Chapter 268
“I, I only pushed the plate…”
“Why did you push that plate? There’s another cookie plate was right in front of you, so why did you reach for one farther away?”
“I-I don’t understand what you’re saying…”
Marchioness Paanté seized Countess Giklos’s shoulder.
“Come to think of it, you were the very first to arrive at the party, weren’t you?”
“I-Is that a problem?!”
When Countess Giklos shrieked, the Marchioness’s eyes flashed with lethal cold.
“Go to the Imperial Palace and bring someone with the Blessing of Tracking.”
The maids scurried off at once, and Countess Giklos flinched and screamed,
“What are you—! Let go, I’ll go myself! How dare you treat me so rudely—!”
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I-I… kkhhk—!”
The Marchioness’s Blessing activated.
Her Blessing, Serpent.
A constricting, crushing force that once served her well when she worked for the Imperial Tracking Corps before marriage.
“If you were the one who put the d**g in the cookies…”
“Ghhhk…!”
“If you dared bring poison into my party and feed it to a child…”
“M-Marchioness…”
“I will never let you go. Understand?”
The noblewomen, faces blanched, clutched their children close.
This was a gathering of society’s titans.
And someone had dared to use a d**g here?
Who in the world would commit such lawless audacity…!
The Paanté house was the Empress Dowager’s natal family.
Barely had the order gone out before the Imperial Palace dispatched trackers.
The moment one arrived, their Blessings flared to life.
A thin red line extended from the chocolate cookies and pointed straight to—
“……!”
“……!”
“……!”
—Countess Giklos.
* * *
It was only natural the incident exploded like wildfire.
Before a single day passed, the entire Empire was in uproar.
A party hosted by Marchioness Paanté, a pillar of high society and the Empress Dowager’s own family.
And there, a child had been poisoned.
Not just any child. It was Erylotte Astra, the one known as the Dragon’s Master.
Countess Giklos was immediately hauled off for interrogation.
Her husband, Count Giklos, turned deathly pale as he scrambled to save her, but not a single noble would help.
Naturally so.
“Someone dared to poison a guest at my house’s party! Do you think I’ll let that pass?!”
Marquis Paanté raged like a mad lioness.
But there was a far greater reason no one dared intervene.
Duke Astra’s carriage rolled into the capital.
Along with the Duke came his firstborn son, Grimier…
And Daymond, father of Erylotte.
The entire Astra bloodline assembled at the Central Tower’s council.
The Duke himself, face set to shred anyone in his path, proclaimed,
“Those entangled in this affair will not survive.”
Somewhere, one could almost hear the capital cracking apart.
* * *
At that very hour, inside Princess Anatoli’s palace.
Anatoli sat pale and trembling, gnawing her fingernails.
‘Something’s wrong. Something’s off. This doesn’t make sense.’
Why had things turned out like this?
What she’d slipped into the chocolate cookies wasn’t poison. It was a truth serum.
Potent, yes, but not lethal.
She’d meant for Erylotte to drink it and, when Countess Giklos questioned her, spill everything and reveal her cunning. She’d win the room over to her side that way.
If all had gone as planned, everyone would have seen just how sly that girl was.
‘But poison?’
Impossible. Something had gone terribly wrong.
‘Did that little wretch pull something?’
That had to be it.
Otherwise, there’s no way the uproar would be this catastrophic!
Anatoli sat shivering, face corpse-like, when—
BANG—!!
The door slammed open with a sharp crack.
It was the Emperor.
“B-Brother.”
“You will tell the truth.”
“Eh?”
“Was it you who ordered Countess Giklos to place poisoned cookies at the Paanté party?”
“Th-that… that’s…”
“Answer me clearly!”
“N-No! It wasn’t poison… It was only truth serum—!”
She barely got the words out when—
Thud, thud!
The Empress Dowager stormed in.
And—
SLAP!
Anatoli’s head whipped to the side, her face going sheet-white as she looked up at her.
“Mother…”
“You… You insane fool…”
“It wasn’t! I swear it was only truth serum—!”
“Truth serum or poison, it doesn’t matter!”
“Mother!”
“To use any d**g at a noble’s party! And not just any party, my own family’s! You—!”
The princess swallowed hard.
The faces of both the Empress Dowager and the Emperor were nothing like their usual selves.
It was the look of people who knew something truly catastrophic had just happened.
* * *
Back at the Astra Countdom.
I lay snug beneath the covers, grinning ear to ear.
‘Ah, how satisfying.’
—That’s what I thought to myself.
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