#115. Another Timeline
“Your Highness.”
Even with her eyes still closed, Vellia frowned at the sunlight seeping through her lashes.
“Your Highness, you must wake up.”
“Ugh…”
Her body felt strangely heavy.
But the sharp voice pressing her again made Vellia slowly rise from the bed.
“His Highness is waiting for you.”
Khalid? Was something urgent?
Normally, Khalid would never wake her so suddenly like this…
Half-asleep, Vellia draped on some light clothes and walked toward the connecting door between her room and his.
‘Huh…?’
Soft crimson carpet. A lavishly decorated chamber.
The luxurious furniture felt both familiar and out of place.
Finding it odd, Vellia nonetheless opened the door naturally and stepped inside.
“What’s going on? Why call me in such a rush—”
Ah.
Her words stopped cold.
“You’ve come?”
Inside, Raoul stood in casual attire, skimming over documents.
He lifted his head briefly, frowned at her, and said:
“I told you not to use that door. Make sure this doesn’t happen again, Vellia. Block it off entirely if you must.”
Yes. Even back when she and Raoul were lovers, there had been a door connecting their chambers.
But she had never once used it, eventually forgetting it existed—until she followed his words and blocked it off with a large cabinet.
Now, she stared blankly at Raoul, displeasure written across his face.
“Why are you standing there like that?”
“…It’s nothing.”
“Sit down. Once I finish these documents, we’ll talk.”
What on earth was happening?
This was indeed Raoul’s room.
Vellia sat on a small sofa, her eyes darting nervously around.
Thud.
Raoul set his pen down with a dull sound, rose from his desk, and approached her.
“I can’t concentrate with you there. Better we talk first.”
“What do you want to say?”
“Your tone is sharp, Vellia.”
His voice was laced with disdain, as if even her speaking that way was laughable—just a final, futile struggle.
“In a few days, Erze will be brought to the Imperial Palace.”
At his familiar words, Vellia’s eyes flew wide open, staring at him.
Raoul smirked and continued:
“I don’t need your permission. This is just to inform you.”
Confused, Vellia hesitated, then asked:
“So you woke me and dragged me here just to tell me that?”
“Isn’t it your fault for still being asleep at this hour?”
It was far earlier than her usual waking time.
Selfish. Thoughtless.
But now wasn’t the time to confront Raoul—first she had to leave and figure out the situation.
Vellia deliberately let her face fall into weariness.
“…Do as you please. You were going to anyway.”
She rose, as if to end the conversation, and headed toward the connecting door by habit. Midway, she stopped, turned, and left through the main door instead.
‘Did Raoul really notify me like that?’
Her memory was blurred.
She was sure Raoul had brought Erze into the palace after their wedding.
She remembered slapping Erze in anger when they met suddenly in the palace halls—when her relationship with Raoul had already collapsed, yet she still clung to it.
Entering her room, Vellia murmured in disbelief:
“Why am I here?”
A dream?
But it felt far too vivid.
She pressed her temples.
And if Erze was coming to the palace… then her marriage to Raoul had already taken place.
‘No way…’
Her expression froze in horror.
If going back to the past was possible, then perhaps returning to a previous life was also possible.
Vellia already knew that crossing timelines was not impossible.
‘Back again? To that terrible time?’
She slumped into a chair and buried her face in her hands.
She couldn’t believe it.
She had only just begun to find happiness…
Her last memory was of collapsing after being stabbed.
‘Then… did I die again, there?’
If Khalid returned and found her dead, he would cry so much.
She worried about him, left behind alone in that place.
‘…I didn’t even get to see his face.’
If only she hadn’t known.
If she hadn’t experienced such happiness, her despair now wouldn’t have been so crushing.
Vellia bit her lip out of habit.
If she wasn’t returned to the past, but instead drifting between timelines—
Would dying here mean she would awaken in yet another?
“If only this were just a dream…”
It was all too unclear.
Vellia let out a long sigh.
Vellia had lain unconscious for over half a month.
News that someone had attempted to assassinate the Second Prince’s consort spread gloom throughout the empire.
The people prayed toward the palace where Vellia lay.
They begged that their kind-hearted consort be kept safe.
“Vellia. I’ve heard from the Holy Nation. Even the High Priest cannot say for certain why this necklace glows. But since it is brimming with divine power, he assured me it will not harm you.”
Khalid wiped the sweat from Vellia’s pale forehead.
