In the Abelard Empire, the water was purified using unknown methods in other countries. The waterway was connected throughout the empire with dams all over the channel.
This obsessive state-of-the-art facility for water resources was because the Abelard Empire had suffered a lot due to water.
Even without Evelina’s blood, it had developed a lot. However, without her help, they had to boil water more than twice.
But with her blood, water had become very common in the empire since the Marquis of Logias took complete control of the waterway. It was enough to bathe in clean water if the battlefield was within the Abelard Empire.
But only a month.
All water resources were ruined within a month of Evelina becoming Queen. If the water was not reboiled before drunken, it caused significant and minor diseases.
It was a fact that Evelina didn’t know because she was in the palace. Even the cleaning water was first-class in the palace.
“Where is Usher?”
Evelina quite liked Veron, whom Usher had brought with them.
“If it’s Usher, he went to train with the guards for a while.”
Hecate said bravely. Instead, Usher seems closer to the security forces than Hecate.
“Have breakfast!”
“Oh, yes. Thank you, Lady Ross. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Hahaha. Never mind. By the way… You said you were pregnant, but are you still having it?”
“What are you talking about?”
Lady Ross looked at Evelina with a big smile.
“Morning sickness!”
“Oh… morning sickness. Come to think of it, not yet.”
“You’ll do it soon. There is a person who suffers from morning sickness. Would you like to meet me later when we go grocery shopping together? It might help.”
“Yes, that’s good. Thank you.”
Lady Ross didn’t know about Hecate and Usher’s plans. That’s why Evelina was treated well like a guest.
“I’ll go with you, wife.”
“Ho ho ho. I don’t need you, honey.”
Lady Ross said so as if she were pretty annoyed with her husband.
“But wouldn’t it be dangerous for two women to go around?”
“The two women are trying to get close, so don’t butt in, honey.”
Lady Ross’s firm words made Evelina chuckle.
‘I really like Rina.’
It reminded me of what Kaiden said casually.
She wondered if maybe she and Kaiden had met without being entangled in such political matters, would they have gotten along like this couple? Would it have been different if ordinary aristocratic families had met? When she thought about that, she smiled bitterly.
She couldn’t understand how much she missed him and kept seeing him in her dreams. Besides, not even the Kaiden she knew best, but his 14-year-old when she was ten years old.
Perhaps, if she had met him then, made love usually, and even got married, it seemed as if everything would have changed.
So she was embarrassed and ashamed. It was a shameless feeling.
It was natural that he wanted to avenge her. Even so, when she was in a state of suspended reality, she heard Kaiden’s wet voice as if he was crying, and the cry he screamed because of her.
Wasn’t that love?
“Lena?”
“Oh… I’m sorry. Seeing you two… I’m jealous.”
Evelina was crying without realizing it, and the feeling was so shameless and hateful that she wiped her hand and turned her head away.
“I haven’t seen him like that, but Lord Fronen must be very unkind?”
“No, Usher is lovely.”
Evelina quickly rubbed her face and looked at Lady Ross.
Hecate had an evil mind but a good sense. He wondered if it was the Emperor that Evelina had recalled at that moment, and his anxiety passed through his head. If, by any chance, the emperor caught him, what would happen to him?
~~~~
“This is Lady Rendall.”
“Oh, that wife I saw yesterday!”
Evelina tried to smile when she heard that the woman who was handing her the water yesterday was Lady Rendall. Every time she smiled like this, she thought of Kaiden, but she was trying to keep her smile clear.
“Thank you for yesterday.”
“Did something happen yesterday?”
When Lady Ross asked in curiosity, Lady Rendall laughed and said.
“The wife hurt her hands yesterday, but she tried to carry the water. I helped her.”
“Oh my! Let my husband do that from now on!”
Lady Ross said so while looking at Evelina’s injured hand.
“No, I can do that much… It was because I caught the wrong part of the wire sticking out yesterday.”
“Still!”
Lady Ross came to the well ten times a day, so Evelina thought she could do it, so she asked for it. Come to think of it, she hurt her hand, and now that she saw it, she was too thin for a pregnant woman. She just didn’t know because she didn’t look closely.
“No. Come to think of it, my husband is lazy these days, so I have to make him do that.”
Lady Ross wrinkled her nose. Then he said to Lady Rendall.
“Lena is pregnant. Why don’t you tell me how Lady Rendall spent it?”
“You’re pregnant? You’re so skinny”.
