[12] Chapter 2. The Desired Form (5)
“By the way, regarding that imperial illegitimate child, there’s a high possibility that they don’t exist.”
Not long after Fernciana had finished washing up, Ilyas came with a tray full of food. It seemed he was being considerate of Fernciana, who had minor injuries all over her body.
As he set the table on the round table in the room and started spreading butter on the bread, Ilyas took a sip of water and opened his mouth. Fernciana, who was stuffing a piece of bread into her mouth, blinked her eyes.
“Don’t exist?”
“Yes. First of all, it goes without saying that there can’t be any illegitimate children from Orchid Empress’s side, and even from the Emperor’s side…”
“There can’t be any illegitimate children from the Empress’s side?”
Fernciana, who was spreading jam on the remaining bread, tilted her head and asked, and Ilyas, who was drinking a glass of water, opened his eyes wide in surprise.
“Did you live on some island?”
Ilyas asked mercilessly, causing Fernciana’s eyebrows to twitch once more. Ilyas first clasped the back of his head with both hands and opened his mouth again.
“Since she passed away 16 years ago, there obviously can’t be any after that, and even before that, both princes she gave birth to greatly resembled the Emperor.”
“Ah, she died?”
“Yes. …Didn’t you know this? Where did you really live, on an island or something? No, nevermind. Ahem. Anyway, the Emperor’s love for the Empress was truly extraordinary, so even now, he hasn’t taken a new Empress. Of course, it’s not like there’s no benefit to showing the public a faithful image to his first wife, but apart from that, the Emperor has never had a mistress either. The possibility is slim.”
“I see…”
Fernciana glared at the rye bread in her hand and slowly mulled over Ilyas’s words.
There was a high possibility that there were no illegitimate children. The marital relationship between the Emperor and Empress was very good, and the Empress died of illness 16 years ago.
In that case…
‘Could it just be someone who looks extremely similar?’
Then what about Seollim’s last words to find the Emerald Tabula from the Emperor?
Could such a coincidence exist? Seollim left a dying wish to go to the imperial family, and her mother disappeared, but she saw a portrait in the palace that seemed to depict her mother…
‘If I haven’t gone back to the past, but it’s just a dream…’
However, Fernciana felt that it was just her own wishful thinking. Fernciana slowly blinked her eyes and swallowed her tears back inside.
“Anyway, I’ll look into it again once we reach the capital, but I’m telling you not to have too much hope.”
Ilyas said that and took back the bread in Fernciana’s hand. The bread had been tightly squeezed in her hand, and it was no longer in a shape that could be eaten.
“Ah, ung…”
“After finishing the meal, let’s apply fresh ointment.”
“Ugh.”
Fernciana, who had been contemplating what Ilyas said, came to her senses with a start. Ilyas was looking at her with a mischievous expression. Come to think of it, ointment, bandages, and disinfectant were displaying their presence on one side of the side table. Fernciana shook her head with a desperate expression.
“I’m all healed.”
“How can wounds from this afternoon be all healed?”
“No, really. I’m serious!”
“If you’re all healed, it’s no big deal to just apply it one more time, right?”
Come on, your big brother will apply it for you, so don’t worry and eat up! Ilyas smiled brightly and pushed a newly sliced bread, soup, chop steak, and salad in front of Fernciana.
*
Fernciana blinked and looked up at the ceiling. Of course, it was a lie that the wounds had healed, and Ilyas firmly held onto Fernciana, who was trying to escape.
There was no trace of the joking atmosphere from dinner on Ilyas’s face, so in the end, Fernciana had to obediently stay put while whimpering that it hurt, with tears in her eyes.
After exerting herself to the point where everything she ate was digested, perhaps due to fatigue, she fell asleep on the spot. When she opened her eyes, it was the middle of the night.
Fernciana slowly turned her head and looked to the side. On the bed next to her, Ilyas was asleep. The sound of his steady breathing could be heard faintly.
‘Did Ilyas move me?’
She was sitting on a rocking chair on one side of the room, but when she opened her eyes, she was on the bed. There was no one else to move her except Ilyas. Fernciana turned her head back to the ceiling.
