At the same time, Sagan paced nervously around his office. Listening to Gale’s report, all his plans went smoothly when the Empress Dowager visited Evelyn’s Palace.
If his plans were a success, he would soon hear the news. Gale finally came as Sagan struggled with his nervousness.
“How……how did it go?” asked Sagan in haste.
“Sir Philip was summoned to the Empress’s Palace.”
As Sagan predicted, Adrian’s health deteriorated after midnight.
“And His Majesty immediately rushed out of his office without being able to hide his anxiety.”
“Are you sure…did he do that?”
“Yes.”
At that moment, Sagan heaved a sigh of relief. He had been worried about the failure of his scheme, but it seemed that God was on his side.
“Now then, the Vatican is in my hands.”
Sagan roared with laughter by himself. He held the Paladin’s hand and practiced what was called justice. Obviously, God would be with him. People like Sagan used to wash their evil deeds with such arrogance.
“But this almost got me a heart attack.”
“You don’t have to worry, Duke.”
Sagan snorted, “It’s not my plan that made me nervous.”
“Then what?”
“As the Paladin Knight said, the Empress Dowager was the mediator. It’s hard to imagine that the Empress would make contact with that child.”
Sagan knew his younger sister very well as a person with a cold personality. She was a woman who had never shown an attachment to her own son, let alone her grandchild.
At first, Sagan doubted the plans he had compiled. But in the end, his sister managed to make contact with Adrian.
“I don’t know what drama had happened, but this is also God’s will.”
“What are you going to do after this…” Gale asked the question carefully.
“What do you mean after this?”
“Yes? To Sarah, the Empress Dowager’s maid….”
Before Gale spoke any further, Sagan gestured to shut up. When Monica came to persuade him, the other maid, who was ordered by Sagan, firmly followed his orders.
It wasn’t that hard. Monica, who temporarily moved from the Southern Palace, relocated most of her belongings to the Sagan residence rather than keeping them in the Imperial Palace.
He didn’t have special tricks. Sagan just blended the holy water into Monica’s perfume and all the cosmetics used by her. He just told Sarah, the maid, to use them well.
“Did she do something?”
“No, nothing different than usual.”
“Fine…But I won’t forget that Sarah played an important role in this crime.”
Sagan grinned as he had performed his last weapon.
He requested a maid close to Sara to add the poisonous powder to Sarah’s puff. The dose of poison was tiny, so it wasn’t life-threatening. But he prepared this “weapon” for Fabian as a gift.
“The Emperor will surely suspect his son was poisoned, and he will be bent on finding the cause. And his suspicions will lead to everyone, even his own mother.”
If it was Fabian who Sagan knew, he would undoubtedly make the Empress Dowager a suspect and investigated her involvement thoroughly.
If the Southern Palace’s maid brought the poison, Monica would have to take responsibility because she was the Palace’s owner and their master. Sagan would lose his younger sister. That’s why he initially hesitated to use Monica to harm Adrian.
“But the Empress is His Majesty’s mother…….”
“No. There is no exception. That’s why I hesitated. But she’s foolish….”
In the end, Monica’s cold rejection changed his mind. Monica made a choice she shouldn’t have made and left her family first. Thus Sagan had no remorse whatsoever about his decision.
“The Paladin Knight has disappeared.”
“It must be the Emperor’s doing. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t know if the Paladin knight is a smart person or not, but his tricks were banal.”
Sagan’s eyes glanced into the air. David only said that the holy water would unravel the demon’s poison in the child’s body. Yet Sagan was thinking more than that. Even if David told the Emperor the truth, he could still buy time.
The poison in Sarah’s puff actually had nothing to do with Adrian. It was just a labyrinth designed by Sagan to trick Fabian. It was a tactic because he knew his nephew’s suspicious nature very well.
“The Emperor will follow the trail of poison that doesn’t exist in his son’s body, through the Paladin’s holy water.”
“The Paladin knight will pay for this crime.” Gale spoke as though he had read Sagan’s mind.
“This has nothing to do with the Metis family. Even if his beloved child was killed, the cause wasn’t just one … wasn’t the misfortune that happened to his child due to overlapping coincidences?*.”
Sagan was still a human being. People saw him as a worldly and arrogant man, but personally, he was an arrogant man who cared for his children and loved them.
That’s why he actually didn’t have the heart to hurt Adrian. Furthermore, that child was still his blood relative, who had Metis blood, which Sagan greatly exalted.
“Duke is right. It’s just a coincidence.”
Sagan wanted to justify his actions through Gale’s mouth. His work was done now, and that little Prince wouldn’t be able to survive during the process of poison investigation, and everything was coincidence and fate.
Sagan also acknowledged that Monica, his sister, would also be under suspicion, and her life was at risk. But according to Metis’ teachings, this was a punishment for a person who had abandoned her family.
“The Emperor has been suspecting too many people.”
Just like his predecessors, all the Emperors from the previous generation. All the Imperial Council members were doubted and suspected by Fabian, who continually trampled upon the nobles, compelled them to obey him, and treated them like barking dogs.
“He ought not to have done that. At least …… he shouldn’t do that to the Metis family who gave birth to him.”
