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There had been a time when Luciano had been her only family. That time during which they had no one else to rely on except each other.

"While I am by your side, no one shall dare insult you, Inés," he said.

A faint warmth stirred within her. It was quite nice to have her brother back, Inés thought, suppressing the feelings welling up inside of her with a small nod.

She wondered what it would have been like to have accepted Luciano's protection from the beginning.

What if she hadn't turned away from him and instead looked to him with the trust of her six-year-old self? Back to that simpler time, before they became strangers.

But she knew such wishful thoughts were futile. As she thought of Emiliano, a name that had faded in her memory, she recognized that this too was a product of time. The sharp edges of her memories had worn away in the chaotic maelstrom in her mind. Time had a way of diminishing all, and in its ceaseless erosion, her resentment toward her brother, once so vivid, had also waned.

"Thank you. You will be a great support," Inés replied.

No one was as confusing to her as her brother Luciano. She could not love him, nor despise him in this life. Many things had changed, and the past had merely become delusions that had never happened, but some things had stayed the same. Though their trust for each other wasn't as deeply rooted as it had been before, they remained Valeztenas, bound by both blood and legacy.

She reached for his hand but paused, unable to grasp his hand first. When he turned his hand over and held onto hers, she slowly curled her fingers around it. They squeezed each other's hand for a moment before letting go, just as they had in the long-forgotten moments of the past.

Inés raised her gaze to meet his. "I feel shameless for asking, but I have a favor to ask."

"Ask, and it shall be done."

"Please keep a close watch on the crown princess for a while, more than the crown prince himself. I cannot glean much from the women of the court-they scarcely notice her. She is a very unremarkable woman."

Inés found herself unsettled by this change. Alicia Ijar had never been so unnoticeable then. She had drawn people's attention with Empress Cayetana's approval and favor as well as her own hostility toward Inés. Her allies and followers had flocked to her like moths to a flame.

Now, Alicia Valenza had finally secured everything she had once craved as Dante Ijar's wife. She stood beside her beloved Oscar, holding all the authority that came with that position. Though she was no longer favored by Empress Cayetana in this life, she remained in a powerful role. The empress had controlled Alicia like a puppet in another lifetime, but Alicia, too, had used the empress to elevate her own position in the court. Inés doubted Alicia Valenza would simply fade into the background, waiting for the empress to show her favor once again. Even in the past, she might have stayed in the shadows, scheming.

"Whatever she believes about herself, it has become much easier for her to hide, given how unremarkable she is," Inés added.

Luciano nodded. "Indeed, she does not stand out."

"Her ladies-in-waiting are as unremarkable as herself... If she'd had chosen more notable ladies, this would not have become such a predicament."

The emperor had praised Alicia by saying, "I am glad that my son has finally found a frugal and virtuous wife after the long wait," but that was hardly considered a compliment in Ortegan society. Being frugal was an insult to the woman's husband, since it indicated that he did not have much money.

Naturally, no one assumed the crown prince to be poor or unable to provide his wife with ladies-in-waiting from prominent noble houses, but that was what the culture generally assumed. In other words, the emperor's words were ultimately empty.

"And strangely enough, all of them are unwilling to share information," Inés continued, sounding like she was deep in thought. "Ladies-in-waiting do get changed out without reason all the time, but everyone simply sneered, saying it a luxury only the crown princess would enjoy, and left it at that. They assume that Alicia is far too powerless or even afraid to deal with the more accomplished young

ladies and has thus chosen to settle for ladies-in-waiting with humble origins."

"And what do you think?" asked Luciano.

"It isn't because of her lack of ability, for one thing. She has had enough experience of the culture growing up that she would never be afraid to deal with young ladies of notable families," she replied. "On the contrary, it is quite impressive. Even though all of these ladies-in-waiting are humble noblewomen who would not have been able to set foot in the palace before and are young enough to be easily excited by their new positions, none of them go around boasting about what they know."

"Did you know that she had a large number of ladies-in-waiting before she got married too? They would be swapped out so often that everyone assumed Marquess Barca was allowing his niece all kinds of luxuries because she would one day gain such a powerful title."

