IBWCD 26

Chapter 26

Two days later.

In the darkened chambers of the temple, a precarious conversation was taking place.

A bed reeking of lust was draped with a veil, and a woman with gracefully flowing black hair and a handsome middle-aged man sat on it.

The air hung heavy.

The man, the High Chancellor, glared at the woman kneeling at the foot of the stairs, straddling the golden bed.

“Useless!”

Clang-clang-clang!

“I took a dying woman from a back alley and made her a countess, and she can’t repay me, and now you’re paying me for this little wench!”

The chalice rolled loudly down the dais, stopping in front of the cowering knees.

Louise scrambled to pick it up, tears welling in her eyes as she pleaded her case.

The High Chancellor clicked his tongue in a low voice at her cluelessness.

“You do realize that when He finds out what has happened, neither you nor the woman you bore will be safe.”

He had summoned Louise from the temple’s dungeons to warn her not to bluff her way through tomorrow’s interrogation.

The High Chancellor wanted the crown prince to ascend to the throne as soon as possible, and had been secretly plotting for years.

To instill fear in the lowly subjects, to shake the emperor’s authority and give the crown prince a reason to seize the throne.

To him, the Grand Duke, the hope of the empire, is an eyesore, forced to spend his life as Babel’s antagonist.

If Babel is destroyed, the empire will be at peace. That was something that must never happen.

He had tried every trick in the book to keep the Grand duke from making his move, and now he was nearing the end of his plan.

If only the foolish wench and the crown prince in front of him hadn’t set up a trap.

“Cedric, you little shit!”

A few days earlier, an imperial servant had taken his own life after the crown prince’s insolent teasing.

It’s a common enough occurrence that it doesn’t even make the newspapers anymore, but when the victim is a servant, the repercussions are considerable.

The crown prince’s perverse tastes, which included the use of brothel prostitutes, were said to be undermining the authority of the imperial family.

The emperor, enraged, threatened to send the crown prince into exile, but was stopped in his tracks by the empress’s wailing and pleading.

The high chancellor ‘s mouth twisted into a grim smile as he remembered this.

“The Count is deeply troubled. Erze has fallen under the spell of Viscount Fairfield, and he’s begging me to grant him permission to marry her at once.”

“Ouch!”

The High Chancellor shook his head as he looked at Louise, who waved her hand as if that was a no-no.

“I don’t want to send Erze to such a scoundrel, either, but what can I do, the grand duke is very keen to find out who was behind what you did…”

Louise’s eyes widened as he trailed off, and she waved her hand dismissively. As if to say, don’t worry.

“Well, then, this father is counting on you. He won’t play games with his daughter’s life.”

The High Chancellor’s eyes glowed with satisfaction, for only the dead can keep secrets perfectly.

Meanwhile, Louise, the toothy one, glared at the High Chancellor as he sat languidly on the bed.

She was fifteen years old, and had been taken in as the foster daughter of the twenty-three-year-old High Chancellor.

His purpose for taking her in was clear.

He had begun a plan to bring the newborn crown prince safely to the throne.

Raised in the shadows and skilled in all sorts of tricks, he hoped to tame her and use her as his own.

That someone needed her.

This was enough to lift Louise’s spirits after a lifetime of being treated like trash.

In her eyes, the High Chancellor seemed so sincere as he laid his cards on the table, and Louise was so enamored of his honesty that she pledged her loyalty.

‘So I’m not to blame,’ she said, ‘I did what he asked because he needed it!’

She was the one who kidnapped the amnesiac Marcella and took her to the hunting grounds, and she was the one who led her husband to discover the wench.

It was the High Chancellor’s order that the girl Marcella gave birth to be used as a sacrifice.

If she gave birth elsewhere, it would be harder to steal the child, so she used Count Lawrence to keep her blood regularly and make her easier to manage.

‘It’s a good thing she had a daughter at once; would I have wanted to see him panting for another woman?’

But even such an order was too dangerous for the High Chancellor to disobey.

And she wasn’t in a position to say no in the first place.

She was furious. She was so close to her goal.

‘If it weren’t for that damned grand duke…!’

The only thing that saved her from being beheaded was her status as the foster daughter of the High Chancellor.

She had done so much to fulfill the High Chancellor’s goals, and there was no way she was going to be thrown away like this.

‘So let’s hang in there. My father will still need me!’

