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The emperor had not left Juan a choice as he offered him the empress's suggestion, acting as though he were being merciful.

"Cayetana had a very good idea: Since Valeztena refused to give their daughter to my son, what if we had my sweet daughter bear the heir to House Escalante?"

When Juan had spoken alone with his sister, she had reminded him that she would never want to see Dolores ruin the bloodline of House Escalante, no matter how much she cherished the girl, but that this was the only way to save Cárcel.

"Las Sandiago is a death trap, Juan. It was always going to be a doomed war," she had told him.

Remembering his sister's words, Juan locked eyes with his nephew Oscar. "You are His Majesty's one and only son and could have anything in the world you wished for. Why would you then covet my son's wife?"

Oscar's brow furrowed slightly. "What a preposterous accusation-that explains why you have been treating me so strangely of late. I am aware that you are exhausted by recent events, yet this suspicion of yours is quite offensive." But none of his words registered.

"Why would you go so far as to send my son to his death? His whole life, he was taught that his purpose in life was to serve you, Your Highness. He was going to be your right hand, closely assisting you in your reign-"

Oscar let out a wry chuckle. "Oh Uncle."

"How could you-she is the only daughter of House Valeztena and already married to my successor! Do you not realize that harboring such thoughts is enough to provoke House Valeztena to declare war against you? Your desire is vile, abhorrent, and utterly disgraceful!"

"You have always been like this, Uncle. You would act as though you'd give me the world, love me unconditionally, but as soon as I so much as touch Cárcel, you would lose your temper." Oscar spoke as though he were a child who had merely snatched away another child's toy. "You were my only strength and support, Uncle, and yet, in the end, your own family has always been more important to you."

"You were my family as well, Your Highness."

"There, you see? You already speak in the past tense." Oscar, who had come to a halt, stepped closer. "Do you recall how I had accidentally injured Cárcel when we were children? You had always acted as though nothing was more precious to you than me, but you struck me on the cheek that day after listening to my explanation-when Cárcel had been clearly alive, barely harmed even."

"Oscar," Juan growled out quietly.

"My father has always been absent in my life, so I considered you a father figure, but ever since that day, I could no longer believe your promise to be on my side no matter the circumstances."

"How exasperating... I had simply warned you because you injured your young cousin for no good reason. Did you truly think I would encourage you to brandish your sword at everything that stood in your way, yet expect you to grow into a fair and just ruler?"

"That is what you should have done, had my wish demanded it." Oscar smirked, perching on the edge of the table. "You ought to have sacrificed your son without hesitation, if that's what I desired. After all, I am practically your son and a future emperor you are bound to serve for the rest of your life."

"You insolent little..." Juan's breathing grew ragged with rage.

"You seem to have forgotten the days when you dreamed of placing your young nephew on the throne and playing emperor... Who is it that showed you grace all these years?"

Juan suddenly clutched his chest as if overcome by pain, his breathing labored, and reached for the corner of the table for support. Oscar peered down at his uncle's hand and slowly pried it off the table. The duke's hand flailed in the air for a moment before he collapsed onto the floor.

"The child of House Esquel was alive," Oscar said coldly. "Though both you and my mother assured me that the child was dead and buried, this proved to be a lie. Fortunately, I didn't trust you both as completely as I once did before, which allowed me to take matters into my own hand and kill the child myself." His eyes burned with contempt. "Tell me, Uncle, what favor do I owe someone who has been utterly useless to me?" He leaned forward, his voice dropping into a venomous whisper. "His Majesty's test was, in truth, my test for you, Uncle. If you had been willing to sacrifice your own son for the sake of your nephew who could be in trouble due to your foolishness, I was going to let you live out your days in peace this time. But I underestimated your reluctance, your weakness. I never imagined you would value your son over your duty."

Juan gasped for breath, unable to speak. It was clear that he was not listening.

"How many minutes did it take last time..." Oscar murmured, his voice distant, as though speaking to himself before letting out a regretful sigh. Then, his gaze hardened. "You were the one who promised to dedicate your life to me, Uncle. I cannot live on without your loyalty, so"-he leaned down, his movements eerily calm-"this is where it must end." He ignored the desperate gasps and pulled Juan's hands away from his throat, blocking his attempt to open up his airway.

