The Archduke's Fiancée
“Rose. If Ishtel chooses one archduke to dance with, how do you think the other will feel?”
“He’ll be furious, of course! And humiliated, too!”
Rose answered at once.
“Exactly. But imagine this. You’re already angry, and then an incredibly handsome man wearing exactly the kind of clothes you like keeps walking back and forth right in front of you. How would that make you feel?”
“Hmm… I’d still be angry, but my eyes would keep drifting toward him… I’d keep watching him, and then I’d start smiling…”
Just picturing it seemed to delight her, and Rose broke into a bright grin.
“I think it would cheer me up a little.”
“That’s precisely the point.”
Baroness Turen raised her thumb in approval.
“Men are surprisingly simple, Ishtel. Even if they feel embarrassed after being rejected at first, once their gaze has been caught, they can’t look away. So if you do as I say, no matter whom you choose first, you’ll have the second one twisting in agony afterward.”
“Wow… Baroness, I salute you!”
Rose sprang to her feet and applauded.
As expected of the queen of high society, Baroness Turen. Her scheme to ensnare not one but two men was nothing short of masterful.
“By the way, Ishtel, have you heard?”
Baroness Turen suddenly clapped her hands together as though remembering something important.
“I hear Shuri Telia is coming to the ball.”
Shuri Telia? The name was unfamiliar.
I knew most of the central noble houses and their family trees, yet both the name Shuri and the surname Telia were new to me.
“Oh, that’s right! I heard too. She’s from one of the vassal families the Northern Archduchy sent, isn’t she?”
Now that she mentioned it, several provincial nobles had accompanied the archdukes to the capital. All the vassals of the archducal houses had been invited to the Founding Festival, so she must be one of them.
I was gazing absently at the dresses when Baroness Turen gave me a surprised look.
“My, so you have no interest in Shuri Telia? Or should I say, no interest in Archduke Hellion?”
“Why are you looking at me like that? Who is Shuri Telia?”
“Ah, so you truly don’t know, Your Grace! Well, even among the nobility, very few are aware. Only those of us who hear news quickly, like the baroness and myself.”
Rose lifted her eyebrows with an air of importance. I wasn’t particularly curious, but her expression made it clear I was expected to ask.
“Who is Shuri Telia?”
The moment the words left my mouth, Rose shouted as though she had been waiting for the cue.
“She’s Archduke Hellion’s former fiancée!”
Primos’s death had affected far more than just us; it had also upended the marriages of the two cousins.
After the crown prince died, His Majesty declared that I would become the next crown prince’s consort. In other words, both Illid and Hellion, the candidates for crown prince, had to remain legally unmarried.
At the time, both archdukes had fiancées, but the engagements were broken soon afterward.
Three years ago, when the crown prince passed away, Hellion had been only sixteen and the dissolution relatively simple.
Illid’s situation was different. He had already come of age and was scheduled to marry right after Primos and me. Yet the moment he became a candidate for crown prince, he too had been forced to break his engagement.
I knew nothing about either of their former fiancées—only that both women had been nobles from the South and the North, not the capital.
“Shuri Telia comes from a general’s family in the Northern Archduchy. Her father is the grand general and her mother a renowned tactician; they’re said to be one of the most distinguished houses in the North. She’s the only daughter among three older brothers, so she was raised with great affection.”
Rose began to recite everything she knew.
“Talks of marriage with Archduke Hellion began when she was thirteen, but the engagement was broken right after His Highness the Crown Prince died. Even so, relations between the archducal house and her family remain cordial. When Archduke Hellion came down to the capital, her second brother accompanied him as a vassal.”
“And recently, Lady Telia herself came to the capital as well. She didn’t travel with Archduke Hellion, but since she’s attending the Founding Festival—”
Baroness Turen added what she had heard to Rose’s account.
“I suspect her brother wants to introduce her to central high society while he’s here. If Archduke Hellion does not become crown prince, he may marry Lady Telia after all. If he does, however, she’ll have to look for another husband.”
It made sense.
Once your former fiancé might marry someone else, you couldn’t very well wait for him like a stone statue.
“In a way, she might become my cousin-in-law someday.”
“From her perspective, that would be the best outcome. Otherwise she’d simply have lost her fiancé for nothing.”
Rose’s words struck me like a hammer. I had never considered it that way before, but from Lady Telia’s point of view, it was entirely possible.
“Do you know anything about her personality? Is she blunt like most northerners, or quiet?”
“Hmm, I don’t know about her personality, but there’s one rather amusing detail!”
“What is it?”
