Previously
Sienna returns to the capital with Theo and Jane, wearing a makeshift cloak stolen from the Abbot. She meets Joseph, who mocks her and reveals his plan to marry her off to the King of Parma to stabilize the empire. Sienna is left horrified by the ultimatum: marry as a political tool or face death.
How to Part Ways with You for Good, Episode 26
Sienna’s body froze at the Emperor’s muttered remark. She had already experienced that dark, wretched place before. And the very man standing before her now was the one who had thrown her into it back then.
A sudden chill ran down her spine at the creeping sense of déjà vu.
Catching the fear in her expression, the Emperor let out a cold laugh. His face clearly betrayed his thought: For all your haughty airs, you're no different after all.
In the end, she had gone in circles only to arrive back where she started.
Overwhelmed by a surge of helplessness, Sienna clenched her fists in silence. Her ragged, untended fingernails bit harshly into her fragile palms.
“The exact date will be set before long. Behave yourself until then and don't cause any trouble.”
Having delivered the thunderbolt, the Emperor stood up from his seat as if he had said everything he needed to say.
“Ah, and I intend to hold a banquet soon to honor the army returning from the war. Come and show your face.”
“Why don't you play those trivial games with your sisters instead?”
Even at her icy retort, the Emperor did not lose his smile.
“You needn't tell me that; Marianne and Dahlia are both scheduled to attend anyway.”
“Ha…!”
A hollow scoff slipped past her lips in sheer disbelief. The Emperor let out a faint sigh.
“There are factions among the nobility who harbor resentment toward me for sending you to Lopawell. They seem thoroughly displeased that the very first person I punished upon taking the throne happened to be my own kin. I suppose they wonder what I might do to them if I could cast off my own flesh and blood so easily.”
“So you want me to take part in this pathetic family game just to salvage your ruined reputation? Why on earth should I?”
“You. It's been quite a long time since you visited Ricata Residence, hasn't it?”
The sudden, contextless question made Sienna flinch, freezing on the spot.
After the Empress was executed, all the property owned by the Ducal House of Ricata had been confiscated by the imperial family. That had naturally included Ricata Territory, which the Duke had governed.
The great manor of the Ricata family, which had once boasted a grandeur rivaling that of the imperial palace itself, had been sealed off entirely. As if to serve as a perpetual warning of what became of a traitorous house, the Late Emperor had driven large iron nails through unsightly wooden planks, boarding up the magnificent main gate of the ducal residence.
Not only that, but the place where Sienna had once spent half of every year had turned into grounds she could not enter without the Emperor's express permission.
Her late mother's remains were buried there. Beneath that very soil, which even her flesh-and-blood daughter could no longer set foot on, lay her mother.
When she looked up at the Emperor with a bewildered face, he slowly leaned down toward her. At that close distance, their gazes entangled.
“Sasha. Don't you miss your mother?”
In the gentle tone he would normally reserve for his beloved sisters, Joseph slipped another noose around her neck.
* * *
Feeling the deep vibration as the heavy door slammed shut behind her, Sienna slowly began to walk.
Making her way alone through the wide corridor of the imperial palace, she reached into the far reaches of her memory, grasping at an image rising like mist.
‘No matter what happens, you must obey His Majesty. Sasha.’
Was this the miserable result of that obedience?
To be stripped of her mother's legacy, branded a murderer who slaughtered her own child, and now sold off to a country she had never once laid eyes on—and on top of that, blackmailed with her mother's remains.
Sienna ground her teeth together with a harsh crunch. Joseph, that damned bastard. Every scheme he hatched was invariably vile.
“Princess?”
Just then, a delicate, lark-like voice stopped Sienna in her tracks. Turning her head, she found two women looking at her in surprise.
They were the two people Sienna least wanted to encounter at this moment. The corner of her mouth, previously twisted with fury, twitched faintly. But as soon as she grasped the situation, she erased all expression as she had been trained to do her entire life and bent her knees in an elegant curtsy.
“Your Majesty the Empress.”
As she almost muttered the title that still felt unnatural on her tongue, a gentle, benevolent smile touched the Empress's lips.
The Empress, said to have hailed from a foreign royal house, seemed to share nothing in common with her husband, at least in terms of character. Her attentive, cautious gaze and ingrained prudence never struck Sienna as deceitful.
Even while knowing full well how terribly her husband detested Sienna, the woman was always kind to her.
Considering, above all, how much Marianne despised the Empress, it seemed that whatever she lacked in lineage compared to the high nobility, her character was far nobler than that of her husband.
“I heard you had returned to the capital. I was just wondering how you were doing, and here we are crossing paths like this.”
Her face bright with delight, the Empress warmly took Sienna's hands in hers.
Standing there with her hands caught in surprise, Sienna's gaze caught on another figure. There was no way she would fail to recognize the woman frozen stiff beside the Empress.
