<CHAPTER 37>
Should Have Died
After ordering Ivy to be shown to the physician, Evelyn returned to her bedroom in the Winter Palace.
“You’re back, Your Highness.”
Gail was waiting alone, and beside him was a wheeled trolley with a plate covered by a dome-shaped lid.
“You must be hungry. You haven’t eaten for a long time, so your stomach must be upset.”
He was a clever child, so he would know what had happened. However, Gail offered her a meal as if he knew nothing.
Evelyn refused Gail’s consideration because she was a little tired.
“I don’t want to eat anything right now.”
“But, Your Highness.”
Camilla followed behind her as she headed toward the bed.
Since Gail was still a young attendant who had not yet come of age, Evelyn removed the gown she had worn for going out and put on only an indoor dress before heading to the bed.
“Couldn’t you at least eat this?”
Gail gently pushed the trolley forward and opened the lid. Evelyn’s words of refusal were immediately stopped.
“It’s a pretty sunny-side-up egg fry.”
Just as Gail said, a picture-perfect egg dish was there.
Whether magic stones were embedded in the lid and plate, it was still warm and hadn’t cooled down.
Like thick paint had been applied, the egg was cooked in a perfectly round shape without a single bubble, and in the center, a fresh yolk with a reddish tinge rose plumply.
It was undoubtedly half-cooked, and if cut open, it would surely flow out thickly with a rich, deep umami that would delight the mouth.
“This is…”
Her voice cracked, unlike her usual self. Evelyn bit her lips for a moment, then continued speaking after a brief pause.
“…Did His Highness make it?”
Even as she spoke, Evelyn hoped it wasn’t true.
If he had made it himself knowing that she had lied to divert the Crown Prince’s eyes, she would have no way to repay her guilt.
Then Gail spoke.
“No.”
A light sigh escaped. It wasn’t from disappointment. It was a sigh of relief.
But Gail’s words weren’t finished.
“He called the chef. He listened for a long time about the degree of heat and how hot the pan should be, and about how to crack the eggs. How much oil to pour. He studied earnestly about why not to flip it over.”
“…Then why.”
She forced her vocal cords to move and made a sound. She didn’t want to ask, but feeling that she had to hear the reason, Evelyn asked the question.
The boy answered as if he had been waiting.
“His Highness said. ‘Ivy needed me and sent me here, but if I really made this, I think she’d be upset!'”
Finally, Evelyn’s face contorted.
A kind person.
A kind, affectionate, delicate person—she had hurt such a person.
Even though it was for his sake, Evelyn had ignored and trampled on the Crown Prince’s sincerity in trying to protect her.
Evelyn wanted to go to the Crown Prince’s palace. She wanted to run there immediately, embrace Rexfail, and apologize—not for trying to hurt him, but for having hurt him.
But what meaning would a mere verbal apology have?
If the same situation occurred again, she would once again take the blame for Rexfail, and that would hurt him again.
Evelyn didn’t move, unable to promise.
The perfect egg dish made by the chef was cooling as time passed.
“Lady Ivy says she will change her name.”
Evelyn answered Vane’s words.
“That’s good.”
Lady Ivy, now bearing the name Rose, had become a tragic protagonist both inside and outside the country.
The pitiful story of the lady who suddenly had to change her name due to the jealousy of a ruthless woman who wanted to monopolize even names.
As this spread widely, the notoriety of the master of the Winter Palace, Raven, who had captivated the Crown Prince, was also spreading fiercely.
“His Highness wishes to elevate Your Highness to Crown Princess.”
“That will be difficult.”
Coldly and firmly, Evelyn evaluated Rexfail’s plan.
Considering public opinion formed and the nobles’ opposition, ‘Raven’ could not and would not ascend to the position of Crown Princess now or in the future.
A mere commoner woman who had blinded the Crown Prince’s eyes and confused his mind to make him make wrong judgments was a great sin, and she was extremely ugly and malicious for being jealous of a noblewoman with a name similar to her nickname and making her discard her name.
“It’s unexpected that they haven’t considered my execution. It must be evidence that they’re still watching the Imperial family’s mood. That’s fortunate.”
“Your Highness!”
Vane shouted as if spitting blood.
