A Fabricated Curse
"Still, I think I see what the Consort is aiming for," Adrian said. "Under the pretext that the curse must be lifted before you can wake... she seems intent on privately inviting a High Priest who isn't under House Castrein's influence to examine you."
"And in the process," I said, "those maids who were disgraced at the Empress's palace suddenly become proud, devoted servants who threw themselves into harm's way just to break Princess Titania's 'curse'? Which means we wouldn't be able to cast them out. We'd have to bury their past, keep them at my side, and even reward them."
"It certainly looks like her way of paying you back." Adrian offered a wry, bitter smile.
When I had made those maids roll through their agonizing penance under the banner of 'proving their loyalty to their master,' Consort Cleo had simply seized the opening. My, such frantic prayers are only offered by someone truly cursed, she must have thought, conjuring a nonexistent curse out of thin air.
There was no way she could have known beforehand that the Emoticon Sword appeared like a demonic blade to anyone else. It was entirely possible that her scheme simply coincided with the holy sword's dramatic appearance.
Everyone knew security at the Rose Palace was an absolute disgrace. The guards who had failed to protect me—who hadn't even been at their posts in the first place—would have sung whatever tune suited Consort Cleo's palate from their prison cells. And the maids would have sung even sweeter.
"And Her Majesty the Empress will likely face censure as well," Adrian added quietly.
A bitter taste flooded my mouth. Unbelievable. I had nearly died, yet I couldn't even enjoy a peaceful week of bed rest. What a spectacularly dynamic imperial life this was.
I ground my teeth. "…Because she neglected her duties and allowed an unholy curse to run rampant through the sacred imperial palace?"
"Exactly. All Cleo has to do is claim that you only need Her Majesty's protection now because Mother was careless from the start."
She really knew how to squeeze every drop of utility out of someone else's sword!
Either way, the conclusion was brutally simple: I could no longer afford to lie in bed. Yet I couldn't simply throw off the covers, stand up, and announce that no such curse existed either. If I did that, I would be admitting that I had faked an illness all along, lounging around without a single scratch on me.
Adrian's smile remained troubled as he continued. "Word is that tomorrow, after conducting a thorough search around the Rose Palace, the High Priest will enter the palace grounds and come straight to the Empress's residence to 'heal' you. An official decree bearing His Majesty's seal has already arrived, demanding our cooperation."
A search around the Rose Palace tomorrow? They were undoubtedly going to seal off the perimeter to keep everyone out tonight while secretly burying planted evidence of a curse. Then, tomorrow, she would bring in her pet High Priest to cement the curse as established fact.
I was backed into a corner. I had underestimated the Consort. To think she could trap me like this even when I saw right through her. But I wasn't about to sit back and take it.
I took a moment to comb through my knowledge of the original novel, searching for anything useful in this predicament. Then, I made my decision.
"……Send for someone from the Castrein Duchy. Tell them it's urgent."
When survival and the future were at stake, pride could take a back seat.
When Titania had told him not to interfere any longer, Raymon had assumed he would not see her for some time. Yet remarkably, the moment she learned of the Consort's machinations within the imperial palace, she reached out without hesitation. She asked for help, choosing to call in one of the very debts she had so cleanly erased.
Time was running short, and knowing full well the extent of House Castrein's authority and reach, she intended to make use of it.
Listening to her plan—an audacious brew of unimaginable methods, sheer stubbornness, high-stakes gambling, and brazen acting—Raymon had felt his lips part involuntarily.
Why must you go this far?
The question had nearly tumbled from his mouth.
The Castrein Duchy was already aware that Consort Cleo was orchestrating something suspicious. However, because it posed no immediate threat to the ducal house, they had adopted a wait-and-see approach. Had Titania been in direct physical danger, they naturally would have intervened. Even so, they would never have acted with such fierce urgency.
Resting in the Empress's palace, Titania had looked remarkably peaceful. She would mutter quietly to herself while reading the books Raymon had brought her, and she was said to relish nothing more than lounging late in bed and nibbling on sweets. Raymon had never expected her to react to this situation with such fiery resolve.
Whether she pretended to sleep and then awoke under the blessing of the Consort's High Priest, or simply announced that she had regained consciousness before he even arrived, neither outcome would directly harm her right now. Both House Castrein and the imperial family knew the Consort's 'curse' was a fabrication. It was nothing more than a provocative political gambit.
Misinterpreting Raymon's lingering gaze, Titania blinked her vivid green eyes.
"This won't cause any significant trouble for House Castrein," she assured him.
"…That is not what concerns me."
