149. The Appearance of a Half-Sibling
Step, step, step.
The Empress’s footsteps echoed, her skirt swaying with each stride.
Her chin was lifted high, her back and shoulders straight, her gaze unwavering.
The fragile, withering figure she once resembled—a brittle, dying branch—was nowhere to be seen.
With the dignity befitting an Empress, she advanced toward the Emperor.
To Roselia, that brief moment stretched on for an eternity.
She stared blankly until her eyes caught upon the Empress’s neck.
Along the slender, graceful line of her throat glittered a necklace set with a magical stone, radiating a brilliant light.
“……”
“……”
While everyone else froze, the first to regain composure was Marquis Balton.
“Y–Your Majesty, the Empress.”
As he quickly bowed his head, Shylo bit her lower lip.
“Why has Your Majesty the Empress appeared here?”
She pulled Cayenne toward her as she spoke, treating the Empress outright as an unwelcome intruder.
“Where I appear is hardly your concern.”
“……”
The Empress answered with a calm tone.
Her eyes, cast down upon the Emperor’s mistress, held not a trace of warmth.
“Empress.”
The Emperor, who had been stiff, now glared at her.
Her intrusion only made his anger more ferocious.
“What nonsense are you spouting? To say the young lady bears no fault? Insulting the Imperial Family is a grave crime!”
“No, Your Majesty. The young lady only obeyed my command, unable to refuse.”
“……!”
“What?”
Both Roselia and the Emperor looked at her in shock.
“It was I who ordered the young lady to hide Your Majesty’s child.”
That bombshell shook not only the Emperor but also Marquis Balton, Shylo, and Roselia herself.
“What did you say!”
“Your Majesty the Empress, what in the world do you mean!”
Shylo, agitated, shouted in disbelief.
Amid the murmuring hall, the only one who did not lose her composure was the Empress.
“How could the young lady possibly know of Your Majesty’s shame? She merely followed my command, taking in one poor pauper as a servant.”
Roselia’s eyes widened.
The Empress even knew the circumstances of how Cayenne had been brought in under the guise of charity work.
The Emperor slammed his fist against the armrest.
“Why…!”
“Because once I learned Your Majesty’s child still lived, I had to watch over him—close, but not too close.”
The Empress’s eyes gleamed coldly.
“So if blame must be cast, then cast it upon me directly.”
Her unflinching stance left the Emperor momentarily speechless, while Marquis Balton looked utterly dazed.
The Empress knew all along?
Years ago, the Marquis had secretly smuggled the child away.
After the boy escaped from the laboratory, his whereabouts became unknown, and until his recent discovery at the Duke’s estate, even the Marquis himself had no clue where he’d been.
If the Empress had hidden the child during those missing years, it would make sense.
But…
Why keep him alive until now?
He was the Emperor’s illegitimate child, destined to be a rival to the Crown Prince.
No one wanted the child gone more than the Empress.
She would never have spared his life all these years.
What is she plotting?
She must either be lying to shield the young lady, or there was some hidden scheme he didn’t yet understand.
The Emperor’s mind was no less tangled.
A splitting headache throbbed at his temples.
The return of the child he had buried in his heart was shocking enough.
But to find the Crown Princess–to–be entangled in it, and with the Empress no less?
No… that’s not it.
There was no way Roselia could orchestrate something so monumental on her own. Clearly, the Empress had been the driving force.
The Emperor still regarded Roselia as nothing more than a girl of her age. True, she had recently shown some intelligence, but that was all.
It was hard to believe she could have uncovered the existence of the illegitimate son and plotted everything by herself.
Unless Duke Serteia had been involved…
But the Duke was bound in the north, fighting on the battlefield, with no chance to intervene.
Far more plausible was that the Empress had used his absence to draw Roselia in.
But since when?
Suspicion turned toward the Empress.
Gazing into her gray eyes, he was reminded of her younger self—
Once his partner, the woman he had promised a future with, his closest companion and confidante.
Yet even after a lifetime together, her heart had always been an impenetrable mystery.
The one thing he knew with certainty: she was a ruthless, merciless woman.
A woman who would use anyone if it served her ends.
At last, the Emperor broke the heavy silence.
“…Everyone else, leave us. And you, Empress.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“You and I shall speak privately. We have much to discuss.”
Their gazes met in the air, a sharp tension sparking between them.
For now, have I survived this?
Leaving the hall, my legs trembled.
Though the Emperor had dismissed everyone, I was the only one to obey.
Shylo stubbornly refused to leave, and Marquis Balton pretended to restrain her while ensuring he himself stayed behind.
[Young lady, you may go first.]
With a wave of the Emperor’s hand, I had slipped out of the chamber.
Curiosity burned over what might be said inside, but preserving my own life came first.
Why did the Empress help me?
She had even taken the blame onto herself.
The unanswered question circled endlessly in my mind—until…
“?”
The attendants stationed at the doorway shifted nervously.
Then I noticed someone standing at the center of the gathered crowd.
“Your Highness?”
It was Perwyn.
By now, he should have been waiting for me in the Crown Prince’s palace.
“Why are you here—”
I was about to ask why he was here when I realized he stood frozen, like a statue.
“You really knew?”
“……”
His face was a storm of shock and confusion.
The proud man, who never bowed his head to anyone, looked at me with the raw vulnerability of a wounded soul.
The moment I saw that hurt expression, I lost even the will to defend myself.
He had heard it all.
I didn’t know when, but it was clear he had caught the conversation inside.
To grow up his entire life as the Emperor’s heir, believing himself the only successor to the throne—what a devastating blow this must be.
“Answer me. That His Majesty had an illegitimate child. That I had a half-brother. Did you know?”
He clenched his fist so tightly his knuckles turned white.
“…Yes.”
The word tore from me like a thorn, painful and heavy.
His blue eyes quivered.
“Why did you keep it from me? Why—”
The emotion burning in his gaze was betrayal.
His breath came ragged, his voice trembled.
He was floundering helplessly in a storm of emotions, and the sight broke my heart.
I reached for his hand.
“Your Highness, let’s talk somewhere private.”
There were too many eyes here for him to lay bare his turmoil.
But Perwyn shook my hand off.
“Don’t pretend to care about me now.”
“……”
“To know such a secret and keep silent—how revolting.”
His eyes had gone frigid.
Disappointment. Contempt.
A look I had seen far too often in my life.
And yet, facing it now, it cut me deeper than ever.
“Your Highness, I can explain everything. Just give me—”
“No. No explanations.”
He cut me off mercilessly.
Grimacing in pain, he suddenly staggered as though struck.
“Your Highness!”
I reached to steady him, but he shoved me away.
“Roselia, you were right.”
“……”
“This is the end for us.”
Cold words, before he turned his back on me.
The heavy echo of his departing steps was all that remained in the silent corridor.
“Your Highness!”
Perwyn forced himself to ignore Roselia’s voice echoing behind him like a curse.
His pace quickened, as though fleeing a nightmare.
His heart pounded wildly with chaos.
An illegitimate child of the Emperor?
The words clawed at his mind, alien and unbearable.
To think Roselia had known of a presence he himself was utterly unaware of.
Shame at the Imperial Family’s disgrace being exposed.
Bitter disappointment that Roselia had known such a monumental secret and told him nothing.
And above all, the shock and betrayal that the Empress was entangled in it.
Rage and resentment surged, with nowhere to go.
His emotions spilled over, uncontainable.
He had known Roselia did not truly love him. But at the very least, as his fiancée, he had believed in some measure of trust and affection.
Then why…
To realize he didn’t even have that much to her—
That unbridgeable gulf between them only deepened his despair.
