Saving The Abandoned Empress-Chapter 198 - "The Late Empress"
198 “The Late Empress”
Eleanora’s POV~
~I am Rena. I have been former empress attendant for four years now. I treated her as I would my own daughter, caring for her and consoling her through difficult times.
So I can confirm that I know her better than anyone else~
~Therefore it is with a heavy heart that I stand before everyone today, bound by my oath to the God, to inform you all of the atrocity she had me perform whilst under her command~
~Lady Dalton, the former empress, ordered me to present Queen Jennifer a herbal tea.
A tea I believe caused the queen’s miscarriage~
Every words she had spoke, kept repeating on my mind and make me feel suffocated.
I was holding my every hope of survival on her.
I was hoping for her to save me.
.....
But she paid back my kindness with betrayal.
I averted my gaze as i couldn’t bear to look at her.
Her state was similar to Maria, who was beaten up inhumanely in the past; before she got executed along beside me.
“So, this our palace’s head maid; Rena. Who entered the imperial palace twenty five years ago as a normal maid at first.”
Sir Brayden started.
“Who stayed beside the late empress, Catherine Valerian Valentino; and later got closer to her and become the head maid.”
“She was also his majesty, our emperor’s nanny and would become the attendant maid for our future empress.”
Sir Brayden pause on his words so that everyone could understand the situation clearly.
Rena was also calm like duke Raven, which didn’t seem right to me.
Something is wrong...
“With the help of Duke Dalton and the imperial faction, we have found her involvement with poisoning his majesty and the murder of the late empress!!”
What? Late empress?
His majesty’s mother didn’t died during childbirth?!
Everyone was shocked to their core, so much that many of them jumped up from their seats.
Seeing that father was calm, that meant he knew it from beforehand.
I turned my gaze at the emperor, who kept listening to Sir Brayden’s words silently.
He must be feeling now really hurt now…
“Do you accept your crime?”
Sir Brayden asked as he turned to Rena and facing the crowd coldly, She opened her mouth to speak.
“I do. Everything he said is right.”
“I poisoned the late empress who was pregnant with the next emperor.”
I looked at her horrifically and father’s grip over my hands tighten to calm me down.
But how could i calm down?!
It was her!
It was her who also killed my babies in the same way!
I thought of her as a mother figure to me!
But she harmed me! my innocent babies... Killed them cruelly!!
The murmuring in the trial grounds kept increasing and then the emperor’s words made them silent.
“Continue, Sir Brayden.”
Sir Brayden faced the crowd again after passing some documents as evidence to the emperor and started again.
“Rena, her actual name is Reina La Lewis; the first royal princess of the Lewis Royal family from the Dark lands.”
“When the late emperor, cut off the past buisness relationship with the Lewis royal family because of them trying to deceive us to get more profit; the Royal family broke down financially.”
“They started a war against their neighbour country but lost. At that time, The first royal princess, Reina La Lewis; made her younger step sister took her place as the first princess. So that she could escape.”
“But unfortunately, her younger sister who took her place was saved by the Duke Raven and later they got married. King Lewis joined hands with the Republic army and sold off his nation.”
“Reina La Lewis, become Rena from then on as two Reina couldn’t co-exist officially at the same time.”
“Rena blamed his excellency, the late emperor for all her misfortune and came to royal place with the thought of revenge.”
“As an princess of the dark lands, Rena could also use dark magic. She started to create rift between his excellency and the empress by misleading them.”
“At the same time, she colluded with Duke Raven; which ended with the planned murder of the empress and poisoning his majesty; that continued till now.”
My expression turned pale as i felt my body shaking.
Wasn’t it what happened to me in the past too?
Just like how the late empress misunderstood his excellency and got poisoned, eventually murdered.
This is also what happened to me... So the imperial curse was true?
There is a tale, which we have heard from ages.
The emperor’s never get the one they love, because of the tragic ending of the first emperor.
From the records i have seen before, no empress till now has died normally.
My past self is also an example.
But the first emperor’s vengeful soul had vanished that day, who had possessed his majesty.
So, will the curse still continue... if i be with him, i might die again?
No one could believe that a person could stop this low, like Rene.
From the very start, she was selfish.
She run away while forcing her little sister to take her place, to avoid facing the problem.
