Episode 114
At my question, Phoebe, forgetting her earlier pleas for forgiveness, answered with excitement.
“Well, you see, Lady Prilis smiled in front of His Majesty!”
“What?”
“She definitely smiled. How can she already be so clever?”
I recalled modern knowledge.
They say a newborn baby’s smile at their caregiver isn’t a real smile but a reflex smile.
It’s just a reflexive action due to immature development.
‘Even if it’s not that, there’s no way a newborn baby recognized the Emperor and smiled.’
But Frilis had never smiled before, so it was quite remarkable for a coincidence.
“My goodness, I want to see it too. So, what happened?”
“So, well…”
Phoebe squirmed and then imitated Rurik.
“His Majesty held the baby with his big hands, like this, so carefully… then he brought his finger close, like this…”
Phoebe exaggeratedly widened her eyes.
“And at that moment, our little lady grabbed His Majesty’s finger, just like that! His Majesty looked at her with moved eyes and stroked her hair…”
I chuckled softly, watching Phoebe boast about my child as if she were her own.
“So… do you think he’ll forgive us? Can we be forgiven?”
“Of course!”
Phoebe answered with certainty.
“So, Your Highness, please stop being angry now and go to His Majesty to soothe him a little. If it were you, he’d be easily swayed. Frankly, how much must he dislike the Grand Duke right now…”
Phoebe was right.
The fact that he didn’t listen to a single word I said and immediately exiled Callisteon was truly upsetting, but I also knew he had his reasons.
So, I decided to watch for an opportunity to persuade Rurik, and that opportunity came sooner than expected.
Three days later, I finally returned to my room connected to the nursery.
While I had been in the delivery room, my belongings had subtly increased, and I was busy moving things here and there, but that didn’t seem to be the only reason for the commotion in the hotel.
Sure enough, before long, there was a knock.
—Knock knock.
Followed by Rurik’s voice.
“Roo, I’d like to talk for a moment.”
Just a few days ago, he had practically monopolized Prilis for two whole days before leaving. It seemed he couldn’t wait and had come again.
‘Has he decided to stop caring about the Emperor’s position now?’
Now, to get to the nursery, he had to pass through where I was, so Rurik could no longer even avoid me.
Phoebe, who was with me, quickly got up, urging me to go greet my brother, shaking my shoulders.
Finally, I opened the door and went out to greet him.
“…You’re visiting quite often, Brother.”
Phoebe made a gesture of pleading with her hands folded, as if saying ‘please do well,’ and then left us alone.
Rurik awkwardly entered the room.
Since he didn’t even greet me, I had to speak first.
“Did you come to see Frilly again?”
“…Among other things.”
Now that I saw him, I felt embarrassed and awkward.
I hesitated, unsure what else to say, when Rurik asked,
“You named her after me?”
“…Yes, Brother.”
When I answered truthfully, Rurik let out a small sigh and asked another question.
“Did you do that to seek my forgiveness someday?”
I didn’t want to tell a disgusting lie to his tired face, saying it was out of love for him.
So, I just nodded.
“Yes, Brother.”
Rurik laughed, almost like a sigh.
“I actually wondered if you had named her after our mother.”
Our mother’s name…
The late former 2nd Imperial Consort, Rurik’s mother.
‘Did I name her after that?’
As soon as I thought that, the 2nd Imperial Consort’s name surfaced from the depths of my memory.
‘Friesia Brencia Besa.’
It wasn’t intentional, but it made sense that Rurik would think that.
“Well… My name was given after our mother’s, so in the end, it’s the same story.”
At that point, I took a deep breath.
It was now my turn to ask for forgiveness.
Even though Rurik had overreacted in his anger, technically, my fault in deceiving him for a year came first.
“I’m sorry for disappointing you, Brother. I know you didn’t want to send me far away, to Babenberg.”
Even though it was probably deliberate, Rurik didn’t look at me.
