Chapter 24

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Translator: Harry Potta

Chapter: 24

Chapter Title: The Crown I'll Steal from You

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Was it the princess who had placed Samon's bracelet inside the handkerchief?

What was certain was that the princess already knew everything. Even that I had betrayed her.

Meeting her cold emerald eyes felt like having ice water dumped over my head.

"Y-Your Highness... I, I made a mistake."

Realizing her position at last, Mariyu finally began to tremble in fear.

"It's regrettable that Mariyu forgot her place and did something like this. But what's done is done. She's my maid, so I can't just wash my hands of her."

Medea let out a sigh.

"Grandmother. Please allow Mariyu to be with Interior Minister Etienne. If she's pining for him like that from behind her master's back, their bond must run deep."

"No!"

Forgetting her station, Mariyu cried out in a fit of hysteria.

"P-Please... spare me."

She stumbled toward the princess, groping blindly.

Each step felt like tumbling into a black abyss. Darkness clouded her vision.

"Spare you? The minister is a good man. He's a high noble with immense wealth, and he even cherishes you. Mariyu, he's the ideal husband you've always wanted."

'Husband?'

Me, bound for life to that old, lecherous pervert instead of my beloved Samon?

The princess's wretched future, which she had mocked all along, now becoming mine?

'No. Absolutely not. I'd rather die.'

But could she escape? Could she slip free from this ordeal right here?

"Congratulations. It's a shame to see you go, but sending you off to a better place is the duty of your mistress, isn't it?"

The princess's gentle congratulations sounded like a funeral eulogy.

"N-No, Your Highness. It was all lies."

Her mind half-broken, Mariyu muttered on.

"The head maid... she ordered me to do it. She gave me the minister's handkerchief and told me to hide it in Your Highness's room."

The people around them doubted their ears.

What had the princess's maid just said?

"Shut your mouth!"

The head maid belatedly tried to cover Mariyu's mouth, but Mariyu was already sobbing uncontrollably, spilling her confession like a burst dam.

"She said the regent duke had driven her out after she quarreled with Your Highness. That he was going to replace her with someone else... She came to me in a rage and ordered me to do it. It was all Lady Quizin's scheme. Please believe me."

"No! Shut up! Don't slander me!"

The head maid lunged at Mariyu with a savage yell but was restrained.

"She said since I'd beaten her, she'd show Your Highness a lesson too. That if I helped her, she'd make it worth my while by getting me registered into a noble house. She'd launder my status for me."

A murmur rippled through the crowd.

The palace servants present were all hardened veterans of court life.

How many schemes big and small had they witnessed in the palace?

Listening to Mariyu pour out her soul, they pieced together the whole affair.

The head maid, cast out by the regent duke, had plotted revenge by hiding false evidence to slander the princess.

They were shocked by the head maid's viciousness in ruining a young girl's life, and doubly so that she was the regent duke's plant.

"I... I must have lost my mind. I went blind with greed. Mariyu was wrong. Sob."

Mariyu prostrated herself before the princess, begging frantically as if deaf to the world.

"I swear I won't do it again. Please, just forgive me this once. Your Highness, save me."

"......"

"Even if Mariyu is foolish, you've always cherished me. After all the years I've served you... You won't abandon me like this, right?"

Medea looked down at the pleading Mariyu.

Her trembling eyes held a flicker of final hope.

An unfounded faith that the princess surely wouldn't abandon her just like this.

In her past life, betrayed by Mariyu and handed over to the rebels—had her own face looked just like that?

'You betrayed me for your love. Then, and now.'

She had loved so fiercely she'd sell out her mistress. Now it was time to pay the price.

Medea leaned down and placed her hand over Mariyu's.

She looked like a saint pardoning a criminal.

How kind-hearted must she be to clasp the hand of the insolent wretch who had plotted against her? The onlookers murmured in admiration.

But Mariyu shuddered.

The princess's cold hand over her own was prying her fingers away—one by one—from the hem of the princess's dress.

