ITIF Chapter 1
Pronounced Dead
“Are you still sleeping?”
A noble young lady with a youthful appearance who had just reached adulthood carefully opened the door to the Imperial Princess’s bedroom.
“…….”
However, there was no response, and the bedroom remained silent.
“……Your Highness, the Princess?”
She tilted her head with a puzzled expression, pondered for a moment, then stepped inside.
The Empire’s First Princess, Princess Trinity, generally went to bed at regular hours and was an early riser.
So this was the first time since Count Greykin’s daughter had become the First Imperial Princess Trinity’s maid. The first time she hadn’t awakened by the time the sun reached its zenith.
Count Greykin’s daughter pulled back the canopy draped over the bed and looked down at Princess Trinity lying face down, murmuring softly.
“She must be very tired…….”
Though she couldn’t recall any particular strain from yesterday, she briefly wondered whether she should wake Trinity or just leave her be.
“……?”
Then she realized something was wrong.
There was only one sound of breathing in the silent, quiet bedroom.
“…….”
Count Greykin’s daughter held her breath for a moment and leaned her face close to Princess Trinity.
Though she thought it couldn’t be, her heart began beating rapidly for some unknown reason.
She rolled up her lace-trimmed sleeves. Then she placed her fingers against Trinity’s pale, long nape.
“……!”
Count Greykin’s daughter gasped and stumbled backward. Trinity’s body…… was cold.
Just then, the sound of several people’s footsteps began approaching. They seemed to be Princess Trinity’s other maids.
“Your Highness, good morning.”
One maid who entered the room approached the window and drew back the curtains. The bedroom immediately brightened.
“The weather is especially clear and sunny today. How about taking a picnic by the lake after such a long time…….”
The maid who had been chattering as she approached the bed saw Count Greykin’s daughter frozen in place and asked with a puzzled expression.
“Young Lady? What’s wrong?”
“Is something the matter?”
The other maids also approached Count Greykin’s daughter and asked.
“Your, Your Highness, the Princess…….”
Seeing her covering her mouth and trembling hands, the maids’ eyes widened.
“Why are you acting like…….”
A quick-witted maid approached the bed where Count Greykin’s daughter’s gaze lingered. And she called out to Princess Trinity.
“Your Highness, Your Highness……. Princess, Your Highness……?”
But there was no response.
“Her Highness must be very tired. P-please step aside.”
Another maid forced a smile and abruptly pulled back the thick blanket.
“……!”
At that moment, the maids’ faces were colored with shock.
Blood was pooled on the cream-colored sheets. And that blood was flowing from Princess Trinity’s body.
“Oh, my goodness…….”
“No…… what on earth is…….”
The startled maids began backing away from the bed when:
“Her Majesty the Empress is coming.”
A servant who rushed into the bedroom announced the Empress’s arrival.
“…….”
The maids’ faces immediately turned pale.
Their duty was to attend to Princess Trinity.
They didn’t know what punishment would be imposed if the Empress learned that Princess Trinity had met with misfortune during the night.
“Wh-what do we do now? If Her Majesty the Empress sees this…….”
A gentle-looking maid looked at the other maids with a tearful expression. But they too were at a loss, just stamping their feet anxiously.
Then the Empress entered the bedroom accompanied by her retinue of maids.
“We, we greet Her Majesty the Empress…….”
“……We greet Her Majesty the Empress.”
The Princess’s maids offered anxious bows. None of them stepped forward first to announce the Princess’s death.
“…….”
The Empress, who acknowledged the greeting with a light nod, walked into the bedroom.
“Sleepyhead? The sun is high in the sky. How about getting up now? ……Princess Trinity?”
The Empress, who had been speaking playfully as she walked toward the bed, suddenly froze.
Seeing the Princess dead and bleeding, the shocked Empress staggered.
“Your, Your Majesty the Empress!”
The maids quickly supported the Empress.
The Empress, who had been taking deep breaths with her hand on her chest to calm her startled heart, soon commanded in a stern voice.
“……Call the court physician. Don’t just stand there!”
“Yes, yes!”
A servant who rushed out of the bedroom soon brought the court physician.
“I-I’m sorry, Your Majesty the Empress. She has lost too much blood. The discovery was too late; there’s nothing that can be done…….”
The court physician shook his head with a sorrowful expression.
The bedroom was filled with grief over Princess Trinity’s death.
“How could such a thing happen…….”
The Empress buried her face in her trembling palms.
Everyone was so absorbed in grief that they failed to notice the Empress’s expression, but only Count Greykin’s daughter saw clearly.
The corners of the Empress’s mouth twitching upward. That she had buried her face in her palms not because of tears, but to hide the joy welling up from her heart.
“…….”
But that was only momentary.
The Empress began wailing while embracing the dead Princess Trinity.
“My, my daughter Trinity…….”
“Your Highness the Princess…….”
The maids’ voices also began to carry traces of tears.
The First Imperial Princess Trinity of the Phasis Empire met her futile death just one week before her Crown Princess investiture ceremony.
