“…….”
“Whether it’s classified as consumable expenses, salary payments, or funds for entertaining distinguished guests—every other institution has detailed records of how their budgets were used. But do you happen to know why the Ivory Palace’s budget lists only the amounts allocated and spent, without a single itemized record of usage?”
It was an unexpected line of questioning. Only those with authorization were allowed to view the imperial budget.
The Emperor had once said, ‘If the Valdur ducal house realizes that the Ivory Palace hasn’t prepared usage records for its budget, they’ll latch onto it and won’t let go.’ Still, Dian had glossed over the matter and avoided drafting detailed usage records.
In any case, only a very few people could examine it, and once the usage was laid out in detail, spending would inevitably have to conform to it. If things went wrong, she might even have to submit formal approval requests to match the budget just to buy a single dress—what an exhausting prospect that would be.
Fortunately, neither the Emperor nor the Minister of Finance had said anything about it. They likely didn’t want the trouble of prying further and involving themselves even in the Ivory Palace’s budget.
While Dian hesitated for a moment, the Empress leaned back deeply into her chair and lifted her teacup.
“Then why do you ask about the Ivory Palace’s budget details?”
At Dian’s question, Adele tilted her head, her face blooming with a smile that came straight from the heart. Seeing that smile, Dian realized she had asked a question she never should have.
Was this what the smile of a demon that bewitches people and devours their livers looked like? The Empress’s smiling face was so beautiful it was hard to look away from, yet Dian felt her palms grow damp with sweat.
“Because the funds allocated to the Ivory Palace must be transferred to the Empress’s Palace.”
＊ ＊ ＊
The Emperor, who had been immersed in his work for quite some time, reflexively half rose from his seat when he saw a maid enter his office. When Dian sent her personal maid, it was usually a sign of bad news.
“What is it?”
“Your Majesty. It’s nothing else, but the Palace Lady has been summoned to the Empress’s Palace.”
At those words, Karl frowned.
“The Empress summoned Dian? For what reason?”
“The Palace Lady submitted a supplementary budget proposal, but Her Majesty the Empress ordered her to redo it twice. As she was heading to the Empress’s Palace, she was trembling with fear to such an extent that I couldn’t bear to just watch, so I came to report to Your Majesty. Please forgive my rudeness.”
Trembling with fear.
At those words alone, one side of the Emperor’s chest stirred with unease, as if by a lie made real. It felt as though his throat were being strangled by a giant, leaving him short of breath.
In one corner of Karl Ulrich’s chest lay a black sea with no end in sight. He couldn’t even guess why such a thing occupied that space, or what was hidden within it. It felt as though he were being driven into that deep, black sea. Waves named guilt crashed over him.
A voice from the past rang vividly in his mind.
‘When you become Emperor someday… won’t you acknowledge me as your mother then?’
Karl clenched his lips tightly and pressed a hand to his forehead.
“…Your Majesty?”
“…….”
“Your Majesty……”
“Be quiet.”
“I—I’m sorry!”
Seeing that the Emperor seemed displeased, Lorraine panicked and began to stammer.
‘Karl!!’
A scream as if tearing apart, as if breath itself were failing—like a final death cry.
The deep, black sea in his chest finally churned violently. Karl ground his teeth and sprang to his feet.
“She was summoned to the Empress’s Palace.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
The flickering purple eyes were so chilling they inspired fear; Lorraine instinctively shrank back. The Emperor strode past her with rough steps.
＊ ＊ ＊
Dian blinked.
“…You’re saying the funds allocated to the Ivory Palace will be transferred… to the Empress’s Palace?”
As she asked again in a dazed tone, Adele nodded calmly, still smiling, and leaned back leisurely on the sofa, crossing her legs.
“Have you not been taking on the role that the Empress should have fulfilled all this time?”
“…….”
“And weren’t those funds given to you for performing the Empress’s role? If I am reclaiming the Empress’s duties, then naturally the budget allocated under that pretext should be transferred along with them. And yet you find that displeasing?”
“…….”
Adele leaned forward, her shining golden eyes fixed on Dian’s face.
“It wasn’t displeasing. It was just… somewhat frustrating.”
This turn of events had not been within Dian’s expectations. The Empress’s long fingers tapped lightly against the Ivory Palace’s budget documents.