"Don't hate me, Mariyu."

The princess whispered low.

"So don't hate me."

Words that sounded familiar, like something heard before.

'She really... knew everything...!'

Mariyu looked up to find eyes full of chill glaring down at her.

A chill ran through her.

"......!"

She fainted dead away in her seat.

The Queen Dowager clutched her throbbing head.

"What a... spectacle."

So this mess was all the head maid's doing? And the princess's own maid had gone along with it?

'Medea was innocent from the start?'

"What nerve on that woman. To slander her mistress—no, the blood of Baldina itself."

Marchioness Pinatelli spoke up first.

She had shrewdly invoked Baldina's blood, noticing the Queen Dowager's hesitation.

Had she framed it merely as Medea's affair, the Queen Dowager might not have been swayed much.

But this was about Baldina's royal blood.

It went beyond disliking an unwelcome granddaughter—it was an assault on the sacred honor of the royal family.

The Queen Dowager's eyes sharpened.

"Drag away those two wicked women."

No sooner had the words left her mouth than sturdy maids seized the head maid's arms. The fainted Mariyu was hoisted up.

"No! It's lies! The princess put her maid up to it! Catherine! Help me! It's a trap! They're framing me!"

Sensing her end, the head maid shrieked wildly.

But Catherine bit her lip, too busy gauging the Queen Dowager's mood to respond.

'Why is that stupid maid dragging us into this now!'

Everyone was eyeing her suspiciously over the talk of the regent duke trying to replace the head maid.

Quizin’s screams fell on deaf ears as Catherine desperately sought a way out.

"Aaaah! Let go! Princess! It was you! You staged it all—mmph!"

The head maid thrashed until cloth was stuffed in her mouth, and she was dragged away weeping.

"Sever the tendons in both her hands so she can never slander her mistress again, then beat her until she dies. Sir Sise, make an example of her."

"As Your Highness commands."

Sise nodded.

Only after the culprits were hauled away did the commotion subside.

It felt as if a storm had passed.

Everyone there remembered how sharply the Queen Dowager had just rebuked her granddaughter.

How unjust must the princess feel, falsely accused and betrayed by a trusted subordinate?

The crowd assumed the Queen Dowager would at least comfort her granddaughter.

'As if.'

Medea knew this wouldn't end with punishing the head maid.

Sure enough, the Queen Dowager's gaze remained icy.

"Hmph. Strutting around like the owner just because you hold the king's seal—that's why lowly underlings dare to look down on you."

Even though anyone could see Medea had done nothing wrong, the Queen Dowager blamed it on her granddaughter.

"Even shut away here, I've heard all about your mad escapades, Medea."

"......"

"Do you think the king gave you that seal to run wild as you please? It's heaven's curse that Peleus has a sister like you. You foolish, immature child! Who gave you such power? As dowager queen, I can no longer stand by while you disrupt the palace."

The Queen Dowager fixed her granddaughter with a cold stare.

"Hand over the seal. Enough of your idiotic antics."

Medea stood motionless.

"I said bring it here! What are you standing around for?"

The Queen Dowager raised her voice again, but Medea didn't budge.

Her ragged breaths betrayed the beads of fury she felt.

"Your Majesty, please calm yourself. Excitement is bad for your health."

Catherine stepped forward to shield the princess.

She positioned herself in front of Medea, like a mother protecting her young.

"Her Highness surely had no ill intent. She's still young and doesn't grasp the palace's tangled politics. It was just childish affection for her own people. Please look mercifully upon her pure heart."

Catherine's words seemed to defend Medea at first glance.

But in truth, they underscored how Medea had ignored palace protocol and acted selfishly.

The Queen Dowager's eyes grew even keener.

"Childish? Birna is younger than her and far more sensible! How long must we indulge that disgrace?"

"......Your Highness, beg forgiveness. Promise never to do it again, and the Queen Dowager will let it pass."

Catherine gestured subtly to Medea.

But Medea remained still, as if deaf to it all.