s surveillance is strict.”
“Yes, that would be good.”
What on earth is all this about?
A hidden passage that won’t stay concealed? Someone from the marquis’ side?
Was there a secret communication between my father and Eden?
There was a slight gap in conversation between the two.
But soon after, Eden asked another question.
“How are you preparing to kill the emperor?”
“We know how to do it. You don’t have to know that.”
Killing the emperor?
I was so surprised that my teeth were shaking.
Eden sneered at his father’s stiff answer.
“It’s the only way the empress could do it, isn’t it? Poison?”
“…”
Poisoning?
The empress was poisoning the emperor?
Eden’s cynical words silenced my father.
The lack of an answer to Eden’s words meant that he could not deny his words.
My heart thumped.
“Well, actually, I’m not even curious about how. I just need to know the exact timing of the attack.”
“As soon as I am ready, I’ll send you the date of the attack in the Marquis’s handwriting.”
I thought I could hear my heart beating.
What the hell is he talking about!
The time of the attack.
An attack… does he mean an attack on Aelyrium?!!!
My father and the empress are entangled in an invasion by the Darkus Empire?
“Let me be clear.”
Eden said, changing his tone.
“Yes. Go ahead.”
At my father’s words, Eden continued.
“The empress is trying to make her biological son emperor, so I don’t see how that would change our agreement.”
“Yes.”
“Which brings us to you. The Duke of Brockburg.”
“What do you mean?”
I put my ears closer to the door.
“There doesn’t seem to be any progress in the engagement of Prince Leon and Princess Kailyn Brockburg. Even if the marriage were to be broken, and I’m a little uneasy about your ability to honor the secret pact between the empress and the Darkus Empire if it does break down.”
“…The pact has already been made, and it will not change anything.”
!!!!!!
What!
You mean the Darkus Empire was involved in the plot between the empress and my father?
My father’s answer followed by Eden’s cold voice.
“You will have to, for I am not one to simply understand, forgive, and move on when someone harms me. That said, I will not stand idly by if you fail to fulfill your end of the bargain. Remember, once you step into this pact and join hands with me, there is no turning back.”
“I’m well aware of it.”
My father’s grave reply was followed by Eden’s voice, which sounded somewhat cheerful.
“Don’t be too upset because I’m speaking from the heart. I agreed to do business with you because I trusted that the Chancellor of an empire would not unceremoniously abandon a secret agreement.”
Oh, my God….
I felt like my knees was going to buckle.
This wasn’t just a conspiracy within the Everetian Empire. The Darkus Empire was also involved.
Emperor Klaus Everetian’s death was the result of the Empress’ poisoning, and the invasion of the Darkus Empire hadn’t just happened to occur at the right time, but had been a carefully planned provocation.
A secret plan to lure Calix to the borderlands, and use his absence to place Leon on the throne!
I simply wrote that the war caused by the Darkus Empire coincided with a time when the Emperor’s life was in danger.
I added a little more detail to what I wrote and realized that there were all sorts of tricks and schemes behind it…!
That’s why my father kept saying ‘it’s too late’!
Suddenly, I felt like some puzzles that I couldn’t understand were put together.
The presence of Eden, who kept appearing at my house, and the reason for father stubbornly plotting a coup despite my plea that I didn’t love Leon became clear.
Even my doubts about the mismatch between Eden’s seemingly harmless personality and the actions that sparked the war…
Eden wasn’t just a wandering prince with nothing to do!
Although in my writing, he was only a side character who started and lost a war, his character, which arose itself in the novel, was not so simple.
When on earth did my father sign an agreement with any one of them?
It reminded me of the imperial banquet held for Eden, which was soon after I had possessed into the novel, and his subsequent visit to our house.
Maybe there was already an agreement at the time? Maybe I was very late by a small margin.
Of course, the alliance could have started much earlier.
In any case, by the time I was possessed, the dangerous pact had already been made.
I felt like my legs would give out from fear and frustration and I would collapse.
Then I heard Eden’s voice again in the silence of the room.
“Very well, then, let’s make sure we’re done. I’ll strike when you want, and in return, you must never send in more troops.”
Right. And so it was.
Eden’s provocation to war leads to the emperor’s death and Leon’s ascension to the throne while Calix was away from the capital.
But instead of bringing in additional troops, Leon planned to attack Calix from behind.
