11 - The Crown I Will Steal From You
Episode 11
Mariu, realizing her mistake, quickly added,
"Only back then." The Head Maid kept the Princess away from me on purpose, afraid of retaliation. Now I’m back.”
“Really?”
Samon glared.
“Of course. You know how much the Princess trusts and relies on me.”
Her mouth felt dry.
Only then did Samon relax his shoulders and smile.
“The Head Maid is causing such a ruckus inside and outside the palace, it’s giving me a headache. Show me your leg. Is it here?”
Samon familiarly reached out to Mariu. Even while glaring, Mariu reluctantly snuggled into his arms.
“Daring to hurt my love, that old fox. Don’t worry. That woman will be replaced anyway. My father has already found a replacement.”
She could feel his hot breath.
“Darling, you love me, right?”
“Ha, Mariu. I want to marry you right away.”
Samon whispered sweetly in her ear.
“Me too.”
He kissed her with his thin lips and whispered once more.
“But my love, you have to do well for me to bring you before my parents. I, a minor noble, need a justification to take a commoner like you as my wife.”
Samon looked down at Mariu.
He twirled a strand of red hair spread out on the white sheet around his finger.
As Mariu felt dizzy and closed her eyes, he pulled her hair, forcing her to open them.
“You must be the Maid that my dear cousin cherishes the most, Mariu. You need to know everything Medeia does, everything she thinks.”
Samon frowned, his handsome features contorted. Between his narrow eyes, pupils as black as a rat’s gleamed strangely.
“Mari, do you understand what I’m saying? Did you understand properly?”
Mariu grew anxious.
The title of Duchess Claudio that had been hovering before her eyes seemed to have already run far away.
“…Of course. Don’t worry, darling. I can do anything for you.”
So Mariu hugged him tightly, believing that the fleeting emptiness was just a figment of her imagination.
\ \ \
Even without Samon’s urging, Mariu did her best to catch the Princess’s eye.
But it seemed impossible for those green eyes to ever hold warmth for her.
The Princess didn’t outright dismiss Mariu, but she didn’t allow her to linger nearby either.
The kind Princess who used to tell her everything and explain every little detail was gone.
‘I need to go back to the way things were before Samon finds out.’
Her nerves were on edge.
Somewhere between anxiety and anger, Mariu hesitated.
“…That bracelet is very pretty.”
The Princess looked at Mariu indifferently and said something out of the blue.
Mariu’s pupils wavered.
“I don’t think I’ve seen it before. Who gave it to you?”
The golden bracelet in the shape of a rose vine had small rubies embedded in each bud.
Each time she moved her arm, the delicately carved buds swayed gently. The vividly colored rubies emitted a radiant light.
It was an expensive bracelet at first glance.
Somewhat too extravagant for a mere Maid to possess.
“G-gave it? T-this is, my mother, she, she left it for me!”
Mariu was startled and reflexively pulled down her sleeve, covering the bracelet as if to hide it.
“I kept it in the keepsake box after my mother passed away, so you wouldn’t have seen it, Your Highness.”
Even in the midst of this, she used her dead mother as an excuse to provoke the Princess’s guilt.
But the bracelet was actually a gift from Samon the night before.
“Take it, Mariu. You asked if I loved you? I hope this will be a token of that.”
She had subtly put it on her wrist to show off to the Maids, but she didn’t expect the Princess to see it so soon.
“Is that so?”
“O-of, of course. If not my mother, where else would I have gotten something like this?”
“I see.”
The moment the Princess lightly affirmed, a fire blazed within Mariu, paradoxically.
‘I see? Is she looking down on me now, as a lowly commoner girl who serves her?’
Without a real title, without a wonderful, wealthy, and handsome lover to give her such gifts.
‘How dare she, how dare she!’
Just as the dark words flowing from within were endlessly lining up,
Pick.* It seemed like a faint laugh was heard. Mariu raised her head.
Medeia was looking at her, slightly raising the corners of her lips.
“Y-Your Highness?”
Mariu’s back prickled with goosebumps at the sight of the Princess’s smile.
She couldn’t grasp the moments when she seemed calm but turned chilling in an instant.
“Y-Your Highness. Then I’ll be going now… Please call me whenever you need me.”
The determination she had made that morning to cling to the Princess’s ankles and stick by her side until the end was nowhere to be found, and Mariu hurriedly backed away.