Juan gasped for air and struggled, scratching at the carpet underneath him.

Oscar smiled faintly, giving him a look of pity. "Did you know that your death comes faster and faster each time? I do not know what happened last time, of course, but that was the case whenever I outlived you. Your soul already left your body after dying according to God's will, so it does not matter when this body of yours actually dies. Whether you die from the medicine that will continue to harden your heart and make it stop, or from such a trivial shock... or whether you die in a less savory way. It does not matter."

The duke groaned and gasped for breath.

"If you are the uncle I loved and who loved me, you would be willing to let me use this body... don't you agree?"

Oscar recalled the prophecy the apostle had given about the last sinner. Someone whose body is left as a fake replacement while his soul has already left in the world of sinners repeating their lives. A soul who no longer has a body to return to after so many repeats that it wanders through time and space until, at the very end of the world, everyone has left except for this soul that cannot die, and he is doomed to wander the earth filled with nothing but empty shells forever.

But this prophecy had not sounded to Oscar like much of a punishment at all. The thing before him who had once been the uncle he loved, could now so easily be destroyed with just a little determination and impulse. Just as knowledge shared by no one else was akin to God's omnipotence, not being attached to anyone was strength in itself.

"It must have been agonizing for you last time because it took so long," he told the duke writhing on the floor. "The story of a father found shot on the day of the opening ceremony for the war his son is being sent off to will be quite tragic. It will be enough for today's grand scene of Cárcel Escalante to be dismissed from the front pages of the newspapers in favor of this news."

"Isabella..." Juan managed to gasp.

"This too will become part of Cárcel's heroic tale, so Isabella will be delighted." Oscar straightened up, pulled a dagger from his inner pocket and dropped it by the duke's head. Then he leisurely crossed the room and left.

A few moment's later, a man dressed as an attendant of the emperor quietly entered the room.

His eyes wavered as if in fear, and yet he calmly came to a halt by the door, watching Duke Escalante writhing on the floor in pain before landing on the dagger laid next to him.

His orders had been clear. If there is a dagger next to the duke, kill him. If there is nothing there, scream. The man trembled as he stepped forward.

***

Unlike the main banquet hall, the emptier hall was quite long, and everyone could see Inés anxiously walking to and fro from one end to the other. If she hadn't been accompanied already, the helpless look on her face would have prompted any gentleman to ask whether she needed assistance. But as her brother Luciano was with her, everyone merely watched her from afar.

Inés had been unable to spot Duke Escalante who had supposedly been summoned to this hall at the crown prince's call earlier. The lords of the Imperial Council who had watched the duke be praised by the emperor mere moments ago could not tell her where he was either. If that were all, she would have figured that he simply had some matter to tend to, but the problem was that she couldn't catch sight of the crown prince either. They would not have traversed the palace on a different floor to return to the main banquet hall when they could have used the main passage.

She asked several people before someone mentioned that they might have seen the duke head for a balcony, so Inés and her brother were now in the process of checking every single balcony on this floor. They did not hesitate to barge in on people who occupied a few of the balconies for a bit of privacy.

As soon as Duke Valeztena returned to the hall, he noticed how everyone's attention was focused on something in particular and quickly approached his daughter with a worried look on his face. "Inés, what has you running around so wildly? Who are you looking for?"

She did not stop to reply and merely rushed over to the last balcony. Luciano followed her, offering a quick apology to their father in her stead. But even he did not know what was going on-only that his sister was urgently looking for her father-in-law.

"What is going on, Luciano?" the duke asked as he hurried along with them.

Just then, Inés emerged from the balcony she had rushed out onto and said, "He's not here either, Luciano."

Luciano looked between his sister and father for a moment before settling his gaze on Inés. He gently took her by the shoulders and told her, "Inés, calm down."

"I am perfectly calm."

"No you aren't," the duke pointed out.

She whipped her head around and suddenly chastised her father. "What on earth were you doing, Father?"

He raised his eyebrows. "What?"

"I cannot find Duke Escalante anywhere!"

"You could not have found me until moments ago either... I mean, why is that a problem?"

"Have you perhaps seen him?" Luciano put in, seemingly trying to calm both of them down.

