Chapter 3
It turns out Empress Philemia had been sickly.
When Artius killed Cheron and displayed her corpse to Heilan, the Empress went into early labor and was on the verge of death.
Artius, who had been relieved thinking it was all over after beheading Cheron, his war demon and worthy foe, rushed back to the palace upon hearing the news of the Empress’s critical condition, urging the exhausted mages.
As soon as Artius arrived at the palace, what he heard was the loud wailing of a baby, as if lamenting something tragic.
At that, Artius harbored a faint hope, but what actually greeted him was the cold corpse of the Empress.
‘To think the Empress would also die in childbirth on the day I died, there’s no coincidence like this.’
He had beheaded his longtime foe and achieved victory.
But at the same time, he had also lost his most beloved.
All that was left to him was the single child that had devoured the Empress and been born.
The will of his foe asking him to be a good father to the child had no place in the mind of him who hadn’t wanted a child in the first place.
‘I wondered if he had suddenly been hit in the head with something, but there was a good reason for it.’
Since they were never on close enough terms to share family matters, this was the first time Elonia was hearing about it here.
So that was why, despite their good relationship, they hadn’t had a child for 5 years.
‘…So he hadn’t hoped for a child from the beginning.’
Because there were rumors of him being a family man, she had just arbitrarily misunderstood.
Still, that winter after the fourth ceasefire when news came of the child being conceived.
Recalling his face when they met after the war began again, he must have prepared to welcome the child in his own way.
Artius’s misfortune was something everyone knew.
His mother had died in childbirth while giving birth to his younger sibling, and even the sibling that barely survived didn’t last a year before passing away along with his father due to illness.
Artius had been left alone from a young age.
‘So was that why he had an especially strong attachment to family?’
Artius sincerely loved Empress Philemia and dreamed of creating a peaceful family with her where no one would die until the very end.
However, right before that earnest wish could be fulfilled with the war’s end.
As if the gods were mocking him, the Empress passed away while giving birth to their child.
The fact that Artius left the newborn Elonia and went to attack Heilan’s allied nations was, in a way, a good thing for Elonia.
It gave Artius time to cool his anger, and thanks to that, Elonia was able to extend her life by at least half a year.
Even after learning the full story of why the imperial couple hadn’t shown themselves before her for half a year, Elonia felt conflicted.
‘I died so you could live well, so why are you being like this…?’
In her past life, she and Artius had considered each other enemies, but after crossing swords for 5 years, there was an unexpected feeling of internal familiarity.
However, the reason she had asked him to behead her wasn’t simply because of that shallow internal familiarity.
It was because Artius had been a wise ruler who thought of everyone’s peace and happiness rather than the flimsy bond with the enemy nation’s war demon, so she had thought she could willingly give him her life.
In any case, there was no longer a war demon.
They had achieved peace on the continent, so she thought everyone would be able to live well with bright faces, but Artius looked even more exhausted than during the war with Heilan.
‘Well, the war with Heilan was indeed long, to begin with.’
But then he started another war without any rest, so of course he would be exhausted.
Elonia felt bad for him.
The momentary anger at him betraying her promise soon gave way to pity at him living after losing everything.
But at the same time, she did resent him.
‘I thought I’d live comfortably in this life, but apparently not.’
She maintained her luxurious lifestyle.
No matter how coldly Artius treated her, she was still the only imperial heir.
She could enjoy the things she was supposed to have in abundance.
But that was it.
‘In this life too, it seems I can’t be loved by my parents.’
She had harbored a vain hope that it might not all be an act, but it soon shattered.
Because Elonia was so distraught that she couldn’t even eat well, brave Sarah went to report it directly, but Sarah returned dispirited.
From what Elonia overheard while pretending to sleep, it seemed Artius was adamant about never receiving reports on trivial matters regarding Elonia.
‘He said he would behead anyone who made unnecessary reports unless it was a matter of life and death.’
Elonia was the only imperial heir, and Artius had no intention of taking another wife.
That was the reason he kept Elonia alive.
Thus, Elonia was very lonely, sucking on a milk bottle and feeling severe despair in this luxurious nursery.
Thinking about this made Elonia angry again.
‘Hah… To think I voluntarily died for that bastard? Go die, Cheron. Do you have no eye for judging people?’
Far from keeping his promise, Artius was shattering the hard-won peace on the continent with his own hands and grinding it to dust.
Elonia’s emotions rapidly shifted between anger and sympathy.
Elonia combatively sucked on the milk bottle and then popped it out of her mouth with a “Keu~” sound.
“Full!”
“Yes, that’s right. Our princess ate her food well, you did very well.”
Even though she had merely eaten, Sarah couldn’t stop smiling as if Elonia was so lovely.
Although her appetite had plummeted right after facing him, overhearing that conversation made her so angry that she couldn’t bear it without eating something.
Not knowing what Elonia was thinking, Sarah was just happy that Elonia was finally eating and even lifted her up in her arms and swayed her.
“Who does our princess take after to be so lovely?”
“Sahah!”
“Oh my, really? I’m so happy, Princess.”
Sarah lightly rubbed their foreheads together.
Elonia put the milk bottle back in her mouth.
When Elonia completely emptied the milk bottle, Sarah changed her hold and patted Elonia’s back.
“Now, Princess. If you ate deliciously, you need to digest.”
‘Ah, no…!’
Although her body had become a baby’s, Elonia’s mind remained the same, and she found this act and diaper changes to be the most humiliating.
“Ugh, kua…”
“Oh my, how cute. Our princess really can do anything, can’t she? Well done, our lovely princess.”
‘No, stop… It’s embarrassing, so stop…’
Elonia swallowed tears of humiliation.
