CH 118

Subjugation and Rakain (9)

“I greet the Empress. I’d like to apologize for not contacting you in advance.”

“No, Sir Bashel. It’s all right, but what brings you to…… Kergel, no, has His Majesty contacted you about something?”

Roelin asked him as she was unable to hide her nervous expression. Then, Heinez shook his head slowly and answered once again.

“His Majesty hasn’t sent us any news yet.”

“Then, why…”

She narrowed her brows and blurted out the end of her sentence. Heinez looked at the figure for a moment and looked back. The servant behind him began to approach before placing a silver tray with an enveloped letter in front of Roelin.

“……what is this?”

It was mailed to her, so it must have been a letter that she had to open herself. But somehow, Roelin didn’t feel like opening this letter.

She didn’t even know who was the one that sent it.

Nevertheless, there was still a sense of rejection.

“A letter from Rakain. In addition to the letter to the Empress, we had also received a letter. Therefore, we ran a check through the contents…… I thought that Your Majesty would want to look over it urgently, so I took the liberty of visiting.”

Rakain.

Maybe that had been why she was rejecting it.

Roelin faced Heinez with a stiff expression and shifted her eyes to the silver tray right in front of her.

On second thought, she could finally see the seal of the Kingdom of Rakain on the envelope.

‘But why did Rakain send me a letter?’

She couldn’t reach out easily, which made her take a deep breath and picked up the envelope on the silver tray. The servant then bowed down while showing some courtesy before stepping back in response. .

Crumpled.

Roelin had held onto  the envelope and grabbed it tightly without realizing it. It was because she couldn’t hide her agitated mind.

However, she soon recovered her emotions and offered Heinez a seat with a calm expression.

“Take a seat, Sir Bashel. Silloa, get me a new cup of tea.”

“Yes, Empress.”

Silloa quickly went out of the room at Roelin’s command. All who were left in the room had been Roelin, Heinez and Lucy.

After sitting back on the sofa, Roelin slowly opened the envelope that she was holding. Heinez sat across the table and watched the figure silently.

“Do you have a rough idea of what this letter is all about?”

She took the letter out of the envelope and looked up at him before opening it. Then, Heinez replied with a nod.

“Yes. As I’ve said a little while ago, there was a separate letter that we received as well.”

“……”

A letter to herself and a letter to the Royal Family of Seroif.

What kind of contact would she be having with Seroif back in Rakain?

She couldn’t understand at all. She thought that it had been a relationship that was all over. Although they shared the same blood, their relationship was worse than any others.

And even with that, she also thought that it was all over due to what her twin sister, Erita, had directly done the last time.

But why on earth……

Roelin’s blue eyes eventually met with Heinez’s pair of purple eyes. She thought that it would be better to hear from him what the letter really contained.

“It would only be right for Your Majesty to see for yourself.”

Heinez opened his mouth in a low voice as if he had noticed what was going on. After smirking a bit, she shook off her weak heart for a while. It was because she  began to wonder what she really wanted from a person who had been strict even when he was teaching.

Anyway, it was a relief for her since she finally had the courage to open the letter.

“……”

The smile that had briefly crossed Roelin’s mouth began to fade away. At the same time, her blue eyes trembled as she was reading the letter.

“It was a letter for the Empress with a request for you to visit Rakain. They said that they’d really like you to visit as soon as possible.”

“……”

Roelin looked up at him while reading the letter. Heinez continued to speak as she saw that her fingertips were turning white with the letter.

“It also stated that he would have some people to take the Empress to the boundary, which borders the Samalta Mountains. Along with the content that we asked for his understanding too.”

“……is that so?”

Roelin barely opened her mouth after being unable to speak easily with a feeling of tight throat. Then, she looked down at the letter that she had just read and bit down her lips.

It was unbelievable.

The contents of the letter which she just read were all like that.

Carolina, her mother, also Queen of Rakain Kingdom, had suddenly collapsed from a strange disease and was now in critical condition.

So, she didn’t know when she was going to pass, but her mother said that she wanted to see Roelin.

‘No way. Why, why does she even want to see me?’

She had never looked at Roelin ever since she was born. She never even said anything warm or simply looked at Roelin warmly too.

Roelin could still remember it all clearly.

The nightmare of the very first day that she faced her mother.

The moment when joy and excitement of seeing her mother for the first time had turned into an endless loop of despair and pain.

< Get ‘that’ out of my sight right now! Lock her up somewhere so that she can’t get around! >

She vividly remembered her mother screaming to have her removed right away as if she was looking at some kind of a terrible monster.

< How could I give birth to such a thing? >

Her mother’s expression, which seemed to have been shocked and horrified, remained clearly in her head.

And that kind of mother actually wished to see her now?