All of the empress’ plans fail because Calix ended the war with victory and returned to the capital with an unexpected quick decision.
But on the back of what I wrote, there was a promise between the empress and Eden in the first place!
With the setting I knew and the details I didn’t know behind it, the whole situation made sense to me.
The problem was, I hadn’t written a plot this complex.
I didn’t realize there were tricks and treachery and giving up territory that I didn’t know about.
But when I thought back on it, I realized that I didn’t write the details, but the overall flow was the same.
No matter what the inner lives of the characters and the psychology behind their actions, the events they created would unfold exactly as I wrote them. As a result, I would die.
“You, too, must promise to attack on the date we specify. The victory or defeat of the war is up to you, and we promise only to prevent additional support from reaching the Everetian Empire so that the Darkus Empire can prevail but for our mutual sake, you must win.”
My father said.
You fools.
None of it goes as you plan!
The victory and defeat has already been decided.
Calix will win the war, even with the Everetian Empire’s support cut off.
‘Rattle.’
I heard a chair being dragged away.
The end of the conversation!
I quickly turned on my heel and started running down the hall.
Almost as I ducked around the corner at the end of the long hallway, I heard the door open.
I clutched my trembling chest and sprinted up the stairs toward my room.
I sprinted from the second floor, where the guest rooms were, to the fourth floor, where my room was, and as soon as I entered, I nearly burst into tears with fear of what I had learned.
Poisoning, secret pacts, and treason….
Everything was more intricate and frighteningly intertwined.
And Eden’s true self, which I didn’t know, was so shocking.
He had a much more secretive inner side behind the appearance I set and described.
I could see now that his daily walks with me, his wandering, his telling Calix in the café that he was in love with me, were all done to avoid arousing suspicion of this secret pact.
Perhaps his flirtation with me was more likely a way to use me as a safeguard against my father’s departure, knowing that the bond between Leon and I had weakened.
Perhaps Eden’s seemingly meaningless and thoughtless actions, even his image as a free-spirited flirt, were the images of illusions he elaborated.
Suddenly, I remembered a story involving a lady, a noblewoman of the Sorrel Kingdom.
Eden’s story of approaching the lady, who had a fiancé, but after being challenged to a duel by her fiancé, he had killed him.
Regardless of my intentions, I wondered if the incident that happened to such a three-dimensional human being was also a disguise for his true self.
All sorts of thoughts about Eden hit me like a series of lightning strikes.
The sharp words and cold tone he’d used earlier, reaffirming his promise to my father, must be his true self.
That night, I laid curled up in bed, ruminating on their terrifying secret pact, on Eden, and on my own survival strategy, and it took me until dawn to fall asleep.
But not long after I drifted off, the secrets I’d learned the night before came back to haunt me like a nightmare.
I needed to clear my head before I saw Eden’s face again.
I excused myself from going for a walk, claiming I wasn’t feeling well, and spent the rest of the day mulling over my thoughts and ideas.
And that night, at last, I came to a conclusion once again.
Nothing has changed!
That was my conclusion.
Even if there were secrets I didn’t know, the development of events was the same.
In the end, there was no change in the fact that I was dying.
In fact, when I found out the secrets, it felt more natural to be killed by Calix.
Poisoning the emperor, giving territory to a rival country for the throne….
I had to flee the empire, not within reason, but more desperately than before.
In fact, I didn’t think asylum itself would be that difficult.
For Eden Darkus, who is concerned about my father’s departure from the agreement, my asylum could have been a welcome card.
My safety falls into his hands.
However, the possibility of asylum was not the only thing I had to consider.
A year and a half later, after the war, after Calix had won and become Emperor, after my status had changed to traitor’s daughter, I had to consider how the Darkus Empire would treat me.
Knowing the collusion between Eden Darkus and the empress could have worked in my favor.
Eden Darkus doesn’t want to repatriate me to Everetian, who can divulge the contents of the agreement to Calix.
But even if I were not deported, there was no telling what the Darkus Empire would do with me, now that I had no value as an exile.
At worst, they could silence me forever within the Darkus Empire.
Nevertheless, was it better to seek asylum with the potential to survive a little, rather than having a foregone death like a fire here?
No, that’s not it.
If I were to be killed within the Darkus Empire, it would simply mean changing the location where all this plotting ends in death.
In the end, as originally planned, I had no choice but to seek asylum from Eden and find out for myself how likely it was to survive there until the end.