Louise frowned faintly, but then nodded in understanding.

* * *

The spot where Louise had been dragged out was filled by a man with a black cloth covering more than half of his face.

He was one of the assassins to be sent to Kalian.

“The Grand Duke has set out from Eldin.”

“Don’t play dumb today, and bring me his finger. If you don’t, I will slit your throats!”

“Yes!”

The assassin disappeared in a puff of smoke, and the surroundings finally quieted.

The dark-haired woman, who had been hiding her face behind the veil until now, hugged him from behind once she was sure they were alone.

Her silky fingertips caressed the High Chancellor’s broad chest seductively.

“What are you going to do? You know damn well those mercenaries can’t put a scratch on Kal’s body.”

The woman’s voice held a deep note of bitterness. The High Chancellor felt a tingling in his chest as he turned to face the slender woman.

“Don’t worry, I can’t make a scratch, but I can make a crack.”

“Crack?”

“Yes, the terrible price of power, the mania that makes your eyes turn bloodshot the more you use it, your heart leaps out of your chest, and your only instinct is to run and kill your opponent.”

“Still… I can’t feel at ease. I feel like something’s wrong, and what if Kal has seen everything?”

The High Chancellor shook his head, as if worried about the identity of the woman the Grand Duke was carrying.

“That’s unlikely, and even if he did, it doesn’t matter. She’s already cursed, and the more she uses her magic, the more she’ll hasten her demise, which is the last thing we need.”

“She’ll die of her own accord, so what’s the point in worrying about her, and there’s no way she’s going to learn how to harness her powers now.”

If she continued to grate on the Grand Duke’s nerves as she was doing now, there would be nothing he could do about it, not even if she made her way to the village of Litchev.

If the crown prince can take his place in the madness, public opinion will be restored.

The saint’s body was nearing recovery, so there was nothing to worry about.

The corner of the High Chancellor’s mouth curled upward in a venomous smile, and the eyes of the statue of the Sun God guarding the temple glittered as if to protect him.

* * *

Around that time.

“Hmph…”

Evelyn had a terrible nightmare.

She couldn’t remember what it was, but when she opened her eyes, her face was drenched in something she didn’t know whether it was tears or sweat.

It was still pitch black, and it was raining outside her window.

It had been raining all day, and the temperature had dropped, leaving a chill in the air.

Evelyn pulled back the covers and sighed deeply.

She hadn’t had many nightmares since she’d been staying with him, probably because Kalian wasn’t around and she was worried about going to the temple.

She was so anxious, her dreams were wild.

“Perhaps a walk will clear my head.”

Evelyn slipped on her robe and crept out of the bedroom.

The rain pounding against the windows was unusually loud in the eerie silence. Lightning flashed occasionally along the long windows in the darkened hallway.

As she descended the stairs and passed through the corridor leading to the interior gardens, she heard a mocking voice.

“She doesn’t look like a noble by any stretch of the imagination, does she?”

“Who?”

“The young lady who’s staying with our master. Last time I saw her, she put away… all those expensive dresses and borrowed Eva’s clothes.”

Evelyn’s pace slowed to a crawl, as if she was the object of the conversation. Eva was the name of the maid assigned to her.

“Ah, the young lady? The one he’s going to marry?”

“Really? The lady? Uh, that’s strange…”

“Strange? What?”

Evelyn listened to their conversation in a daze, as if she were listening to someone else’s story.

She didn’t want to go back, but she also didn’t want to be rash. It’s not like she’s insulting her master, and it’s not like she’s saying anything unkind.

Moreover, she knew he had another woman. It was natural for the maids to be suspicious.

“I’m in charge of the glasshouse in the indoor garden, and I saw a portrait of a woman in there.”

Evelyn flinched and lowered her gaze from the pillar. Her slightly crooked fingertips trembled slightly.

“She looks like her,” he said, “but she has a completely different air about her.”

“My God, is there such a connection? I hope it wasn’t intentional.”

“Actually, I don’t think so either. I’m sure he just couldn’t get over his ex-lover and searched for a similar-looking woman… Hehe!”

That was it.

“You two, what am I hearing?”

Evelyn’s ears pierced through the darkness as an unearthly, chilling voice called out.

It was Benjamin, piercing through the thick darkness. The maids’ faces turned pensive.

“Hmph! I’m sorry. ”

“We thought no one was here…”