#2
“Haah……”
Judith let out a low sigh and sat up.
Looking around, he saw that the furniture was beginning to glow golden in the light of dawn.
The woman from his dream was his mother.
A commoner who had been born a maid, not even a lady’s maid. An unfortunate woman who had caught the Emperor’s eye because of her beauty.
Judith did not know whether she had wanted a child herself, but she had loved young Judith dearly.
It was not easy for someone with no powerful backing and no knowledge of politics to survive in the Imperial Palace while raising a child.
Even so, his mother had never allowed young Judith to see how difficult her life was.
Judith reached out and opened the drawer beside the bed.
Inside was an old locket.
When he slid the locket open, he saw a woman who looked remarkably similar to him.
Sienna, who was now only a few years older than Judith himself and would remain forever twenty-three years old.
Judith gently stroked the portrait of Sienna inside the locket.
“Mom, you always said that living was the best thing. That being alive was much better than being dead. Then why did you die to save me?”
Sienna gave no answer to Judith’s question.
Judith ran his fingers over the smooth surface of the locket, which had become polished from being touched so often, and murmured,
“Honestly, back then, I wouldn’t have minded dying together with you. Mom, I can’t even die anymore. I’m living because your final words are engraved inside me, and because of them, living has become the most important thing to me.”
The door suddenly flew open without even a knock.
It was the same door that had been opened so carelessly the night before.
Judith tensed and grabbed the dagger hidden behind his pillow.
His nanny came waddling in carrying a basin of water for washing.
“You’re already awake?”
The nanny looked at Judith in surprise and set the basin down heavily in front of him.
Water splashed onto Judith’s clothes and body.
Even after being splashed, Judith simply nodded calmly.
“Oh my, look at the sheets. Did you have a nightmare?”
The nanny asked in surprise as she began tidying the sheets.
She apparently had not yet noticed the knife marks in the blanket.
Judith deliberately said nothing more and simply nodded.
“…Yes.”
“You had that dream again. Poor Your Highness…”
The nanny clicked her tongue sympathetically as she looked at Judith.
“It would be better to wash these sheets. I needed to do the laundry anyway, so this works out.”
The nanny comforted him as she gathered up the sheets.
After washing his face, Judith absentmindedly started walking, only to stumble when his foot caught on the sheet the nanny had placed on the floor.
“Your Highness, are you all right?”
“…I’m fine. I just tripped.”
“What are we going to do with you being so weak?”
The nanny spoke with concern.
She straightened her back while holding the sheets and continued,
“I’ll put these away and bring your clothes right away. You have a lot to prepare for today. You’re meeting His Majesty, after all.”
“That bass is getting higher and higher every day.”
Kalid spoke as he looked out the window of the Prince’s Palace.
Outside, noblewomen wearing enormous bases were walking through the garden.
A basque was a cage-like framework made from whalebone and wire that was used to make a skirt puff out.
It allowed women to make their skirts fuller without having to wear several layers of petticoats underneath.
Noblewomen had been fond of wearing them for the past several years.
However, the basses had been getting larger and larger, to the point that the women’s skirts were scraping against the bushes on either side of the path.
Even walking through the maze garden seemed difficult for them.
“Is that so?”
Reginald dismissed the comment without much interest.
He licked his dry lips and almost bit his nails but instead clasped his hands together.
However, he could not hide the occasional trembling of his legs.
Reginald had been in a bad mood since this morning.
It was already past noon.
Under normal circumstances, Judith’s funeral should have been taking place right now.
“More importantly, what happened?”
Unable to hold himself back any longer, Reginald asked.
Kalid answered with a completely expressionless face, pretending not to know what he meant.
“What are you talking about?”
“I mean the matter you said you would take care of.”
“Ah, that.”
Kalid drew the green curtains, blocking the sunlight that had been shining through the window.
Standing in the now-shadowed room with a faint smile, Kalid spoke.
“I postponed it.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Reginald’s expression immediately became serious.
“He was more interesting than I expected.”
“Judith? Him? Don’t tell me you actually like him?”