She felt like she would be found out if she stayed any longer.
Her lover, her inferiority complex towards the Princess, and even the inexplicable fear she felt from her, everything.
“A keepsake… What an amusing lie.”
Medeia muttered, watching Mariu’s retreating figure as she fled.
“A lie?”
“The flower decoration on that bracelet earlier isn’t a rose, it’s a trumpet insignia. It’s also the emblem of the tribe that assassinated the Emperor of Kazen Empire, so its use is completely banned on the continent.”
Because it was a sad and shameful history, Kazen more strictly prohibited the use of the trumpet insignia in other countries.
The trumpet insignia, which had been banned for decades, was allowed again after the First Prince of Kazen won the conquest war.
That was because the trumpet tribe was among the kingdoms he annihilated.
“So, chronologically, it can’t be a keepsake. The First Prince’s victory was long after the wet nurse died.”
However, besides the two’s secret relationship, there was another clue that the bracelet revealed.
Medeia’s eyes gleamed sharply.
“My uncle’s family was already in contact with the Empire.”
After the First Prince’s victory, the Imperial Family of Kazen monopolized the trumpet insignia and only allowed it to a select few.
“Samon is always ahead of himself with just his ambition. He must be eager to brag about the fact that his father is in contact with the powerful Kazen, but it’s just a bluff he’s using on a mere Maid because of his father’s pressure.”
He probably doesn’t even know what he gave Mariu.
His past self, who took the lead in advocating for Peleus’s abdication, came to mind.
“It’s so helpful that the two of them aren’t smart. Should I thank them?”
Or, is my cousin quite serious about love?
Then, Neril asked.
“Does Your Highness mean that Duke Claudio is in league with the Empire? Even if the Duke is aiming for the throne, what can the Empire gain?”
Why would the superpower Kazen bother to join hands with a noble from a barren northern country?
“The Emperor of Kazen doesn’t want our Baldina to grow any bigger. So, I have to stop my brother no matter what.”
Peleus is a man who will break but not bend.
Even when surrounded by a monster horde, he never catered to the Emperor of Kazen’s tastes.
“Then the aid promised by the Kazen delegation coming this time is also…”
“It’s a smokescreen. The Emperor doesn’t want us to win, so he’ll make up an excuse to refuse aid no matter what.”
Medeia’s face hardened.
“And in the end, it will lead to a rebellion.”
In her past life, that’s how it actually went.
Relief was desperately needed to prepare for the harsh winter that was soon to come.
Kazen suddenly refused aid.
Baldina urgently had to deplete its already struggling national treasury to secure food.
Even so, it was not enough, and it led to a severe food shortage.
Voices condemning the incompetent royal family grew louder, and all the blame was directed at King Peleus.
Taking advantage of the opportunity when the people’s anger reached its peak, traitors led a rebellion.
Fake traitors who were aided by the Regent Duke.
The leaders of the rebels were those who were blinded by the Regent Duke’s gold coins, not patriotism. They incited the people and retired soldiers who were exhausted from war and starvation.
And they kidnapped Medeia, branding her as a Princess who abandoned her people and fled, adding strength to their cause.
The Regent Duke’s plan was to quell the chaos caused by the rebels and seize the throne in the gap where both the King and Princess were absent.
“A rebellion…”
Neril’s expression became serious.
‘The resentment is already high because of the war, and if Kazen’s aid disappears as Your Highness said….’
The starving people will no longer be able to endure it. If rioters rise up like wildfire, can Baldina withstand it in its current state?
‘This is a serious matter that could lead to the collapse of the royal family. And the Empire is behind it?’
Neril was indignant.
“Even if Kazen is a superpower, how dare they plot against the King of another country? Aren’t they afraid of the backlash?”
Medeia smiled bitterly.
“Oh, no one will know that the Regent Duke and the Empire are already in cahoots.”
Because those who had already noticed or knew were all eliminated.
‘The rebels crossed the castle walls too easily and quickly. Claudio must have taken care of it in advance.’
If Peleus had not won the war and returned quickly, everything might have gone according to the Regent Duke’s plan.
‘Soon the rebels will cross the royal castle.’
Therefore, they must be prevented from entering the royal castle from the beginning.
Medeia rose from her seat and headed to the window.
The castle walls could be seen in the distance.
“Neril, where is your master now?”
If it was Gillifos, the former Royal Guard Commander, he could be a bulwark to stop them.
