MLIIWTFL Chapter 259

259

Up until then, Matthias had not acted as freely with the Emperor as his younger siblings did, but as father and son, they still had many conversations, and at times, even debated about the Emperor's posture and views.

When Matthias pledged that he would strive to model himself after Emperor Michael the Great, the Emperor, though wearing a complicated expression, praised him. He even, with the face of a father rather than a sovereign, passed on to his son some of the lessons he had learned while ruling the nation as Emperor.

Yet, at that moment, the face that rose in Matthias's mind was not that of his clumsy but affectionate father.

It was of the man who, when Matthias discovered that the woman he had believed to be his biological mother was in fact only his stepmother, barely fourteen years his senior, refused to give him any answers about his true mother.*

The man who, with a gag order, forbade everyone in the palace—even the nobles—from speaking of his first wife, ensuring that she was utterly forgotten.

'The Duchess said she wanted me to remember my mother. Then, surely she gave me this diary to deliver my mother's truth to me.'

For the Duchess to pass him those notes when the Emperor himself had silenced all mention of the past was an act of real danger. Even so, Matthias guessed that her motive must have been atonement, for failing to remain by his mother's side until the very end.

Afterwards, he secretly carried out his own investigation, but most of the records concerning the late Empress had already been erased under the Emperor's command. It was only after scouring even the civilian libraries and collecting old gossip magazines from her lifetime that Matthias managed to piece together fragments of his mother's life story.

The grand ducal house of Allstair, a cadet branch of the imperial family, was among the greatest noble houses, owning numerous iron, gold, and silver mines in the northern region. However, the family's succession rule was strict: inheritance could only pass to male heirs.

When Matthias's maternal grandparents, the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, passed away, the Grand Duke in an accident and the Grand Duchess from illness, without ever having borne a son, the grand ducal title and lands should have reverted directly to the imperial family.

Yet, unwilling to risk stirring any unnecessary disputes, the imperial house decided instead to betroth Crown Prince Philip to Emilia, the daughter of the late Grand Duke Allstair.

Emilia was only two years younger than Philip, and as the Allstairs were such a distant cadet branch, their blood relation was well beyond the eighth degree.*

In an empire where, for the sake of inheritance, marriages with large age gaps, and even cousin marriages, though rare since the reign of Michael the Great, were still accepted, this arrangement posed no issue. Moreover, as the daughter of a cadet royal house, her status was deemed suitably matched.

Thus, at only ten years old, Emilia's betrothal to Philip was settled. By the time she turned eighteen, like all debutantes, she made her entrance into the capital's social scene.

Her debut in society, despite already being promised to another, was meant only to present her face among the nobility and raise her recognition among the people. The title of Diamond of the Season was but a ceremonial honor to add to her prestige.

Unfortunately, that very season saw the debut of Camilla Wade as well. And gossip journals, including Lucinella, though Camilla had failed to be named Diamond, deliberately bestowed upon her the nickname Ruby. They even went so far as to add that, in times past, rubies were considered more precious than diamonds.

All the gatherings of high society opened their doors to her, and during the visiting season, dozens of callers lined up to enter the Wade Marquisate residence in the capital.

Even when her famous love marriage with Count Sharon caused a great stir among the nobility, the people instead cheered for their romance and showered them with blessings. The imperial family even had Philip and Emilia attend the wedding as representatives of the crown to offer congratulations.

Emilia, who should have been the one most praised, instead became known as the "Diamond pressed against the wall," while Camilla, though unjustly deprived of the Diamond's seat, became the brilliantly shining Ruby.

Though she lost the Diamond's title, Camilla received the admiration of all, and even married not the partner her parents had arranged, but the one she truly desired. What must Emilia have felt, watching such a life unfold before her eyes?

And as if to add insult to injury, only a few years after Emilia's own death, her husband remarried a woman nearly ten years his junior, claiming it was for love. Surely Emilia must have been weeping in her grave.

'Love? Ha. He married my mother only for her lands, yet that woman he married for love?'

In truth, most so-called "love marriages" among nobles were nothing more than convenient lies crafted to fit the romantic fantasies of the aristocracy. At their core, they were simply exchanges: the old nobility's greatest assets—honor and lineage—traded for the wealth of the newly risen houses.

The case of Count Sharon had been somewhat unusual, but even they had reaped enormous profit from the marriage alliance with the Wade Marquisate. By tying themselves to the house that owned rich gemstone mines, not only had the quantity and quality of their gems drastically increased, but they also secured blood ties to one of the Empire's most prestigious families—a far cry from other upstart nobles, who, if lucky, might marry into nothing more than a fallen count's house.