When she heard that her sister was not only alive but married to a duke of the empire, she got jealous of her and came into the palace in name of revenge.
But then she fall for the emperor, who had no one else but the empress in his eyes.
Seeing that she couldn’t trap the emperor who had a strong mentality and couldn’t be controlled; she turned to the lonely empress, who missed her homeland.
Who was soft and innocent, kind and lovely.
The empress, who came from a small kingdom couldn’t get used to the assassination, political battles, the fight of two factions.
Afterall that time was really chaotic and the imperial palace was not this peaceful as it is now.
The empress easily got controlled by Rena and she started to feel more suffocated in the palace.
She wanted to go out and run away from this all, where the emperor couldn’t let her go despite everything.
He got busy as he wanted to manage everything quickly so that the empress doesn’t want to leave anymore.
But unfortunately, Rena took advantage of that moment and mislead the pregnant empress even more.
She couldn’t harm her directly as the emperor was strict about the empress’s protection, which made the empress think that she was caged.
Rena watched her little sister getting abused by the duke when she refused to use her powers to harm others and eventually got killed by the duke.
She watched her little niece thrown away by the duke and colluded with him to kill the empress.
He gets the throne and she will rebuild her nation.
But their plan backfired as not only the emperor started to gain more power after the death of the empress, the little prince was also declared as the next heir right after his birth.
Which meant they couldn’t kill the prince recklessly.
It’s easy to get the throne by killing the monarch but the public is also capable of taking down a monarch by domestic rebellion, because we have that imperial law.
If the public doesn’t likes the emperor or the emperor fails to perform his duties properly- he can be taken down by domestic rebellion.
If he kills the emperor or prince directly, not only the nobles would go against him, the imperial soldiers and public- no one will accept him as the emperor.
This was why Duke Raven targeted the young prince, the same way they did to the late empress.
By breaking them apart mentally.
.....
They almost succeeded when the little prince was three years old and fall sick terribly.
But with the help of the Duchess of Dalton, the prince was saved that time.
Just how could someone be this cruel to even harm a innocent child?
I feel my body shivering everytime i think their malicious plan.
Duke Raven patiently planned everything, removing all the key persons one by one.
The late empress, the late emperor, my father, the Dalton Duchy, Me...
I can imagine what happened after my death, the imperial faction must have given up their support to the emperor.
The emperor was regretful for my death as he was no longer controlled because of me, who transferred her powers in him right before my death.
I wanted him to suffer, regret... But i never thought that he would suffer this terribly.
The emperor become lonely and alone, even if the Duke of Raven killed him at that time; no one would even care.
He will get the throne easily.
He planned everything very smoothly and perfectly, none of them escaped his scheme.
He wanted the public to against the emperor, take advantage of the situation of his unstable mentality to dethrone him.
And Duke Raven would become the saviour by killing the emperor for the empire’s well-being.
I felt like laughing out loud, how perfect and cruel his plans were.
“I WANT THE DOOM OF THIS EMPIRE!!!”
“DID YOU ALL HEARD ME?!!”
Rena suddenly started to roar and i looked at her with disgust.
How dare she to speak like this even after what she have done?!
“I WANTED THAT BASTARD TO DIE WITHOUT AN HEIR!!! I WANTED VALERIAN TO DIE ALONE!!!”
The knights grabbed her immediately and tried to stop her, but it was in vain. She continued to yell and the emperor’s face got more darker.
“HER FACE WAS WORTH SEEING WHEN SHE REALIZED THAT I NEVER TOLD HER ANY TRUTH RIGHT BEFORE I CHOCKED HER TO DEATH!!!”
“THE EMPEROR’S REACTION WHEN HE FOUND THAT STUPID FOOLISH BITCH DEAD-”
SLASH!
All the people in the audience room gasp and this time, all of us jumped up from their seats; as Rena’s head rolled down from the podium.
Blood dripped down from his sword and everyone shivered because of his strong aura.
His majesty stood still with no emotions on his face, like nothing has happened just now and stared at Rena’s cut off head coldly.
“Guilty or not, innocent or criminal- their head won’t be attached with their neck the next second, if anyone dares to insult my family members.”
The emperor’s voice was as cold as ice, like he had lost his sanity but still acted calm.
Which was the most dangerous thing.
