If she was a vassal Heredin trusted enough to entrust this consultation about the incident to, then she would surely be shaken by Blair’s words about wanting to clear Esmeralda’s unjust accusation.
And Blair’s method worked exactly as intended.
“But…….”
Watching Agnes hesitate, unable to firmly refuse or agree, Blair took it as an opportunity to press her opinion further.
“It’s very late, but even now I want to clear Her Majesty the Empress of that injustice.”
“…….”
“Please help me, Agnes.”
At Blair’s earnest plea, Agnes groaned quietly before finally giving in.
“…But only this once.”
At last hearing the answer she wanted, Blair’s face brightened.
Seeing that, Agnes immediately added sternly,
“If Madam shows even the slightest sign of struggling, or if you suffer any aftereffects later, you must follow my instructions without exception.”
“Thank you.”
Seeing Blair still smiling despite her warning, Agnes laughed as if she had lost.
“Are you really that happy?
This will be extremely difficult for you.”
“Even if it’s difficult, there are things that must be done.”
Agnes looked at Blair with worried eyes as she calmly spoke about the pain she would suffer because of her trauma, then seemed to remember something and said,
“If you’re doing this because you want to be accepted by Delmark as soon as possible, you don’t need to.
The people who reject you for that reason are the ones in the wrong.”
At Agnes’s concern, Blair’s eyes widened slightly in surprise before she smiled faintly.
“…Once, that was true. But not anymore.”
A trace of bitterness lingered in her smile as she answered.
“I regretted that matter for a very long time… and now I don’t want to regret it anymore.
That’s all.”
Agnes thought Blair’s eyes seemed to be gazing somewhere very far away, but hearing the faint sound of a pendulum clock, she pushed the thought aside.
“Alright.
Then shall we begin?
Before His Grace returns.”
* * *
As evening twilight settled.
Behind a woman wearing a black robe, another woman in a dark green robe stepped down from a carriage.
The ones who blocked their path as they tried to enter the temple were the holy knights guarding the side gate.
“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to return today.
The temple is closing for the night…….”
At that, the woman in the black robe took something from inside her coat and showed it.
It was a badge engraved with the imperial emblem.
Only then did the holy knight look closely at the woman in the dark green robe with surprise.
Luxurious Flontina-blonde hair, crimson eyes, and a beautiful face that seemed untouched by time.
Recognizing that face, the knight hurriedly lowered his head.
“M-my apologies.
I didn’t realize.
Please come in.”
He stepped aside, signaling with his eyes to the other knight who looked confused because he hadn’t recognized Katrina.
The two women passed them and entered the temple.
Without noticing that another pair of eyes was watching them.
The place where they stopped was a private chapel.
The temple had private chapels prepared for high-ranking nobles who wished to pray quietly and meditate.
The woman in the black robe remained outside the chapel door, while only the woman in the dark green robe entered and removed her hood.
Katrina’s face was revealed beneath it.
Around the time Katrina finished lighting the candles throughout the chapel herself, another person entered.
“What concern has brought you here in such haste?”
Gerard approached Katrina with his usual gentle smile.
Katrina’s expression, which had shown nothing until now, collapsed the moment he appeared.
Like a beast showing its weakness only to the one it trusted most.
“…Your Holiness.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.
Please tell me anything.
I will help as much as I can.”
Katrina bit her trembling lip tightly before speaking as if finally releasing the pain she had been holding back.
“Blair… is searching for the memories of that day.”
“…….”
“What should I do?”
In her crimson eyes as she asked, many emotions were mixed together—anger, betrayal, fear.
Gerard, as if he understood her without needing further explanation, approached with a smile and held her trembling hand to comfort her.
“Her Highness the Princess is Your Majesty’s daughter.
What is there to worry about?
She would never go against the bonds of family.”
“No, that’s only because Your Holiness doesn’t know that child.
She is more than capable of throwing me into the mud.
I know her well.”
Katrina recalled Blair’s calm response when she had told her to immediately stop the hypnosis and counseling.
‘Stop oppressing me any longer, Mother.’
Those eyes.
That gaze.
Even remembering it made her teeth grind.
“That child… resembles that woman.
More than she resembles me.”
