Chapter 97

“After you finish reading the diary, come to the Throne Hall.”

My steps toward that place were hurried, my fingertips trembling.
My heart pounded as if it might burst.

“That Luciano Elemore… was actually the Dark Knight?”

It was impossible to believe, yet the late Emperor’s diary clearly contained such a passage.
And indeed, Duke Luciano’s past actions matched the claim.

Those who had tried to harm the late Emperor were exposed and punished several times,
and Duke Luciano was always said to be close to them.

That was one of the reasons the nobles of the Council faction despised him—
calling him a hyena who had never hidden his filthy ambitions since the late Emperor’s time.

But what if it had been Luciano Elemore secretly reporting those traitors?
Not befriending them for wicked ends, but to uncover their schemes and gather evidence?

“Then why did he become the Rebel Emperor’s right hand and make Etias suffer so much?”

That was why I could not easily reach a clear conclusion.

In the original story, Luciano Elemore had been the Rebel Emperor’s right hand—
his enforcer, spreading terror through countless atrocities.
He politically isolated Etias, making him a pariah.

To me, who had read the novel, he had seemed no better than the Rebel Emperor himself.

“But… what if?”

I stopped suddenly.
A thought struck me.

If Luciano Elemore had not taken that place,
then fools like Marquis Winsome or Marquis Regalo surely would have.

Given Regalo’s nature, he would have told the Emperor to ignore any voices in the Council calling to protect Etias.
And if that had happened, Etias’s life might have been in even greater danger.

“If the Rebel Emperor’s rise to the throne could not be stopped, then by staying closest to him, pretending to help…”

My eyes trembled.

“…he was protecting Etias?”

Since my possession, I had never spoken with Duke Elemore directly.
All I had were guesses, drawn from the novel.

For example, the so‑called “Class‑1 confidential document” he intended to give the Emperor—
was it really the list of the revolutionaries?
That too was only my guess, based on his character.

“Luciano Elemore…”

I resumed my steps toward the Throne Hall.
Unbelievable as it seemed, I was beginning to feel certain he was not the man I had thought him to be.

When I finally entered, Etias was speaking to the nobles in a clear, commanding voice.

“Luciano Elemore, as the Rebel Emperor’s right hand, acted as his eyes and ears, and he tormented me. Yet I began to wonder—could such a shrewd man truly have failed to notice that I was plotting rebellion?”

His blue eyes gleamed deeply as they met mine.

“My army was pulsing from the capital to every corner of the Empire. If he had doubted and watched closely, he could have found the trail.”

Even Heros—Jeffrey Whistler—had realized Etias was planning to reclaim the throne,
before the rebellion itself.

“H-ha! But Your Majesty,” Aglia cried, her face twisting,
“Luciano Elemore was truly vile! He tormented you relentlessly. Please, do not be misled by such baseless speculation…”

Now it was my turn.

Cutting off the words of the hateful woman who had tried to kill me, I spoke loudly:

“He could never be more vile than you.”

I stepped forward, toward where Etias and Aglia stood.
The nobles turned their eyes on me, shocked.
Aglia, too, looked as if she had seen a ghost, her lips trembling.

“….”

Etias’s blue eyes rippled with warmth.
He welcomed my arrival.

Standing before them, I raised high the evidence I had prepared—Aglia’s weakness,
retrieved earlier from Piyo.

“What’s that?” murmurs spread through the hall.

“Duke Kamel, please read it.”

I handed it to Kamel.
Etias nodded toward him, and Kamel cleared his throat before reading aloud the secret letter Aglia had written to Luciano Elemore.

“To Duke Elemore,
From Speaker Aglia.
I request that you destroy the documents concerning my corruption.
In return, I offer you this:
the life of Etias von Clyde, the thorn in both Your Grace’s and His Majesty’s side.”

Gasps filled the hall.

Aglia had begged for her corruption to be erased,
offering her nephew Etias’s life as the price.

“I—I never! That’s not true!”

Shaking her head violently, Aglia glared at me, her voice sharp:

“Like father, like daughter! To push me into a corner with such absurd forgeries—how despicable!”

I tilted my lips in a crooked smile.
She must feel like dying now.

The very person she had tried to burn with the evidence was standing here,
unscathed, exposing her before everyone.

From behind, Kamel’s steady voice carried after finishing the letter:

“Having received many letters from the Council, I cannot mistake the Speaker’s distinctive handwriting.”

The nobles’ murmurs grew louder.

“No! It’s not true! Why would I ever bargain my beloved nephew Etias’s life? Etias, you must believe me!”

Aglia stepped closer to Etias, her expression twisting with desperate pleas, forcing a smile that only looked pitiful.

Etias finally spoke.

“What I brought back from Quaidon was not only Katrin.”

At Kamel’s signal, soldiers who had returned from Quaidon with Etias dragged in prisoners.

They were assassins who had tried to kill Lucia disguised as me—only to be subdued by Heros—
and mercenaries captured after ambushing the procession on the way here.

Among them stood Lucia, pale and shaken, her spirit nearly gone.

“Tell them how many times you, pretending to be Katrin Elemore, were attacked.”

“H-huff… seven—no, nine times, Your Majesty.”

Lucia stammered through trembling lips.
Though she had escaped with only minor wounds, she had nearly died twice.

“Huh… huhhh…”

The memory sickened her; she collapsed to the floor, shoulders shaking violently.

Etias’s voice was stern as he addressed the assassins.

“Who ordered you?”

Aglia shook her head, stepping backward in panic.

“Speaking is the only way you may live.”

Every assassin’s gaze turned toward Aglia.
The one at the front opened his mouth.

“It was this woman. She tried to hide her face, but people like us know by scent and presence.”

“…!”

Aglia’s foot caught her gown’s hem.
She stumbled backward, falling hard onto her rear.

“Yes. It was her. She ordered us to kill Katrin Elemore…”

Another assassin spoke,
his words hanging heavy in the charged silence.

“She said to kill anyone beside her as well.”

Faces around the hall froze in horror.

At once, the palace knights leveled their blades at the fallen, panicked Aglia.

“Eeeek!”

She stared at the cold steel pointed at her, her face white as if she would faint.

And then the assassin’s voice rang again:

“Even if the one beside her was the Emperor himself.”