Chapter 106

Translator: Lunarise

Editor: Larkspur

“I must see Rosha and Wendy.”

Viola hastily walked over to the crown prince’s palace. There was no way she would get lost in the imperial palace. It was so familiar that even after eight years, it wasn’t hard to find the crown prince’s abode.

After a while, she could see the crown prince’s palace up ahead. She could hear Wendy’s laughter. In no time, Viola was smiling from ear to ear. She walked to where the child’s laughter was coming from. The place where she was playing was the garden where Viola always wandered about back then. She looked at her lovingly as she was running here and there, determined to catch a butterfly.

“Wendy!”

Wendy turned her neck and then ran right into Viola’s arms. Holding the little girl in her arms, Viola buried her nose in the soft shoulders and smelled her.

‘The fact that this scent belongs to my own child… The scent fills me with incomparable bliss.’

“My empress, I caught a butterfly.”

“Is that so?”

“But then I let it go right away.”

“As you should. All life is precious.”

Wendy, not unapproving of Viola, buried her neck in her chest.

How lonely would she have been? Thinking of how brutally the little girl would’ve been treated, thinking all her life that the queen was her mother, Viola’s heart ached. However, she had had no choice but to leave Wendy behind if it meant keeping her safe. Now she had to make even more of an effort to conceal the little one’s identity. Enemies were everywhere. All through the years, Lustian gleaned one too many enemies. Even though the allied states had surrendered, there was no telling when they’d accrue their military power and strike the Arpen Empire.

“By the way, I made a friend.”

“A friend?”

Viola stared at Rosha. Rosha didn’t look well. It looked like she had something to say but couldn’t bring it up easily. Just then, a little boy popped out in the middle of the garden.

“Who is this?” Viola looked at Kyle.

“He is the Crown Prince.”

Thud! Her heart sank.

‘The Crown Prince? If he’s the Crown Prince, that must mean he’s… Lustian’s son!

Viola suddenly felt dizzy. Her face went pale. A long sigh escaped her mouth. He had said he had been looking for her, but he wouldn’t have been practicing abstinence… Other than the princesses, he had other concubines that he could favor at any time. Viola bit her lip hard.

But somehow, there was no sign of any royal features on the little boy. Instead of dark hair and dark eyes, he was a crown prince that had blonde hair and blue eyes… There must have been a specific circumstance….

Viola gave Kyle, who was standing behind her, a piercing look.

“He doesn’t seem to be Lustian’s child! Isn’t that right?”

“That is correct.”

Viola was relieved. Her previously wobbly legs that were about to fall suddenly had a surge of strength. ‘If that’s the case, who does this child belong to?’

“He’s a foster son. For 8 years, there has not been a single child that was born into royalty.”

♛

Viola called the maid over and asked her about everything that had happened in her absence.

How did this happen… It wasn’t just Lustian, but Ivan along with all the other imperial princes also did not bear a single child. If you went further back in time, there was not a single child born out of the aristocrats that mixed bloodlines with the imperial family.

In case something happened, they adopted a foster child since they could not leave the seat for the crown prince empty, and then that child was made into a crown prince.

“How did this….”

“There was not a single person in the entire imperial family that was 0-21 years old. We know the child to simply have been a late bloomer but….”

“Ah….”

How could this have happened? Shouldn’t this mean that the only child who mixed bloodlines with the imperial family was Wendy!

“How….”

“It is Providence that this child was born.”

Providence… This meant that the entire imperial family had been warned of Lustian’s chronic illness. The reason for that was obvious.

‘They’re rushing to find God’s Companion… So given that there will no longer be an heir if God’s command isn’t obeyed… Does this mean that Wendy will be safe?’