Chapter 5

Even while mentioning his own death, Benedict remained calm, and she, knowing that would indeed happen, briefly bit her lip.

Rudbeckia quietly met his eyes.

“Now that you know what that medicine is, let me ask you. How much would you pay for it?”

If properly priced, that small amount of spiritual power would probably be worth more than this store building.

In short, it was a medicine that was impossible to buy even if you wanted to. Therefore, she believed Benedict, who lived in constant danger of death, wouldn’t refuse this medicine.

“I don’t need it.”

But he flatly refused, seemingly mocking her conviction.

The small vial rolled across and hit Rudbeckia’s teacup.

His face showed no lingering attachment. This made her, who knew he would go until the brink of death, grow anxious.

“I’ll try to live well without Lady Diaz’s spiritual power.”

“I hate to say this, but Your Highness will end up enduring rather than living.”

“Since you seem to think I’m that precarious, then I’ll endure.”

As Benedict showed an oddly stubborn side, Rudbeckia’s composure gradually disappeared.

“This would be an offer with nothing to lose for Your Highness.”

“That’s only Lady Diaz’s opinion.”

“Yes. In my personal opinion, Your Highness has nothing to lose. I won’t hold this as a debt over Your Highness, and since I have no intention of engaging in politics, there won’t be any conflicts of interest. Of course, Aaron would need to keep quiet to Father, but my brother will do anything I ask.”

Rudbeckia’s words grew much longer than Benedict’s. He didn’t answer immediately and stared at her intently.

The sunset light disappeared, and the lamp gradually weakened. Only their gazes toward each other remained sharply bright.

Yet when Benedict’s stubborn gaze showed no change, Rudbeckia finally set a condition as if giving up.

“Then please just keep it for one month.”

“One month?”

“Yes. No more, just one month. I’ll discuss the price afterward.”

Rudbeckia picked up the vial he had rolled across the table and placed it in front of him with a tap.

“You must think something will happen within a month.”

Instead of lying, Rudbeckia avoided answering. Then, reminding him of the impatient Aaron, she quickly added.

“I won’t use this as leverage against you, and I won’t court you either, so you must take it.”

Benedict raised his eyebrow for a moment. Seeing his expression, she realized her mistake.

She had been rude. Disrespectful to the current Emperor, and needless to say, to the man sitting before her.

Benedict couldn’t have missed what Rudbeckia had just realized. In fact, she had been rude since she started lying.

“Lady Diaz.”

When Benedict called her, Rudbeckia lowered her eyes.

“Do you realize these words could be considered treasonous?”

He spoke in a subdued voice.

Rudbeckia’s shoulders stiffened. It was the natural reaction of a weak person before someone powerful.

Yet even now, she was boldly certain that he wouldn’t charge her with any crime.

“It would be best to refrain from such irreverent speech in front of others.”

And indeed, Benedict didn’t point out her impudence.

“…I was thoughtless. I apologize, Your Highness.”

She had already apologized three times, but none of those apologies carried deep sincerity.

Though he must have known this too, Benedict merely stared at her with a stern face.

“One month will be enough?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

His words essentially meant he was giving in to her.

The roles had reversed too completely. Benedict grew more puzzled by Rudbeckia’s aggressive offering of her spiritual power.

Given how she explicitly stated she wouldn’t court him, she clearly wasn’t interested in him, so he couldn’t guess why she would go this far.

However, he didn’t ask further. He saved his questions for the day he would return this.

“Very well.”

A low voice resonated as the positive response finally came. A smile spread across Rudbeckia’s face.

Seeing Benedict’s expression harden even more, she quickly withdrew her smile.

“Aaron will be worried, so I should go now.”

He stood up first for Rudbeckia, who was flustered by his unconscious change in expression.

The sun was just setting behind the mountains.

“Ah, I need to open that.”

Rudbeckia approached Benedict, who stood by the door, reaching for the doorknob.

He deliberately stepped away from the narrow doorway. She looked up at Benedict intently.

“Did you just avoid me?”

“I merely recalled how you asked me to keep my distance this morning.”

“That was because Your Highness grabbed my waist.”

While Rudbeckia responded nonchalantly, Benedict couldn’t even blink. At times like these, his cold exterior covered his uncomfortable emotions. It was the same now.

