You Said You Wanted Us to Break Up - Chapter 92

The Emperor left the garden first, citing urgent matters of state.

“If the opportunity arises, I hope we can meet again.”

She said, leaving a brief handshake with me.

Iswen remained where the Emperor had departed. That was why I was now walking with him through the Imperial Palace garden.

The sound of his cane echoed along with our footsteps. It was then that Iswen, who had been silent for a long time, finally spoke.

“What did His Majesty put in your mouth?”

He asked, entirely sure that the Emperor had made me ingest something.

It was questionable how Iswen knew what had happened when we were alone, but there might have been a connection I was unaware of. Unlike me, Iswen had many people he could command like hands and feet.

I answered him.

“It was tea.”

Iswen stopped in front of the carriage and turned to look at me.

“Be specific.”

“It was a tea brewed from blue flowers.”

I had made a mental note of the flower’s appearance, intending to confirm exactly what kind of flower it was if I had the chance later.

Iswen’s face contorted upon hearing my words. I asked him,

“Do you know what kind of tea it is?”

Instead of answering my question, Iswen gestured with his chin toward the carriage door.

“Get in.”

Only after the carriage began to move did Iswen begin to speak properly.

“You know that the Imperial Palace’s audience chamber is protected by magic, correct?”

“Yes.”

That was a fact known to every noble in the Empire.

If Raslet had Glasyr, the Imperial Palace in the capital had protective magic. Within the domain of that magic—the audience chamber—no one could harm the Imperial Family with anything.

Despite that, the former emperor died at the hands of the princess, who staged the rebellion.

I don’t know the circumstances. But one thing is certain: Beatrice was not trusted by her father even when she was a princess. The Emperor had openly favored Aiden.

So much so that he protected his son’s feelings by lying about the reason he married me to Sioden.

And yet, he lost his life at his daughter’s hand.

All I could deduce from this incident was that Beatrice was a capable person, skilled enough to draw her unloving father out of the audience chamber.

That capable person fed me a strange tea. There must have been some intent behind it.

Iswen’s explanation continued.

“The magic in the Imperial Palace is not limited to that.”

That would be true. The protective magic of the audience chamber wouldn’t have much to do with my father’s heart disease.

Yet, my father tried to marry me to Aiden. Iswen and Demian probably knew the deeper reason, but I didn’t.

My role was merely to marry Aiden, who was to become the next emperor, according to my father’s wishes.

“In the Imperial Palace garden, blue flowers bloom. The person who wears the Crown of Literin can infuse their desire into those flowers when they are not withered.”

The phrase “the person who wears the Crown of Literin” was a metaphorical way of referring to the Emperor.

“If you want to interrogate someone, you pick the flower with the desire to elicit a confession; if you want to poison someone, you pick it with the desire to kill. The effectiveness changes according to its use.”

“…”

“The effect is not absolute. However, it becomes more potent as the cumulative number of times it is used increases.”

Hearing that, I finally understood why my father had been so determined to marry me to Aiden.

He must have believed that the Imperial Palace flowers would become the cure for his incurable disease.

What was Beatrice’s intention in giving me that flower? Considering what she asked me after I drank the tea, I had a fair idea.

She must have intended to make me speak only the truth.

“The flower blooms only once a year, and it withers before ten days pass, so this won’t happen again. But from now on, make sure you properly check what you put in your mouth.”

With those words, Iswen turned his gaze to the window. I glanced at him and asked.

“I have something I want to ask.”

“Say it.”

“What was my mother’s name?”

* * *

“Iella.”

At the sound of her name, the faint green eyes turned toward him.

Iswen called his sister’s name again as she slowly blinked.

“Iella Rowen, snap out of it.”

Only then did Iella straighten her posture as if she had fully awakened. She defensively excused herself.

“I think I dozed off for a moment.”

Iswen meticulously scrutinized his sister’s face, which avoided his gaze. Iella seemed uncomfortable with his stare, turning her head completely toward the window and pressing her body against the wall.

“What was my mother’s name?”

“It was [Name].”

She was clearly showing that she didn’t remember the conversation they had just had.

* * *

Late that night, waiting for Merwen as she slipped out of the cemetery at Ethel Castle was a shabbily dressed man.

“Wendy.”

Merwen, who was just brushing the dirt off her clothes, looked at him. The man took off the hood of the robe he was wearing. A face half-distorted by burn scars was revealed. It was Ashel, the last prince of Kaulm.

