🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 3
Just as in the past, the palace was filled with Duke Avich’s people.
From the aide, Jan, to the servants, the chefs, and even the gardeners.
Among the people she encountered on her way to the bedroom, not a single one was unconnected to Duke Avich.
“To see Your Majesty here in the royal palace… I, Lil, am truly moved to tears. Since this is your home after a long twelve years, please rest deeply today without a single worry.”
‘Of course, even Lil, the maid who shared my life in the Empire, is the Duke’s person, so this shouldn’t be surprising.’
Lethe’s eyes grew coldly sunken as she looked at Lil.
The night before her tea time with Elburn Avich in her previous life.
Lil had come to her and suddenly handed her a resignation letter.
‘My resignation… I truly hope Your Majesty will approve it.’
Lil had said she would step down from her maid duties right after that tea time with Elburn Avich.
At the time, Lethe had not known the reason for her sudden departure, but now she did.
Lil had already known.
What would transpire at that tea time.
“I thought you, at least, would not betray me…”
Rather than anger over betrayal, a deeper sorrow washed over her.
Lil had been the only person who helped her endure that horrific life as a hostage.
The fact that the person she had trusted and relied on like a real sister for twenty-two years had tried to kill her cut to the quick.
However, now was not the time to be steeped in such sentimentality.
“Lil.”
“Yes?”
Lil, who had been looking around Lethe’s bedroom, approached.
The chestnut-colored eyes looking up at her were filled with joy.
Lil seemed genuinely thrilled by Lethe’s return.
Perhaps, if it were before her regression, Lethe would have been completely fooled by her.
‘However, I won’t be fooled anymore.’
After all, she was the one who had served the poisoned tea to Lethe with her own hands.
“Is there anything you need, Your Majesty?”
Lethe intended to cut her off slowly. Very slowly. She had given her too much of her heart to sever ties immediately.
So, to keep herself from getting hurt, she would exploit Lil as much as possible,
and then ruthlessly discard her once her usefulness ran out.
“Bring me a pen and paper.”
So, she intended to keep her by her side only until then.
Having received the pen and paper from Lil, Lethe sent everyone in the room outside.
She sat before the desk and began organizing her thoughts in writing.
Before her regression, she had failed to gain the support of the nobility.
It was because the nobles feared retaliation from the Avich Ducal House.
In the end, she had tried to create a new faction, and the faction chosen for that purpose had been the merchants.
So long as they could fill the empty royal treasury, she did not care about their nationality or status.
That had made the kingdom prosperous, and even the Korneli Empire—which used to insult her for mingling with commoners—could no longer look down on the kingdom.
She had built up a mountain of gold to protect her country.
“Though I never expected it to be destroyed from within.”
Cautious only of outside forces, missing the enemy right in front of her eyes had been her mistake.
Due to that mistake, she had died, and with her death, the tower of gold she had painstakingly built had crumbled.
By the hands of Elburn Avich.
Her pen stopped as she wrote down the name Elburn Avich.
‘Do not worry, for I shall protect this kingdom.’
His shameless last words came to mind.
Protecting the kingdom?
If he had truly cared for the nation, he should not have meddled in everything she tried to do, and above all, he should not have killed her.
Because after her death, Arbey had no talent left who could protect the wealth that served as the kingdom’s shield.
It was fortunate that time had been turned back; had time continued as it was, it was crystal clear without even looking that the kingdom’s assets would have been plundered by Korneli, which was itching to bleed Arbey dry once again.
“Wretched bastard.”
Muttering softly under her breath, Lethe drew a line over Elburn’s name.
She knew the way to protect the country.
Therefore, preliminary work was needed to solidify that path further.
Getting rid of Elburn.
To do that, she had to risk danger and create nobles who would stand on her side.
‘But how?’
As her contemplation lengthened, the ink dots stamped on the paper multiplied.
Then, tap, the nib of her pen tapping the paper came to a halt.
“…Marriage.”
The greed of the nobility always exceeded imagination, so there would certainly be those who coveted the position of Prince Consort.
Especially a family that had once held power rivaling that of the Avich Ducal House.
The Kingdom’s Prince Consort, husband to a powerless queen.
A position where one could potentially drive out the Avich Ducal House and inherit its power for their own family.
It was obvious how sweet that position would look in the eyes of the nobles.
Marrying a queen who was kept in check by the Duke meant boarding the same boat.
If one got off that boat halfway, only death awaited.
The Prince Consort’s house would have no choice but to support her.
Coincidentally, there was a royal council meeting tomorrow morning.
That would be the starting point.
The starting point where things would diverge from the past, correcting her missteps.
‘This time, I will never be swayed by you.’
Because this time, everything would be different.
The next day, the dissatisfied voices of the nobles who had been summoned early in the morning filled the audience hall.
“Have you heard the news?”
“Of course I have. Goodness, I went through quite a bit of trouble because of it.”
“Well, it’s not that I don’t understand Sir Hoshikov’s position. It’s just that Her Majesty seems to have a poor grasp of the situation, perhaps because she lived abroad for so long.”
“Indeed. How could she bring up Duke Avich to intimidate Sir Hoshikov like that?”
Last night, when news broke that the Queen would attend the royal council meeting right away, more than a few nobles were astonished.
After losing the war to the Korneli Empire, the royal family had borrowed a massive amount of money from the Avich Ducal House to pay off the immense reparations.
While the royal family barely managed to pay back that debt, it went without saying into whose hands the actual power had shifted.
“Her Majesty enters!”
At the attendant’s cry, the nobles shut their mouths.
Walking amidst gazes filled with hostility and curiosity, the Queen sat upon the throne.
Sweeping her eyes over the assembled nobles, her gaze landed on an empty seat.
The corners of Lethe’s lips twisted upward in displeasure.
“It seems someone has yet to arrive.”
“That is…”
At the Queen’s sarcasm, Jan, who had been waiting behind her, broke into a sweat.
Jan looked at the empty seat almost tearfully.
It was the seat of Duke Avich, who had not yet arrived.
As luck would have it, it was the seat closest to the Queen, making the empty space look all the larger.
“How ought I to dispose of your incompetent self…”
“Duke Elburn Avich enters!”
Lethe’s words were cut off by the attendant’s announcement.
Jan’s gaze, as well as the nobles’, turned toward the doors in unison.
A handsome man with smoothly styled, glossy hair—entirely different from the blond dye Jan had awkwardly mimicked—walked inside.
Usually favoring dark clothing, he was clad even now in a dark navy formal dress uniform.
That contrast highlighted his splendid appearance all the more.
His blue eyes were fixed on Lethe from the moment he crossed the threshold.
Thump. The sound of the walking stick in his hand striking the ground echoed unusually loud.
‘A walking stick?’
Her gaze caught on the stick.
In Arbey, it was standard etiquette for male nobles to use a walking stick.
Yet Elburn, despite obsessively observing old-fashioned etiquette down to every single action from head to toe, rarely used a walking stick.
His reason had been that it got in the way.
His steps using the walking stick were unusually slow.
Yet even that appeared elegant and noble.
Elburn Avich’s gait was leisurely, as though he were out for a stroll.
The tall man, unusually large-framed for an Arbey native, came to a halt below the dais.
His gaze looking up at Lethe was tenacious, as if probing for prey.
At the overwhelming aura he exuded, strength entered Lethe’s hand gripping the armrest of the throne.
As if mocking that, a faint curve rose at the corner of the Duke’s mouth.
Soon, he offered a greeting with flawless, impeccably neat etiquette.
“It is a pleasure to meet you for the first time, Your Majesty. I am Elburn Avich.”
