Chapter – 09
You’re No Longer My One and Only Friend
“What is the meaning of this? Who would ruin the Empress’s throat?”
Henrias asked, sounding unsettled.
Of course he did. This was one of the truths Elisabeth never wanted him to see.
“It’s nothing. Lady Hauzen and I were simply reminiscing about old memories only the two of us know.”
Josephine curved her long, thin eyes into a serene smile.
“Cici, do I really have to keep explaining this?”
She questioned Elisabeth again.
Elisabeth would never want to reveal her past like this — not if she wanted to remain the gentle, canary-like girl everyone believed her to be.
“I know everything, Your Majesty the Empress.”
But to Josephine’s surprise, Elisabeth didn’t back down. She smiled innocently instead.
“But just for today, I wish you’d stay here with me not as the Empress, but as my one and only friend.”
“What?”
“Jo, don’t tell me you forgot? Today is my mother’s death anniversary.”
Elisabeth’s slender fingers shot out and grabbed Josephine’s left wrist.
“That’s why His Majesty brought me to the royal summer villa, so I wouldn’t feel lonely today — and why you prepared a tea party for me.”
Her voice trembled as though she were about to cry.
“I know you’re upset with me. I truly didn’t know they pulled such a horrible prank behind my back. Whenever I think about it, my heart still aches.”
A radiant smile bloomed on Elisabeth’s doll-like face.
“But what does it matter? It’s all in the past, and we’re still the closest friends in the world. Right?”
But Josephine couldn’t smile back.
The tragedy of that day resurfaced. Her breath caught; her vision darkened.
“Empress, I don’t know what’s going on, but if that’s the reason, can’t you at least take your tea slowly after it cools?”
Now even Henrias was stepping in — and as always, he was utterly useless.
“I’m not sure I understand, but shouldn’t you at least stay? Out of respect for Ella, your friend?”
Life returned to Elisabeth’s tear-rimmed eyes.
“You heard that, Jo? His Majesty says so too.”
She tilted the teapot and poured tea into Josephine’s purple cup, whispering:
“So drink. You’re his Empress — without that title, you’re nothing.”
“…What?”
For a moment Josephine thought she had misheard.
“A fake aristocrat with not a drop of noble blood — do you think becoming the Empress of the Empire by pure luck suddenly makes you someone?”
She hadn’t misheard.
The whisper, carried alongside the pouring tea, wrapped around Josephine’s mind and squeezed.
So this is your true nature.
Words like these could no longer hurt her.
Her becoming Empress — that was what Elisabeth couldn’t forgive.
“No. I’ve never thought that way. Not even once.”
Josephine answered numbly.
These were Elisabeth’s raw, unfiltered feelings — the first time she had ever spoken them aloud.
And yet the words felt terribly familiar.
As though they had always existed somewhere in her nightmares, festering like a curse.
“It doesn’t matter. That place could’ve been mine. If not for me, you wouldn’t have even met His Majesty at the Imperial Academy. You know that, right?”
Elisabeth lifted the steaming cup toward Josephine.
Josephine regained her senses and tried to pull her wrist back.
No… no, not this.
She couldn’t stay calm anymore. Her face had gone pale.
I don’t want it. I hate hot things.
Her throat tickled. The voice of her younger self trembled just beneath her skin.
Please… please let me go. I have to take the exam. You said you were my friend.
Josephine wanted to run. But no matter how desperately she tried, she couldn’t free herself from the lamb-faced Elisabeth.
“So you should be grateful to me forever. Jo — you’re nothing without me.”
Josephine’s vision flashed white.
At that final sentence, everything disappeared.
Her sight. Her hearing.
Because—
“Jo, we prepared this just for you.”
“You need to take care of your throat so you can recite the healing hymn well in front of the professor.”
“It’s all for you. We’re your friends, right?”
The nightmare she believed long forgotten returned, fully formed, standing right before her.
“A mere orphan, thinking she’s our equal just because she slapped the name Artois onto herself?”
Back then, young Josephine had been locked in a massive auditorium, surrounded by the entire first-year class of the Imperial Academy.
In front of her sat about fifty cups of boiling tea.
All of them kept scalding hot by a fire-attribute mage’s spell.
“You can’t take your choir exam until you drink every last one of these. All of them. In front of us.”
“Elisabeth asked us to help you. You understand, right?”
“Without Elisabeth, you’re nothing.”
“If not for her, you couldn’t even dream of applying for the Healing Choir.”
“Without her, you wouldn’t even be a servant, let alone our friend.”
Elisabeth — her name shadowed Josephine everywhere like a brand burned into her.
And Josephine had once endured that brand, no matter how much it hurt.
“You should be grateful to Elisabeth for the rest of your life.”
There had been a time when Josephine heard this from everyone.
A time when she believed it.
A time when she truly was nothing without Elisabeth.
“Drink it, Josephine. If you want to stay friends with me.”
But not anymore.
Living inside Elisabeth’s gilded cage, singing on command and accepting abuse — that life had to end today.
“No.”
Josephine answered clearly.
Elisabeth flinched — the first time she had ever reacted that way to Josephine.
Josephine slapped her hand away, knocking the cup aside.
“Kyaaaaa!”
“El-la!”
The hot tea spilled and burned Elisabeth, making her scream shrilly.
“Aaaah!”
And then Josephine screamed even louder. Henrias and Elisabeth froze in shock.
“Poison! It’s poison…!”
Josephine raised her hand — the silver accessories she wore had blackened.
“Poison…?”
Henrias was the first to react.
“There was poison in the tea?!”
Crash. He threw his cup to the floor.
“Ugh— blech—!”
Moments later he gagged and vomited onto a napkin.
“H-Henry… Henry! It hurts… it hurts so much!”
Elisabeth sobbed, tears rolling down her face like crystal beads.
Chaos erupted instantly.
Elisabeth clutching her burned wrist, Henrias vomiting despite never having drunk poison.
And then—Josephine reached a conclusion.
I did it.
They were suffering. Wailing. Falling apart because of her.
Her frozen blood suddenly boiled.
“Haha… ha, haha—!”
Something spilled through her fingers as she covered her mouth.
Laughter. Or tears. She couldn’t tell. It simply overflowed.
Then someone stepped in front of her.
“Empress! Are you hurt?!”
Henrias — now suddenly lucid — had run to her, abandoning Elisabeth behind him.
“Thank heavens you dropped it before drinking. Are you hurt anywhere?”
“Po… poison, Henrias. There was… poison.”
She stammered, retreating instinctively.
“S-someone tried to kill me. They—they put poison in there to kill me…”
“Calm down. Who would dare? Not while I am Emperor. Who would lay a finger on my Empress?”
The angel-faced man’s expression contorted with fury.
“Don’t worry. I’ll find whoever did this — and tear them to pieces.”
Chaos