Reginald looked at Kalid with an expression that desperately hoped that wasn’t the case.
But Kalid smiled innocently and gave him the answer he least wanted to hear.
“You could say that.”
Reginald felt his chronic migraine getting worse.
Things were going wrong.
He had wondered why a duke would bother taking on such a pointless task, but perhaps this was why.
He wanted to slap Kalid across the face for ruining everything and kill Judith himself, but he was afraid of the consequences.
Kalid had become a duke at a young age and had survived by slaughtering dozens of cousins who coveted his title.
Reginald, who was still merely a prince, was not in a position to eliminate someone like him and simply get away with it.
Forcing a smile onto his face, Reginald spoke.
“When I become emperor, surely you don’t think I can’t provide you with far better omegas than that one?”
“Really?”
Kalid sounded interested.
Grabbing onto that tiny ray of hope, Reginald nodded.
“Yes, of course.”
“That certainly is an attractive offer.”
“So…”
“But you aren’t Emperor yet. Unfortunately.”
Reginald’s lips trembled after being thoroughly toyed with.
He became convinced that Kalid had come here specifically to turn the tables on him.
The nervous disorder he was suppressing with medication felt as though it might flare up again at any moment.
“So I suggest you be careful with your words. His Majesty is in poor health right now. He might think you’re plotting a rebellion.”
Reginald raised an eyebrow.
“Are you threatening me right now?”
“Of course not.”
Kalid smiled with an unreadable expression.
Reginald made up his mind that once he became Emperor, he would crush Kalid thoroughly and then have him beheaded at the appropriate time.
“…For the sake of the Duke’s reputation, I’ll leave Judith alone for the time being.”
Reginald gritted his teeth as he spat out the words.
“But you should know this. I want to become a complete emperor.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Kalid tapped his temple as if to show that he understood.
That casual gesture made the pain in Reginald’s head spread all the way down to his stomach.
“So I hope you lose interest in him as soon as possible.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Kalid let the words trail off and stood up.
Kalid was just as displeased as Reginald.
He had decided to support Reginald because he had the highest chance of becoming Emperor, but the man was far more stupid than he had expected.
“How can anyone be so incapable of hiding what they’re thinking…?”
This is making me nervous.
Clicking his tongue, Kalid began walking down the Imperial Palace corridor.
Bringing in a potential alternative candidate had been a good choice.
Even if that candidate was an omega who was practically on the verge of death.
Instead of the unpleasant meeting he had just had, Kalid recalled the enjoyable meeting from the previous night.
“Prove that you’re useful. Show me that you’re worth investing in. Prove that you’re not just a fool who is all talk.”
“What kind of proof do you want?”
Judith had asked him directly without trying to evade the question.
It was convenient.
There was no need to go around in circles when he simply asked what he wanted to know.
“The first Crown Prince competition will be held soon.”
At the mention of the competition, Judith’s eyes widened in surprise before quickly returning to normal.
He seemed startled that Kalid, a duke, knew about something that even Judith, a prince, had not known.
Kalid watched Judith try to suppress his emotions with amusement.
It was an enjoyable night. Perhaps giving him a small tip wouldn’t hurt.
“Do you know Herut?”
“You mean the country in the desert?”
Kalid became even more amused by Judith’s answer.
Normally, when people heard the word “Herut,” they thought of nomads or tribes wandering through the desert.
Almost no one called it a “country.”
Herut freely crossed the desert and made a great deal of money through trade.
Eventually, they even established their own kingdom in the desert.
However, the people of the Empire did not consider them citizens of a kingdom.
Perhaps they found it offensive that people who merely dug around in the sand would call themselves a kingdom and have a king.
“Bashur must have taught you well.”
It seemed Bashur had not given his heart to a prince who was destined to die for no reason.
Before being a scholar and a teacher, he was a genius who appeared perhaps once in a hundred years.
Regardless of social status, he probably did not want to lose someone with whom he could speak as an equal.
And it seemed he personally cared for Judith quite a lot.