Seeing Benedict’s cold expression, she regretted it. She had built up such high internal familiarity that she kept acting too friendly.

It was understandable. Though their proper married life had lasted barely a month, this man had visited her bedroom every day.

“I’m sorry.”

Delivering an apology mixed with embarrassment, she looked at Benedict and recalled his words.

It was when she lay stiff in bed. Whenever there were parties or events, he would come after drinking and briefly reveal his inner thoughts under the influence of alcohol.

<I’ve been living with you since the moment you saved me.>

At those times, he neither called her Empress nor used honorifics.

<It’s still the same now.>

While Rudbeckia didn’t know what Benedict looked like when he said those words, his voice remained vivid.

She couldn’t forget it.

<So I’m sorry.>

She couldn’t hate her husband who apologized to her despite doing nothing wrong.

“Your Highness.”

Rudbeckia tilted her head while looking at the twenty-six-year-old Benedict.

My past self didn’t know that you knew I had saved you, or that you had held me in your heart since then.

Even in this moment with such a grim expression, you must still like me.

But knowing doesn’t change anything.

In this life, I’ll be the one living with apologies, Your Majesty.

“I sincerely hope Your Highness stays safe and finds happiness.”

It wasn’t because I was the Empress.

It must have been because the woman who became Empress was from House Diaz.

So if it’s a woman from another family, she won’t suffer the same fate as me.

“You should safely meet a good match and raise imperial heirs.”

The moment Rudbeckia finished speaking, Benedict’s gaze dangerously sank. He couldn’t have missed the nuance that this ‘good match’ wasn’t referring to herself.

*   *   *

“Rudy, are you really not going to tell us?”

“She’s keeping quiet because you’re speaking so frighteningly. Step aside. I was talking to her father first.”

“Father, you don’t exactly look gentle right now either.”

The father and son, who shared the same gentle face, bickered with Rudbeckia between them.

After finishing work and hearing about the situation, Friedrich, shocked that his daughter had given her purest spiritual power — essentially her life force — to Benedict, had called his nearly-sleeping daughter to his study. It was only natural that Aaron, who couldn’t sleep, had joined in.

Friedrich felt worried watching Rudbeckia yawning nonchalantly.

“Child, this is a much more important matter than you think.”

Friedrich kept repeating those words. From a father’s perspective, his daughter had already given her heart to Benedict and then some. He couldn’t decide whether he should stop or support his daughter’s feelings.

Historically, House Diaz had always supported the imperial family’s legitimate eldest sons. That loyalty had never wavered, and Friedrich himself had supported the then-Emperor, the legitimate eldest son, up until Nicholas I.

Though that steadfastness had weakened when it came to the current Emperor Nicholas II, Friedrich outwardly remained the leader of the imperial faction and maintained that stance.

“You’re right, Father. This is an important matter.”

“So you really…”

“Father, do you think the current Emperor is a wise ruler?”

Rudbeckia suddenly asked with a sleepy face.

Aaron instinctively looked around. Of course, the Duke’s study was completely quiet.

“What did you just say?”

Gone was his troubled expression as Friedrich asked as if he had heard something he shouldn’t have. His gentle atmosphere changed abruptly.

“I asked if you think His Majesty Nicholas II is a wise ruler…”

“Rudbeckia!”

Aaron called out his sister’s name loudly. Though startled and flinching her shoulders, Rudbeckia raised her eyebrows while looking at Aaron, who seemed the least intimidating.

“I’m not the only one who thinks this way.”

“How can you say that now? And why is this suddenly coming up here?”

“I simply gave it to His Highness Benedict because I felt sorry for him living in constant danger of death just because he’s the legitimate heir. Ironically, His Majesty is the one who made me feel this way.”

Though Rudbeckia’s eyelids had been heavy, she now spoke clearly with wide-open eyes, but her heart was pounding heavily.

It was a lie. Though she pitied Benedict, that wasn’t why she gave him the medicine. Yet she blamed Nicholas for it.

“Father, His Majesty…”

When Rudbeckia thought of Nicholas, she had to clench her fist for a moment.

In her past life, when that bastard personally led the imperial army into the Diaz mansion in the capital and held a sword to her father’s neck, hatred she didn’t know remained ignited.

Nevertheless, Friedrich refused to acknowledge Benedict as Emperor until his daughter said she would marry Benedict.

“My child.”