Chapter 145
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 145
Time drifted by like passing clouds.
“Your Imperial Highness.”
The supreme Crown Prince of the Brillant Empire, the Emperor’s legitimate heir, and a man who had not set foot in the Imperial Palace for over a year.
Ferdinand Cassel Ewigkeit.
This beautiful boy, who looked more at home beneath a battlefield tent than on a cozy sofa in the palace, wore his usual expressionless face today.
However, steam was still rising from the blood splattered across his skin, making it easy to tell that he had just returned from a gruesome struggle.
“Please wipe the blood from your face. You’re completely covered in it.”
“The enemy commander blew up his own subordinates just to spray their blood on me. What was I supposed to do? If I didn't want to die, I had to keep swinging my sword even while taking the hit.”
“They truly are a vicious lot.”
“I’m sure they think the same of me. Does it matter?”
“I suppose not.”
Sir Otero—the Crown Prince’s loyal subordinate, aide, and First Knight—respectfully held out a towel with both hands.
Ferdinand took the towel, which had been soaked in warm water, and roughly wiped the blood from his face.
The once-clean cloth was instantly stained crimson, but his expression remained indifferent.
His red eyes were clouded only with a sense of lethargy.
“Ah, by the way, Your Highness. Interesting news has arrived from the capital. It concerns Empress Carmi.”
“What now? Did she send another marriage proposal to the Grand Ducal House of Frezier?”
“That matter is already well-known. Or rather, it’s the antics of Lady Tulia afterward that have become famous.”
Sir Otero chuckled.
Empress Carmi.
It was an undeniable fact that she was a born schemer. After all, she was a woman who had been nothing more than a lady-in-waiting to the previous Empress, only to betray her mistress and seize the throne for herself.
It was a few months ago that Empress Carmi had sent a marriage proposal to the Grand Ducal House of Frezier.
To the very family of the Grand Duke who had been the most vocal critic of her relationship with Emperor Alexander, calling it 'unrighteous'—or to put it more bluntly, an 'affair'!
‘The Second Prince and Lady Tulia Frezier... what a refined and beautiful match, like moonlight reflecting on the water.’
When Otero and the rest of the Crown Prince’s inner circle first heard this, they were furious.
Crown Prince Ferdinand was already engaged to Sophia Frezier, the daughter of a Frezier vassal.
Yet, the Second Prince, who was naturally lower in the line of succession than the Crown Prince, was trying to arrange a marriage with the Grand Duke’s direct granddaughter!
It wouldn't have mattered if Empress Carmi had used her status to pair Second Prince Dave with a daughter from some other plausible ducal house.
In fact, the Crown Prince’s subordinates couldn't have done much about that.
But to try and link the Second Prince with a member of the same family as the Crown Prince’s fiancée—and the direct granddaughter, no less—was a massive insult to Ferdinand.
After wiping away all the blood, Ferdinand spoke.
“It didn't happen anyway, did it?”
“That’s true. But don't you find it strange, Your Highness?”
Otero said as he rinsed the towel in a chipped basin.
“I find this Lady Tulia Frezier, whom I’ve never met, to be the most fascinating part of it all.”
The Grand Ducal House of Frezier had, of course, rejected the proposal.
In response, Empress Carmi chose to host Tulia Frezier’s birthday party at the Imperial Palace—of all places.
A birthday party for a noble lady, hosted by the Empress, approved by the Emperor, and held in the grandest hall of the palace.
No one could refuse such an invitation. In fact, one was expected to be overcome with gratitude for such an honor to their family.
“Lady Tulia. You are of age now, yet you have no fiancé. Everyone is curious. Is there a young lord who has captured your heart?”
When Empress Carmi asked that question during the party, every noblewoman present hid her mouth behind a fan and waited for Tulia’s answer.
No matter which young lord she named, there were only two possible outcomes.
Either that young lord would suddenly find himself with a new fiancée, or the Empress would push Second Prince Dave on her, insisting that a member of the Imperial Family was surely better than a mere noble.
Half of the noblewomen expected Tulia to dodge the question by using the Grand Duke or the Marquis as an excuse.
But surely Empress Carmi would have anticipated such an answer.
She would undoubtedly seize on any small opening in that response to force the marriage with Second Prince Dave.
In other words, the power dynamics of the Brillant Empire were set to shift drastically based on Tulia Frezier’s single answer and Empress Carmi’s subsequent reaction.
In that moment, while everyone held their breath and leaned in to listen...
“I do have marriage plans, of course, Your Majesty.”
“Oh my, to hear that Lady Tulia has a gentleman in mind makes even me, the Empress, curious. Who is it?”
Tulia Frezier reportedly answered only after thoroughly chewing and swallowing a piece of succulent roasted turkey.
“I’m going to marry my father. We made a promise when I was little.”
Not a single noble present could have predicted such an absurdly simple-minded response.
“...That is a funny joke, Lady Tulia. Of course, Marquis Frezier was famous for being a great beauty in his youth.”
