Lucas observed the Empress closely.
Senevere Taren Gurta was sitting at the top of a long banquet table, chatting casually with the eastern nobles. And the nobles who should be wary of the Empress were all listening to her every word as if they were fascinated.
Lucas, who was laughing at the amazing sight, turned his eyes to the woman sitting to the left of the Empress.
While the Empress was swirling around the hall with her dazzling charm, Thalia Roem Sheerkhan was silently tilting her glass of wine with an icy face. The stark contrast made his judgment uncomfortable.
'Why is that girl always so deadly?'
At first glance, they looked so similar that they could be believed, even though they were twins.
If Thalia had been as grim as an Empress, trying to captivate and bewitch people, perhaps no one in this castle could resist.
But the woman was always busy pushing away everyone who approached her, with her thorns raised like a hedgehog.
Still, for a while, she seemed to put in a lot of effort to act as an anti-duchess, and in the past few days, he hasn't even pretended to hang out with people. Even the nobles who had shown her favor had turned away from their cranes.
'Could it be that your health has deteriorated again?'
Lucas narrowed his eyes at the thought that suddenly came to him. Thalia Roem Sheerkhan looked paler than usual, staring only at the candle on the table with empty eyes.
She definitely looked sick somewhere.
Somehow nervous and shaking. Barcas suddenly entered the banquet hall.
Lucas tensed up without realizing it. Just by appearing, the excitement in the banquet hall seemed to freeze in an instant.
He wasn't the only one who felt that way, and everyone around the table watched the confrontation between the Empress and Barcas with nervous faces.
"It's so hard to see your face, I'm going to be a little embarrassed."
It was Senevere who first broke the strange silence in the hall.
The woman raised her wine glass and pursed her lips, looking disappointed.
"It's good to settle up with old colleagues you haven't seen in a long time, but also take care of me and my daughter."
"If I have made it uncomfortable for staying, I can only apologize."
Barcas, who had arrived at the table, calmly replied and sat down.
"In the meantime, quite a lot of things happened in the imperial palace. We talked about this and that, so we delayed time. Please forgive me."
The Empress's bone-in words brought an eerie, smooth smile to the corners of her mouth.
Lucas stuck out his tongue inwardly at that relaxed appearance.
The current Empress was as if she had entered the middle of enemy territory. In addition, half of the envoys who escorted her here were knights belonging to the Roem Knights. In short, the Empress was surrounded by political enemies. But how can she be so calm?
The Empress, whose eyes were curved in the shape of a crescent moon, said softly.
"I hope we had a meaningful conversation."
The uncomfortable silence weighed down the banquet hall again.
The Empress seemed well aware that Barcas was scrambling to stop her. Barcas didn't even think about hiding either.
Lucas looked at Thalia with a sidelong glance. She was biting her lip tightly, clutching the glass tightly with a firm face. He must have already heard that her husband was doing everything he could to save his former fiancée.
Lucas brought the glass to his mouth and glared at his brother's face, which he couldn't understand.
After his father's sarcophagus was buried in the mausoleum, he was officially appointed as an aide to Grand Duke Sheetkhan. Thanks to this, in recent weeks, he has been able to grasp the political trends of the Imperial palace as well as the East.
At present, a rift had begun to arise between the eastern and conservative aristocrats. And the northerners were trying to squeeze in through the gap.
The problem was that their ambition was not simply to expand their political influence.
The Baltic people had recently increased their military power and were gaining power at an unusual rate.
But that's not all. It was even captured that they were secretly collecting military funds through various tops.
If their goal was Balto's Independence, in the worst case, Ayla Roem Guirta could have been reduced to a hostage to pressure the imperial family. The new marriage of the 1st Princess is likely to be the spark that will cause the division of the empire.
Therefore, Barcas put off the work of the Grand Duke and devoted all his efforts to persuading the Crown Prince and the conservative aristocracy.
'If my brother had married Ayla Roem Guirta from the beginning, there would have been no problem.'
Lucas grumbled inwardly.
If Barcas had kept his loyalty to the Crown Prince instead of succumbing to the Emperor's pressure, he would not have been as busy as he is now.
Raedgo would have been more friendly than it is now.
Perhaps Raina also endured her father's death better.
Ayla Roem Guirta is a lady with a gentle personality and is well-known, so she must have taken good care of her.
Thalia would not have openly hurt herself in a strange land.
'No, it doesn't matter if that woman gets hurt or not.'
Lucas hurriedly put the brakes on his thoughts.
The only thing he had to care about was the Sheerkan family and Raina. The Empress and her daughter were only a threat to the East.
Lucas, who had calmed down his disturbed heart, quietly left the banquet hall. As he kept watching the cold brother, the fox-like Empress, and the ghostly pale sister-in-law, my head felt like it was about to explode.
He tugged at the frustrated doublet's collar and ran across the hall.
He already missed the days when he rode horses through the fields without any worries. He felt sympathy for his brother, who had suffered from such troublesome things all his life.
He rubbed his stiff nape and looked down at Pawn through the hallway window.
'Do you want to see Turgan?'
As he kneaded his stiff muscles, remembering the horse that had already been left unattended this week. He saw the shadows of the two people standing on one side of the patron.
Even though the servants wandering around the backyard were nothing more than an ordinary sight, Lucas stopped and looked at them.
A woman with a familiar face was talking to a young man who seemed to be an envoy with a serious expression. It was only a long time later that Lucas was able to remember that the woman was Thalia Roem Guirta's exclusive healer.
'Are you originally acquainted?'
He tilted his head.
Judging from his attire, the man looked like an attendant of the Empress.
The healer was also from the Tarren family, so it wasn't particularly strange if she met someone she knew among the Empress's entourage. Even so, a strange sense of in congruity grabbed the back of his head.
"What are you doing in a place like this?"
He watched the shape of their mouths pierce, and a thick voice came from behind him.
Lucas turned his head. Tyrone, loosely draped in a black satin tunk, was walking down the long hallway. It seemed like he had been chasing him out of the banquet hall without saying a word.
He opened his mouth to explain what he had just seen. Then, remembering that it was a sight that had no reason to be suspicious, he closed his mouth again.
When he turned his eyes to the window, the two of them had already disappeared. Lucas, who was looking at the garden with a sullen expression, shook his head as if it wasn't a big deal.
"It's nothing."
***
The Imperial envoy stayed for exactly a week and then left.
I, who was sitting on the windowsill watching the procession move away, immediately lowered the curtains.
Senevere repeatedly asked me to obey my wishes even before leaving. I did not answer, but the Empress was sure that I would not disobey her orders.
Do you know? You may not be completely sure. She left with a full blow of wind on her faithful followers.
"You must spend the night tonight."
The nanny took out a piece of translucent cloth that the Empress had given me as a gift from the chest and said in a stubborn tone.
"Now that the funeral is over, there's no reason to postpone it any longer."
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