“The child was already dead. The crying child who had been looking for his mother apparently died of starvation because she refused to breastfeed. I don’t know. Was it because the child didn’t want to eat? Did he starve to death because he didn’t want Arya, or did he kill get killed because he was noisy? Because what I saw was a baby’s corpse wrapped in a steel cloth with gold embroidements.”
“Ah… ah…!”
Sienna couldn’t close her mouth from the shock. No screams or curses came out of her mouth.
‘To have died… that Joseph is dead… for that young thing to have gone so miserably…’
Sienna shook her head, releasing a squealing cry. She couldn’t believe Carl’s statement about Joseph’s death.
She knew, of course, that the child would be exploited and used miserably, but she never imagined he would die. Arya needed Joseph, the emperor’s blood relative. That’s why she had thought he wouldn’t have been killed.
“The child’s death must’ve been unthinkable for Arya. She had obtained an infant with olive-colored eyes, but as you know, those olive-colored eyes are the only characteristic of the royal family of Laifsden, so she couldn’t find them very easily.”
“Ugh… ugh…”
Sienna’s breaths seemed as though they were coming out as she was being strangled. Only a moan left her throat, which choked with her tears.
“Please, kill me… Please… Kill me,” she prayed on her feet. Sienna wanted him to take her life as soon as possible. “Joseph… My child…”
“Did you think you would go to your son’s side after spilling the blood of so many alongside Arya?”
“…”
She had already given up on everything. Carl shook his head and raised his sword high into the air.
“This is the first and the last thing I will do out of consideration for you.”
“…”
Sienna closed her eyes as soon as his black sword fell over her neck.
A New Beginning
Sienna felt as if someone had been shaking her body. Had she not managed to die yet?
She had definitely felt Carl’s blade slash over her neck, but she couldn’t feel any pain. All she could feel was the numbness of her legs and the stiffness of her waist and neck.
“Ms. Sienna, please try to wake up.”
She was forced to open her eyes to the familiar but friendly voice that woke her up.
“You’ll see the castle soon.”
“… Nanny?!” Sienna called, startled.
Chelsea was the nanny who had raised Sienna on behalf of her late mother. The warts on her left cheek and the pleasing wrinkles around her mouth proved it was definitely her.
The last time she had seen Chelsea had been at the wedding. Chelsea had helped her out in the wedding, and Sienna had heard that Chelsea had died in a chariot accident on her way back north. The news had spread throughout. For Sienna, meeting someone now who had died a long time ago meant that she, too, must have definitely died.
“Nanny!”
“Really, miss. I’m not deaf yet, so you can call for me softly.”
Sienna laughed at her words, tears streaming down her smiling cheeks.
“Nanny! I can’t believe I can see you like this…”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
No matter how ignorant she had been of Arya’s revolt, many people had died and had gotten caught up in her sinister plans, much like Sienna. Sienna had thought she would’ve gone to hell for that.
“I thought I’d go to hell! What a sight to see nanny like this! A good nanny can’t go to hell, so I guess this isn’t hell. Nanny! Where’s Joseph? Huh? Joseph?”
“My dear, what the hell are you talking about? Who the hell is Joseph? Did you have a nightmare?”
Chelsea wiped Sienna’s tears with her rough hand, and her hand started turning red.
“… Nightmare?”
“Because you said you’d get nausea from the carriage ride, you didn’t eat properly. You must have gotten motion sickness and lost your energy. When a person is on an empty stomach, they lose their minds and thoughts. I’m going to get off before we get to the capital since the driver mentioned a break stop before our arrival, so I’ll get you some light soup.”
At that moment, the speed of the carriage was reduced as a rush of noise came from the front of the procession.
“I think they’re going to take a rest now. One moment. I’ll be right back.”
Chelsea ran outside as soon as the carriage stopped, but Sienna had so much to ask her.
“Is this a dream? Am I not dead? That time in the imperial palace was actually just a nightmare?”
Everything was too vivid to dismiss as a dream. How could it all be a dream?
She still missed the warmth of holding Joseph in her arms, and Joseph’s death had been so heartbreaking… Had it all been a dream? Even her desperate grudge against Arya had been borne of a dream? A fancy? She couldn’t believe that at all.
Sienna searched her clothes with great ambition. She was wearing a coarse-grained brown dress. No matter how short her budget, she was the First Empress of the Laifsden Empire. In the royal palace, even the ladies and gentlemen didn’t wear that kind of material.
“What in the world… If it was a dream, when did it become a nightmare, and what was really the dream?”
She felt sick to be inside a wagon that smelled like a narrow, damp tree, so opened the carriage’s door and went out.
The outside of the carriage was bustling. Those who had settled in the wide-open space had lit a fire and were boiling something. Some were feeding horses, while others were sitting in the shade, wiping sweat from their tired faces, and exchanging stories.
And in the distance, the huge castle which was encircled by the capital of the Laifsden Empire looked like a mirage.
“Ah…”
She certainly remembered seeing that before. That had been when Sienna, who had only lived in the northern lands before, had been on her way out of her lands for her coming of age at the capital.
At that time, she had been excited, and her heart had fluttered just by her looking at the fortress in the distance. She had had no idea of the kind of dirty and shady thing the place was behind all that glamour.
“When one dies, apparently they think about the life they lived and end up reliving it… Is that it?”
Sienna just couldn’t see it all as a dream. For a simple half-a-day dream, the memory of those five years was too detailed, sad, cruel and horrible.
She patted her neck. She clearly remembered the pain of Carl’s cold blade cutting in and out of her throat as he downed the blade against her.
“Most of all…” Sienna looked down at both her hands. “I can clearly remember the warmth of the times I held Joseph in my arms…”
It was very clear to her when the little boy was crying, laughing and whining in her arms, and to think that was all a dream, Sienna couldn’t believe it.
“But this isn’t like hell…”
Sienna saw Chelsea holding the soup near the crowd by the fire. Chelsea could never have gone to hell, and the events were also too simple for hell. It was like she was in her past.
“Was it really a dream? Was it all a dream?” Sienna shook her head. The present might actually be the dream. “No. Maybe, it would be more natural to think of this as the dream.”
Sienna grasped her cheeks with her finger and pinched them.
“Uh-ugh!”
The tingling of the cheeks followed the action.
“Miss! What are you doing!” Chelsea, who had brought the soup, called out to Sienna in a scream.
“It hurts… I guess this isn’t a dream. Chelsea, I guess this isn’t a dream. How is that possible?”
Chelsea pointed at Sienna’s forehead with a dumbfounded expression.
“Miss, are you really not sick? You’re going to leave a bruise on your cheeks. Why would you do that when it’s your first time entering the capital? What are you going to do if that leaves a scar? Making this old one heartbroken by it…” Chelsea took Sienna back into the carriage and said, “First, eat this.”
Chelsea grabbed a spoonful of soup and stretched it to Sienna as if she were feeding a child. She fed it to Sienna’s mouth just like she would baby food. Sienna opened her mouth like a child and ate the soup she gave her.
The soup was very bland, but it was warm enough for it to soothe her stomach. Just like Chelsea had said, she felt like her mind started to clear when she took the soup into her stomach.
Above all, what was certain was that that reality was not a dream. Those vivid memories she retained had yet to happen.