Afterward, King Arxon fixed his gaze upon his illegitimate daughter, Irene, who sat at the end of the table. He asked in a deep voice that carried not the slightest trace of fatherly affection,
"You... how old are you now?"
Irene was startled for a brief moment, but she answered without the slightest tremor in her voice,
"Nineteen years old, Your Majesty."
A brief silence followed as he studied her closely, as though he were truly seeing her for the first time after years of ignoring her.
He hated looking at her because she reminded him of her mother... the only woman who had ever made him feel powerless.
He carefully weighed his words before making his decision.
"It seems to me that you have fully recovered from your illness, which means you now understand your place very well. I have allowed you to remain in my palace all these years, and I have permitted you to sit at the same table as me so that you could learn what you were meant to learn.
But now... there is no longer any reason for you to remain in the shadows.
Therefore, I have decided...
A formal debut ceremony will be held for you as soon as possible, just as it was for the other princesses. It will serve as your coming-of-age ceremony so that the people may know who you are. Once the ceremony is over... I will decide your next step.
Is that understood?"
Irene bowed her head calmly.
"Yes, as you command, Your Majesty."
The announcement struck the hall like a thunderbolt, freezing the blood in everyone's veins.
The queens and their daughters exchanged looks filled with disbelief and shock, as though they had heard nothing more than an illusion.
The masks they had worn so flawlessly shattered, exposing astonishment they could no longer conceal.
Even Queen Elvira, the King's favorite and the woman closest to his heart, turned pale, her hands stiffening against the silk of her gown. Although a volcano of protest raged within her, King Arxon's authority was an unbreakable wall she dared not challenge.
Queen Lauren, however—the third queen—held a different opinion.
She was usually the one responsible for organizing royal ceremonies and supervising grand celebrations, yet this was the first time the King himself had declared his intention to introduce one of his daughters to the kingdom.
But which daughter?
The daughter of her former maid...
Louisa's daughter.
The very woman she had hated with every breath she took, whom she had constantly humiliated and bullied throughout her service.
Despite her overwhelming fear of the King, her arrogance overtook her.
Her lips trembled as she cautiously spoke,
"Your Majesty... forgive my intrusion, but wouldn't it be wiser to focus on your legitimate daughters before... that one—"
She stopped abruptly.
A single silent glance from the King froze every remaining word in her throat.
He did not need to raise his voice.
His gaze alone was enough to force her to retreat and lower her head in humiliation.
Arxon rose from his seat.
"I will repeat this for the last time...
I do not allow anyone—whoever they may be—to interfere with my decisions.
Dinner is over.
Melanie... return to your chambers and learn the difference between the tongue of a queen and the tongue of commoners before speaking my name again.
If you ever repeat this mistake...
You know very well what will happen to you...
...and to everyone here."
Queen Melanie silently bowed her head without saying another word.
The King left the hall, followed by his son, Crown Prince Leonard, whose disciplined military footsteps echoed behind him, leaving behind the time bomb his father had just set in motion.
Their measured footsteps echoed across the marble floor like the beating of war drums before an approaching storm.
The moment the King's royal cloak disappeared beyond the enormous doors, the fragile thread holding the hall together snapped.
The royal silence dissolved into restrained breaths and simmering hatred that erupted all at once.
Queen Elvira was the first to move.
She rose so abruptly that her chair scraped violently across the marble floor.
With heavy, unwavering strides, she marched toward the end of the table where Irene was still seated.
Her fury reached Irene before she did.
The face that had always been the embodiment of icy composure was now burning with hatred.
Stopping directly before Irene, her shadow swallowed the young woman as she barked,
"Stand up."
Irene did not move immediately.
The veins along Elvira's neck bulged.
"I said stand up when I'm speaking to you!"
The instant Irene rose with the calm resignation of someone long accustomed to suffering, Elvira lifted her diamond-adorned hand and slapped her across the face with all her strength.
The crack echoed throughout the silent hall.
Irene's head snapped violently to one side, and bright red finger marks immediately appeared against her pale skin.
Elvira, breathing heavily with rage, hissed,
"How dare you?
Your tainted existence ruined my son's celebration as Crown Prince and destroyed the evening I waited months for!
This dinner was never meant for you.
