Chapter 10
“Are you saying you even heard that the spy was going to poison him on the wedding day?”
“No.”
I answered with a calm face.
Hanna’s eyebrows shot up.
“Then—”
“That was just a guess. A guess that Valter would do something like that.”
“…?”
I looked straight into Hanna’s violet eyes.
“Valter is someone who never lets go of what’s his. Even if it’s something he’s grown tired of.”
I thought about it.
Why poison him specifically on the wedding day?
Why didn’t he savor the moment longer after gifting Armin Wilhelm such a humiliating marriage?
Ah—stupid Diana. No matter how hard I beat you, you’re like a hunting dog that always returns to its master.
The answer lay in Valter’s twisted possessiveness.
He used Diana Isla up and threw her away, yet still believed she would love him.
Maybe he even enjoyed that love.
Valter liked watching Diana Isla dance within his control.
And for that to happen, her marriage to Armin had to be ruined.
Thoroughly.
They had to distrust each other, loathe each other, and Diana had to be completely isolated in Wilhelm Castle.
“He probably wanted me to be completely isolated here. That’s why I thought it would be today—when everyone was outside, and only Armin and I remained in the bedroom. The day no one could help Armin, and no one could help me.”
“…!”
Hanna’s eyes widened ever so slightly at my words.
Her jaw clenched.
Whether she was trembling with fury at Valter or shocked by my reasoning, I couldn’t tell.
“But speculation alone wouldn’t have convinced His Grace. That’s why I decided to share the poison.”
Her gaze dimmed at those words.
Whether she realized it or not, her grip on the hem of her skirt tightened.
After what seemed like some contemplation, she looked up.
She hesitated uncharacteristically before speaking.
“…Thank you.”
“…!”
I almost let my surprise show at those words coming from this terrifying woman.
Thankfully, when I met Hanna Vlad’s solemn gaze, I managed to keep my expression neutral.
“I owe my lord’s life to you. There will come a day I repay this debt.”
Well then.
Was that her way of letting it go?
I responded with a subtly amused expression.
“Fine, then you’ll have to grant me a favor someday.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
No wasted words in her response.
I liked that.
Diana Isla had preferred loud, gossip-savvy, easily manipulated maids like in the South—women who could be bought with money or luxury.
But I liked Hanna Vlad.
She was simple and direct.
She reminded me of a mangoschi—a straight, simple dagger used to assist longer swords like rapiers. A defensive weapon meant to strike swiftly at sudden intruders.
A perfect nickname for this loyal tactician of Wilhelm Castle.
There was a reason for that.
No one in the castle knew its inner workings better than Hanna Vlad.
She even understood noble households well enough to serve a noble lady properly.
All thanks to her background.
She was actually an illegitimate child of the Marquess of Lochen.
For reasons unknown, she’d been cast out by the Lochen household and wandered aimlessly until she almost froze to death in the snowy mountains of Bjorn. Armin Wilhelm had saved her.
From that day, she followed him—the one who had saved her life.
She hid her origins and began working as a maid. People assumed she was a common orphan and looked down on her.
When she started frequenting Armin’s office and acting as his advisor, rumors exploded.
That she was Armin’s lover. That they had an illegitimate child together…
Diana Isla didn’t necessarily believe those rumors.
If she’d been that interested in Armin, the distance between them wouldn’t have grown so vast.
Diana Isla simply hated Hanna Vlad.
“That outfit isn’t suitable for dining with the territory’s residents.”
“So I can’t even wear what I want now?”
“I meant you shouldn’t flaunt luxury as the mistress of the castle.”
“And who do you think you are—?!”
Throwing things, insulting, raging—none of it cracked that steely face.
To her, that expression came to represent Wilhelm Castle.
The cold northern face that would always view her as an outsider.
No matter how much she cursed or spat, that face would never change.
Diana Isla first saw that face break—on the last day of her life.
When Wilhelm Castle fell. When Armin helped her escape. But still obsessed with Valter, Diana returned.
“Why are you standing there?”
“The Lord thought Your Highness might return.”
“You’re still tormenting me to the very end.”
[…]
That was the first time Hanna Vlad’s expression truly contorted.
“You’ll never understand what it means for me to stand here, trying to save you. Even so—”
Hanna raised her proud chin and blocked Diana’s path.
“I want you to live. Because that is my lord’s command.”
His command.
Hanna Vlad died that day, fending off soldiers coming for Diana.
To the end, Hanna Vlad was Armin Wilhelm’s loyal retainer.
Which meant she was now on my side too.
I looked at her and asked,
“So, did you catch the maid who poisoned it?”
“Yes. By His Grace’s order, we checked all those who had entered the castle within the month and served food. There was only one.”
“…Is she dead?”
In Diana Isla’s life, the poisoner is never caught.
She committed suicide by ingesting poison herself.
“No. She’s alive.”
“…!”
For once, things might turn out differently.
That was a relief.
“Then, about the mastermind—?”
“We haven’t gotten a confession yet. But she won’t last long.”
That meant they were torturing her brutally.
I knew well that Armin Wilhelm, despite acting like a drunken fool, had a cruel streak.
“But if she doesn’t know who ordered her—”
Hanna was about to express her concern when I interrupted.
“Torture is fine, but focus on breaking the scroll instead.”
“Scroll?”
“The face-changing scroll.”
According to what I remembered, when they buried the poisoner’s corpse, her face had already changed.
It had rotted too much to identify.
She had used a scroll to change her appearance.
The maid had undergone thorough background checks—including her family—before entering the castle. That meant someone had hijacked an entire identity before arrival.
They likely killed the real maid and copied her face with magic.
Hanna furrowed her brow.
“But there were almost no traces of magic on her. That means the scroll used was extremely high-grade—”
Her unspoken question was, “Was that really necessary?”
When Armin and Diana realized a high-level scroll had been used—so potent the magic lasted even after death—they both wondered the same thing.
Such scrolls required a skilled magician.
And such a magician wouldn’t leave traces of mana behind.
Which also meant someone paid a hefty sum.
But why go that far?
What was so secret about the poisoner’s real face?
Nobles don’t remember the faces of commoners anyway.
Neither Armin nor Diana would’ve recognized many.
Armin had even tried to reconstruct her face but failed.
She had already started decomposing.
But the truth that neither of them had found then—I could now guess.
“Was it not even worth confirming? The Lord was almost poisoned.”
The face before the transformation—
Someone must’ve recognized it.
Someone like the illegitimate daughter cast out by the Lochen family at age seventeen.
At the word “lord,” Hanna’s violet eyes flickered.
A strange glint entered her gaze.
And I was sure.
“Got her. This lunatic fell right into it.”
For this woman who would die for Armin Wilhelm, it was time to settle the score with the family that had abandoned her.
