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#8. The Tyrant Shows No Mercy
Douglas knelt neatly.
Even in a posture of submission he did not look at all servile — which was a strange thing.
“Elizabeth is a benefactor of my house,” he said.
“And?” Nikolai replied.
“Miss Elizabeth does not wish to marry Your Majesty. I beg you to take the sacred token and consider her wishes.”
Nikolai gave a short, soft chuckle.
The corner of his mouth pulled up into a grin.
It was the most chilling smile I had ever seen.
Was this the same charming playboy who smiled so brightly? Not a tyrant — a murderer. Douglas, run!
Cold sweat clung to my palms, but Douglas’s expression did not change.
That seemed to twist Nikolai’s temper further.
“The imperial edict was bestowed not upon you, but on that woman.”
“Your Majesty!”
“The right to defy the throne belongs only to the Nettleton family — the owners of the sacred token. That woman you broke your engagement with has no right whatsoever.”
“B-but—!”
“Bring the Empress into the bedchamber!”
The guard knights seized me.
Their grip was so strong my eyebrows involuntarily drew together.
“Let go!”
“Do not resist. You will be hurt.”
A bluish fury crept across Nikolai’s handsome face.
“What are you doing?” he snapped at the knights, as if angry they had failed to remove me quickly enough.
“Elizabeth!”
Douglas reached out his hand toward me.
I wanted to take his hand back.
“Sir Douglas!”
But the knights would not allow it.
Nor would the emperor.
“If you wish to live with your body whole, do not act rashly,” Nikolai said, spitting the words.
A lethal chill emanated from him.
Douglas did not flinch; he held the box with the sacred token aloft with both hands.
“Accept the honor and loyalty of House Nettleton,” he said.
“Will you defy me to the very end?” Nikolai asked.
“If I, by my will, were to marry Elizabeth, would that not give her the right to oppose the throne?”
“!”
“I, Douglas Nettleton, here and now take Elizabeth Emster as my wife!”
Silence fell like cold water poured over everyone.
The nobles, aghast, stared at the young head of the fallen marquisate.
Douglas’s brown eyes — once soft and tender as freshly baked bread — now held an unshakeable resolve.
He had not brought the token; he had brought himself, prepared to die.
He had come solely to save me from the hands of the tyrant Nikolai.
“I brought a marriage contract. Please grant us leave to wed.”
As if his resolve alone might not be enough, Douglas produced a neatly folded sheet of paper.
My eyes widened.
It was the marriage contract the original Elizabeth had once written five years ago to torment Douglas.
“Beg on your knees, Dougie. I might accidentally notarize this.” After that humiliation, he had kept the contract?
What had he felt while waiting for Elizabeth all this time?
What had Elizabeth meant to him?
For someone like me who had never known romance or love, it was a problem too difficult and terrifying to unpack.
“Hahaha!” Nikolai burst into loud laughter at the edge of that suffocating silence.
Yet his teal eyes were colder than ever — flashing like a steel blade.
I sensed danger instinctively.
Nikolai had fully shed his Casanova mask.
“There’s no law against remarrying someone you once broke off an engagement with. But I never lose the woman I want.”
“Your Majesty!”
“Did you think this scrap of paper could stop me?”
Nikolai ripped the marriage contract to shreds.
Douglas’s earnestness fluttered away on the floor like confetti.
Despair crossed his composed face for a moment, but he did not give up.
“Remember the promise made by the first emperor!” Douglas cried.
Nikolai picked up the box with the sacred token with an unreadable expression.
“Very well. I will accept the token.”
“You are too generous, Your Majesty.”
“I cannot recognize marriage to the House of Nettleton, but I will rescind the order to appoint an empress.”
“I will repay this favor with my life! I swear it as head of House Nettleton!”
“Do not forget that vow.”
Douglas’s shoulders slumped; the tension left him. The frozen nobles relaxed a little, relief showing on their faces.
But I could not rid myself of a gnawing unease.
As if sensing that, Nikolai’s mouth curled up.
It was the awful smile that explained why villains are villains.
Then his voice came.
“Instead, I will appoint Elizabeth Emster as Empress.”
“W-what did you say?!” someone cried.
“Surely there’s a distinction between an Empress consort and an Imperial Consort? If you wish to defy this order, go fetch another sacred token.” He flicked a finger as if to say, bring it at once.
Make me Empress? This man must be mad!
The shock, like an earthquake, rippled across the audience chamber.
The nobles trembled as if struck by lightning.
Nikolai was not satisfied yet.
His gaze shone with a dangerously keen light.
“If you want to be with Elizabeth that badly, I will give you a chance to serve the imperial household. You will sometimes have the opportunity to be presented to the Empress, won’t you?”
He spoke sarcastically, but the tyrant’s words landed like a winter frost and froze the heads of noble houses and influential men.
“Your Majesty, please—” someone started.
“Not enough? I will also grant the honor of serving the Emperor to your sister.”
“Y-Your Majesty!”
Douglas, pale as a corpse, sagged to his knees.
As they left the audience chamber, Nikolai added haughtily, “Prepare a splendid ceremony — the people have waited for an Empress. Make it a spectacle worthy of history.”
I was moved to a room somewhere within the palace.