Sagan wanted to give him a lesson. Until he realized that the only ones left were the Metis family. Even if he lost his sister-Empress, Sagan would soon get the next Empress and the Imperial’s successor.
“His suspicion that has always strangled us would kill his own child now.”
Having once crossed the forbidden line, human beings will be turned into frightening figures, which Sagan experienced now. Since its descent, throughout the history of the Empire, the Metis family had been a monster destined to confront the Emperor.
***
Several hours after midnight, the residence of the Empress Dowager was hit by a racket.
The Black Hawk Knights, led by Serus, began to rummage and hold all the residents in custody without exception.
“What are you doing? This is where the Empress stays!”
Sarah, the maid of honor, came forward and firmly prevented the rummage, but nobody listened to her.
“I can’t let you pass! This is Her Highness’s residence, how dare you !”
While the maids and servants were being dragged out helplessly, Serus caught up with the rest of the knights and showed up. Sarah recognized his face, and she knew that something was wrong, but she couldn’t stay still.
“Sir Serus, this is the residence of Her Highness Empress Dowager.”
But Serus pushed Sarah unexpectedly, “I know.”
“This is my Palace.”
Monica, who was annoyed, glared at the knights who searched her bedroom. Monica had an authority equal to Fabian, but the Black Hawk Knights, including Serus, couldn’t postpone their work for even a moment.
“What’s going on?” Monica surprisingly asked in a calm and dignified voice
“Her Highness Empress, you must come with us right now.”
“I asked what was going on.”
“That’s what His Majesty will ask you.”
Monica’s brows furrowed at the intimidation terms she didn’t like.
But she wasn’t a foolish woman. She was the former-Empress. If the Emperor’s knights ransacked his own mother’s residence, it would have meant that a horrible circumstance had arisen. This invasion could not have happened without a strong excuse.
“Fine.”
Monica answered briefly. She could see behind Serus the messy Southern’s hall and her servants being dragged out.
Most of them were courtiers who worked in her Palace, and the rest who weren’t her people.
“I did nothing.” Monica said clearly, knowing she was accused of something.
“This is not a problem that I can judge. I’m only following His Majesty’s orders. Please forgive my rudeness.”
“You’re a knight so I won’t run away. But I can’t just throw my dignity away.”
“His orders are to take you no matter what.”
“Choose, if I will be guided directly by you, or if I will cut my throat here.”
Serus looked puzzled and had difficulty answering. Monica was, however, serious when she said that because her voice had no shred of doubt.
“We don’t have time. I’ll give you five minutes to prepare.”
“It’s Enough. Sarah, come here and help me to dress up.”
Monica wasn’t at all shaken by her sudden situation. Five minutes later, she strolled out gracefully, perfectly dressed.
“I’m done.” Her voice was really serene as if nothing happened.
“Then, I’ll guide you, Your Highness.”
Serus also paid tribute to the dignity. Aside from her status, her pride as an Empress deserved respect from a knight like him.
“You don’t need to bring the maids and servants, they aren’t my people. In exchange, I’m taking Sarah with me. She’s my person, so you’ll have to investigate her whatever the charges are.”
“That’s too, His Majesty is the one who will judge it.”
Serus gave a fixed answer, and Sarah stood upright next to Monica, proving her loyalty.
“Let’s go, we really don’t have time to delay anymore.”
Monica nodded her head and took a step. She encountered something like this for the first time since entering the Imperial Palace.
A situation that had never appeared in history and which she had never studied how to deal with it before.
But she realized anyone who took a step like this had never returned.
“Let’s go.”
Knowing that, still, her steps didn’t falter a bit.
***
Even Evelyn couldn’t calm Fabian’s anger.
Rebecca couldn’t find anything suspicious in the Empress’ palace. While Nora and Hans summarized what happened today as well as Adrian’s routine lately and reported it to Fabian.
Once his mother’s name was listed, Evelyn clearly saw how Fabian’s face froze like ice, and the fear of bad omen swept over her.
“Your Majesty…… for Empress-mother, she was in my sight. Nothing… nothing suspicious…..”
“So, is there anything else? Hans, you confess!”
“The only thing that was different from usual was the Empress’s visit.”
Hans was a guileless scholar, so he only told the statistical facts.
“Then, how!?”
Fabian could no longer control his emotions. He kicked his chair and stood up.
Fabian struggled to gulp down his breath and held back his uncontrollable rage. He would have drawn the sword in his waist if Evelyn hadn’t been there.
“Your Majesty!”
Evelyn followed Fabian’s back, but Fabian raised a hand to stop her before she could catch him.
“Don’t come any closer.”
His icy-hoarse voice and his grim back seemed like someone Evelyn didn’t know.
“Your Majesty, please listen to me. I’m….”
“Stop.”
Fabian’s voice froze the air. It was only then that Evelyn knew who the man was in front of her.
Only
“Neither judgment nor decision.”
It was a sight of a person who Evelyn knew well.
“Everything…I decide.”
The cold back she had always seen throughout her previous life was now in front of her.
Evelyn’s hand stopped in the air. She couldn’t get to him anymore as she already knew who he was.
The name of the man was Fabian. The sole Emperor of this Empire.
And a cold husband, who never looked back at Evelyn.
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