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Chapter – 33
Siegfried’s Secret (1)
A few days later, one morning in the Empress’s palace.
Inside the tightly locked private chamber, there were only two people: Josephine and Harriet.
“Harriet, you’ve done something remarkable,”
Josephine said, letting out a sigh of relief as she praised her.
“How did you manage to wake him and bring him back safely without even using divine power?”
Harriet, however, looked as though something was bothering her.
“Your Majesty, I am honored. However, I was not the one who woke Prince Siegfried.”
“What do you mean…?”
“Before that, there is something I must confess truthfully.”
Before Josephine could ask again, Harriet immediately lowered herself to the floor and prostrated herself.
“I beg your forgiveness, Your Majesty. In truth, I intended to use force on Prince Siegfried if necessary in order to wake him.”
“What?”
The fingertips of Josephine’s hand, which had been resting against her chair, went cold.
“I did not go there without any plan from the start.”
Harriet rummaged in her clothes and took something out, then offered it to Josephine with both hands.
Josephine accepted the pouch Harriet handed her and loosened the tightly tied opening.
“What is this?”
“A pill made from a unicorn’s horn.”
“A unicorn?”
Josephine thought Harriet was telling an outrageous lie to get herself out of the situation.
A unicorn’s horn.
Appearing only at specific times and places, the unicorn was a divine beast of the gods, and its horn was considered the ultimate medicinal ingredient—even among healers—a panacea that cured all illnesses.
How could Harriet possibly possess such a miracle drug?
“My father was a herbalist who traveled the six continents on foot,”
Harriet said, once again bowing low as she began to explain her hidden past.
“That elixir is a family heirloom passed down through generations of herbalists in my family. Though my father could not use it on himself when he fell ill…”
Her voice seemed to crack slightly as she spoke.
“He left it to me as his only keepsake, telling me to use it someday when I truly needed it.”
Josephine listened to Harriet’s words while examining the pill inside the pouch.
At a glance, it looked like a pearl, but whenever light touched it, it shimmered with soft, iridescent colors.
“But the fact that this medicine is still in my hand means…”
Before being distracted by the legendary elixir, Josephine grasped one crucial fact.
“So Siegfried woke up without ever taking this medicine.”
“Yes,”
Harriet replied, her gaze still fixed on the floor.
“It seems Prince Siegfried was never poisoned in the first place.”
Harriet could never forget the foul, damp air of that day.
In the dark, humid underground prison, there had been one space where light lingered.
Yet Siegfried—who should have been lying there in a coma—had vanished without a trace.
The moment Harriet entered the passage leading to the prison, she smelled blood.
Inside the prison lay several bodies, presumed to be guards and palace attendants, sprawled everywhere in Siegfried’s absence.
Without even approaching them, Harriet knew instinctively.
They had just died.
Sensing that something was terribly wrong, she heightened her guard and stepped inside.
All the guards and attendants were already dead, and the prison lock had been smashed, allowing easy access.
Despite the bodies scattered about, the interior of the prison was strangely clean.
Only the smoke rising from the brazier felt different than usual.
A faint, half-burned scent clung ominously to Harriet’s nose.
“Where are you?”
She sharpened her senses and stepped over the corpses toward the empty bed.
But no matter how closely she examined the area, there was no way to tell when Siegfried had awakened or how he had escaped.
“To leave so little trace…”
A chill ran down her spine.
All that remained was the fact that he had struck down the intruders and disappeared—nothing indicated where he had fled.
He had slaughtered people so brutally, yet left behind no trace of himself.
By her common sense, it was impossible.
“Then…”
Harriet considered the possibility that Siegfried had not fled at all and was still nearby.
Leaving the prison wide open like a trap, hiding somewhere, waiting to catch the mice foolish enough to wander in.
Whoosh—
At that moment, she heard the sound of air being sliced precisely from a diagonal angle.
Clang!
Harriet barely managed to block the sword swung from behind by Siegfried, who had appeared out of nowhere.
“A palace maid carrying a real blade,”
Siegfried’s chilling, beautiful voice crawled over Harriet’s shoulder as he emerged wrapped in shadow.
“And skill enough to block my sword, even once.”
“Tch.”
Harriet used the dagger she had just used to parry his attack and struck back at his sword.
Clang, clang, screech—
The decorative sword hanging in the prison and the arm-length dagger collided several times, producing sharp, ringing sounds.
“Ah!”
But in the end, Harriet was still a woman.
Before long, Siegfried overpowered her, forcing her to allow his sword to press against her throat.
He kicked away the dagger she had dropped, sending it far off, and asked,
“Who are you? Why would the Empress’s maid sneak all the way here alone like a thief? Are you fearless?”
With her arms pinned behind her back, Harriet shouted,
“Prince Siegfried, why did you deceive Her Majesty when you were never poisoned to begin with?”
“What?”
“I know everything. You still haven’t taken the antidote that arrived this morning.”
At those words, Siegfried’s grip on her arms wavered for a moment. Harriet seized the opportunity.
“I am the daughter of a herbalist. I can tell just from the scent mixed in the air that you’ve been dumping the antidote into the brazier every day.”
Siegfried neither panicked nor expressed admiration.
Instead, he pressed the blade even closer to her slender neck.
“You look like you want to ask what trick I’m playing. Should I tell you why?”
“It’s simple. I don’t need it.”
A decisive, murderous intent flashed in Siegfried’s crimson eyes.
“And you have even less reason to know.”
Harriet understood instinctively.
This beast with red eyes would never let anyone who learned his secret live.
Just before the blade, held at a slant in his hand, could cut her throat—
As a final act of desperation, Harriet thrashed her body violently on purpose.
Thud.
Something fell from her clothes.
Siegfried did not miss it. Holding her firmly, he slowly bent down and picked it up.
“Everyone else brought poison or sleeping drugs. Let’s see what you came with.”
With that ominous remark, he turned the pouch upside down and poured its contents onto the bed sheet.
“…!”
What spilled out was a pearl-like pill, shimmering with multiple colors atop the white fabric.
Siegfried’s expression subtly changed.
“Could it be… a unicorn’s horn?”
He recognized it instantly.
That the pill was an elixir made from the horn of a unicorn—the divine companion of the gods, known across all nations.
“Why do you have this?”
In the end, he had no choice but to release Harriet.
Thus, through quick thinking at the brink of death, Harriet managed to escape her fatal predicament.
“So Siegfried was facing assassination attempts by poisoning?”
Josephine found it hard to believe any of what Harriet had told her.
That he had tried to kill Harriet because of it was even harder to accept.
“And yet the prince said he had no need for this medicine and refused to take it,”
Harriet said.
Josephine nodded.
“So seeing this made him trust you. That’s why the two of you were able to return together.”
She personally helped Harriet up from where she had been bowing.
“You’ve done well. You worked very hard.”
Harriet slowly rose, maintaining a posture of deep respect.
For the first time, a sharp note of caution flickered across the face that was usually expressionless.
“I humbly beg your pardon, Your Majesty. It would be wise not to keep Prince Siegfried too close at hand.”
