An Offer of Escape
The room was wretchedly bare.
Perhaps it might have passed muster back when she still lived in the Landt Marquisate, but to Cleo—who had never once looked back at a life of frugality since entering the imperial palace—it seemed no different from a beggar's hovel.
In fact, even the miserable servant's quarters she had occupied while waiting hand and foot on her legitimate half-sister had been far better than this. The Landt Marquisate had assigned Cleo to attend the noble young lady merely to break her spirit, not to inflict crude physical torment upon her. A personal maid attending directly to a highborn lady rarely lived in sheer squalor; she had been provided decent clothes, a modest stipend, and the means to keep up basic appearances.
Yet this room...
Cleo grimaced despite herself.
The stale stench of damp dust hung heavy in the air, mingling with the musty chill unique to unventilated chambers and the faint, bitter tang of medicine. Anyone with a delicate stomach would have gagged at the doorway. Amidst this suffocating gloom sat Imperial Consort Elaine upon the bed, her pale eyelids fluttering with slow, lifeless blinks. Her green eyes resembled the withered foliage of a dying plant.
...I was hoping to find the ghastly face of a corpse on the verge of death, Cleo thought, biting her lip in bitter resentment.
This invalid had not taken a single step outside the Licorice Palace in years. Dark shadows bruised the skin beneath her eyes, and her collarbones jutted sharply beneath her gown. Even her exposed wrists were impossibly frail. She looked like a sugar doll that would shatter into powder at the slightest touch.
And yet, she was beautiful.
No, it was more that she possessed an eerie, almost hypnotic allure—like dried, preserved petals slowly rotting away in secret, or an exquisite porcelain doll unearthed from a centuries-old ruin. Had an innocent child been brought before her, they surely would have wondered aloud whether this woman was an angel or a spirit of the snow.
"What brings Your Imperial Highness to seek me out?"
"May I address you as my sister?"
Elaine merely gazed at Cleo without answering. Cleo wrinkled the bridge of her nose as she surveyed the shabby furnishings before dragging over a worn wooden chair by the bedside to take a seat. Anywhere else, she would have sneered with disdain, demanding how a hostess dared receive an imperial guest in such squalor. But mockery was not the purpose of Cleo’s visit today.
"Look at you, just look at this state," Cleo sighed with theatrical pity. Reaching out briskly, she grasped Elaine's hand resting limply atop the quilt. It was frightfully cold. Could this truly belong to a living person? For a heartbeat, the chilling sensation of touching a corpse caught in Cleo's throat, but she managed to force her lips to curve smoothly. "You are the Second Imperial Consort, a woman who gave birth to an imperial princess. How can you be reduced to this? His Majesty has treated you far too cruelly."
"...His Majesty has done nothing wrong to me."
The voice was faint—weary and drained, as though the last ember of will had long since burned to ash. And that was precisely why Cleo harbored suspicions.
Imperial Consort Elaine had nothing left to live for.
Her relationship with her maiden family, the Count's household, was utterly severed, and she was colder to Princess Titania than to a total stranger. The Emperor's favor? He was a man who had known only absolute deference his entire life; if a woman dared reject him, wounded vanity kept him from glancing her way, no matter if she was hailed as the empire's supreme beauty. Even so, he had subtly betrayed his lingering fixation by keeping an empty seat beside him at every imperial family banquet...
Every living soul within the imperial palace was a creature of naked ambition. No human being was devoid of desire; they merely learned to conceal and disguise it beneath layers of craft. Sickly though she was, if Elaine simply dressed in finery and bestowed a single sweet smile upon the Emperor, he would have danced with joy as if presented with a diamond mine. Yet she had kicked away that easy path, choosing instead a life that differed little from a lingering death in this rotting palace. There had to be a reason.
"Then who wronged you?" Cleo pressed softly, her tone dripping with venomous intrigue. Elaine offered no response. "Was it Princess Titania? The girl whose very birth ruined your body and bound you to the imperial family forever, never to leave?"
"..."
Elaine remained mute.
"Well, I understand. My own health suffered after giving birth to Brian, so how much worse must it have been for you, nearly losing your life on the delivery bed? It must have been agonizing just to look at the child..."
Titania would no longer dance to Cleo's tune. The girl who once starved for affection had finally realized that every drop of motherly warmth Cleo had shown her had been an empty lie.
And yet...
'Mother... is it because I'm truly a bad child that you hate me?'
A mocking smirk tugged at the corner of Cleo's lips.
Before turning ten, Titania had fallen ill constantly. Even when Cleo visited her as sparingly as rain in a drought, the child's eyes had shone with desperate delight at that crumb of affection. For Cleo, it had been child's play—coaxing and soothing a sick, weeping toddler who clung to her skirts.
