CH 61

After Halbert had successfully seized the throne with the help of his cousins, he continued to neglect the problem of territorial disputes and even spread them to unaffected estates, further depriving the lords of their power while building up his influence in the capital. Unexpected changes happened within the royal family as well, with Halbert beginning to treat Lydia with hostility. His behavior clearly showed that he had begun to think of his own sister as a nuisance.

Halbert also started being belligerent towards his cousins; he deliberately held banquets to pose ambiguous threats to them, despite the fact that they had supported him in the usurpation of the throne. At first, it was difficult for Lydia to tell whether Halbert was threatening her and the rest of his cousins or not because she would be drunk from the liquor and the obscenity of the banquets when Halbert would act in an aggressive manner. However, she was finally able to grasp the hidden meaning behind the banquets when Logan was brutalized by Gareth in front of a crowd two years ago.

Lydia had only become even more sure of her theory given that Logan’s father had made the greatest contribution to the usurpation of the throne. When she had watched Logan being kicked around by Gareth, she could tell that Halbert was soon going to do the same to her and the rest of his cousins. Lydia had decided then that she couldn’t just stand by knowing this, as she was the one who had helped Halbert claim the throne.

When Lydia began to devise a plan to escape her brother’s betrayal, she could finally understand why Halbert had been so fascinated by Gareth. Her brother was trying to get the untamed man on his side by any means so that he could lead the country with Gareth’s power in his hands. Gareth’s notoriety was well known throughout the country, and people feared even the thought of siding against him. In fact, Halbert had commissioned GAreth to kill a distant cousin’s family close to the capital in the past. Halbert made what he wanted to happen by all means, and if Gareth became Halbert’s vassal, it was going to be the end for her. With this realization, Lydia had decided to stop Halbert and remove him from the throne.

Lydia was able to get Logan to side with her first by coaxing him with sweet praises, since it hadn’t been long after her foolish cousin had been mercilessly attacked by Gareth. By grabbing Logan’s attention with caring words, Lydia had been able to secretly reach out to people she knew while avoiding Halbert’s eyes. She had begun a precarious walk on a tightrope by making people side with her. Knowing that she needed knights and soldiers to remove the king from the throne, she had searched for a place where she could avoid suspicions from the king and use territorial disputes as an excuse to build up forces. That was when she had noticed Logan’s strange behavior of persistently picking on Townsend estate. Lydia thought back to the conversation she had had with Logan back then.

* * *

“Logan, why waste your energy and resources on an impoverished estate like the Townsend estate? There is nothing to gain from it.”

“There’s something I really want from there, Lydia. I want Count Townsend’s eldest daughter, Elena, to be mine,” Logan confessed, leaving it to Lydia to understand him and support his decisions.

“Why don’t you ask her to marry you?” Lydia asked.

“That cursed old count has opposed it repeatedly,” Logan scoffed.

Lydia was baffled that Logan was only picking on Townsend estate as a form of retaliation. He wasn’t claiming the land completely as his own, and was instead repeatedly wasting his resources. ‘No fool would do what he’s doing…’ Lydia thought for a moment before she realized how obsessed Logan was with Elena. It was fascinating in a way, as she had never seen such a single-minded person.

“Do you really want that woman so much, Logan?” Lydia asked.

In response to her question, Logan praised Elena’s appearance while looking off into space with wild eyes as if he was dreaming and seeing the woman right in front of him. Back then, Lydia had only seen Count Townsend travel in and out of the capital, seeking mercy from the king who didn’t even exist anymore. She had never seen nor heard of Elena and thought that Logan had terrible preferences in women as there was no way that a weak man like Count Townsend, who hadn’t a clue about how the world worked and endlessly sought mercy, could raise a charming daughter.

“I’m going to wipe out the Townsend estate and claim Elena as mine,” Logan suddenly declared after he finished ranting about Elena, prompting Lydia to decide on the very place to build up military power against Halbert.