STE 07

Chapter 07

‘What is this?’

Baroness Aegis frantically racked her brain.

Mistaking Tethys for a maid with similar features, serving her an inadequate meal, or displaying petty territorial hostility—although infuriating to the person on the receiving end, such things were difficult to make a serious issue of.

However, arbitrarily deciding whether guests could have an audience with Tethys and not even reporting it to her had clearly crossed the line.

Thinking that something might go wrong, Baroness Aegis hurriedly began making excuses.

“Of, of course, Your Highness did not give me such an order. But as someone who attends to Your Highness, I naturally thought it was my duty to take care of matters carefully without waiting for separate instructions.”

“So, it was your own decision, made because you were concerned about me?”

“Regrettably, yes.”

“Then why does it feel like that isn’t the case?”

Like a seasoned hunter, Tethys began slowly but surely tightening the noose around Baroness Aegis.

Tethys, who had sat quietly like a fool for three days, was not going to let things pass so easily. Baroness Aegis’s face became colored with bewilderment.

“…Pardon?”

“I didn’t give you the order. So perhaps someone else who commands you did.”

The Empress who had worn a haggard expression before the banquet, barely opening her mouth unless necessary, was nowhere to be seen.

Her soft, almost melodious voice pressed firmly against Baroness Aegis.

Even more unsettling was the way she spoke as though she already knew something, causing Baroness Aegis’s heart to waver for an instant.

‘No.’

She was still nothing more than a young and inexperienced Empress.

Firming her resolve, Baroness Aegis abruptly dropped to her knees.

“That is preposterous, Your Highness! I was genuinely worried about Your Highness, who had to meet so many people without even having time to recover from the fatigue of your journey. Besides… You may have forgotten this after spending so long in the monastery, but… making an appointment and requesting an audience is a sign of respect toward Your Highness.”

“Ah, so you are teaching me because I am lacking?”

“Teaching you? How could I? I merely reminded Your Highness once more, knowing full well that you naturally understand the proper rules.”

“Baroness Aegis, you really are very thoughtful.”

Tethys’s meaningless reply sounded gentle at first glance, but Baroness Aegis’s instincts instead sensed a warning.

She tried hard to ignore it, but despite making such subtly provocative remarks, the fact that the Empress continued smiling only made her feel more uneasy.

Just as she began to sense that something was going terribly wrong—

“Besides, you have perfectly memorized the rules of the Inner Palace and even reminded me of what I was lacking. Is that not so?”

“Th-That… is not what I meant, Your Highness.”

“Yes. You know that.”

“Pardon? What do you mean…?”

When guests were temporarily staying in the Imperial Palace for a major imperial event, they were permitted to request an audience even without making an appointment.

There was no need to waste words explaining something Baroness Aegis already knew perfectly well.

Tethys merely needed to make her understand the position she was currently in.

“Baroness Aegis, you are from House Andronis, are you not?”

“That is… correct, Your Highness.”

“Then do you know that seven years ago, on the night the New Year’s banquet was held, your elder brother laid hands on Viscount Tireas’s lover?”

“What? That….”

It was clearly the first time she had heard of such a thing, but since the Empress did not seem to be making up nonsense, Baroness Aegis could not properly respond and fell silent.

“I heard that Viscount Tireas’s lover resisted quite fiercely. Baron Andronis was drunk, and when things did not go as he wished, he became enraged and strangled the poor woman to death. Right here, in the garden of the Empress’s Palace.”

“…Pardon?”

An unsavory incident that had occurred within the Imperial Palace—more specifically, in the garden of the Empress’s Palace.

The former Empress had launched an investigation with the assistance of Crown Prince Theodore, and the results had been shocking.

Although the woman had belonged to the bourgeois class, Viscount Tireas, who had long since lost his wife, had already petitioned the temple for permission to remarry his lover. Thus, the deceased woman could be regarded as Viscount Tireas’s fiancée.

Moreover, she had been pregnant with Viscount Tireas’s child.

“Then should Baron Andronis be indicted for the murder of a noble?”

“Y-Your Highness…!”