Faint starlight entered through the curtains, touching the chandelier on the ceiling before passing by. Fernciana slowly blinked her eyes. She couldn’t tell if her mood was sinking or if her physical condition was poor. It was even more so because there was a plausible reason for either case.
‘The Orchid Empress died 16 years ago…’
But did she really die? What’s the possibility that the Empress is someone else? Could that Empress possibly be…?
It should have been a ridiculous, absurd imagination, but she couldn’t just dismiss it like that. Her head was dizzy. Her age was seventeen this year. If she counted the years, it roughly matched.
‘Could it be that they announced she died because the Empress couldn’t have left the palace?’
It was a possible story. It also became an understandable link to how the Emerald Tabula, said to be passed down through generations of the imperial family, had been in the hands of her family until now. The possibility arose that it was passed down for some reason.
Above all, what she had seen in the “future” bothered her. The huge portrait hanging in the palace, the portrait that seemed to have copied her mother Elfi exactly. The two people she met there both initially called her the Empress when they saw her.
She herself knew well how much she resembled her mother, Elfi. The man who had called her mother when he saw her was probably one of the princes.
Since it was a face she had never seen before, there was a high probability that it was the second prince, who had not revealed himself to the public until then. Even the Ilyas she had met in the “future” had first called her the Empress at first glance…
‘Ah?’
Fernciana blinked her eyes as she thought about it.
‘Oh? Come to think of it…’
Ever since she first met Ilyas in Ronen, whenever he mentioned the Empress or the imperial family to her, it was always limited to topics she had asked about. He had never mentioned that she resembled them.
‘Huh?’
Even though her face hadn’t changed, Ilyas seemed to have no association between her and the imperial family at all.
‘Does he not know the Empress’s face? Does he not know yet?’
However, it was a slightly hard to accept assumption. Even if he generously estimated Ilyas’s age, he was in his early 20s at most. Considering that at that age, he knew about the Empress who died sixteen years ago and would become the crown prince’s closest confidant as a renowned information merchant in a few years, there was no way he wouldn’t know.
‘…What the…’
The more she thought about it and wracked her brain, the more incomprehensible it became. Fernciana got up with a drooping body. The wounds were stinging and painful, and after repeated contemplation, she couldn’t sleep at all. Since Ilyas was sleeping, she thought of quietly taking a bath and relieving her mood during this time.
The warm water, said to be drawn from a nearby hot spring, flowed out regardless of the time, so Fernciana filled the bathtub with warm water and soaked her body in it for a long time before getting up. As the warm air brushed against her heated body, a slight chill ran through her, and her body relaxed languidly.
Fernciana looked down at her own body, which had small scratches remaining. The most severe wounds were not on her body but on the hands that had held the sword, but thanks to Ilyas applying ointment relentlessly without mercy, they had improved a lot.
“I feel sleepy just from taking a bath…”
The dull pain in her body seemed to be from muscle aches as well. Didn’t she have an intense sparring session today without any warm-up beforehand? Tomorrow, she would really be dead, Fernciana muttered as she wiped her wet body with a towel. Then, at the moment she reached out to the underwear she had neatly taken off on one side of the bathroom…
“Huh…?”
Fernciana furrowed her brows as she lightly swept over her slightly aching lower abdomen. She was sure she had wiped off all the moisture, but she felt the sensation of liquid flowing down between her legs. She blinked her eyes. At that moment, a red mark dripped onto the floor.
Fernciana was stunned for a moment, not moving an inch. Then, she checked her entire body with her fingertips. However, none of the wounds were bleeding.
It was vaginal bleeding. Moreover, this dull pain in the lower abdomen was exactly what she had already felt dozens of times periodically in the “future”.
“Just a few more days and we’ll reach the capital…”
Fernciana made a tearful face. Her vision went dark. If there was one fortunate thing, it would be that Ilyas had noticed her gender. Even Ilyas would be flustered, but wouldn’t it be less disconcerting than hearing that a companion he thought was a man suddenly had worsened condition due to menstruation?
And as soon as Fernciana picked up her clothes from the bathroom and came out, she realized that her thought was wrong.