“You’ve worked hard all this time. I won’t ask you now to prepare detailed usage records for everything you’ve spent. I’ll take care of that. You are to transfer all funds allocated to the Ivory Palace to the Empress’s Palace. From what I can see, it seems His Majesty delegated that authority to you.”
The Empress neither made a suggestion nor a request. She didn’t even wait for the Emperor to grant her authority. With no powerful natal family to support her and not a single ally at her side, she was still the Empress. Dian had no choice but to relinquish, at the Empress’s single command, the rights she had taken for granted over the past three years. She held no official title of any kind within the imperial palace.
That fact was unbearably infuriating. Even though she had prepared and prepared again for such a moment, imagination and reality were indeed different things. It felt as though her blood were boiling throughout her body. Her eyes reddened, heat surged upward, and her once pale, translucent face flushed red.
“Your Majesty, the Empress.”
At the sound of Dian’s voice, thick with resentment, the smile that had lingered on Adele’s face vanished coldly.
“Why—do you have some complaint?”
The raised golden eyes were threatening in themselves, so much so that even the maids standing by unconsciously took a step back until they were pressed flat against the wall. Yet Dian clenched her teeth and met that gaze head-on.
“Dian Poitiers.”
The Empress called her name in a cold, ruthless tone, as if issuing a warning, but Dian did not back down. Adele’s and Dian’s gazes clashed fiercely, as though they might devour one another.
Driven to desperation, Dian thought:
This palace, this reception room, this very spot! The place beside the Emperor—beside him, the supreme seat from which one looks down upon all others! That was my place! It was mine!! Not yours—it was something I was meant to have, something that should have been mine!!!
In this moment, it was heartbreaking to realize that she could not challenge the Empress’s authority by her own strength alone. From her sky-blue eyes, now stained red, tears of rage poured down like rain.
As Adele looked at her own reflection in Dian’s tear-filled eyes, a familiar voice echoed in her mind.
‘Step down from the position of heir.’
Damn it. Why did that moment come back to her now?!! Contradictorily, the tears of someone who had had what was theirs taken away overlapped with her own past self.
The Empress, who had been glaring fiercely while pressing Dian, suddenly clenched both fists tightly and drew a long, deep breath. At her sudden loss of strength, Madam Gix furrowed her brows and looked at the Empress. Adele took another long, slow breath.
‘Adelaide. Relinquish the position of Crown Princess.’
It had been such an easy, simple sentence.
Still staring with wide-open eyes at Dian Poitiers, who was crying as she glared back at her, Adele forced open her parched mouth. Her mouth tasted bitter, as though she had swallowed gall.
“Do you think your place disappeared because of me?”
“…….”
There was no way Adele could feel kindly toward Dian, yet she couldn’t help recalling her own past self in those tears. Adele decided to offer the best possible solution.
“Listen carefully, Dian Poitiers.”
“…….”
“I am the Empress of Ehmont. Do not dare challenge my authority. I will not tolerate any challenge to the Empress’s authority, by any means. Do not think of it as something being taken from you. Think carefully about what it was that you originally possessed.”
This was the best Adele could do. She had wanted, on the spot, to tear up the order granting residence in the Ivory Palace and command Dian’s expulsion, but she barely restrained herself. Do not challenge the Empress’s authority. In return, I will acknowledge as much as possible what you do possess. This was the greatest consideration she could offer Dian.
Even so, Dian clenched her fists tightly and glared at Adele. Adele had said she would acknowledge everything except the Empress’s authority—but to Dian, that very “Empress’s authority” had long since become a part of herself. It was hers. From the start, Adele’s proposal was flawed. Dian clenched her teeth so hard her jaw trembled.
‘Your Majesty, Your Majesty. Why aren’t you coming, Your Majesty!’
At the sight of Dian trembling with rage instead of accepting the mercy extended to her, a thin layer of ice settled over Adele’s expression.
And then, at that very moment, the door to the Empress’s reception room was suddenly flung open violently, without any warning.
Who would dare open the door to the Empress’s reception room without permission!?
Just as Adele frowned sharply and glared toward the door, Dian suddenly dropped to her knees in front of her, prostrating herself and crying out in a voice choked with tears.
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty the Empress!”
It all happened suddenly and at once.
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty the Empress. Please forgive me.”
…What?
Stunned, Adele involuntarily opened her mouth and widened her eyes.
What is she saying right now?