Unlike the other intimidatingly lavish spaces, this one was decorated in bright whites and mints — fresh and airy.
The landscape paintings on the walls, the velour cushions with tassels, the silver candlesticks, and porcelain ornaments all felt harmonious and tasteful.
There was a bedroom, a dressing room, a bath, and a sitting room, so one could live comfortably.
A small garden attached to the terrace made it homier.
Though all sides were blocked by dense hawthorn hedges like a prison.
“The knights will guard day and night. Rest without worry,” they said.
The knights’ manners had grown noticeably polite.
After all, they were just gaolers watching over a prisoner.
A lock clicked at the door.
“Damn tyrant. What does he want to do with me?” My head throbbed.
So much had happened in such a short time.
This concerned not only me but also Douglas and Susan’s futures.
Guilt burned up whenever I pictured Douglas being dragged away, his back a pitiful sight.
Nikolai’s impassive face had looked down at him so coldly.
Had I ever felt such intense hostility before?
If anything, he was worse than in the source material.
In a fleeting moment I had thought he might be a decent man — that thought now filled me with regret.
I could not bear that he had kissed me, or that I had accepted that kiss on the back of my hand; the memories made me feel unbearably ashamed.
“First, let’s sort out the situation,” I said, sitting at a desk and picking up a pen.
There was much to do.
I could not simply play upon Nikolai’s palm.
Pressing down my anger and despair, I began to write.
-
The man is completely insane.
(Unfortunately, clever, though.) -
He intends to use me.
(Is he trying to entrap rebellious nobles?) -
The man shows no mercy.
(How can I save Douglas and Susan?)
The more I wrote, the bleaker it felt.
My second privilege might help, but there’s no guarantee.
It would be disastrous if Morasincia’s eyes were noticed by Nikolai; it felt like they would strip me to the bone.
I did not even know how to find another sacred token, or when my soul might vanish.
As I clicked my pen against my teeth, I heard rustling from the garden.
The hawthorn leaves — the hedging — whispered and trembled.
A cat? A mouse?
I leaned out toward the window.
“Who’s there?” I called.
Maybe the wind. No answer came.
I returned to my desk, but the feeling of being watched did not vanish.
I could feel a gaze on the back of my head.
Someone was definitely observing me.
“Oh, perhaps I was mistaken,” I said aloud, raising my voice on purpose.
When the watcher let down their guard, I leapt for the terrace — I would not tolerate a peeper spying on a woman’s room!
“Eek!”
The intruder screamed.
I nearly shrieked too.
The person who popped out was nothing like I had imagined.
“Your Majesty, you must retract your edict even now,” a loyal subject said with grave expression, but Nikolai remained composed.
“Did you not say you could not leave the position of Empress vacant?” he asked.
“Did you not intend to use Miss Elizabeth as a mere torch?” the man replied.
“A splendid torch, I’d say. I enjoyed the faces people made — especially the old men of the Four Great Houses,” Nikolai answered, sounding pleased.
Of course he knew the situation was far from simple.
The abduction to bring me into the palace and his provocations about making me Empress had been impulsive.
Strange anxieties often lead to impulsive behavior — he had not been able to restrain it.
Maybe it was his greed to possess Elizabeth as soon as possible.
“If this is no idle feint to flush the mice, it could blow up the ammunition depot itself. In that process, Miss Elizabeth would suffer too.”
“When did you start worrying about her?” Nikolai asked.
“She is truly admirable the more I see her.”
“What?”
Nikolai cut off Kares’s words.
Kares bowed lightly, as if simply thankful.
“I’m fine. May I speak further of Miss Elizabeth?”
“Stop.”
“You should also know her worth, Your Majesty — as I did.” A faint blush rose on Kares’s cheek.
Why is Kares, who only cares about duty, acting like this? He’s never shown private feelings — not even for a woman.
Nikolai stared at his loyalist, who seemed to be spouting nonsense, and then rang a little golden bell.
“Have you found him, Your Majesty?” a retainer asked briskly, approaching.
“Fetch the court physician. The minister of the interior is gravely ill.”
“What?”
“He’s likely wounded in the head. Make haste.”
“I will bring him at once!”
The retainer left. Kares’s expression turned serious.
“You said you planned to split the Four Great Houses using Miss Elizabeth?”
“And?”
“If you insist on crowning her as Empress, they will not split; they will unite and resist.”
“You mean the risk is greater than the reward?”
“They may do something even more dangerous.”
“For example?”
“What if they attempt to assassinate the prospective Empress?”
Ripples crossed Nikolai’s green eyes.
A cornered mouse will even bite a cat; and a mouse that believes itself a tiger may bare its claws and strike.
Would someone try to kill Elizabeth because of me? That someone in my imperial palace would take the life of what is mine?
A surge of blood-fire anger rose in me.
Nikolai clenched his fist.
“But I said I would not make Elizabeth my Empress.”
“You have accepted the token. You must keep your promise.”
“You cannot just send her out. She is already mine.”
“If there is a scheme to keep Miss Elizabeth in the palace without making her Empress—would that not do as well?”
“It would. It could even be unrelated to being Empress.”
Kares’s eyes sparkled.
He looked almost entranced, but Nikolai was very curious to hear what his loyal servant would propose.
