Chapter – 23
There’s No Way His Majesty Would Treat Me Like This
“Good work.”
Josefin gestured to Harriet that she could leave now.
Everything proceeded exactly as Harriet had reported.
News that Siegfried had been abused by the Empress and, as if that weren’t enough, had been thrown into the underground prison that very morning spread like wildfire through every mouth and ear available.
Within half a day, the capital and the imperial palace were abuzz with only one topic: the prince had been imprisoned.
Naturally, public opinion grew even stronger that the Empress had suddenly gone mad and assaulted the prince.
But Josefin herself offered no explanation whatsoever after sending Siegfried to prison.
The rumors had started from outside anyway.
She had no intention of explaining, and even if she tried now, no one would believe her.
So the best thing she could do was deliberately hide her presence and let them be denied the truth.
Then the truth—whether she truly abused the prince or whether the Empress had her own circumstances—would be cooked up as they pleased.
“H–He said he’s not coming?”
Elisabeth felt her lips turn icy blue as she asked again.
“Is that really what he said? Yesterday he told me that if he had time, he’d come… and today he said he won’t come at all?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what Secretary Theodore said,” Olga answered, unable to do anything but repeat what she heard. After a moment of hesitation, she added something that hardly counted as comfort.
“His Majesty truly has been very busy lately. Once the meeting with Norden is over, I’m sure he’ll come to see you.”
Of course, the reason the Emperor had suddenly become so busy had much to do with Elisabeth’s own behind-the-scenes schemes.
Olga knew all about it, but all she could offer was that hollow consolation.
“He always came running whenever I said I was unwell…”
Elisabeth muttered, unaware that her gaze was losing focus.
“No matter who he was with… even with her… if he heard I’d had a nightmare, he would rush to me, day or night…”
Her crimson irises were no longer grounded in reality.
If she didn’t take her mind outside reality for even a moment, she felt she would go mad.
“H–He wouldn’t do this. His Majesty… wouldn’t ignore me…”
Elisabeth lifted the lace cuff embroidered with fine patterns and revealed the burn beneath it.
The burn on her right wrist had festered badly and was still oozing blood.
“I’m hurt like this. I—I’m in this much pain. How could His Majesty do this to me?”
“Madam…”
“How—How can I be hurt and suffering like this… and no one comes to see me? No one?”
Her voice broke into a sob.
For days, the only concern she’d received was the formal, superficial kind from people who feared displeasing the Emperor’s favored mistress.
Even her family, who had rushed here upon hearing the news, only scolded her while pretending to worry.
A woman must preserve her beauty above all; you must take extra care now, so His Majesty won’t turn away from you.
Hating those words, she had refused the healer they brought with them for every excuse she could find.
Her family wasn’t concerned for her well-being—they were worried about her value as a beauty.
But she still understood them.
Becoming the Emperor’s powerful mistress was the greatest honor she had ever brought her family. Of course they had expectations.
That was exactly why she had delayed treatment.
She had to be in pain—only then would Henrieus come.
So even when her wound burned and throbbed so much she couldn’t sleep, she endured it.
She hadn’t suffered all this only to be ignored and discarded.
“No. I’ll go to His Majesty myself. If he sees my wound, he’ll change his mind.”
It had always been the Emperor who came to her first.
Elisabeth simply could not accept that she had fallen so low she had to beg for the affection that once came so naturally.
“W–Wait! Madam, you cannot leave the palace right now!”
Olga panicked, rushing to stop her. Elisabeth had a burn that covered nearly her entire wrist—she had done nothing but roughly disinfect it.
“What do you mean?”
“Well… the thing is…”
Olga had another reason she needed to stop her, one she had been avoiding saying out loud.
At last she confessed.
“His Majesty ordered you to remain in seclusion. Until the meeting is over, you are not to leave the palace under any circumstances.”
Elisabeth froze mid-step.
“What…?”
“It was His Majesty’s own secretary, Sir Theodore, who delivered the order. So it’s certain.”
Olga grabbed her uninjured left arm quickly. If Elisabeth ran out now, things would become far worse.
“So you cannot force your way to His Majesty right now. No matter how much you miss him, leaving now would be considered defiance.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Please, just receive treatment, Madam. You deliberately avoided healing so you could show the wound to His Majesty, didn’t you? What if it scars?”
“I don’t care if it scars! So what? He isn’t coming to see me anyway!”
Elisabeth’s voice trembled with barely contained panic.
“D–Does His Majesty really think I’m the one who put poison in the tea at the tea party?”
“H–He wouldn’t think that…”
“Then why won’t he see me? There’s no reason. I didn’t… I didn’t do anything wrong that day.”
A terrible thought—one she’d tried hardest to avoid—slithered into her mind.
“No… His Majesty must have believed Josefin.”
A chill ran down her spine.
“He thinks I truly wanted to hurt her.”
“Well…”
“It was true. Fine. I admit it. But not that day. I wasn’t the one who did it.”
While Olga hesitated, Elisabeth became even more certain.
“Even after Josefin was disgraced so badly she couldn’t show her face outside, Henrieus is still thinking of her. More than me.”
What she couldn’t understand was Henrieus’s sudden shift that day.
Their promises, their affection, the heat they’d shared—she remembered it all vividly.
How could he throw her away like garbage in a single moment?
Elisabeth, who had never once been second to anyone in her life, felt as though the world had cracked open.
“Madam, you have a visitor.”
At the servant’s announcement, Elisabeth turned quickly toward the door.
“It must be His Majesty. He wouldn’t abandon me like this.”
She rushed to the full-length mirror nearby.
With her face pale and unprepared, she tugged her long hair forward to hide her exhausted appearance.
“…!”
But the person who walked through the door was not the Emperor she had been desperately waiting for.
“Sisi.”
That familiar soft voice—gentle yet strained, as though half submerged in water—flowed into the room.
Elisabeth knew she would never forget that voice for the rest of her life.
It was the direct result of something she had orchestrated—egging on her academy classmates from behind the scenes.
Because of that, Josefin’s voice had been damaged so severely she had been forced to abandon her dreams.
And yet, Josefin had believed Elisabeth to be her friend—absolutely and unwaveringly.
She had no idea Elisabeth had been the one pulling all the strings.
“…Jo.”
But somehow…
The person standing before her now didn’t feel like the Josefin she used to know.
“W–Why are you here?”
A mix of fear and tension flickered violently across Elisabeth’s face.
Josefin, in contrast, stood calm—far too calm for a woman who, according to rumor, had lost her mind and abused a prince.
With a serene smile, she answered,
“What do you mean, why? I came to see my one and only friend.”
