I will prove it
‘Do you find any evidence?’
Riella opened her eyes, doubting her ears. Herhan also looked at Asion with his eyes widened.
Asion stepped closer to the two of them, his face was full of pain.
“Miss Riella. Get away from His Majesty and come this way. I will watch you from now on.”
A soft and polite tone of voice. But Riella knew perfectly well that it was an arrest order.
How could she not know? Captain Asion, Doctor Jess, looking at her with such determined eyes.
Even the emperor, who had been strong all along, was so shocked that he couldn’t say anything.
“What is evidence?” The emperor asked after a long silence.
Asion looked like he couldn’t answer. He didn’t know yet that the emperor had already informed Riella of the situation. Even though Herhan said that he couldn’t talk about the spy in front of Riella.
“I am not a spy.”
So, at Riella’s first assertion, Asion’s jaw dropped.
Jess, who stood beside him, also let out a sigh. His lord said he would find out the truth somehow, but in the end he told that woman the whole truth.
Riella didn’t care. Even if she was accused of rudeness, even if she didn’t even know what that evidence was.
Riella had only one thing to say. That was the only thing she could say.
“I am not a spy. never. Absolutely not. I never approached His Majesty under someone’s orders.… I never intended to harm His Majesty…!”
Captain Asion had always been a grateful man to Riella, but he hadn’t expected she would yell at him like this and make a hateful voice.
Even that, with His Majesty hearing right behind her.
“It’s not really me…”
‘Why do I have to say that? Why do I have to be cornered like this, getting cold glances from the people I’ve given my heart to?’
Suddenly, her voice was choked up by the tears that boiled in such injustice and sadness.
Still, Riella gave strength to her neck and shouted her innocence.
It was something she couldn’t do in the royal palace. Not just because she had taken Greta’s poison, but because she hadn’t had the will to fight so desperately.
But now it was different.
‘His Majesty asked for an answer.’
“I chose you, now I want you to answer.”
Surely Herhan had said so. So Riella had to answer.
Even if it looked ridiculous and pathetic. Even if it sounds like a little kid whining. She would answer again and again. Until her true feelings are conveyed.
‘No. I am not a spy. I’m really not.’
For a time, the desperate cries echoed lonely in the large dining hall.
Asion, who looked miserable from the moment he entered, Jess, who doubted Riella until the end, now said nothing but watched her until her cries subsided.
“From now on, I will restrain Riella Blinite.”
At the end of the suffocating time, it was Herhan who spoke calmly.
At that moment, Riella stopped sobbing and bit her lip until it bled.
The Emperor was right behind her, and she was afraid to look at him.
“All right, your majesty. then….”
As Asion approached with a sad expression, Herhan grabbed Riella’s wrist and dragged her to his side.
‘His words told me to take her away, but his actions were as if he was trying to hide her.’
Asion, who was approaching to arrest Riella, stopped moving and raised a confused face to his lord.
“Isolate her in my bedroom.”
“What?”
“Your majesty!”
Asion and Jess replied almost simultaneously, stunned.
Riella then raised her head. The moment she caught Herhan’s expression in her eyes, a wave of emotion surged up that was incomparable to the crying she had been holding back.
‘What if he doubted himself, what if he thought he’d been betrayed, what if he hated himself?’
The emperor’s eyes were firm and unwavering. Like he’s always been like that from the beginning.
“It would be better to isolate Riella here now than to transfer her elsewhere to clear Riella of the charges quickly. Rumors are already flying around the palace that she is my woman, and keeping her in my bedroom for a few days won’t arouse suspicion.”
“Your Majesty. but….”
“Riella is empty-handed now.”
“…..”
“And even if she did have the hilt of a sword, it would be more visible to you that she can’t even swing it at me.”
‘What? You looked down on me again.’
Riella shed tears sadly even as she smiled like that.
“Forbid the attendants from entering, and put Phil on guard at the door. If there is something to be questioned, you, Asion, come directly to my bedroom and proceed with it. This is the emperor’s order.”
It was the emperor’s order.
Just because Jess or Asion put forward their long-standing friendship or sincere concerns, it wasn’t something that they could go against.
“All right. your majesty.”
Asion and Jess eventually bowed their heads and retreated out the door of the banquet hall.
In the messy banquet hall, now it was only Riella and Herhan again.
“I heard your answer well. Riella Blinite.”
He carefully lifted Riella’s chin and wiped away the tears running down her cheeks with his thumb.
“Even if it’s frustrating, wait inside for a while. You can take a bubble bath in my bathtub if you want.”
‘That was another joke. If you’re going to tell a joke, at least tell it with a smile.’
With tears in her eyes that would not go away no matter how hard she wiped them away, Riella clutched the hem of the Emperor’s robe.
The emperor had said that ‘to clear Riella of the charges’. Not ‘to prove that Riella is the culprit’.
‘That was enough. If that’s the case, it doesn’t matter if I am locked up in a small room without sunlight instead of the emperor’s bedroom.’
“Your majesty.”
