“I think…Saleilles was trying to get rid of me as Hermine. First with the poisoned tea, then with the attack… If the tin of tea was tampered with and the poison was only mixed into the tea leaves that would be used first, then no one would ever find a trace of poison, even if they investigated the tin afterward… Then they could pin my murder on the prince.”
“But even if they did that, there was no way of knowing for certain that Sara would be the only one to drink it, right?” asked the queen mother. “Richard just happened to drink something else that day.”
Richard looked up.
“No… When I spoke with the envoy, he politely dissuaded me from drinking it, saying the heavy taste would likely be too strong for me… He probably never realized she would smell the poison…”
“So because that plan failed, they attacked her at the party?” asked the queen mother.
“That’s right,” said Edouard. “The real waiter was later discovered in a warehouse. The assassin had stripped him of everything… Now that I’ve heard the story from you two, I’ve made a few predictions of my own… Saleilles probably didn’t care if their assassination attempts were successful or not.”
Edouard looked at each of their faces in turn before sighing.
“What they needed above all else is the ability to point to these attempts and say, ‘The people of Ferrier are trying to kill Princess Hermine.’ Having the assassin give a speech like he’s a citizen of Ferrier before attacking Sara… If the assassination had been successful and Richard had finished off the murderer, the truth would likely have been lost to us forever.”
Both of the assassination attempts had been rather miraculously thwarted—first because of Sara’s sense of smell, and then because of Richard’s snap judgment.
“In any case, both plots were rather sloppy. Or rather—Saleilles was making such a huge gamble that, if they had succeeded, it wouldn’t have mattered if their plans had been a little sloppy.”
Sara felt the weight of the king’s words as if she had been stabbed in the chest. She hung her head.
“If I had told the truth sooner, your party would never have been ruined, and His Highness’s secret would never have gotten out… I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. The seed of deceit had been planted by the Saleilles royal family from the start, was it not? Not only did King Saleilles reject the ceasefire condition that Princess Hermine would marry into this family from the very beginning, but he also tried to pin the crime on you, an innocent civilian. He even tried to kill you to ensure your silence… You’ve gathered more than enough grounds for us to start levying complaints, don’t you think?” said Edouard, smiling with a far-off look in his eyes.
“He seems to have been making quite the fool of me because I’m young and inexperienced… I’ll be bringing it up for a proper deliberation later, but it seems to me that we need to make the Saleilles royal family feel a bit of pain,” he said. “Mother, Richard, what do you think?”
“If we don’t respond, Saleilles will only continue to disrespect us,” the queen mother replied. “Fortunately, they don’t yet know that Sara has confided in us. If we are to strike, it should be now.”
O-Oh my… The queen mother is quite hawkish…
Sara had assumed the queen mother would try to calm the king down, but it was quite the opposite. Her usually gentle, smiling eyes narrowed as she joined him in calling for an attack.
It was true, however, that if Ferrier didn’t do anything, Saleilles would only get bolder in their assassination attempts. The next time they sent in their minions to take Sara out, there was even a possibility that innocent people, like Claire and the other servants, would get hurt.
Sara glanced at Richard. He held her gaze before nodding.
“Right. Let’s get rid of them,” he said resolutely.
“W-Wait, Your Highness!”
“All right, I’ll wait… For how many seconds?”
“You say you’ll ‘get rid of them,’ but…if you’re going to kill people, please only kill a few of them.”
Sara didn’t want to show clemency to King Saleilles. In fact, she didn’t really want to pardon Hermine, either, but she had already married as “Sara.” If Hermine would just quietly slink back into obscurity, Sara wouldn’t pursue her and just let her be.
Richard looked somewhat sympathetic.
“It’ll be all right. If we attack Saleilles, we won’t harm innocent civilians. We’ll probably only need to take out three people—the king, the princess, and your ex-boyfriend.”
He slipped those two into that list!
Apparently in Richard’s mind, Hermine and Firmin were just as reprehensible as the king, the one responsible for causing the war.
As Sara felt a surge of panic and a desire to pull at her hair, she tugged Richard’s coat sleeve to get his attention again.
“Wait, please. I don’t disagree with your plans for the king. I think it would even be better for Saleilles if the king were to abdicate and concede the throne to his son. But you don’t have to go as far as including the other two…”
“But don’t you hate them?” he asked.
“I do, but…we don’t have to go through all the trouble of chasing them down and taking revenge. I have no lingering attachment to either Firmin or Hermine, so I just want them to enjoy each other’s company out of my sight, no revenge necessary.”
In fact, Sara had only been sad for just half a day after hearing about Hermine and Firmin’s wedding.
Now, they were nothing but two people from her past. Sara detested that they were basking in happiness after treating her so poorly, of course, but she didn’t need Richard to take care of them like that.
“And I’m just going to add this so there’s no misunderstanding,” Sara continued. “I’m not saying this because I have any trace of compassion for them. I just don’t think those two are even worth the effort it would take to raise your hand against them.”
“So you don’t care about them anymore?”
“Exactly. I couldn’t care less if I tried.”
Richard looked at Sara with a somber expression, but eventually nodded.
“If that’s what you want, okay. But I’m only agreeing to not go after them. If they try to interfere with us, or if they insult you in any way, they’ll be just as much a target as the king. Is this okay with you, Edouard?”
“I don’t mind at all. I think the Saleilles crown should transfer to the prince. I heard that the prince rebelled against the king and was ostracized, unlike the princess. But I’ve heard that he is a good-natured young man who is open to having productive conversations. He should be able to hear us out. And if he tries to get in our way, we’ll get rid of him, too,” Edouard added casually.
King Edouard had heard correctly. Prince Alphonse, Hermine’s older brother, had long been estranged from the king for disagreeing with the king’s policies, so he spent most of each year out in the countryside by the king’s royal decree. He had even been titled “prince” instead of “crown prince” because the king had not recognized him as his successor.
Rumor has it that the king has plans to name a distant aristocratic relative as his successor, but then again, it would probably be easier for Ferrier to deal with a prince living in the countryside than a distant relative that has been influenced by the king…
A look of resolve came over Sara’s face. Edouard nodded and got to his feet.
“We will hold a council of war at once so we can make Saleilles pay the price for what they’ve done. Dear sister, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming here today and telling us the truth.”
“No. Thank you, Your Majesty, for your wise judgment. I’m just a fake princess, but…I humbly hope you’ll extend your kindness to the people of my homeland so that they may live better lives than the ones they’re living now.”
“You’re much more like a princess than the real one.”
The king smiled and left the drawing room with his mother.