Empress Carmi laughed it off several times and tried to coax the answer she wanted, but Tulia Frezier reportedly repeated the same thing over and over, like a spoiled girl raised by a doting father.
“Right? I don't think a man as wonderful as my father exists. That’s why I promised to marry him when I grew up, Your Majesty.”
“They say she answered like a parrot with a bright smile, making people wonder if she’d actually lost her mind.”
In the end, all Empress Carmi gained from Tulia’s birthday party—which had cost a fortune from her private treasury—was that brain-dead response.
It was a massive loss.
Rumor had it that Empress Carmi was so sick with rage that she was bedridden for a week.
And Otero...
He glanced at Ferdinand and felt a surge of satisfaction.
‘As I thought. His Highness is smiling again.’
While pretending to be a diligent subordinate reporting on the Empress’s humiliation, he was carefully watching the Crown Prince’s expression.
Due to the side effects of his innate divine power, the Crown Prince remained trapped in the body of a boy no matter how much time passed.
To protect his position and his life, he swung his sword every single day without rest on this harsh battlefield—an unprecedented path for a Crown Prince.
He never smiled. No, he rarely showed any emotion at all. At first, Otero had thought he was simply a cold-blooded man.
However...
Otero had once caught Ferdinand wearing a faint smile whenever the topic of the Freziers came up.
At first, he thought it was out of affection for his fiancée, but that wasn't it.
‘Tulia Frezier. He only smiles, even if just a little, when that lady is mentioned.’
But what kind of connection did the two of them have?
As far as Otero knew, they had never met in any official capacity.
Keeping his long-held curiosity to himself, Otero brought up the topic he had originally intended to discuss.
“The debutante ball will be held at the Imperial Palace soon, won't it?”
“Has it been that long already?”
“Yes. And it’s been confirmed that Lady Tulia will take the first slot of the debutante ball.”
Ferdinand’s brow furrowed slightly.
“Not the daughter of Duke Althorn, but Lady Tulia Frezier?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
That was truly unexpected.
As soon as Empress Carmi had donned the Empress Consort’s Crown, she had focused all her efforts on expanding her influence.
To compensate for her humble origins, she had employed various schemes.
One of them was arranging a marriage between her younger sister and the heir of Duke Althorn.
From that union, a daughter was born to the Duke and Duchess of Althorn—Francoise, the Empress’s own niece.
Lady Francoise of Althorn was also of age to debut this year, and the order of entry at a debutante ball was a metric of a lady’s prestige.
Everyone had expected Empress Carmi to push for Francoise to enter first.
“It seems the Grand Duke of Frezier has decided to take action.”
“It seems so... but does that even make sense?”
“Why wouldn't it?”
“Well, I’ve seen Grand Duke Frezier before, and that old man... to me, he seemed less like a person and more like, well, a giant bear...”
Otero scratched his head.
“Of course, the fact that Lady Tulia is the apple of the Grand Duke’s eye is something even a passing dog knows by now, but I still find it hard to believe sometimes.”
Ferdinand spoke indifferently as he walked toward a tapestry hanging on the left side of the tent.
“You have no eyes, Sir Otero.”
“Pardon?”
The tapestry was the only beautiful thing in the dilapidated tent, a piece clearly belonging to the Imperial Family.
Ferdinand counted the number of medals displayed upon it.
Exactly twenty-nine.
Otero asked.
“Will you be returning to the palace this year, Your Highness?”
“Once I fill all thirty slots, I must return. To the capital.”
“You’re finally returning. Now, no one will ever dare to suppress Your Highness again.”
Ferdinand didn't offer much of a reply.
What he had sought by coming to the battlefield were the thirty medals that the founder of the empire was said to have worn on his chest.
He had survived on less than an hour of sleep a day, enduring the extremes of the battlefield. Through that, he had earned twenty-nine legitimate medals.
Every time he earned a medal, he had nearly died ten times over.
This meant he had come close to death over three hundred times, yet he had survived.
Empress Carmi and the many nobles in the capital likely had no idea.
They had probably forgotten his existence, or perhaps they kept a wary eye on him from time to time.
They likely tried to keep him in check by slipping poison into the occasional food shipments, slowly letting him fade from memory.
Ferdinand wanted Empress Carmi to forget him entirely like that. That was why, no matter how great his achievements, he had minimized the records reported to the military and the Emperor.
Making it seem as though he were barely surviving.
Perhaps even describing him as if he had lost a limb.
A dying, useless, fading Crown Prince.
That was the image he wanted to project.
However, Empress Carmi was truly vicious and continued to poison him periodically.
Because of that, there were days—no, half the year—when he had to swing his sword while coughing up blood from the lingering effects of the poison.
But in the end, he had survived.
He had even built a loyal following of subordinates, soldiers, and a knight order that could never have been formed within the Imperial Palace.
“Your Highness. When you return to the capital...”
Otero asked.
“Will you be holding your wedding?”
Ferdinand’s fingertips momentarily froze.