Winter Bud - Chapter 18

“As you can see, I’m doing nothing but crying.”

“This isn’t the time for that!”

“Then what should I do?”

Nanna truly wondered. Then what exactly was she supposed to be doing? But she couldn’t tell if she was crying because she liked it, because she was sad, or because she was afraid. In truth, her head was too tangled for it to matter.

So telling her this wasn’t the time didn’t fit. What could someone like her possibly do? She was an Empress in name only, a scarecrow with no support behind her. Even if she had three children, rumors spread that one of them was a bastard, and she had no trust from the Emperor at all.

Would those young children be any great variable? All Nanna wanted was to leave the palace quietly with her poor children. Then she wanted to spend the rest of her life in peace, as if she had never lived as empress at all. Maybe that day wasn’t far. Hadn’t they already said they planned to confine her in the Western Palace?

“You can’t just stay like this. What I mean is….”

“Lady Thea, Her Majesty the Empress, is a good person. She won’t think badly of you, Countess Oestar.”

“….”

The woman dropped her shoulders as if she had lost her words. Out of guilt, Nanna pursed her lips, then lowered her gaze. But she meant it. Thea was a good person. Of all the people she knew, she was the kindest and most courageous. Even when she was cold and sharp, it didn’t mean she was cruel. So Countess Oestar would be fine too.

“So you really mean to just stay like this?”

“What else can I do?”

Nanna raised her head. When she looked at her blankly, the woman’s beautiful eyes twisted with emotion. She cried out, “Of course…!” but couldn’t continue. Nanna just stared back with a foolish face before turning her gaze away.

There was nothing she could do. There had never been anything she could do. It wasn’t that she lacked will; it was that she had wanted this very outcome. If she could leave with her babies, nothing else mattered. She feared and loathed the Emperor. She didn’t want to live as his wife anymore. In truth, they had never been husband and wife. Their relationship could never be defined as such.

So maybe that was why she felt no greed. Once, she had truly liked him. No, she still liked him even now. That must be why it hurt so much. But still, she shook her head, thinking there was nothing to be done.

“Aren’t you thinking of the children?”

“That’s….”

“They have only His Majesty.”

Countess Oestar spoke with a gloomy face. As a mother herself to a young son, she said she understood what Nanna felt and what she feared. Nanna dropped her eyes at her words. Yes, that was the problem. Without that, everything else might have felt fine. She might have thought it truly was a good thing.

“If I’d known it would come to this, maybe I should’ve avoided having children.”

“Do you think such things ever went according to His Majesty’s will?”

Her casual, half-playful murmur brushed Nanna’s ear. Nanna looked at the woman blankly, then gave a crooked smile. A hollow laugh. Yes, that had never been her choice. It had been her master’s command, so how could she refuse? But when she thought of why she, of all people, had ended up in this position, she felt like she was sinking into a deep, boundless sea.

Keeping her gaze on the overgrown greenery outside the glass window, Nanna slowly parted her lips.

“I think I need to see the Empress Dowager.”

***

Nanna had said not to argue any further over the children’s quarters. Daring to act like a womb that forgot its place, her eyes had been sharp. Even so, Nanna couldn’t stay silent. Especially when she thought of her daughter, who had once wet herself in front of her own father. And now that Stateira had awakened.

No one could know what would become of the children’s already narrow position this time. Besides, maybe the Empress Dowager thought differently. And now that Stateira was awake, the Emperor might have changed his mind too. Nanna chose once again the person to whom she could carefully, yet with the greatest force, convey her opinion.

“Nanna.”

“I greet Your Majesty the Empress Dowager. May countless glories and radiant pride of the Lord be with you until you cross death.”

She curtsied softly. The Empress Dowager looked at her with a calm face, as if she had been waiting for her to come. Nanna felt a slight thrill as she looked up at her.

“Rise.”

At the Empress Dowager’s command, Nanna sat opposite her on the luxurious pearl-colored sofa where she gestured with her chin, folding her hands neatly in her lap.

“How’s your health?”

“With Your Majesty’s concern, it couldn’t be better.”

“I know well that Karl doesn’t respect you. And on top of that, to think that….”

The Empress Dowager’s beautiful lips faltered. Nanna felt her cheeks flush hot and dropped her gaze. She thought she knew what she meant. The Empress Dowager asked that sort of thing from time to time. Though Nanna was relatively healthy, even she suffered from muscle aches and fevers every morning after spending the night with the Emperor.

She must have assumed it was the same this time too. And now that shocking news had been delivered in such a state, she would be worried. Nanna bit her lip hard, overcome with emotion. In the imperial family, the Empress Dowager seemed the only one who worried for her.

Especially now, when Stateira had shattered everyone’s expectations and regained consciousness, she was the only one who asked after her. How could she not be grateful? Someone like her… someone who couldn’t even reach the tips of the real one’s toes….

Nanna’s lips faltered as she thought of her pale-faced son. Slan, that was.

Slan had been made Crown Prince not long after his birth. Barely three months later, perhaps? Even his name had been taken from Slan, the founding ancestor of House Enroy back when it was a ducal house.

Of course, despite placing such expectations on him, the Emperor hadn’t doted on Slan, and Nanna knew it. The opinions of the Empress Dowager and the vassals had been strongly reflected. After all, Slan was the Emperor’s only child at the time, and as his heir early in his reign, he would lend stability. Being a boy and not a girl, the Empress Dowager must have had great expectations as well.

“I’m sure you expected why I came without notice….”

“Not Slan. At least not now.”

“Your Majesty.”

“I know what you fear. I feel the same.”

The Empress Dowager’s voice was kind, yet each word was firm. There was no coldness, but her meaning was clear—there was nothing for Nanna to expect. Nanna hadn’t come expecting much either. She already knew that taking Slan away would be difficult. That it would disappoint Slan too. And yet….

“I thought I had to disappear before Lady Thea—no, before Her Majesty the Empress—learns everything. I heard she still doesn’t know anything.”

She had just heard the details from a maid in the Swan Room. Nanna groped at the floor with a gloomy face, then clasped her folded hands tightly.

She didn’t want to disappoint Stateira. Once she learned everything, how devastated would she be? She didn’t even want to imagine it. Even if Stateira slapped her and gnashed her teeth saying she wanted to kill her, Nanna would have no excuse. Wouldn’t it be the most dreadful thing imaginable?

It had only been a long sleep. She hadn’t chosen it, and yet when she woke, the maid she had cherished like a sister had remarried her husband and borne him three children…. A woman of lowly birth who would have rotted away in a brothel had she not been there, had become her father’s adopted daughter, risen to the position of empress…!

The thought alone made bitter laughter rise. Nanna didn’t want to betray her. But in the end, she had betrayed her. Whether she wanted it or not, she was now empress, married to Stateira’s husband. She had even borne him children, making it the perfect betrayal.