Lady Rendall glanced at Evelina’s wrists and ankles and said,
“Lady. It’s hard to have a baby if you’re this skinny.”
“Oh, yes. Thank you for your concern. I’ll do my best to gain weight.”
“Your words are exquisite. Just like when I was younger.”
Lady Ross laughed out of politeness at the remark but closed her mouth as if she disagreed. Evelina burst into laughter at the action.
“You can laugh.”
“Ah, thank you.”
“There’s no area where the lady is not beautiful.”
When Lady Rendall spoke without hesitation, Evelina felt a little wary. Well, she wondered what the worst situation in a village where the population was barely 20 people was.
Most of the people who lived here were the wives of the security guards. It was minimal to be a village.
“By the way, why aren’t there any children here?”
“Everyone went to boarding school.”
“What? Why?”
“There’s no school here.”
When Evelina heard that, she was embarrassed because she seemed to ask something she shouldn’t have asked.
“I don’t know how comfortable it is to go to boarding school.”
“Is it comfortable?”
“Uh. They say they’re at home, so let’s help with the work, but what do they do? Only the room is made a pigsty, and all kinds of trash are brought and decorated.”
As if she had experienced Lady Rendall’s talk for the first time, Evelina kept smiling unexpectedly.
“Oops, look at my mind.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“You said you came to ask about morning sickness.”
Lady Rendall said so and told Evelina about morning sickness. When it starts and when it ends. You can get morning sickness for ten months if you’re not lucky. They even said that you should go to the next village and ask a midwife if you have a baby.
‘Having children is not an ordinary job. You’re risking the mother’s life.’
Because what Kaiden said to her seriously kept ringing in her head.
Somehow, she had become sentimental, thinking, what would it have been like if she had gone through all this with Kaiden? Even then, if she had remained in the palace, she would have been miserably abandoned, ridiculed, and trampled miserably on her heart. She tried not to think anymore.
~~~~
“Ugh…”
Evelina woke up to a stabbing wrist pain by the time she fell asleep.
“Usher?”
“Ah… Hecate.”
“Sir Hecate? Why…?”
“I’m going to draw some blood.”
For a moment, Evelina tried to move her body in the room where the light was turned off, wondering what the hell he was doing.
“Ugh…! What is this…!”
“I’m just trying to take the blood. You’ll forget it anyway if you take medicine!”
Evelina couldn’t understand what Hecate meant, but he felt so intimidating that she couldn’t speak.
Her body was tied there. She was connected to the bed with her legs bound, her arm draining under the bed, and her other arm tied to the opposite bed frame.
“Why my blood…”
“The Marquis of Logias did it, too.”
“…what do you mean…”
“We assure your Majesty that we do not intend to harm. If you give me blood..”
Evelina grew pale when she found out he knew who she was.
“Did you plan this with Usher?”
“No, Usher doesn’t know anything. My wife, too. I’m the only one who knows.”
Hecate said casually. But half of them were only valid.
“What are you going to use my blood for?”
“You may have seen it, but… The village well is too dangerous. If we don’t purify the water like this, everyone will get sick and die from drinking that water.”
When Evelina heard it, her heart weakened. He knew who she was and he knew what she didn’t know. She thought carefully about the water supply.
“Then… should I just give it to purify the well?”
She said that because she thought it would be dangerous if Hecate, the security guard, even reported that she was here to the imperial family.
Then Hecate nodded and said,
“Thank you!”
That’s how Evelina had to give away a lot of blood. Without even knowing, Usher was part of the team.
~~~~
“The medicine won’t go down.”
“What?”
Evelina wasn’t sure that the <Memory of Dreams> that Usher brought was indeed a medicine for her heart. She hoped that the dreams and fantasies she saw were false.
She felt guilty and couldn’t take medicine. At the same time, she couldn’t understand that her adoptive father and Kaiden had given her the same medication.
She couldn’t understand her stepfather’s betrayal, so she didn’t know the situation when even Kaiden gave her the same medicine.
“What? Isn’t that a problem? She’ll escape when she realizes.”
Usher frowned when Hecate spoke impatiently.
“I don’t know. It’s up to you. I have to go to the capital.”
“Why?”
Usher knew there was a problem with the Maineber mine, which he owned under a borrowed name, so he tried to go straight back.
“I’ll be back, so you keep an eye on Her Majesty. Don’t think about drawing blood until I come.”
But Usher couldn’t go. Hecate had a good sense because he was blinded by money.