****
“Is that…… truly the truth?”
Duke Amaterasu barely managed to part his faintly trembling lips. The attending physician sighed and lowered his gaze.
“I’m sorry, Your Grace…….”
Duke Amaterasu, who had run his hand over his gaunt face once, looked down at his daughter Giselle Grante lying on the bed.
Though her face was pale without color, her red lips still seemed to retain some warmth.
“If I had known she would leave this quickly…….”
The Duke’s body momentarily swayed as he wept while covering his face.
The physician supported him and said.
“Your Grace needs to rest.”
Duke Amaterasu normally had high blood pressure.
If they left his dead daughter before his eyes like this, he too might collapse.
The Duke’s son and Giselle Grante’s older brother, Mikhail, nodded while rubbing his gaunt face.
The physician supported Duke Amaterasu and left the bedroom first, and Mikhail also followed, wiping away tears.
When they came out to the corridor, besides the servants, there was a man familiar to them.
“……Kavel?”
“Mikhail…….”
“Kavel……. Giselle, my sister Giselle…….”
Mikhail’s voice was mixed with tears.
Kavelaseth couldn’t bring himself to continue and comforted Mikhail, who was sobbing, by patting his shoulder.
For a while, Mikhail, unable to compose his rising emotions and sniffling, eventually wiped his wet cheeks and said.
“Look at me, losing my composure…….”
Mikhail looked at the single flower in Kavelaseth’s hand and continued.
“That flower was a gift for our Giselle……. wasn’t it?”
“…….”
Kavelaseth, wearing a bitter smile, nodded slightly.
The flower Mikhail mentioned was a small token of sincerity that Kavelaseth had prepared so as not to come empty-handed to visit Giselle Grante, while avoiding any misunderstanding.
Recently, there had been talk of an engagement for Kavelaseth with a certain young lady, and upon hearing this news, Giselle Grante had tied a silk cloth around her own slender neck as if making a threat.
Fortunately, a maid discovered her quickly so she didn’t die, but from that day on, news that she had been bedridden reached Kavelaseth’s ears as well.
As Giselle Grante’s obsession with him deepened, his relationship with Mikhail had become somewhat awkward, but since Mikhail was the only person he maintained contact with after graduating from the academy, he couldn’t continue to ignore him.
“Then would you like to deliver it personally? If Giselle had known that you, Kavel, had come to visit…… she would have been so happy.”
Mikhail’s attempt to appear calm while hiding his grief was quite pitiful.
Without any particular response, Kavelaseth only lifted the corners of his mouth slightly and turned toward the bedroom.
“Young Master Mikhail…….”
The butler, who had been watching Mikhail with worried eyes all along, offered him a glass of water.
Kavelaseth left behind the somber atmosphere that had settled over the corridor and walked toward the bedroom.
“…….”
The bedroom, positioned to receive good sunlight, was warm inside. But there was somehow a lonely atmosphere.
Kavelaseth quietly looked down at the woman lying still as if dead—no, as if still alive.
A face as pale as the white bed sheets.
In contrast, abundant golden hair with the warm hue of the afternoon sun. The small face nestled within it was truly beautiful.
She was pure and enchanting enough to rival even Princess Trinity, who was called the Empire’s greatest beauty.
If only rumors hadn’t spread about her mind being somewhat simple and transparent, she would undoubtedly have been a beauty that anyone would covet.
Though it was a meaningless thought about someone who had already left this world.
‘This ends our connection as well.’
Kavelaseth closed his eyes and sincerely prayed for Giselle Grante’s soul to rest in peace.
He let out a small sigh and approached the bed.
And just as he leaned over to place a single flower at her bedside.
“……?”
Giselle Grante’s thick eyelashes, which had been tightly closed, fluttered.
Kavelaseth doubted his own eyes and blinked several times.
‘……Rigor mortis?’
That was the only way to explain the current situation.
Just as Kavelaseth was about to straighten up with a puzzled expression.
“…….”
Giselle Grante’s closed eyelids slowly opened.
For rigor mortis, her blue eyes were clearly gazing at Kavelaseth.
“What on earth…….”
Before he could finish comprehending the situation, she tried to sit up.
“Wait, don’t move!”
A rough warning burst out, but Giselle Grante tried to sit up with her brow deeply furrowed.
But as Kavelaseth had feared, she couldn’t properly support her body and only swayed weakly.
Kavelaseth firmly grasped Giselle Grante’s frail shoulders, which looked precarious.
“……?”
Giselle Grante blinked blankly while half-embraced by him.
“Giselle Grante, are you conscious? You’ve been lying in bed continuously since that day.”
The man’s voice falling over her head was cold.
She didn’t know when the ‘that day’ the man spoke of was, but she had little strength in her body.
“But what do you intend to do by moving so suddenly?”
“Giselle Grante? What on earth are you…… talking…… about……?”
Her voice, which had been speaking irritably, grew smaller and smaller toward the end.
‘Why is my voice…… like this?’