When Blair was born, Katrina had been completely satisfied.
A beautiful daughter who resembled herself perfectly.
One son resembling his father, and beneath him a daughter resembling herself.
It seemed like the perfect family arrangement.
Moreover, since the girl resembled her and was beautiful, she would surely play her part well in society and in a political marriage later.
The emperor cherishing the daughter who resembled her had also felt like proof of his love for Katrina.
Even Esmeralda adoring Blair had made her happy, because it felt like possessing something that woman did not have.
Katrina’s life had been perfect.
Until she realized that the growing Blair was gradually starting to resemble Esmeralda more and more.
At first she became frantic.
‘You are my daughter, so why?’
It felt as though the child born from her womb had suddenly been stolen.
So she tried to force the girl into her own mold somehow.
But even after Esmeralda died, and even as Blair’s face came to resemble Katrina’s more and more as she grew, her nature could not be hidden.
The moment she faced Blair—who had her own face but the exact same gaze as that woman—it had been horrifying.
It felt as if the ghost of the dead woman had returned.
At some point, Blair stopped being a proud trophy and became a rival she had to defeat.
And how pitiful, how miserable, how entertaining it was to watch that child desperately crave even a scrap of her affection.
But everything went wrong after Blair married into Delmark.
Following Ivan’s suggestion to absorb Delmark’s power through a political marriage had been her mistake.
“…What happened that day must never be revealed.”
Katrina murmured desperately.
If the truth of that day came out, everything she had built over her lifetime would collapse.
That could never be allowed.
Gerard, who had been watching the anxious Katrina with calm eyes, spoke.
“If you are truly worried, then how about doing this?”
* * *
“Then have sweet dreams, Madam.”
“You sleep well too.”
After helping Blair change into her nightclothes and brushing her hair, Meli quietly left the room.
Blair watched the door for a moment after it closed again before standing up from the dressing table.
Although he had not come to the bedroom for several days, it seemed better to go to bed early just in case.
As Blair finished preparing for bed and was about to lie down under the blanket, she noticed her hands trembling unconsciously and clasped them together.
It was the aftereffect of the hypnosis she had undergone with Agnes earlier that day.
Blair sighed as she looked at her body reacting without her will.
The hypnosis she had started with such determination had ended in failure.
She and Agnes had struggled for a long time, but the young Blair in her subconscious never left the wardrobe she had been trapped in.
Perhaps she had not been trapped, but had confined herself there to protect herself completely.
Still, there was one thing she had glimpsed that she had not seen in the previous hypnosis.
Within her subconscious, through the crack of the wardrobe door, Blair had seen a maid’s uniform.
The face of the maid who was said to have died there that day.
But that fact, which had already been revealed, did not provide much help in uncovering the truth of the incident.
Agnes had comforted Blair, who was disappointed by the lack of results, saying it was still proof that her memories were slowly returning.
However, she had not promised another hypnosis session.
‘If Madam doesn’t suffer aftereffects tomorrow, we’ll consider it again then.’
With that, today’s consultation had ended.
Lying in bed, Blair clasped her still faintly trembling hands and prayed desperately.
That she would wake up fine the next morning.
After soothing herself for a while, Blair’s eyelids slowly closed.
* * *
When Blair woke up, she blinked her heavy eyelids slowly before suddenly snapping awake.
‘Where… is this?’
Not only had the place where she was sleeping changed from a bed to a sofa, but this wasn’t even the bedroom where she had fallen asleep.
Yet it felt strangely familiar.
There was even a faint sense of longing.
Especially the fragrance filling the room gave her a sense of comfort.
Blair slowly sat up.
Then, regardless of her own will, her hand moved to rub her sleepy eyes.
The hand was small.
The moment she realized that, a voice slipped out of her mouth without her control.
“Your Majesty the Empress?”
When she lifted her head, she saw someone doing something on the floor at the foot of the bed.
“Oh my.
You’re already awake, Blair?”
A familiar voice.
A familiar face.
But now Esmeralda, who had become the source of her trauma, was standing there.
The moment she saw her, Blair realized instinctively.
‘…This is a dream.’
At the same time, she also realized that this was not a simple dream, but a memory from sometime long ago that had been forgotten along with the accident