Petitions to expel the master of the Winter Palace had come from all over the country. The number of nobles who had come to the capital to convey their protest was countless, to the point where there was no place to stay in the capital, and people were pitching tents in nearby forests and sleeping outdoors.
Meanwhile, protests from commoners who had their homes taken away also continued unceasingly.
Like dominoes set up in a narrow, long shape beginning to fall, everything was happening in a chain reaction and simultaneously.
Countless people flocked to the Imperial Palace, and the administrative agencies’ work was paralyzed.
“Why are you escalating things? His Highness the Crown Prince will not give up. Because Your Highness provoked the nobles, they will cling to His Highness the Crown Prince!”
Evelyn, who had been quietly looking up at Vane sitting in a chair and arguing fiercely, put down the book she was holding and raised the corner of her mouth in a smile.
“Then what should I have done?”
“That is…”
“Should I have let Lady Ibiton die and sent a signal flare to the dreamers in the southwest? Or should I have revealed that all of this was His Highness the Crown Prince’s will and taken the position of a pitiful woman receiving the favor of a merciless tyrant?”
Vane could no longer say anything.
In fact, he knew too. That all of this had started from Crown Prince Rexfail.
But he was the Crown Prince. He was the Small Sun of the Delpeo Empire, the future sun, the one who would become the sole monarch.
Unable to blame such a person, Vane was instead tormenting Evelyn.
“…If only you had woken up earlier.”
“If you thought so, you should have tried to wake me.”
Evelyn ignored the fact that Rexfail had stayed by her side all night without sleeping, so Vane had no such opportunity.
Then Vane shouted as if wronged.
“Preventing Lady Ibiton from being tortured was already a challenge!”
“I think I’ve done my part just by not dying and surviving.”
Evelyn did not back down, and Vane huffed for a long time trying to find a retort, but eventually gave up.
Then he concluded that it was a waste of time to determine who was most at fault after the Crown Prince.
“Why did you collapse?”
“I ate poison.”
“But the physicians…”
“Lord Acrain.”
Evelyn cut off his words. If it were another matter, she would have listened to his opinions or the basis for his judgment to some extent and worried about whether her thoughts were wrong.
But this was about poison. The memories of eating all the poisons in the world, touching them, and injecting them into her blood as she grew up remained vividly in her mind even after being reborn.
The feeling of all the mucous membranes touched when she sipped the tea becoming dull in an instant, and the unique pain transmitted from her tongue—could not be anything but poison.
Evelyn could even list the suspected poisons outright. No one could be more knowledgeable about this than her.
Except for Duke Embrio.
So she asserted.
“It’s poison.”
Vane could not refute her there. Evelyn finished her claim with words that she could swear by.
With that, it was decided that it was poison.
“…No poison was detected in the tea leaves or water the lady had.”
“Have you never heard of a poison that shows no change at room temperature but dissolves well in water and then rapidly vaporizes once it becomes liquid?”
Evelyn showed the blister on her arm that had formed near her wrist.
“It’s inside my mouth too. It looks like a burn, but it’s not. The heat was rapidly taken away from the skin tissue due to the quick vaporization phenomenon, causing damage.”
When Evelyn mentioned the characteristics of the poison known to have been active in countless assassination cases throughout history because it was the most difficult to obtain evidence for, Vane lost his words.
He just mumbled and threw a few more words as if protesting.
“…It has a high fatality rate, that one.”
“If I had died, this explanation wouldn’t have been necessary, and Lord Acrain would have been convinced first.”
“That’s right.”
Evelyn smiled for a moment, then hardened her face again.
“Should have died.”
“Such words…”
When Vane tried to cut off her words. With a serious face he had never seen before, Evelyn spoke.
“I was not wrong. What I ate was definitely Teferi, and at that concentration, I should have died. The fact that I didn’t die means something is wrong.”
From Evelyn’s expression, Vane realized that the situation might be more serious than he thought.
And as if to satisfy his expectation, Evelyn declared.
“There is only one person I know who could play such a prank.”
“Surely…”
She nodded her head.
“Maxwell Dame Membro.”
The name of the ruthless man who treated his daughter, the Crown Prince, and even the Emperor as chess pieces to seize power sat heavily on Evelyn’s tongue.