When their eyes met, Dahlia's presence painted an entirely different emotion onto Sienna's face. Misinterpreting the look, Dahlia, who had been anxiously minding her surroundings beside the Empress, hurriedly sank into a curtsy.
“G-Greetings, Your Highness the Princess.”
Only then did Sienna realize what her face must look like, and she quickly composed her expression. She gave a slight nod in return to Dahlia's greeting.
Even in the midst of the awkward tension lingering between the siblings, the Empress alone smiled warmly, softening the rigid atmosphere.
“Are you on your way back from seeing His Majesty the Emperor?”
“I am, Your Majesty.”
“You must not have had a proper chance to rest. I heard your health was poor, and your face does look terribly worn.”
Sincere pity pooled in the Empress's eyes. It was a brand of sympathy Sienna could never welcome.
“I heard you will be staying at the palace for the time being. Lady Lowell is also residing here, so wouldn't it be lovely if the three of us met for tea from time to time? What do you think?”
At the Empress's suggestion, a myriad of emotions surfaced plainly across Dahlia's face.
Curiosity, embarrassment, and an inexplicable fear.
The way she failed to conceal any of those feelings made her no different from a naive young girl. She was worlds apart from Sienna's half-siblings, who had lived their entire lives suppressing every scrap of emotion.
Such was the vast divide between those born and raised in this razor-thin ice of a palace, and someone nurtured among family who doted on her within a regular noble house.
Glancing sideways at her with open curiosity, Dahlia quickly bowed her head the moment her eyes met Sienna's directly.
What did I ever do to her that she trembles like that?
Sienna let out a short sigh.
“Your Majesty the Empress. I am truly sorry, but having only just arrived, I am quite exhausted. If you will pardon me, may I take my leave?”
At the exceedingly formal tone, the Empress's smile stiffened slightly. Soon enough, however, she smoothed it back into her usual gentle demeanor and answered.
“Oh, my. You must be completely worn out after such a long journey, and here I was being thoughtless. Forgive me.”
“There is no reason for Your Majesty to apologize. It is merely that my health has not fully recovered yet…”
Feeling that it sounded like a clumsy excuse, Sienna trailed off. The Empress offered a warm, understanding smile.
“We will have plenty of chances in the future regardless. Please return to your chambers and rest well, Princess.”
Sienna offered a compliant reply and dipped her head in a bow.
Only then did the Empress resume walking. As if she had been waiting for that very moment, Dahlia curtsied politely once more and hurried past her.
Sienna did not leave immediately, lingering motionless in the corridor for a time. From the opposite end of the hall where the two had gone, the sound of cheerful conversation drifted back, punctuated now and then by faint laughter.
Only when the sounds faded into the distance and vanished entirely did Sienna finally begin to walk again.
The rage that had been boiling toward the Emperor cooled drastically the instant she ran into the two of them. In place of that fury settled the melancholic feelings of her childhood, long forgotten.
Memories like her father, who had treated her so coldly, melting into effortless affection before Dahlia; or her mother, wearing the Empress's crown, whispering sweet words to her.
Did that kind-hearted woman have any idea what kind of end awaited the woman who had worn her crown before her? Whenever she saw that woman smiling so radiantly beneath the crown her mother once wore, an inexplicable knot of emotion tightened within her.
Regardless of their intentions, Dahlia and the Empress were figures who stirred up wounded memories.
At a sudden breeze drifting in from somewhere, Sienna turned her head. The sweet scent of flowers from a garden not far off seemed to ride the wind straight into the hall. It was a lovely, fragrant draft.
The place where she had been born and raised was an undeniably beautiful and enchanting space. And the emotions she felt here were always painfully similar: within this stunning grandeur, she had always been terribly lonely, and terribly desolate.
Her footsteps felt heavy as she traversed the vast expanse of the corridor.
It was a bitter sense of defeat she had not tasted in a very long time.
* * *
The banquet celebrating the safe return of the imperial army was the very first ball held this spring.
Because the empire had long been in a state of war, and with the funeral of the Late Emperor having coincided with it, this was also the first banquet Joseph had hosted personally since ascending the throne. Perhaps because of that, the imperial palace seemed to have prepared thoroughly for the occasion.
Red velvet draperies embroidered with the imperial crest in gold thread hung everywhere, and fresh flowers lined the paths where the invited guests would walk. Thanks to that, the inside of the palace was filled with a refreshing floral scent.
Yet the real reason this banquet had sent ripples through high society lay elsewhere. It was because of two figures who were making their appearance after such an extraordinarily long absence.
The news that the Grand Duke, having concluded the war, would be present was startling enough on its own, but the exiled Second Princess was also attending. The sheer prospect of seeing both figures, who had recently become the center of every conversation in society, drew the undivided attention of the entire nobility.
And the very first of the imperial family to appear in the hall was the Second Princess, Sienna.