‘Sarah likes everything I do, but still, this feels like my dignity as a human is being damaged…’
In fact, she couldn’t even do it if it weren’t in front of Sarah.
Elonia didn’t want to show this humiliating side of herself to the other maids, so whenever a maid other than Sarah tried to touch her, she would cry like crazy.
It was through such tearful efforts that Elonia was able to limit revealing her humiliating appearance to the minimum number of people.
After rocking her in her arms for a while, Sarah put Elonia down in the cradle.
“Sahah.”
“Yes, Princess. Sarah is right here.”
I’m not going anywhere.
Sarah whispered like that.
Everyone in the palace knew that the Empress had hoped for the child the most.
But Artius had stubbornly insisted that while he loved the Empress, he disliked children, causing difficulties for many.
Then, when he returned to the palace during the ceasefire in the fourth winter, he finally had a change of heart and conceived the child.
And he began to show affection for the child.
But now that the Empress had died, he resented the barely surviving child and left the little bundle to go wage war.
The kindhearted maids of the palace discreetly expressed their anger at such an emperor and took devoted care of the baby princess.
Among them, the affectionate touch Sarah showed was even more special.
“The princess really takes after Philemia. …I miss her.”
Sarah muttered while patting Elonia’s belly.
There was a separate reason for her devotion to the princess who couldn’t even receive the emperor’s favor.
It was because of the will of Elonia’s mother, Empress Philemia Asta Ravanta.
Empress Philemia and Sarah had been close friends.
Even before having a child, Philemia had consistently entrusted Elonia to Sarah.
It was a story Sarah had told her once.
Perhaps Philemia had sensed her own death long ago.
‘Everything is ill-fated, so ill-fated.’
Empress Philemia’s reputation had been very good.
The empress who had melted the ice-cold heart of Artius, who had been known to be cold to women, with her warm sunshine.
If she had been alive, she might have become Elonia’s new mother.
However, she was already dead, and everything had spiraled into catastrophe due to Artius’s anger.
‘I’ve had enough of a life that isn’t smooth-sailing.’
She had already experienced a troubled family life to the point of being sick of it in her previous life.
Elonia, who had already lost her birth mother twice, wanted to escape this catastrophe somehow.
If Artius remained in that state, Elonia might end up living a life no different from her previous one.
‘I didn’t want to be reborn just to be reborn, so I should at least live comfortably to not feel wronged.’
Elonia thought concretely about the emperor assassination plan she had pledged before.
There were only two imperial family members of this era.
Just Artius and Elonia.
Artius did have a younger sister, but she died before turning one, so Elonia was the only heir to the throne.
‘…Ah, but since I’m the only heir, it would just increase the bothersome matters if I killed the emperor.’
Elonia had no interest in the emperor’s position or whatever.
There was only one thing she wanted. Just a peaceful and smooth life.
Not a thick and short life, but a thin life of moderate length.
Not a life of only strength, but a life of only weakness.
‘Killing him and running away is a bit much.’
As mentioned repeatedly, she was currently the only heir.
‘People would be quite flustered if I, the only heir, killed the emperor and ran away, right?’
Not only flustered.
There would be great chaos.
The process of running away wouldn’t be smooth, and even if she did run away, people would be desperate to find her as the only heir.
At that moment, a good idea flashed through Elonia’s mind.
‘But what if another heir is born?’
Who cares about the dead empress’s child.
There would also be a successor to replace Elonia, so even if the emperor died, it wouldn’t be that troublesome.
Artius had declared that he would no longer take an empress.
But how long would that last?
Currently, the empress’s position was vacant.
Would the nobles just sit still and watch the empty empress’s seat?
‘Absolutely not.’
They would forcibly push their daughters into the emperor’s bedchamber.
Then, even Artius would eventually find a woman to give his heart to, and that woman would become the empress and give birth to a new heir.
Even if the new empress tried to torment or kill her, she could endure and survive.
Elonia already had a history of tenaciously surviving as the daughter of a slave-born concubine despite the queen’s persecution in the Heilan royal palace.
‘When that time comes, no one will say anything even if I run away.’
Rather, they would be grateful that she disappeared on her own before they could step forward to kill her.
It was a win-win strategy.
‘The biggest reason that bastard changed is Empress Philemia’s death.’
In other words, what the current tyrant needed most was a woman to fill Philemia’s empty spot.
It wouldn’t be too late for Elonia to personally kill Artius with her own hands even after abandoning her position as royalty.
Elonia’s emperor assassination plan changed to a palace escape plan.
‘Artius. Remarry.’
And the first goal for that was to get Artius remarried.
‘It seems like it will be a bit difficult, but it’s better than giving up without even trying.’
Artius had deeply loved Philemia.
So she didn’t expect Philemia’s empty spot to be filled quickly.
But she wanted to hold onto the hope that Artius still had a bit of kindness left in him.
That kind of guilt-ridden kindness of thinking he should find a new mother for the princess who lost her own.
And it would be even better if he created a new empress and a new child, and poured all his love only onto that child.
‘That way, I can run away well, build up my strength, and then sever his neck.’
Elonia smiled at the thought of cutting off his head.
For a plan thought up in a day, it was quite perfect.
Thus, a few days later.
“Did you hear? They say there’s already a woman who snuck into His Majesty’s bedchamber.”
“What?”
At midday with warm sunlight streaming in.
Elonia pretended to sleep and listened to the palace scandal the maids were gossiping about.
To think there was already a brave young lady who attempted such a thing.
From Elonia’s perspective, it was an overwhelming thanks.
However.
“But apparently her head was cut off on the spot.”
…The end of that scandal was a beheading.