Chapter 208

“…I never accepted that man.” Patrizia tried to deny, but Rosemond cackled as if she already knew about everything.

“You are so stupid. You have already accepted that man.”

“…”

“You embraced him first. It was you who kissed him first as well. You are just making excuses because you do not want to admit the feelings you possess for him. Am I wrong?”

“Even so, what does it matter to you?”

-To you…- Patrizia felt her whole body break out in shivers as she glared at Rosemond. The woman was already dead, and what was probably in front of Patrizia’s eyes right that moment was an illusion. -Why do you even after your death… make things so difficult for me?-

“My whole body is itching to see you end up just like me as soon as possible,” Rosemond whispered into her ear, her face full of glee. “One day you will die with your head being cut off by a guillotine exactly like me, when that man ends up getting another woman.”

“You…”

“Why, do you not think so?” Rosemond snickered as if trying to ridicule Patrizia’s foolishness. “You are too silly! At first, that man behaved in the exact same way to me. He acted as if he was going to remove his own liver and gallbladder for me if necessary!”

“Because the relationship between the two of you was not real love.” Patrizia drew a smile for the first time. It was not a beautiful smile. It was a smile that was scary, weird, cold, and so it looked that much grimmer. Patrizia nailed her point further. “The relationship between the two of you was wrong in the first place. You knew that as well, did you not?”

“…”

“You did not really love the Emperor, and His Majesty was just fooled by those feelings. Just as the heart beating from fear can be mistaken for a beat of excitement.”

“Pretending to be smart to the very end! Can you be confident that yours is not like that to boot?”

“…”

“See, you are not confident either, right?” Rosemond smiled beautifully and said these last words, “You will end up just like me someday!”

As she did, the moment Rosemond died was recreated in front of Patrizia’s eyes. The screams of the people watching, and the terrible sound of the neck being chopped off…

Patrizia let out a scream without realizing she did so, “Aaaargh!” She was startled awake and jumped up into a sitting position, her forehead covered with cold sweat.

Mirya and Rafaella heard the scream, and hurriedly opened the door to enter the room.

“Your Majesty!”

“Lizzy!”

The two looked around the surroundings to see if anything had happened, but fortunately, they did not see anything suspicious and let out a sigh of relief.

Mirya asked anxiously, “Your Majesty, what is going on?”

“Oh my goodness, Mirya. Look at all this sweat.”

“Haaa…” Patrizia tried to calm herself down with a series of shallow breaths, but her difficulty in breathing did not go away easily. One of the maids quickly brought a glass of lukewarm water, and Patrizia drank it slowly. She continued to gasp for air with a pale face.

Rafaella asked, “Your Majesty, what in the world is going on?”

“Haaa… Darn it all.” Patrizia muttered to herself in a somewhat sorrowful tone, “I have to go to the Central Palace.”

—

Meanwhile, Lucio had gone to bed earlier than usual that day. When Patrizia had woken up after having that nightmare, he had already been asleep for a long time. Of course, he was wandering through the dream world without being aware of anything that Patrizia had been going through.

“Your Majesty? For what reason could you possibly be here at this time…”

“His Majesty is inside…”

“His Majesty is currently in a deep slumber…”

Hearing their faint voices, Lucio quickly woke up, being an unusually light sleeper. He sat up in his bed and asked with a sleepy expression, “What is the matter?”

At his voice, there was a moment of silence outside, and a moment later he could hear the voice of his Chief Maid, “Your Majesty, Her Majesty the Empress has…”

“What are you doing without escorting her inside right away?”

“I apologize, Your Majesty. Please make your way inside.” The door to his room opened concurrently with the slightly sharp voice.

Lucio, who had continued to have blank-looking eyes until then, struck his cheek a couple of times in order to wake up quickly. Why had she been in search of him this late at night? With a face mixed with a combination of anticipation, excitement, and fear, he rose up and got out of the bed.

“…”

Patrizia was not wearing her usually tidy hair in an updo, and instead, her hair was loose and disheveled.

Of course, in Lucio’s eyes, even that was absolutely adorable, and rather, it was not a meaningful change, because it even added a feeling of innocence to her.

Dressed in a white dress used as a nightgown, she staggered toward him.

Whether it looked precarious, or simply because he wanted to reach her a little faster, Lucio could not endure the wait and ran towards her first.

“Empress, did something happen…?”

“Your Majesty.” The voice she used to call out to him revealed that something serious had occurred.

He asked in an instinctively lowered voice, “Lizzy? What is the matter?”

“Your Majesty.” She continued to only call out to him, and he responded to her in a calm voice.

“Shh, it is alright. What is going on?”

“…”

She looked up at his face without a word with eyes that were somewhat unstable, and Lucio was suddenly scared. He knew those eyes. It was a look that he was beyond sick of, because it was something that was very familiar to him. It was an expression that had deeply taken root in his heart since that day.

He asked her in a shaking voice, “Lizzy, why are you acting like that…” but he could not finish his thought properly.

Patrizia jumped into his arms.

He was naturally taken aback, and without being able to feel the happiness that stemmed from the fact that she had been the one to enter his embrace for the first time, he had to ask her for the whole story. Something was off about her at that moment.

“Did something happen? If it is something that you do not want to tell me about, you do not have to let me know…”

“Your Majesty,” Patrizia asked him in a tormented voice, “Are you going to abandon me, Your Majesty?”

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Translated by Haeli

Edited by RED