Riella’s hand that was holding Herhan’s hem trembled.
Herhan stared blankly at the small, white hand, then placed his large hand on top of it.
“Don’t worry. As long as you’ve answered me, I will prove it.”
* * *
“Miss Riella was taken to your Majesty’s bedroom. I have instructed the servants to leave some food and a few clothes at the door and I have asked Phil to be a guard as you commanded.”
Herhan nodded at Asion’s report, and Jess’ sarcasm was heard right next to him.
“Ah, I should have been born as a woman too. then I could be so loved by His Majesty.”
“You can’t be born a woman, so shut up, kid.”
Asion’s eyes widened immediately and he squeezed Jess’s shoulder.
There were a few other exchanges of words between the two as Jess said, “Why, did I say something wrong?”, but Herhan didn’t care about them at all.
While the two immature people were arguing, what Herhan looked fiercely at was a document on the desk and a blue potion in a glass bottle the size of his palm.
“Ekhmm. As you can see…”
A little later Jess, who declared surrender only after being hit enough by Asion, approached the emperor while adjusting his clothes.
“Your Majesty’s Health Record. It is from the time you were in the Kingdom of Liotta, and the handwriting of the doctor in charge at the time, Carnel, is certain.”
A golden lion crest was engraved on the black velvet cover of the document.
It was meant to be a classified document.
“And I think this potion is the fake medicine Your Majesty has been taking all along. I still need to do a more thorough examination of the ingredients, but the test reactions to several of the reagents were the same.”
TL: A reagent is a substance or compound that can facilitate a reaction, and they are used in most widely used tests.
Herhan tapped the glass bottle with his fingertips, and the blue potion inside the bottle danced around. In the late evening, it was bright enough to catch the light from the candlesticks in his office.
“It’s made just like the real thing.”
“Yes. The color and viscosity are almost the same as the real thing.”
“Where do you find this?”
“In the West Palace, in Miss Riella’s bedroom, in her closet.”
“You two searched Riella’s bedroom.”
Asion pondered for a long time what was wrong with his loyal answer, and only belatedly realized what the lord was reprimanding.
“Ah, that! That guy insisted on searching her bedroom…!”
“That’s right. I struggled and found it. Did I do well?”
The second round begins between Asion, who is passing the responsibility, and Jess, Jess shamelessly bragging, not knowing if it was blame or credit.
Herhan stood up and said.
“If Riella was really a spy and stole classified documents and gave me a mysterious drug, there’s no way she would have sloppily hidden the clues in a closet or something. This should be seen as an attempt by someone to put the blame on Riella.”
At Herhan’s serious judgment, Asion and Jess stopped arguing and raised their heads.
“We have the same opinion.”
Asion answered, but Jess covered his mouth before muttering, ‘I’m not’.
Jess grunted and struggled with resentment, but in fact, he also came to the same conclusion as Asion and Herhan.
That’s why Jess didn’t insist on immediate disposition or interrogation of Riella, and that’s why he just watched as his lord shoved Riella into his bedroom.
‘It’s definitely not her because that woman showed that kind of face.’
A face crying sadly, saying that she was never a spy, and begging them to trust her.
those eyes. that voice.
While Jess worked hard to get rid of those thoughts out of his head, Herhan put on a jacket and began to move.
“I will go to the West Palace.”
“You mean now?”
“Yes. Bring in all those who have had contact with Riella since we arrived at the Imperial Palace. Those who have been to the West Palace at least once are included.”
At those words, Jess suddenly came to her senses and blocked the master’s way.
“Your majesty! Are you sure you want to use your power? To all of them?”
‘Then there is no other way, right? Since I can’t see into Riella’s mind, I have no choice but to look inside everyone who bumps into Riella.’
Instead of answering, Herhan just stared blankly at Jess who stood in his way.
Jess gritted his teeth, as if he understood the meaning of that look, and therefore could never let his lord go.
“Never. I’m not kidding. I speak as your doctor. Don’t use any more power today. It’s been a few hours since the symptoms subsided. It is really dangerous to use more power!”
Herhan grabbed Jess’ arm once.
‘The Emperor was always like this, ridiculously stubborn.’
“Your Majesty.”
Took–
It was the sound of Jess kneeling before his lord, a noble and arrogant man, second to none in the land of the Empire, except for Herhan.
“Please. Give me time to find another way.”
Somewhere in Herhan’s heart stirred heavily at the sight of his old friend kneeling down in front of him. It was also not enough to quell the storm that swept in one direction in Herhan’s heart.
“You said you would live for a long time.”
“No matter how long I live. To live one more year, or to live one more day.”
Herhan smiled bitterly.
He patted Jess’s shoulder a few times and then helped him up.
‘I’m sorry, but I can’t accept your plea.’
‘I had no choice.’
Herhan had no regrets about the short time left in his life.
‘At this moment, it was the other person who kept giving me regret.’
Just across from the office, in a room behind a thick door, there was a woman who was afraid alone, but who would endure this moment resolutely, waiting for him to return.
* * *