'Oh, Titi. Whatever made you say such a terrible thing?'
'B-Because... people said Mother became sick because I was born...'
A child's instincts were sharp as an animal's. Young as she was, Titania had sensed that Cleo, acting as her 'sole' protector, disliked hearing her ask about her birth mother. Even so, the girl had no one else in the world to turn to for answers.
'S-So... if I become a good girl... will Mother... will Mama...?'
Cleo had Brian, while Titania had no one.
Cleo visited whenever the whim struck her, but Titania was never permitted to run to Cleo.
The imbalance of power had been absolute. The helpless child craved an ally who would stand by her unconditionally. And Cleo had merely smiled, letting the girl yearn endlessly for her biological mother. If Imperial Consort Elaine ever reacted foolishly... Yes, that will be the day I finally kill her, Cleo had calculated.
Yet Elaine had never once looked back, not even when her tiny daughter hovered on the threshold between life and death. When the weeping girl banged on the gates of the Licorice Palace, she was turned away without mercy. Holding the dehydrated, sobbing child in her arms, Cleo had quietly rejoiced that she wouldn't need to dirty her hands with an assassination after all.
Thanks to that, Titania had grown into a puppet who would jump into fire if Cleo told her to.
Having groomed her so thoroughly, it infuriated Cleo beyond measure that the girl now acted as though she had been reborn after brushing with death. Clamping down on the venom boiling inside her, Cleo sweetened her voice, murmuring coaxingly:
"I heard about what happened when you bore Titania. They say that when His Majesty learned a gorgeous daughter resembling you had been born, he was overjoyed and instantly decided to marry her into the Castrein family—and you fainted on the spot. Well, some say your constitution had always been frail, but..."
Back when Titania was born, the Emperor had not yet abandoned his obsession with Consort Elaine.
To a lustful monarch, possessing the empire's greatest beauty was an intoxicating prize; giving up on her so easily would have been stranger. Yet after bearing her daughter, Elaine had acted as though she had abandoned life entirely. In truth, both the infant Titania and Elaine were so sickly that they nearly perished multiple times. Even the Emperor could hardly drag an invalid out of bed against her will day after day.
"You hate the child, don't you?"
Cleo was certain of it.
Not all parents loved their children.
Not all mothers cherished their daughters.
The sacred pull of bloodlines? An unbreakable bond between parent and child? Complete nonsense. That one could magically love an unwanted child simply because it was born?
In this world, a crazed gambler would sell his own flesh and blood into slavery for a handful of copper coins without blinking.
"If there hadn't been so many watchful eyes, you might have smothered the babe in her crib. How unfortunate for you, sister. From the moment she drew her first breath, your daughter was destined to become the vital bridge between the Castrein Duchy and the imperial throne. You couldn't lay a finger on her."
"...What is it that you truly wish to say?"
Look at that. Just look at her. Cleo almost laughed aloud. Even when probed with words that effectively accused her of wishing to strangle her own daughter, Elaine's response remained lukewarm. She neither flared up in defensive guilt nor denied the accusation.
My hunch was right.
Titania, you foolish little wretch.
To think you fretted and pined your whole life for a mother like this...
'Oh my, do you intend to kill Imperial Consort Elaine? In that case, I will truly become Her Majesty the Empress's daughter. And Her Majesty will act as the bride's maternal mother to the Castrein Duchy.'
Yes.
The changed brat had deduced that if her biological mother died, Cleo would be the architect behind it.
Yet for that very reason, you never could have dreamed that I would recruit the very mother who despises you!
"I will be blunt. Cooperate with me, and I will see you safely out of this palace."
Imperial Consort Elaine blinked in astonishment. It was the most visible reaction she had shown since Cleo entered the chamber.
Women whom the Emperor treated merely as one-night companions were eventually granted leave to depart after a certain period. Even childless consorts could be quietly escorted out after falling behind in the court's power struggles. But a consort or empress who had borne the Emperor's seed was forbidden from ever leaving the gilded cage.
That was undoubtedly why Elaine had buried herself away in despair.
She craved nothing—nothing except her freedom.
"...By what means?"
Unlike before, an unmistakable tremor of anxiety laced her reply. Cleo was certain of her victory.
"His Majesty already has two healthy sons, and with Her Majesty the Empress in robust health, he hardly requires another consort. He only needed a princess to seal the alliance with the Castrein family. In any case, with your frail constitution, what hope do you have of bearing more children? Nor have you ever kept the princess by your side to raise her."
"Do you think me ignorant of that fact?"
Her tongue is sharper than I expected. Cleo filed the assessment away in her mind with satisfaction.
"I will help you escape."
"..."
Consort Elaine's pupils trembled faintly.