Epilogue
“HELLO, Princess Natalie, I’ve brought some snacks from His Majesty,” Jill said, popping into the princess’s room.
“Brother Hadis too?” Natalie replied wearily, closing her book atop her bed.
Jill was confused, but when she approached the bed, she soon realized the reason for the princess’s exasperation. A mountain of items was stacked on the sofa for guests in the corner of her room—all were gifts that wished her well. Fruits, snacks from famous stores, flowers, and even accessories were stacked high.
“Who is this all from?” Jill asked.
“Potential suitors that Brother Vissel chose for me,” Natalie replied. As the Dragon Consort gave a look of shock, Natalie frowned. “What? I’m quite popular, I’ll have you know.”
“I understand that, but are you okay with this?” Jill asked.
“What say do I have in it?” Natalie responded. “Help me out too. Lutiya finds faults with everyone, and Frida’s also against all the suitors.”
“But…isn’t it aggravating to become engaged to a person that Prince Vissel chose for you?” Jill asked.
“You’re right…” Natalie said pensively and thought for a few moments before raising her head. “I’m planning on attending some evening parties. It’s been a while since I’ve socialized, so it might be best if I practiced dancing again.”
“I’ll help you out! I’m planning on increasing my number of evening parties too!”
“It’s difficult to feel reassured at the idea of borrowing your help for such matters…”
“How rude!” Jill said, puffing out her cheeks.
Natalie giggled. She still hadn’t regained her former vigor, but she looked a lot better than before.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m the Dragon Emperor’s younger sister.”
Jill nodded—it was all she could do.
After Meruonis was killed and Gerald fled, Natalie broke out in a fever and had been in bed for a while. When piecing together the fragments of the story that the princess had managed to eke out, it was clear that Gerald had killed Meruonis. However, if it became known that the Kratos prince had murdered the previous emperor, it would only fan the flames of the radical anti-Kratos faction. Kratos wouldn’t stay quiet about this either, so the best course of action was to pin him as a mere suspect.
Above all, Minerd’s words upon hearing Natalie’s incident affected Hadis’s decision. The scandal that Cassandra had also lent credence to couldn’t be publicized so easily. The Empress’s Palace was full of dark secrets, but this was an issue that was on a different scale from Hadis’s birth.
Minerd and Natalie’s mother had witnessed the moment the king was bestowed the Parrying Dagger—the false Heavenly Sword—within Kratos’s palace. She’d been feeding Meruonis all sorts of theories. If the older brother and younger sister of the Kratos royal family formed a union that gave the older brother the Parrying Dagger, continuing the Kratos royals’ lineage, then surely the same could occur for the Rave imperial family. A union between two siblings of the Rave imperial family would surely bestow the older brother with the Heavenly Sword.
Meruonis was reluctant to believe this, but he’d gone insane when Hadis was born. He’d sent Natalie’s mother into his then-alive father’s bedroom, and thus Princess Natalie was born. Cassandra claimed that the numbers simply didn’t add up, but the truth mattered little here. The issue was that Meruonis truly believed that he was Natalie’s half-sibling and bet on his chances. This was also why she’d been targeted at the Empress’s Palace.
Her mother, who’d been enchanted by the Parrying Dagger, had repeatedly told Minerd to do the deed should Meruonis fail. Minerd had the possibility of carrying the blood of an emperor of two generations ago. The prince, however, found this to be a trivial matter and had willingly become Rave’s messenger to Kratos, putting himself in danger.
In other words, his role was to go to Kratos and say something along the lines of, “Your crown prince apparently killed our previous emperor, but has he returned to your kingdom? If he has, please hand him over. If he hasn’t, we’ll find and get rid of him. Have a nice day.” If Minerd played his cards wrong, he’d be killed.
He agreed to do this as a way of expressing his gratitude; Natalie being at the scene of Meruonis’s murder had been concealed.
“Find Gerald as soon as possible and capture him to take the initiative,” Minerd had said before he left on a dragon provided by the imperial family, guarded under Duke Neutrahl’s careful watch.
“Brother Minerd should be in Kratos by now,” Natalie muttered, gazing outside the opened terrace. “I caused so much trouble… I hope everyone’s okay…”
Even Jill, who was inexperienced when it came to love, could take a hint. She placed Hadis’s cookies firmly in Natalie’s hands.
“He’ll be fine,” Jill assured. “He’s smart and strong. At the very least, he isn’t pathetic enough to die before getting to Kratos.”
Natalie gasped and faced the Dragon Consort.
Jill purposefully made an angry face. “But I can’t forgive him for making you cry. I’ll capture him and have him apologize for running. So…don’t give up. A prince of our theoretical enemy nation should be a tough opponent. His Majesty has caused me so much trouble as well.”
Natalie’s eyes wavered. She wasn’t ready just yet. Hence, she ended up accepting gifts from potential suitors. Until recently, she had spurned these requests, declaring that she’d become the crown princess of Kratos and had no need for such things.
When she was deciding on Gerald’s outfit, it looked like she was having so much fun. It was an adorable sight—she looked like a maiden in love.
“If I was you, would you think I would’ve been able to stop him?” Natalie asked.
“Nope. Not one bit,” Jill replied.
Natalie knitted her brows in bemusement, but Jill was confident. If the legend was true—if the Parrying Dagger was bestowed upon the Kratos royal family from a union between a brother and a sister, Kratos would’ve been cornered the moment Jill spotted Gerald and Faris having an affair. There was a good chance that Gerald tried to attain the Parrying Dagger to stop Dragon Emperor Hadis, who was massacring and destroying anyone in his path, and to protect his kingdom. If so, this wasn’t an affair.
However, Gerald didn’t justify himself and had cut Jill off. She, in turn, couldn’t trust him and marched ahead. Whatever excuses they had, that was reality.