~Chapter 72~
Roselia’s face went rigid at Belmore’s shocking words—so brittle it looked like it might crumble at a touch.
“You always told me: whether human or beast, the most important thing to survive is to know one’s place.”
But Belmore went on, unbothered.
“All my life I learned that lesson, over and over. It helped me immensely.”
Belmore smiled thinly.
“I trust that Your Majesty, the Empress Dowager, is wise enough to know what you must do now.”
“What…?”
Roselia’s crimson eyes trembled. Belmore walked forward and lightly pushed her shoulder.
Thump.
Her legs gave out and she sank onto the bed. Belmore looked down at her with open disgust—like he was finally letting all the feelings he’d held back spill out at once.
“If not for Your Majesty’s teachings, I could never have come this far.”
“……”
“So it’s something to be thankful for, isn’t it? In the end, the one who helped me reclaim the Emperor’s seat was you.”
“Belmore!”
Roselia screamed the name in rage.
“If not for me, you would have been torn to shreds by the nobles’ claws. You’d be nothing but a puppet Emperor, dancing in their hands!”
“……”
“And you dare—! Do you think Killian Winters will docilely take your hand? You think you can command that beast? You? You?”
“I don’t think Killian Winters will ever be completely on my side. But we share a common goal.”
Belmore answered with a small smile.
“To remove Your Majesty, the Empress Dowager.”
His eyes blazed—just like his mother’s.
“I also know this much: that you once tried to reach out to Killian Winters to keep me in check.”
Even powerless, Belmore had been raised as Emperor. He had watched how his mother won power struggles and crushed her enemies—every day of his life. It was only natural that he would anticipate her moves.
“And I know more than you think.”
“More…? What do you mean!”
“For one, the things you did to seize your current position.”
Thud.
Roselia stared at him, slightly dazed.
“You entered the palace as a concubine to the Emperor of the time, yet you aimed for the Empress’s seat and joined hands with Damian Ellington.”
Damian Ellington.
The late Emperor, dead long ago.
…The Emperor had truly loved his Empress. He took a concubine only under pressure from the nobles. Roselia had no footing in the palace, no chance to build it. She was only eighteen then—barely of age.
But Roselia was quick-witted. Then and now.
Damian Ellington. The Emperor’s younger brother—the rope Roselia seized.
“I even hear you carried his child.”
“……”
“But once Damian became Emperor, he worried about public opinion and broke his promise to make you Empress. And then, Your Majesty did what you do best.”
Belmore gave a mirthless laugh.
“You killed.”
He was right. After gathering some power, Roselia killed Damian, who had betrayed her.
She even handed the newborn—its cord freshly cut—to a maid like a bundle, ordering her to throw the baby into the river.
“And then you set my father, the collateral Jaden Ellington, on the throne—and finally became Empress.”
It would be a lie to say no one had ever suspected the string of imperial deaths.
Roselia wasn’t foolish enough to miss that. To prove her “innocence,” she worked for a very long time, removing every person who doubted her along the way…
So now those stories had become forgotten—things no one bothered with anymore.
But how did Belmore know all of this?
“Yet greed has no end. After you conceived me, when my father began taking concubines, you even had him killed, didn’t you?”
“Bel… Belmore…”
Roselia wasn’t shaken because her only son had voiced her darkest secrets.
“…She was shaken because she realized her enemy now held a fatal weakness against her.”
“Well, then.”
Belmore bent slightly and placed both hands on her shoulders.
“I now have cause to cast you down.”
Then he stared coldly at his mother and continued:
“What do you have?”
“……”
“Nothing but a pitiful life. Isn’t that right, Roselia?”
Roselia understood, clearly.
The timid, feeble son she had known was gone.
No—perhaps…
…perhaps it had all been a lie from the very beginning.
“Belmore Ellington.”
After a long silence, a heavy voice slipped from Roselia’s red lips.
“I lacked foresight. I should have killed you and taken the throne for myself.”
Ha.
Belmore let out a hollow laugh.
“If not that, then I should have raised the child I had with Damian.”
Even if things had still ended like this—Belmore turned against her—
If only that child had lived.
If only she hadn’t ordered the child’s death that day.
Would it have been different?
That boy—her firstborn son—unlike Belmore, might have become her sharpest, keenest blade.
It was far too late for regrets, but to Roselia, such bitter thoughts were unavoidable.
“If you want, search for him. I’ll allow you to go out every day—to the riverbank where you abandoned him. Dig all you like. He must be bones by now, but he was still my elder brother, wasn’t he? If you bring back even a fragment, I’ll receive it with proper rites.”
With an icy face, Belmore took his hands off her shoulders. Wearing an expression of pure disgust, he spoke his last words:
“This is your end, Roselia.”
“……”
“Know your place. It’s the only way you keep your life.”
That was the end. Belmore turned away without a trace of hesitation, and soon Roselia was alone in the bedroom.
“…Ha.”
And then—
“Ha-ha… hahaha…”
Like someone unhinged—yet chilling to the bone—Roselia’s laughter filled the cold room.