It was meant for our pure bloodline—the bloodline destined to rule Eskard.
Yet somehow you always appear, standing in everyone's way, desperate to draw attention to yourself.
Because of you, the King dared to reprimand queens in front of everyone!
You should never have attended in the first place.
I wish you possessed even a shred of dignity and disappeared forever.
You were never welcome in this palace from the very beginning.
I don't know why the King suddenly wishes to present filthy trash like you to the public...
But one thing I do know...
There will never be a place for you in this palace, even if that day comes."
She paused briefly before speaking again, her voice even colder.
"So listen carefully...
Next time, even if the King himself orders you to attend and you obey, I will beat you with a cane until your skin is torn apart, so you'll finally learn your rightful place.
Do not test my patience again."
Elvira shoved Irene's shoulder violently before leaving the hall with proud, arrogant strides.
The moment the doors opened, everyone else followed.
One after another, they unloaded every ounce of resentment they had been holding back.
Invisible knives rained down upon Irene from every direction.
She remained standing silently, staring into empty space while enduring an endless torrent of insults.
Every one of them poured their poison onto her, blaming her for everything that had happened, despite the fact that she had not uttered a single word.
Eventually, they all left, one after another, abandoning her alone beneath the cold lights of the great hall.
...
Irene entered her room and quietly closed the door behind her.
She leaned against it, feeling as though the weight of the entire world rested upon her shoulders.
She whispered bitterly,
"I should have pretended to be ill...
I never should have gone."
She collapsed onto the bed and covered her eyes with one hand, as though trying to erase the night's events from her mind.
After a while, she sat on the edge of the bed, staring blankly into space as she thought about how to deal with this unexpected turn of events.
She walked toward her bookshelf, pulled out a particular book, and carefully removed a folded sheet of paper hidden between its pages.
It contained a list of Eskard's nobles who were notorious for their disgraceful reputations—information she had secretly gathered over a long period with the help of her maid.
Her original plan had been to eventually marry one of them solely as a convenient shield that would grant her the freedom to move unnoticed in the shadows.
She sighed.
"What did he mean when he said he would decide my next step...?
Is he planning to arrange my marriage himself, just as he did with most of the other princesses?"
She fell silent for a moment before shaking her head.
"No... impossible.
Perhaps he only said that because of the Second Queen's outburst...
But he isn't the type of man who speaks without purpose.
Why would he suddenly order a debut ceremony for me?
He has never cared about such things...
Not even when it came to his legitimate daughters.
So... why me?"
She closed her eyes for a moment.
"Perhaps this isn't what I feared...
I always expected my debut ceremony to take place only after every legitimate heir had married, leaving me as the last one remaining in the palace.
But if he personally ordered it now...
Then he must already have plans for my marriage."
Her eyes slowly drifted toward the list of names.
She had always believed that, sooner or later, she would be formally introduced after all of her siblings had left the palace.
Yet fate had chosen a different path.
For the first time in his life, the King himself had suddenly decided to arrange her debut.
"...Perhaps this paper is useless now."
She carefully returned it to its hiding place, realizing that the rules of the game had changed completely.
That night, Irene spent hours thinking about the most likely possibilities for her future marriage.
Eventually, exhaustion overcame her, and she finally fell asleep.
But the silence did not last long.
Suddenly, she found herself standing within an endless white void.
In the distance stood a slender woman with pale skin and golden hair cascading like rays of sunlight.
Irene recognized her instantly.
It was her mother.
"Mother...?"
Her trembling voice echoed through the endless emptiness like a desperate cry.
At last, her mother turned toward her and smiled with incomparable warmth.
Then, in the blink of an eye...
Everything changed.
The white dress her mother wore slowly began absorbing deep crimson stains.
At first they were tiny...
Then they spread wildly across the fabric.
Blood poured from every direction, flowing across the white ground until it reached Irene's feet.
Her blood ran cold.
"Mother!... Mother!"
she screamed in terror.
But the image dissolved into a swirling vortex of crimson.
Irene jolted awake.
Her scream remained trapped in her throat, while cold sweat covered her forehead.
She whispered weakly,
"Mother..."
Then she broke down into silent, heart-wrenching sobs as thunder rolled across the sky outside and heavy rain battered her bedroom window.
To be continued...