It was a complicated process for any young noblewoman to bring even one lady-in-waiting with her into the palace, but Alicia seemed to have used her special privilege as the crown prince's betrothed for these kinds of things. Though she was called frugal as a member of the imperial family now, back then it had to have been incredible luxury. The ladies-in-waiting for noblewomen were considered upper-level employees like butlers and housekeepers, and only well-educated young ladies from a family that had served the noble house for many generations would be allowed to claim such a position. Their salaries were high because of this, and paying them a lot was good for the noble house's reputation, so it was considered a great humiliation for a family to be unable to afford a lady-in-waiting for their daughter because of their financial situation.

"His niece was going to become the crown princess. That is nothing," Inés replied, dismissing this information as trivial.

Luciano shook his head. "But that wasn't all."

She raised her eyebrows, pausing as she raised her glass of water to her lips.

"I did not wish to tell you about this, because it might disgust you to know, but... one of the crown prince's guards finally gave me some information about this recently. I worked that blasted man for such a long time just to get him to talk." Luciano's lips twisted into a scowl as he did not bother to hide his own disgust. "The crown princess has been offering women in her own bedroom."

She frowned in exasperation. "Women? Not just one?"

"Those ladies-in-waiting of unremarkable origin who serve her are all women who warm the crown prince's bed. The reason none of them are women anyone in Mendoza knows is because Alicia was collecting them for this very purpose from the start.

Since before she got married, and still to this day."

This meant that Alicia's purpose was not merely to assist the crown prince in dragging Inés Valeztena, the woman he so desperately desired, through the mud and into his arms.

Inés let out a scoff. "So she offered them up to him herself, all this time?"

"Yes. According to this guard, she has been doing it voluntarily, as surprising as that is. If you include the suspicious maids as well, that would be another six or seven women. In other words, she has been doing some strange business in the bedroom with her husband with over fifteen women."

"And she wants me to be one of them."

Luciano fell silent.

"She has been shamelessly offering up prostitutes of unknown origin to her husband, and wants to include me in the lineup of harlots he chooses from every night?" Inés ground her teeth in anger. How dare she?

Alicia did not simply wish to place Inés underneath her in rank by turning her into her husband's mistress. She was not simply tolerating her husband's desires out of a meek powerless temperament and willingness to allow it. This was far beyond that.

Luciano pressed his fingertips against his furrowed brows and continued in a low tone, "In any case, if that were it, they would simply be humiliating themselves, but there is more. That knight is not allowed in their bed chambers, but-"

"You mean there are knights who are allowed inside?"

"The crown prince does not allow himself to be unguarded for even a moment, almost to an obsessive degree. Even while he is in bed with his wife."

A wave of shock rippled subtly across Inés's eyes. Even she had never been forced into being watched by a knight stationed inside the bedroom.

"Even though he is not allowed into such an intimate space, he does see the women who pass in and out of Alicia's bridal chamber. He has witnessed them enter in groups to attend the crown prince's bed, and even saw them be driven out stark naked, not even being allowed the time to put their clothes back on. That blasted crown prince seems to be having orgies every single night, even including his noble wife."

Inés wordlessly gulped down her water.

Luciano glanced at Alicia's invitation and continued, "I was told even the knight once pitied the crown princess. He imagined that despite her apparent, eerie indifference, she had to be enduring the grief and humiliation with a brave face. That it had to be hard for her to keep up with her dear husband's perverse sexual desires. She has a duty to provide the crown prince with an heir, and she had to have been desperate to try and collect her husband's seed in such a way. And yet, apparently the crown prince himself never remembers these nights."

"He has always been shameless. I am sure he is simply pretending."

Luciano shrugged and got to his feet to walk over to a dresser. As Inés watched him quietly, he took something out of a drawer and handed it to her once he returned to his seat. It was a satchel of medicinal herbs, often kept in the pockets of nobles. When she opened it, a pungent odor reached her nostrils. It was a fine powder that smelled unfamiliar to her.

She frowned and looked up at Luciano.

"It's vergo," he told her. "Everyone considers it to simply be an aphrodisiac for men who are unable to perform in bed, but..."

"Making someone as riled up as an animal in heat is merely a small part of its function. With the right amount, it can even kill someone, though it would take time." Luciano gave her a surprised look, at which Inés shrugged and told him, "And if you are not so merciful, you can even grant a man a fate worse than death with this."

"Indeed. Everyone fears losing their minds more than losing their lives."

"Oscar is taking this?" A strange smile bloomed on Inés's lips.

Luciano Valeztena smiled along with her. "His wife is giving it to him. And I got my hands on the supplier she found recently."