His shoulders, turned away from me, looked as stubborn as ever, but his response was softer than I expected.
“I didn’t know you had given your heart to the Grand Duke. If I had known sooner, I wouldn’t have opposed it so strongly from the start. Everyone knows he’s the most eligible bachelor on the continent.”
Rurik continued.
“Right now, I find him detestable, but this probably wasn’t the Grand Duke’s intention either, as everyone says.”
“Please forgive me, Brother. He is a good person. He treats me really, really, really well. That day, we were drunk… we both made a mistake. It wasn’t intentional… but we were wrong anyway.”
Unlike Callisteon, who never made excuses, I brought out every possible reason to beg for forgiveness.
If I failed to return to him within the one-month deadline I promised Callisteon, things might get even worse.
Rurik let out a deep sigh.
“We can’t let Prilis become a fatherless child. But like this, I’m worried about the rumors in the Imperial Capital. Talk of disgracing the Imperial family will follow the Grand Duke.”
It wasn’t just Callisteon’s problem, actually.
Rurik, being an Emperor born from a commoner consort, was already susceptible to legitimacy controversies.
So, my conduct would also become a flaw of his.
So, I swallowed hard and said,
“I’ll tell Karl to send a proposal letter immediately. I can go to Babenberg and marry him. Then the Imperial nobles won’t know when I give birth.”
Rurik pondered for a moment and finally nodded.
“I haven’t completely forgiven him. I just don’t want to be the cruel uncle who takes a father away from his niece.”
“Thank you, Brother.”
I approached Rurik and quietly hugged his waist.
“Thank you so much…”
A resigned hand stroked my hair.
“There was a time when I coldly pried you off, even as you, just a child, cried and clung to me, and left for the battlefield. Consider this repayment for the debt I owe you from that time.”
I shed a few silent tears in my brother’s warm embrace.
“No, Brother. You have never been in debt to me. I will repay the love you’ve given me in this lifetime. I’ll definitely show you how happily I live.”
The next day, in Babenberg.
Callisteon was staring at the calendar as if to wear it out, repeatedly counting the days of the one month Louise had mentioned.
There were still fifteen days left.
Whenever he thought he might never see her again, his breath caught and his vision darkened.
He felt like raising an army a hundred times over, but if he did that, he would truly never earn Louise’s forgiveness this time.
The feeling of being trapped, unable to do anything, was a fresh agony every day.
He wondered if he had always possessed such acute sensitivity.
—Bzzz……, bzzz…….
Just then, the communication orb rang.
“Roo?”
When he activated it, the room brightened, revealing Louise’s image.
Dressed in a soft pink dress, she was smiling like an angel, holding the baby swaddled in lavender.
Her beloved cheeks were flushed.
The haggard look from her postpartum suffering had already vanished; Louise had a fresher complexion than before.
The affection filling his heart to bursting felt like thirst.
On days when he saw her face like this after being apart, it sometimes hurt even more.
The fact that he couldn’t touch or hold her was deeply painful.
Then, Louise shifted the baby to show him her face.
—It’s Daddy, Daddy. Smile, Fri.
Was she casting magic now?
Amazingly, the baby smiled.
The little angel with red eyes, the spitting image of Louise, was even more beautiful than when he last saw her.
Even when just lying still with her eyes open, she looked like a living doll, and now she was even smiling.
Callisteon found himself relaxing and smiling at the baby without realizing it.
He finally parted his lips to speak.
“Seeing you like this, I feel I can live. Don’t tell me His Majesty has finally passed away?”
Louise let out a small, stifled sigh.
—He’s been here four times since then. Probably, even with the eyes of neighboring countries on him, he can’t come anymore.
Her face looked bright, giving him a sliver of hope, but Callisteon couldn’t bring himself to ask first.
No matter what words Louise had used to persuade him in the middle, he believed the first misstep in this matter lay with him.
That night, she was drunk, so he should have been the one to exercise restraint.