"Are you worried about being dragged into the imperial succession dispute against your will?"
"Are you worried for Prince Adrian?"
That was not what Raymon had meant to ask. Yet remembering the cool, pleasant smile she had worn when telling him never to interfere under the guise of being her savior, the words he truly wished to say caught in his throat.
Ah, yes. That face. A face that drew an unmistakable, unyielding line between them, declaring that this polite distance was more than enough, that they should simply remain civil strangers…
It was a smile that looked like a mask pieced together from the shattered remnants of a heart—a heart that had once screamed for love, begged him to look at her, cried out that she was right there.
Whenever he remembered that smile, his breath caught in his chest. It felt exactly like the moment he had held her limp, lifeless body in his arms, when she had stopped breathing altogether.
He felt like a sinner. Every passing word and subtle shift in her expression shook him to his core. Had Raymon been even slightly more detached, he would have realized how abnormal it was for a man who had witnessed the ceaseless slaughter of soldiers and demonic beasts since childhood to be so profoundly unsettled by so little.
"Oh, do you think I'm doing this just to help Her Majesty?" Titania's voice took on a sharp, defensive edge. "Or that I'm ultimately trying to secure Prince Adrian's ascension to the throne? Does it look like I'm scheming to drag House Castrein onto our side of the board?"
Confronted by her prickly suspicion, Raymon nearly blurted out the truth.
He almost told her that it wasn't that at all. That if she had simply asked House Castrein to back Prince Adrian as the next heir instead of paying off a debt, the family would have readily agreed after a brief discussion. That he knew she would never use him, Raymon, or House Castrein in such a deceitful manner…
And yet, how could he say that? On what grounds could he claim to know her?
A suffocating helplessness washed over him.
He could not bring himself to say that he recognized the festering emotions she had once harbored toward him—the desperate devotion of a young fiancée who had grown up isolated in the imperial palace, knowing only how to throw venomous tantrums. Even if those feelings had curdled into hatred, resentment, and an unyielding obsession that rotted her from the inside out, he could never admit that he had recognized the core beneath it all.
He could not say that he alone knew her feelings had once been absolute, a blind gaze that could never look away from him.
And then, suddenly, just as she so often claimed, the moment she struck her head against the balcony and fell into a coma—the fragile, obsessive girl who had loved Raymon had died. In her place woke someone who claimed to 'understand' him, while expecting not a shred of affection in return.
A person reborn, who could coolly declare that she would use Raymon and House Castrein solely for her own survival.
He could not speak of that change. Every instinct screamed against it.
Why? Why was he so terrified?
Before he could fathom the question, an apparition—whether a waking hallucination or a buried phantom—shrouded his vision.
—I'm sorry……
It felt as though a parched desert had suddenly opened within the deepest recesses of his chest. The moment the voice reached him, he felt as if someone were whispering directly against a heart cracked and dry, buried beneath parched, barren earth.
—I'm sorry.
It was a hoarse, ragged voice, reduced to a fading whisper. Tangled strands of hair, dry and brittle as withered straw, lay strewn across the floor. He saw her green eyes, utterly exhausted. Those eyes, once murky as stirred mud, were now as lucid as a spring clearing after a long rain—eyes that seemed to carry an answer only she understood.
—For someone like me to love you... I'm so sorry.
Was this what it felt like to gather the very last dregs of an emotion scraped raw, and set it ablaze? If one gathered dry, crumbling autumn leaves, reduced to ash, and cast them into the dying embers, could it ignite a fire any more agonizing than this?
An indescribable turmoil surged within him.
He wanted nothing more than to seize that frail, emaciated wrist right that instant. To demand what she was planning, what she meant, what game she was playing. To order her to drop the pretense and confess the truth.
Why did she have to wear an expression that made it look as though she would die or vanish at any second? Who was she trying to torment?
Like a spark catching across a drought-stricken field, threatening to turn into an uncontrollable wildfire, he felt on the verge of losing his sanity and shouting aloud.
Yet before that inexplicable agony could consume his heart entirely, the vision vanished as abruptly as it had come.
Before Raymon could even gather his scattered senses, Titania's frigid voice cut through the air.
"You needn't worry. I know my place."
"…May I ask what you mean by that?" he managed, his voice strained.
"Since Bibi isn't here, I'll be blunt."
Though she always managed a bright, affectionate smile whenever young Bibi was around, Titania's face had now settled into an exhaustion far too heavy for her years.
"House Castrein doesn't even like me anyway, does it?"
"That is... not true—"
Feeling as though he had been struck across the back of the head, Raymon found himself unable to finish the denial.