Chapter 57
“Hic… hngh.”
Cornelia wept sorrowfully.
“Grace, why on earth did you do that…”
She poured out her grief, but the dead could no longer answer.
Grace and Madam Margaret’s funeral was never held.
Publicly, it was announced that they had left the ducal house and returned to Madam Margaret’s hometown in the countryside.
A bundle of poisonous herbs was found in their raided quarters.
And right next to it lay a half‑finished medicine they had been making.
It was the same substance Madam Margaret often gifted to the Grand Madam, claiming it was good for her health.
On top of that, the maid involved with the poisonous herbs—and with the suddenly spreading scandal about Eleanor—had completely vanished.
Matthias concluded that the three had conspired together.
“I’m sorry…”
Sniffling before the small grave, Cornelia finally turned around.
“Eleanor, I asked you to come with me even though you’re the victim… ha… but nobody wanted to mourn Grace…”
“It’s all right,” Eleanor comforted her.
“You said she was your long‑time friend. It’s natural to feel sad.”
“I really never imagined Grace would do something like this. I knew she liked my brother, and there was a time I even tried to help her… but still, to threaten someone… no.”
Cornelia shivered.
“My brother told me not to even think of making Grace a grave.”
“Because she committed a crime?”
“Yes… but I just couldn’t bear to leave her without a grave…”
Her eyes lingered on the shabby mound of dirt without even a name plaque.
A grave built secretly out of Matthias’s sight—something that barely looked like a person’s resting place.
“My brother exiled the two of them. They’re no longer people of Hilliard. Even now it doesn’t feel real… Did Madam Margaret really give poison to my mother?”
Cornelia’s face twisted painfully.
“She was so devoted to my mother…”
“No one ever truly knows someone’s heart.”
“Did Grace know? That Madam Margaret was continuously supplying poisonous herbs to my mother?”
“……”
“That’s what I don’t understand. I’m confused. What if I’m mourning the person who tried to kill my mother? What if Mother also melted away into the miasma…”
Cornelia suddenly burst out crying.
Her emotions had reached their limit.
Eleanor hesitated, then gently patted her back.
Cornelia only cried harder.
Poison is just poison. It has nothing to do with miasma, Eleanor thought.
Cornelia misunderstood—handling or ingesting poisonous herbs didn’t contaminate someone with miasma.
The two must have been exposed through some other route.
Eleanor suspected the vanished maid.
Who was she? And why did she do this?
It didn’t look like personal revenge—there was no common thread between the victims.
It was more reasonable to view it as terrorism targeting the Hilliard territory.
Eleanor felt that the culprit wanted to expose the existence of miasma to the public.
Especially since they had caused an incident during the final match of the swordsmanship tournament, when many outsiders were present.
Thanks to that, I’m in trouble too.
The Grand Duke had finally given up and started asking her for help.
He probably decided hiding things was pointless now.
Matthias confessed the territory’s problem honestly, and every day he pleaded for her mercy.
His attitude had become very polite.
He no longer called her “the baby’s mother” or made light jokes.
It felt like meeting the Grand Duke of Hilliard, not Matthias.
How long will the Grand Duke’s patience last?
After witnessing with his own eyes how strong her holy power was against miasma, he must be desperate.
Charlotte never came to the duchy in the end.
Even tempting her with the opening of the Five‑Color Garden failed.
But Matthias probably wasn’t too disappointed.
Now that Eleanor existed as a replacement, he had no need to obsess over Charlotte.
Even if I run away, he’ll come after me.
Unlike Charlotte, who could use the sacred relic to completely hide her tracks, Eleanor had nothing.
I wish I could just be honest and ask him to wait until the baby grows up…
From what Eleanor observed, the baby couldn’t freely use holy power yet.
Thinking back, every time the baby used holy power, it had been only when the baby itself was in danger.
At the very least, the baby would have to grow to Teddian’s age before being able to do anything.
But by then, the duchy would already have collapsed.
Maybe this time it would fall even sooner.
In the original story, the unprecedented event of people becoming contaminated with miasma never happened at the swordsmanship tournament.
…I just want to give up everything.
Aside from the fact that no one had discovered the baby was the one with holy power, everything was going wrong.
And even that could be exposed at any moment—making Eleanor deeply anxious.
I can’t purify anything, Charlotte.
You need to come here.
Only you can fix everything…
You need to…
“Hic…”
After crying for a long while, Cornelia finally stepped away from Eleanor.
Wiping her reddened eyes in embarrassment, she said:
“Let’s go back to the ducal mansion.”
“Will you be okay?”
“Yes. If my brother finds out I made Grace a grave, he might get angry… And I’m still uneasy about Mother.”
As if trying to pull herself together, Cornelia exhaled a long breath.
“I’ll come again later. After I do what I can first.”
“What you can do?”
“I’m going to investigate how people became contaminated with miasma. Where it started, who’s involved, and why this happened.”
Her tears had dried, and Cornelia now stood straight, composed and dignified.
“At least after I find my answer, I want to face Grace again.”
At barely twenty years old, Cornelia bore her title of acting lord with remarkable poise.
And that inspired Eleanor, too.
Do what I can first…
Then what could she do in this situation?
Eleanor pondered that question the entire way back to the ducal mansion with Cornelia.
“Sigh…”
Sitting at his desk, Matthias pressed his fingers firmly against his exhausted brow.
The existence of the miasma contaminating the territory.
It had first appeared ten years ago.
At the time, the Emperor of the Empire had been staying in Hilliard during an inspection.
While the Emperor and the previous Grand Duke and Duchess were examining the territorial borders, it happened.
‘Your Majesty! Please move!’
‘Protect His Majesty!’
A burst of black miasma erupted from a crack in the dry ravine.
And it fell directly above the Emperor, who was riding past.
The former Grand Duke and Duchess threw themselves forward to protect the sovereign.
As a result, the Emperor survived—but the former Grand Duke died, and the Grand Duchess was severely injured.
And that was the beginning.
The miasma slowly began devouring the Hilliard territory.
‘Your Majesty, please help us. Without your aid, Hilliard cannot survive this crisis.’
‘Get that filthy brat out of my sight, immediately!’
The miasma incident had not been Hilliard’s fault.
But the Emperor, furious simply because the accident happened within Hilliard, directed his anger toward them.
Matthias, who had lost his father in an instant and now had his mother bedridden, begged desperately for help—only to be harshly rebuked.