Thankfully, her sickly complexion had been improving little by little each day.
“It must have been this necklace that neutralized your poison.”
As though she could hear him, Khalid kept speaking to her.
“And just earlier, Raoul came by. Of course, I didn’t let him in.”
The audacity.
Raoul had stood blankly outside her chamber door for a while before leaving.
By now, he must have remembered everything.
From the moment he killed Vellia with his own hands, to the moment Khalid struck him down.
“…Khalid. I have not given up.”
On what?
On Vellia? Or on the throne?
What exactly was it that Raoul refused to give up?
Khalid slumped into a chair beside her bed, leaning back against it. He rubbed his face roughly, tilting his head back.
A weak hand brushed against his cheek.
“…The Imperial Family concluded that the attack was the act of a lone boy. But the entire world knows that isn’t true.”
The real mastermind was surely Duke Kanterif.
But there was no evidence—he had prepared too thoroughly, leaving no trace.
The assassin was a boy from the slums with no ties to anyone. The Emperor had ruled that he acted out of hatred for Vellia, who showed kindness to everyone but himself. Thus, there was nothing more to pursue.
The Emperor surely knew the truth—who had hired the boy.
But covering it up was his way of protecting Duke Kanterif, his strongest card.
“Asid.”
At Khalid’s call, Asid entered quietly from outside.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Spread the rumor that this attack was carried out by the First Princess Consort, Elin Kanterif, unable to bear her jealousy of Vellia.”
“As you command.”
“The people already adore Vellia. They are all praying for her to wake. In such a mood, a rumor that the First Princess Consort tried to kill her will spread like wildfire.”
Khalid’s lips curled into a cold smile, his eyes dark and sharp.
“This time, we’ll sever Duke Kanterif’s lifeline completely.”
He gestured Asid closer.
“Gather the evidence that the Duke and the Princess Consort were lovers—and that even after her marriage, they met in secret behind the Emperor’s back. Place it all neatly on the Emperor’s desk. The chamberlain will assist you.”
The chamberlain had long since sided with Khalid.
“Isn’t it risky to leave such documents in His Majesty’s office?”
“No. It’s fine. We’ve exposed the Duke’s corruption this way before. He already knows whose doing it was.”
The Emperor tolerated it because the Duke was both his strongest weapon and his greatest threat.
“He’ll fly into a rage when he sees this—but he won’t be able to punish me. If he tries, and I retaliate by spreading the truth, the Princess Consort and her son Raoul’s reputation will collapse overnight. He’ll consider himself lucky it was given directly to him.”
“…Do you think His Majesty will punish the Duke?”
“No. To punish him outright would make the Emperor look weak.”
Before she met the Emperor, the Princess Consort had been the Duke’s lover. But afterward, she had never given her heart to him again.
“Still, for her son’s sake, she sometimes had to deal with the Duke. That’s what we’ll twist into the guise of illicit meetings.”
The Emperor would be furious before even checking the details.
Because their past gave him reason to believe she might still harbor feelings.
“All we need is to plant a little seed of mistrust and anger in the Emperor’s heart.”
The Duke had already once lost the Emperor’s trust.
This would be the second strike—and the last.
“And then…”
Khalid lifted a packet of documents from the bedside table, waving it lightly.
“When the Emperor learns the Duke sold state secrets to foreign powers—how do you think he’ll respond?”
The Duke hadn’t attacked Vellia merely out of fear of that leak.
Nor simply because of his daughter Elin’s pleas.
It was to cover up the long-standing affair between himself and the Princess Consort, from before she became Empress.
He wrongly assumed Vellia held proof of that relationship—when in fact, he himself was the one who kept it.
‘The Empress herself won’t be too shaken…’
The Emperor still loved her, and she had never met the Duke with improper intentions after their union. But the Duke? Different story.
A furious Emperor would never treat him the same again.
“This was bound to explode sooner or later.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Asid bowed.
Khalid waved him out, then covered his face with one hand, exhaling deeply. His chest felt unbearably tight.
And then—
“…Kha… lid?”
A faint, fragile voice brushed his ear like a breeze.
Khalid’s head shot up.
Vellia’s eyes fluttered open, her breathing labored.
“Vellia. Vellia!”
“Is this… a dream…?”
She murmured weakly.
“I want… to see you… Khalid…”
Her voice faded, dissolving back into the air.
