The last stage of the empress selection was finally beginning. Westalia woke up at her usual time and got ready. Then, she left her mansion accompanied by Paige and a few ladies’ maids.
The final selection was set to take place in the audience room of Le Chantier Palace. The only people who would be allowed in that room were those who had permission. There, the emperor would pose a question to each candidate that they had to answer.
Westalia waited in the anteroom for a little while before an attendant came to retrieve her.
“Guess it’s time,” Westalia said. “You all wait here, please.”
“Will you really be okay by yourself? I can see you at least to the audience room,” Paige offered.
“When did you become so overprotective, Paige? I’ll be fine,” Westalia reassured Paige. “I’m going to give it my best. So you’re just going to have to trust me.”
“Okay,” Paige said.
Westalia walked down the long corridor. When she finally reached the door for the audience chamber, Elizabeth was standing in front of it. She was the other one of the two finalists. Dressed in a bright pink dress, she stood resolute. The two should’ve been uncomfortable with each other after the dress-cutting incident, but they gracefully bowed to each other as if nothing had happened.
“Let’s do our best and not let any bad feelings remain between us, Westalia,” Elizabeth said.
Westalia was glad the other woman didn’t hold any animosity toward her, but then Elizabeth leaned in and whispered, “You seem to be in a good position, but I won’t be defeated so easily.” She continued, “Why do you even want to be empress? The Kingdom of Lhumzia has collapsed because of you. What’s the point of taking this country too?”
She was insinuating to Westalia that if she wanted to rule, she should go back to her own country.
“Any woman in the Archaites Empire is allowed to participate in the empress selection so long as she is a citizen here. The fact that I am standing here like this means that there is no problem with my qualifications,” Westalia replied. Sparks flew between them as they held each other’s gaze. Elizabeth had no right to complain about her.
The large doors leading to the audience chamber slowly opened in front of them. They both blinked in the bright light of the chandelier, and when their eyes adjusted they saw the empress, the emperor, and Leonardo in the spacious audience chamber. Westalia had thought that the princess and the other prince were supposed to be in attendance as well, but it seemed like they’d been excluded from the final selection for some reason.
Empress Canela had always been fond of Elizabeth and the look in her eye made it clear she was rooting for her. Leonardo, on the other hand, gave Westalia a worried glance.
I wish he didn’t look more worried than I feel, Westalia thought.
Elizabeth and Westalia stepped into the room and curtsied to the royal family.
“I am Elizabeth Reyn, daughter of the Reyn family.”
“My name is Westalia Lejainne. I came from the Kingdom of Lhumzia.”
They both spoke with their heads down.
“Please, raise your heads,” the emperor said.
“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty,” they both replied.
The emperor had an attendant bring him a scroll. It held the question the two would need to answer. He looked down at the pair of them.
“We will now begin the final selection,” the emperor said. His stern and dignified appearance created an unprecedented sense of tension in the room. He cleared his throat once before reading from the scroll.
“Please tell us what should be done to end hunger among the poor. This question is your final test. Elizabeth, please answer first.”
“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty. I think it would be good if the rich could share their food. We nobles have a duty to give charity to the weak. If we all have compassion, there will be no one who suffers from poverty. I would like to be an empress who can be a role model for the nobles and teach them virtue,” Elizabeth said.
It was an exemplary answer, as if she had prepared it beforehand. Elizabeth then spoke enthusiastically about how best to make the nobles helping those lesser than them the norm.
A real honor student’s answer, Westalia thought. If it had been an exam, Elizabeth would have received full marks.
After the emperor heard Elizabeth’s answer, he looked at Westalia and urged her to answer. She didn’t hesitate.
“I think it is clear that sharing food is not the answer to hunger.”
“Oh, are you criticizing the previous answer?” the emperor asked, cocking his head. Elizabeth frowned.
“Tens of thousands of people are starving in this country. Can the nobility continue to feed them endlessly? No, they cannot.” Providing food would only be a makeshift solution—a fleeting relief. It was just like Daniel had said to the little thief boy about his malnourished sister: Without access to food, medicine would only be a temporary measure.
“As the question suggested,” she continued, “to fundamentally solve hunger, we need to develop and implement policies that will help the poor find food on their own. Allow me to elaborate. The first focus is education.” Westalia mentioned the low literacy rate she had learned about when she arrived in the country.
Because of its large size and population, the Archaites Empire was not very literate. A huge amount of the paper used in the written examination for the empress selection would just be thrown away if the women taking it couldn’t read. If a woman could read and write, she would have a better chance of finding a job. The first solution was to provide education not only to the aristocracy but also to the poor so that they could escape poverty and gain the economic power to buy food.
“The second point is health care,” Westalia said, moving on. She cited the example of her home country of Lhumzia, where many lives were still being lost due to epidemics. When people were sick, the population would eventually shrink and the labor force would become smaller. So, she stated, creating an environment where medicines were easily accessible would also improve productivity in farming and other activities. In the Kingdom of Lhumzia, medicines for epidemic diseases were exorbitantly priced, and only the wealthy could afford them. However, as the disease reduced the working population, the aristocracy’s territorial income was reduced, and as a result, the country as a whole became poorer.
“The poor, who have no access to medicine, grasp at straws and even end up drinking toxic things that have no effect on their illnesses and kill them. It is the foolish aristocrats who have a monopoly on the medicine who should really be drinking something toxic,” Westalia said. Delphine was one of those foolish nobles. However, she was not the only one who was profiting from reselling the medicine in that way. There were others who had come up with the same idea.
In this country, it was the Devorah Trading Company. They sold their goods at high prices, giving priority to the aristocrats and other wealthy people, and did not deal with poor customers even if they were really in need.
Furthermore, in the Kingdom of Slidd, there were those who earned their money not only through the medicine but also by trafficking in human beings for the nobility. Westalia remembered well Lyra’s sorrowful face as she begged for help while bound in chains and Paige’s cold expression, like she’d merely given up, when she was locked up under that filthy arena. Wasn’t it the responsibility of the state to crack down on those kinds of businesses?
“It will take a lot of money and effort to do these things,” Westalia said. “But I believe that supporting and laying the groundwork for self-reliance is what will truly save the people from crisis.”
“So you believe the current policies are wrong?” the emperor asked.
Honestly, Westalia thought there would always be problems. It was normal for a country to be less than perfect. But here, to answer that the policies were wrong could be taken as a criticism of the beloved emperor. It would clearly be an inappropriate response for the empress selection, but Westalia couldn’t utter a sycophantic remark just to boost the emperor’s opinion of her.