The Wade Marquisate, too, profited greatly. They gained the romantic prestige of a daughter's so-called "love marriage," and thanks to Camilla securing her place as the queen of the capital's high society, their influence among the capital's nobility only grew. It was clear that sending Camilla to the capital had achieved its intended purpose.

Thus, it was clear that the Emperor must also have had something he wanted from the Grenier Ducal House when he married Empress Lilliana.

Instead of protecting his suffering wife, he confined her, stripped away even her most trusted lady-in-waiting, and after her death, tried to erase her from everyone's memory. There was no way such a man could truly love his stepmother.

So Matthias had always believed. But after long observation of how the Emperor treated the Empress, he could no longer deny it, his father had fallen completely under the spell of his young consort.

Fortunately, Matthias, as the firstborn, held strong legitimacy, and in terms of bloodline, the Allstair Grand Ducal House—a cadet royal branch from the East—stood higher in rank than the Grenier Dukes, no matter how powerful. Still, he could not rely on that alone.

History had seen many rulers discard their heirs for the sake of children born to later wives. And if Empress Lilliana were ever to beg that her son, Eustace, be made crown prince, the Emperor would surely waver.

Compared to the child of a woman he had used for her lands, squeezing her dry and casting her aside to die in misery under the scorn of the people, of course he would favor the child of the wife he truly loved.

'I can't allow that. The position of Crown Prince is mine. To punish those who destroyed my mother, to restore her honor, and to become a great Emperor like the Sovereign of old, I must ascend the throne.'

Grinding his teeth, Matthias once again threw himself into recruiting promising talents from the faculties of administration and knighthood. To purge the figures of high society who had tormented the late Empress, most of whom were old nobility, he would need new forces to replace them.

So long as he held the position of crown prince, he would empower the newly risen nobles and the neutral faction, fostering bureaucrats, minor nobles, and lesser aristocrats, so that even if much of the old nobility were purged, their absence could be filled.

For this, he appointed Ezkhiel, not merely as one of many aides as he had originally intended, but as his chief aide. At the same time, he slowly weeded out the incompetent nobles he had taken in for the sake of alliances with powerful houses.

Thus, nobles constantly sent invitations to social gatherings, each vying to secure the position of Crown Princess through their daughters. Matthias, however, rejected most of them under the pretense of being too busy with state affairs, delaying his marriage until all the debutantes the old nobility put forth as candidates had already wed.

Even so, debutantes, intoxicated by the fantasy of "romantic love," still approached him, projecting onto him whatever image of the crown prince they had conjured in their own minds—nothing but a nuisance in his eyes.

Matthias had sworn that, unlike his father, he would fulfill his duties as a husband: to make a political marriage as was expected of a crown prince, and even if love was absent, to at least respect his spouse. Yet, faced with the shallow women paraded before him, he doubted whether he could even keep such a vow.

'But she is different.'

At once, Ariette's face came to his mind, and the tension in his expression softened.

He had met her in a garden blooming with the flowers his mother had once loved. Unlike the women of high society, Ariette was unpretentious, candid with her feelings, and innocent.

At first, Matthias suspected she might only be pretending. But the moment he saw her laughing as she wove a ring out of fallen blossoms, he realized that she truly was that kind of person.

Debutantes, who shrank from soiling their hands, would never stoop to pick flowers off the ground, much less fashion them into rings.

It was precisely because she was so pure that her father and brothers clamored, declaring they would never allow her to marry. But Matthias could not let go of the perfect match he had finally found.

"To make her Crown Princess, I'll have to silence the old nobility's opposition, but persuading the Duke will be the real challenge."

The old nobles could be managed with a well-timed mix of carrot and stick. But the duke, madly devoted to his daughter, was unlikely to agree to any marriage talks.

In that case, it would be wiser either to persuade Ariette herself to accept marriage with him, or to start by drawing her brothers to his side as allies.

As he began sorting his tasks one by one in his mind, the unpleasant feelings weighing on him gradually eased.

Taking a sip of slightly cooled tea, Matthias picked up his pen once again and resumed reading through his documents with his usual calm expression.

🍓; *At that moment, Matthias was not reminded of his gentle father, but of the man who had kept silent when the truth of his real mother was hidden from him.

*It means that although Emilia and Philip shared some distant ancestry (because the Allstairs were an offshoot of the same family), their kinship was so remote that it had no real significance, practically speaking, they were unrelated.