“They say Lady Shuri Telia is the only person Archduke Hellion is afraid of!”
Hellion was afraid of someone? That was far more intriguing than anything else I had heard today. I urged Rose to continue.
“Is her personality that terrible?”
“No, it’s not that. Apparently Lady Shuri Telia was completely smitten with Archduke Hellion. Madly in love, they say.”
Rose twirled a finger beside her temple.
“She fell for him at first sight when she was thirteen and followed him everywhere. The engagement itself supposedly happened because she begged her parents to let her marry the archduke. Of course, her family’s prestige made it possible.”
“Goodness…”
“Whether at the academy or the training grounds, she trailed after him wherever he went and showered him with extravagant gifts. And every time they met she sang about how desperately she wanted to marry him. It must have been rather terrifying for the archduke.”
“Oh dear. That isn’t how one courts someone…”
Baroness Turen, the self-proclaimed expert in romance, murmured sympathetically.
“Anyway, the shock of the broken engagement must have been enormous. She shut herself in her room for three months, refusing to eat and doing nothing but cry. Her brothers were quite distressed.”
“She must hate me…”
Just as Rose said, I felt like the woman who had stolen someone else’s fiancé. A twinge of guilt mixed with a sense of injustice. It wasn’t as though I had wanted things to turn out this way…
“What about Archduke Illid’s former fiancée?”
Suddenly curious, I asked.
“Is Illid’s fiancée coming to the Founding Festival too?”
The question had been innocent, yet both Rose and Baroness Turen stared at me, blinking. Their expressions clearly asked whether I was serious.
“Why? Did she go into seclusion for half a year or something?”
Judging by the atmosphere, I guessed the woman was even more remarkable than Shuri Telia. Rose exchanged a glance with Baroness Turen, as though passing the burden.
“She died two years ago.”
“What?”
I let out an involuntary gasp at the baroness’s answer.
“How? Illid’s fiancée should have been about my age.”
“She fell ill half a year after the engagement was broken and passed away.”
“That can’t be right. How could someone chosen to marry into the imperial family die within six months?”
The Tebron Empire was extremely selective when choosing spouses for the imperial family. Lineage and background were scrutinized, as were the candidate’s own education and virtue.
Health, however, was considered the most important factor of all. No matter how brilliant or well-born, anyone in poor health was disqualified from becoming a member of the imperial family. Yet the future archduchess had supposedly died of illness…?
“There were many rumors at the time. People argued over whether she truly died of natural causes. There were even suspicions of murder or suicide.”
Unlike when she spoke of Shuri Telia, Rose’s expression was grave.
“Some even claimed she loved Archduke Illid so deeply that she took her own life after the engagement ended.”
“Surely that didn’t happen…”
“It could have,” Rose continued in the same serious tone.
“As you know, Your Grace, Archduke Illid is exceptionally handsome and his character is flawless. If someone were suddenly jilted right before the wedding… it wouldn’t be surprising if she couldn’t bear it.”
Illid’s former fiancée. I didn’t even know her name or face, yet listening to Rose left a heavy feeling in my chest.
Even though I knew it wasn’t true, I couldn’t shake the thought that I might have played some part in her death.
At the same time, I remembered meeting Illid at Primos’s grave. Back then I hadn’t realized he carried the same kind of pain.
The loss of a fiancée was a wound that never fully healed, no matter how much time passed—especially if the love had been genuine. A sharp, needle-like ache pricked at the corner of my heart.
“Anyway, Ishtel, I’ll leave the dresses here.”
Noticing that my expression remained clouded, Baroness Turen seemed eager to depart.
“Think it over until tomorrow.”
“No. I’ll decide now.”
I pushed thoughts of Illid aside and turned my gaze to the dresses.
“I’ll take the blue one.”
“Oh? So you’re choosing Archduke Hellion?”
Rose looked surprised. I gave a brief nod.
Choosing Hellion was something I had already decided long ago.
Everyone in the empire knew the Northern Archducal House and the Regentera ducal house were on poor terms. I wanted to use this opportunity to change that perception.
Although my grandfather had been her enemy, Alensia was not the sort of person to hate me for his sake.
When I was a child, she had often patted my head and said she wished she had a daughter like me. She had also scolded Hellion many times, insisting I was in the right whenever we fought.
If she heard that I had danced with Hellion first, her anger toward our family might soften a little. Then the long-stagnant exchanges between the North and the capital could resume.
Watching the maids carry away the red dress, I felt a bitter pang.
It was laughable that I couldn’t even freely choose the color of a single dress or the person I wished to stand beside.