Chapter – 14.
You Want Me to Kill Him With My Own Hands?
“Are you seriously saying that right now?”
Josephine shot up from her seat. She was so shocked and furious that she felt the blood drain from her face.
“You want me to kill Siegfried?”
“W-well, it’s true, isn’t it? He’s someone His Majesty the Emperor utterly despises. What reason do we have to protect him?”
“What?”
Listening to this, she was utterly appalled.
Henrius, who treated Siegfried as worse than an animal; Elizabeth, who only thought of using and then discarding him; and Huber, who, fearing Henrius’s displeasure, casually urged her to kill a man.
Each and every one of them was disgusting, nauseating, and utterly sickening.
‘Then again, I also tried to ignore him in the Imperial Palace to save my own skin, so I don’t have the right to criticize them either.’
Overwhelmed by a sudden wave of powerlessness, Josephine sank back into her chair.
There was still no sign of Siegfried’s heavy eyelids lifting.
The imperial physician had said his life wasn’t in danger, but since he was Henrius’s man, he might have lied.
She had to find a way to make him wake up before these four days passed.
He needed to wake up so she could ask him. And so she could finally repay the long-held debt of gratitude she owed him.
After all, in her past life, the one who had been falsely accused and died in her place for the tea party incident was Siegfried.
“Huber, do you even understand what you’re saying right now?”
Josephine pressed her throbbing temple and looked up at Huber.
“You just told me to assassinate the prince of another nation. The words of the Head Lady-in-Waiting are considered my words.”
“Y-Your Majesty, please don’t take it so negatively. I’m only saying this for your sake.”
For my sake. Her teeth instinctively gritted. Josephine had to clench her molars hard to suppress the rising nausea.
“Exactly how is this for my sake?”
“Think about it. The Kingdom of Norden is our hostile rival. If word gets out that Her Majesty the Empress treated a hostage with such utmost care, what will people think?”
Huber hemmed and hawed, dodging the question.
“And when did I ever say to kill him? I merely suggested we shouldn’t care for Siegfried so devotedly like this.”
“And you’re hoping he’ll die because of it.”
Josephine removed her hand from her temple and raised her head.
“My Head Lady-in-Waiting, urging me to commit murder in my own palace. I really don’t know whose side you’re on anymore.”
“Y-Your Majesty, I only wanted to help you…!”
Huber felt a sudden unease at Josephine’s words, which sounded ominously meaningful.
“He is a patient who came to my palace and a state guest from another country. How can you tell me to harm a person, especially one on the brink of death, just to save my own skin?”
Josephine glared at Huber, her eyes narrowed.
“Don’t tell me you think the same way as Henrius? That I might develop feelings for him?”
“N-no, of course not. I believe in and follow Your Majesty more than anyone. It’s a misunderstanding.”
“If you ever suggest I kill Siegfried again, or frame an innocent person, I will absolutely not forgive you.”
At the mention of framing an innocent person, Huber flinched internally.
“I-I’m sorry. I’ll watch my words from now on.”
“Leave. I wish to be alone.”
At the words ‘wish to be alone,’ Huber twitched slightly and raised her head.
“A-alone, you said…?”
“Yes, alone.”
Despite Josephine’s warning, Huber couldn’t easily back down.
Saying she wanted to be alone in this room meant she wanted to be alone with Siegfried.
‘Does she really have some connection with that man?’
But it was true that Josephine’s actions were questionable.
Her husband, the Emperor, had suddenly and coldly pushed her away, and now the Empress was caring for a strange foreigner, a prince from an enemy nation.
Anyone would find it a suspicious picture.
Though she had sided with Josephine to survive for now, Huber had felt uneasy all day.
This wasn’t how things were supposed to go.
‘If that man wakes up and realizes Miss Hausen tried to kill him, won’t I be killed too?’
As far as Huber knew, Elizabeth had planned from the start to use Siegfried as a shield if things went south.
Siegfried—he knew too much.
The moment he opened his mouth and revealed the truth of that day, it was impossible to guess how many would die.
That’s why Elizabeth had incited Henrius, who hated Siegfried, to kill him.
When cornered, Elizabeth suddenly shifting the blame to Siegfried was also an attempt to discard him around that time.
Until then, everything had been going well.
The evidence against Siegfried was clear, and Henrius also wanted Siegfried, not Josephine or Elizabeth, to be the culprit.
But then, none other than Josephine, the target of this incident, had stepped in and ruined everything.
‘Has Her Majesty the Empress truly stopped loving His Majesty the Emperor? That can’t be…’
It shouldn’t be this way. The plans set in motion to oust Josephine were all predicated on the assumption that Josephine loved Henrius.
But what if Josephine had truly grown disgusted with Henrius, with not even a trace of lingering affection?
“Are you not leaving?”
Just then, Josephine sharply urged Huber again.
“Ah, I-I was just lost in thought for a moment… I’ll take my leave.”
Before she could incur Josephine’s wrath, Huber quickly exited the room.
Thud. After the sound of the door closing, a heavy silence lingered for a while.
The sky, now past dusk, was filled with nothing but darkness.
The darkness slowly creeping into the room gradually began to consume even Siegfried’s body.
Josephine hurriedly got up herself, fetched a candlestick, and struck a light.
There was no particular reason. She simply disliked seeing his face, his black hair, his snow-white skin, and broad shoulders being swallowed by a darkness larger than his frame.
“……”
As she held the candlestick and examined Siegfried’s body, Josephine grew increasingly depressed.
There were too many wounds on his body. The countless scars and gashes carved all over made her chest tighten often.
If she had to find a single place without a single wound, it was perhaps only his face, glimpsed through the disheveled black hair.
“You bastard.”
Unable to contain her anger, Josephine muttered in a trembling voice.
“It seems so easy for you to treat a person like this. You probably don’t even know how much this hurts.”
It was clearly all Henrius’s doing. At least half of the scars and wounds on his body undoubtedly bore Henrius’s share.
It wasn’t that she had any other certainty.
It was just a familiar, instinctive sense she couldn’t help but recognize, having lived through a time of being powerless and victimized herself.
Some might call it a sense of solidarity, or kinship.
Those whose lives have already become ruins recognize the same ruins in others.
“Ugh…!”
At that moment, Siegfried suddenly moaned. At first, she thought it was just the shadow cast on his body moving.
“…Are you awake?”
Josephine cautiously called out to him.
Somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to utter his name.
“Hil…!”
The man’s voice, heard for the first time, was more youthful than expected.
Josephine had never once considered that he might be younger than her.
Suddenly, she was reminded of the younger stepbrother who would have been studying hard at the Magic Boarding Academy.
Nearly a decade had passed since she last saw his face. Had he graduated, he might have grown to be around this man’s age.
It was just that she died every time before seeing that child graduate.
“Hil… de… W-want to… see…”
The large but young man was sobbing softly.
Because his hair fell like a curtain over his forehead, she couldn’t tell for sure.
‘He must be calling out the name of his first love, left behind in his homeland.’
While her heart ached, Josephine also felt bitterly aware that she herself was in no position to pity him.
He was muttering in Nordenian, but amidst it, the name ‘Hilde’ came through clearly.
“It’s okay.”
Josephine soothed his anxiety in a low voice.
Wanting to reassure the man, who seemed to mistake her for ‘Hilde,’ she unconsciously reached out to stroke his forehead.
“Ugh, wait.”
Until then, the man had been curled up and trembling, but he suddenly seized Josephine’s wrist.
