Chapter 187
Storage room
Pennyroyal reacts differently depending on the woman’s constitution. In Freesia’s case, it caused her to lose her child, but fortunately, she suffered no other physical harm.
However, the Duchess of Antares had a far more violent reaction.
“Cough, hack, gasp…!”
The Duchess began coughing up blood immediately after consuming the poison. She tried to endure the metallic taste of blood filling her mouth, but it overwhelmed her within seconds.
“My, you couldn’t even last a moment,” Freesia remarked coolly.
“Cough! Gasp… cough!”
Ignoring the struggling woman, Freesia turned to the attendant holding the box of vials.
“How many are left?”
“Three bottles remain, Your Highness.”
“Make sure she doesn’t bite her tongue. Clean out her mouth and feed her the rest.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Atria stood frozen, trembling with fear, unable to say a word. Watching her mother spit up blood, she couldn’t fathom how anyone could survive such an ordeal.
More than that, she couldn’t understand how someone could be so utterly ruthless.
The Duchess, even as she choked on blood, managed to rasp out a plea.
“P-Please… my daughter… let her… go…”
“Of course. I’ll let her go,” Freesia replied without a hint of emotion.
Once she was out of this room, Freesia would have kept her word. She just hadn’t promised the Duchess would leave the palace alive.
“Take her to the place my grandfather prepared,” Freesia ordered.
The Duchess’s bloodshot eyes widened in terror as her hands, clawing at the floor, suddenly scrambled toward Freesia’s ankle.
“No, cough, gasp…!”
Thud.
But Freesia casually kicked away the claw-like hand.
Blood splattered onto her pale blue silk shoes, crafted by a shoemaker the Emperor had nearly hounded to death. The finely fitted shoes were treasures worthy of any noble family’s collection.
Yet Freesia showed no concern for the bloodstains.
‘What meaning would any treasure in the world have now, even if it were brought to my feet?’
Her heart had frozen solid, like winter-hardened earth.
However, she did respond slightly to the voice calling out behind her.
“W-Where are you taking me?!”
Freesia paused her steps and turned back.
This woman, who had not only insulted her but also caused the death of her precious child.
Even if she hadn’t yet committed the crime in this life, Freesia could not swallow her hatred and carry on.
She smiled at Atria, who was drenched in cold sweat. But her lifeless eyes made the expression terrifying to behold.
“Atria. Do you like storage rooms?”
***
The Imperial Palace, far larger and more populated than the Antares estate, housed numerous massive storage buildings.
Some were so remote that people rarely bothered to visit, leaving their contents to gather dust.
The place the Emperor had given Freesia as a gesture of atonement was one such storage area.
“Ugh!”
The moment they entered the dark space, Atria was unceremoniously thrown to the floor. For someone who had never been treated this way in her life, the experience was nothing short of chaos.
“Where… where am I?”
She had heard Freesia mention a storage room earlier, but she hadn’t believed it and now cried out for answers.
As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she began to recognize the space. It was eerily similar to another location she had been in.
“Why? Doesn’t this feel like that storage room? Though this one’s bigger.”
“Eek…!”
“You’d better get used to the size. It’s where you’ll be living from now on.”
“What?!”
Atria sprang to her feet, scanning her surroundings in detail. The windows were covered in black cloth, and the smell of dust made it hard to breathe.
“You’re locking me in here? This is… this is absurd—!”
“Does it feel unfair, Atria?”
“Of course…!”
“Then you should have been born to a proper mother. To someone who could lift you higher than your current place as a lady of noble birth.”
Atria’s mouth opened and closed in disbelief, as though she had been struck.
Soon, rage bubbled within her.
A ‘proper mother’? She was the daughter of a flawless and noble union, untouched by scandal. This woman had stolen her place, yet dared to insult her mother in this way?
“You… You’re doing all this to get back at me for what happened at the banquet? Hah!”
Atria let out a crazed laugh, unable to accept the reality of her situation. Surely, this woman was simply holding a grudge over that event and acting out.
“If you had been in my position, would you have done any differently? You wouldn’t have! It’s nothing—nothing at all!”
What nonsense was this woman spouting?
The attendants around Freesia moved to silence her, but Freesia held up a hand to stop them.
“Let her keep talking.”
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