He was also her maternal uncle. Merwen tilted her head as she looked at him.

“I thought you were dead.”

She thought he had been burned to ashes.

To reclaim his wife, Sioden had burned all the remnants of Kaulm at the stake.

In the North, burning someone alive signifies the annihilation of the soul, so it was precisely the kind of retaliation expected of him.

Ashel’s distorted lip twitched.

“I barely survived.”

Well, I’m not curious about the details. Merwen finished dusting the dirt off her body and said,

“You know my nickname?”

“Of course. Lerisa always said she’d call her daughter Wendy as a nickname.”

But Ashel hadn’t called her that name at first. Merwen curled her lips.

The remnants of Kaulm, including Prince Ashel, had once occupied Ethel Castle.

Despite several upheavals, traces of Lerisa and Hesen remained scattered throughout Ethel Castle. For example, Lerisa’s studio.

Lerisa used to keep her diary in the studio’s drawer.

The nickname for her daughter must have been written countless times in her diary. Merwen had never opened that diary. She hadn’t been confident she could handle the memories that would spill out from it.

“You opened my mother’s studio?”

“Was that Lerisa’s?”

‘She did draw very well.’

Ashel muttered softly and approached her.

“I’m glad you managed to escape safely. How worried I was…”

Wearing an expression like a concerned uncle for his niece, the man asked,

“Do you still have the Blessing of Resurrection?”

There was one blessing that was hereditary among the Kaulm royalty.

Born to only one person among the direct bloodline, that blessing could resurrect the holder from death after a short period.

Merwen only learned about it after Lerox’s death and after she had returned to Ethel territory.

In the past, Sioden had resisted the Elders’ will to keep her at Raslet Castle by any means and had sent her to Ethel territory.

It was there that Merwen met the last prince of the fallen kingdom.

“You are Lerisa’s daughter.”

“…”

“How old are you now?”

Recalling the brief conversation they had back then, Merwen rummaged through her pocket. She had picked up something from the surroundings when she was leaving the cemetery.

She asked her maternal uncle, who was looking at her with interest,

“Why did you flog her?”

“…”

“I told you not to lay a hand on her body if a woman happened to arrive due to misfortune.”

“Wendy, that was the customary treatment for a prisoner. If you want to place blame, blame the late Raslet…”

Ashel’s words were cut short. A sharp dagger had plunged into his chest.

“W-We…”

Ashel’s eyes widened in disbelief, and he stammered. Merwen twisted the blade embedded in his chest.

“So irritating.”

She shoved the man, who was gasping at the brink of death, onto the ground and distorted her mouth into a sneer.

“Everyone must think I’m a joke. You don’t even bother to listen to me.”

She had explicitly told him not to flog the woman. This was because she could achieve the desired effect without resorting to that.

What she wanted was for Iella Rowen to abandon hope in her husband, not to drive his wife to the brink of death even before killing the last Raslet.

Merwen looked down at the man collapsed on the ground.

“The blessing you mentioned? I already used that. How else do you think I got out?”

“…”

“Exactly. Why did you let your sister escape?”

The day he first came to see her, Ashel had told her this when she asked why Lerisa was in Raslet:

“The Royal Mage took your mother and defected to Raslet.”

“Why?”

“It was an abduction.”

But Lerisa had come to the Raslet territory of her own accord.

With the Blessing of Resurrection held within her body.

“Honestly, men only tell lies.”

There was only one way to take the blessing, which was passed down only between parent and child.

To remove and consume the heart of the child who inherited the blessing before they turned eighteen.

Ashel had told her this fact to gain her trust.

“The mage joined hands with Lerox Raslet and sold Lerisa out. He was after her heart.”

“If you truly intended to deceive me, you shouldn’t have asked my age first.”

It was an obvious story.

The prince, who was the eldest son but did not inherit the blessing due to a trick of fate, could not eat the heart of the princess who did inherit it until she turned eighteen.

There must have been many reasons why he couldn’t. A royal family functioning normally would not allow its own flesh and blood to be killed and consumed.

It was a natural progression for the prince, who couldn’t eat the princess’s heart, to go after her child.

Around that time, Ashel’s arms and legs went limp as he breathed his last. Merwen muttered with revulsion.

“How tedious.”

She let out a small sigh and raised her head. Against the backdrop of the bright moonlit night, Ethel Castle’s tower shone.

She had suggested to Sioden that they jump from that tower. But her half-brother never took the hand she offered until the very end.

So now, it was time to make him regret that choice.