Baroness Aegis turned deathly pale and trembled, but the story was far from over.

“Oh, and one more thing. About nine years ago, your elder brother borrowed eight hundred thousand euros from Manos Merchant Guild… and it turns out that the woman’s father was the owner of the Manos Merchant Guild. What an extraordinary coincidence.”

That wicked Baron Andronis. How could a man possibly violate the daughter of a merchant who had lent him such an enormous sum of eight hundred thousand euros, and then, as though that were not enough, cruelly kill her?

At Tethys’s muttered words, Baroness Aegis now seemed utterly dazed and could not even bring herself to answer.

“The benevolent former Empress did not want the unpleasant incident that occurred in the garden of the Empress’s Palace to grow any larger.”

After all, according to proper procedure, whether he had killed a commoner or the unborn noble child in her womb, he should have been charged with murder committed within the Imperial Palace.

So the former Empress had shown him mercy.

The Empress’s low voice calmly laying out the circumstances tightened the noose around Baroness Aegis even further.

“…So she mediated between the parties involved, went through the troublesome process of arranging compensation several times, and obtained a settlement agreement.”

“……”

“The problem is that Viscount Tireas still resents the settlement he was pressured by my mother to accept.”

Ah, he had no heir to whom he could pass down his title. Apparently, the son they discovered through the autopsy was the last one.

The Empress’s beautiful eyes curved into crescent moons as she whispered softly.

“I believe the statute of limitations for the murder of a noble is fifteen years….”

When someone is found guilty of murdering a noble, they are generally required to surrender their title. The Carnes Empire punished unlawful disputes between nobles that strictly.

If Baron Andronis were convicted, Baroness Aegis would also lose her noble status and become a commoner, while Baron Aegis would be legally entitled to file for divorce because his wife’s status would have changed from what it had been before their marriage.

And as far as Tethys knew, the relationship between Baron and Baroness Aegis was not particularly good.

“Your Highness! Please, I beg you, show mercy!”

Baroness Aegis bowed her head desperately, her face drained of color.

Tethys thought that this appearance suited her far better than the arrogant attitude she had displayed until now, and smiled sweetly.

“Let us return to the beginning. Baroness, do you think I should ask you again?”

“No, no….”

Fortunately, Baroness Aegis was not stupid. Having found a way out that might save her, she hurriedly shook her head.

“I am sorry, Your Highness. I acted rashly and disturbed Your Highness’s peace of mind. Please… forgive me.”

“Forgive you? You do realize that you still have not given me the answer I wanted.”

Baroness Aegis moved her lips soundlessly before finally seeming to make up her mind. She bowed her head and answered.

“…Countess Troia gave the order. Countess Troia said that it was His Majesty the Emperor’s will.”

“Baroness.”

Tethys called to her in a gentle, soothing voice.

“You did well. But there will not be a second time.”

“I will… bear that in mind.”

“Still, I hope you will not be too shocked. You are not the only one who has been this unfortunate.”

“What?”

Baroness Aegis failed to understand the meaning of those words at first and questioned her.

Tethys looked at each of the maids in the room in turn with a gentle gaze.

Before leaving for the monastery in Armus, one of the many things Tethys had done as the mistress of the Imperial Palace was personally assigning attendants to each palace.

In particular, she had carefully selected every maid in the Empress’s Palace, convinced that she could keep all of them firmly within her grasp and control them completely.

“Tethys, when you want to tame those beneath you, you must have a firm hold on their weaknesses. Loyalty earned through kindness has only as much binding power as the kindness you bestowed.”

Remembering her mother’s words, Tethys smiled at the pawns she would favor from now on.

“It was not a coincidence that you became my maids.”

The chilling ‘warning’ required no lengthy explanation.

The room became so silent that not even the faintest breath could be heard.

“Leave.”

The frozen maids quickly filed out of the room.

Only then did Tethys feel a small measure of satisfaction in this space she had finally reclaimed.

She liked this kind of silence now.

Once you recognized loss in the midst of terrible loneliness, you also learned how to wield the losses of others as weapons.