"Juan Escalante was here when I left. But Olga was suddenly feeling unwell, so..." When he spoke of his wife in this way when they were in public, it meant that she had had one too many drinks.

Inés quickly headed for the exit, apparently not at all interested in her mother's condition. She was walking toward the part of the palace that housed a few secret guest rooms for honored guests as well as a flight of stairs. Remembering that she was still in public, she moved at a brisk walk instead of breaking into a run. She seemed to have forgotten all about her brother and her father following after her.

As soon as she reached the guest rooms, she swung open each door. Two were empty, and one happened to be occupied by a count and his wife in the middle of copulating. A woman's shriek was followed by a man's shouts.

None of the rooms in the Mendoza palace had locking mechanisms on the doors save for the private rooms of the imperial family. It was a symbolic way of ensuring that no one could keep secrets before the emperor, but in order to signify that a room was occupied, there were instead little signs that could be hung on the outside of the door. Unless there was a fire or some other emergency, it was common courtesy not to walk into an occupied room, which showed just how strange Inés was acting.

Luciano was once again left to apologize for his sister's rudeness as he quickly helped her close the doors she had thrown open.

Just then, the door behind them opened.

"Inés?" It was Oscar's voice.

Duke Valeztena frowned and motioned for Luciano to block Inés from view. But Inés was quicker as she approached the doorway Oscar was standing in.

"I am urgently looking for your uncle due to a family matter. Is he inside?" she asked.

"A family matter? What happened? Unfortunately, he isn't here," Oscar replied.

"I see. I know this is rude of me, but may I take a look inside the room to make sure?" Her retort indicated that she wasn't even listening to the crown prince, as if she suspected him of hiding his uncle and doing something to him.

"What is it, Inés?" Oscar asked with a questioning smile. "I have not seen my uncle since he left the hall. And in this room..."

"Your Highness, is someone here to see you?" Alicia's voice rang out from the other side of the door.

"My wife is inside, you see. She is getting changed," Oscar continued. "Alicia is rather shy, even with other women."

As if, Inés thought to herself with an internal scoff. But she had no excuse whatsoever to justify confirming whether the crown prince's wife really was inside and getting changed. So instead, she gave him a polite smile and quickly turned around to hurry toward the staircase.

The crown prince may have already done the deed and returned. Somewhere, in one of these rooms, Duke Escalante could be... Inés forcibly stopped her train of thought and whipped around by the staircase to face the duke. "Father, please hand it over." The look in her eyes was fierce.

"Hand over what?"

"I know that you always carry around a revolver with you, even when you come to the palace. Hand it over to me and please return to the hall and stay by His Majesty's side."

"What would you do with a gun?"

As the duke stood there, baffled, Luciano handed her his own revolver. She took it and immediately descended the stairs.

"That's dangerous! Your sister does not know how to handle a gun, Luciano!"

"She told me that her husband taught her."

"What?" the duke asked, sounding exasperated.

Luciano took out his remaining pistol and hurried after Inés, not bothering to say anything else to his father.

The duke stood there for a moment, at a loss for what to do, but then he gestured toward his attendant, who then immediately followed after Luciano like a shadow.

Luciano and Inés ran into a crowd of young noblemen in the third floor hallway. They looked shocked at the sight of a woman running toward them with a revolver in her hand.

One of them asked, "Madam, are you in need of assistance-"

"Stand aside," Inés spat out as she swiftly passed them by.

"Oh, we do, actually. We are urgently looking for Duke Escalante. Would you help us?" Luciano asked them in his sister's stead as he also passed them by.

This concerned both the Valeztenas and Duke Escalante. It was a rare opportunity to gain favor from high-ranking nobles, so the young noblemen quickly dispersed to check each guest room. They searched the third floor together, and by the time they went down the second floor, a few of the palace attendants had joined them, so that they were practically a small army.

Inés hurried between the many people before noticing a strangely familiar sign on a door and passing by all the other guest rooms to head straight toward it.

Moments later, a gunshot rang out.

The people spread out through the hallway all froze at the unexpected noise before they all whipped around to stare in the direction it came from. Inés still stood in the doorway of the room she had opened, so she was clearly unharmed. But the gun she was holding was smoking. The men exchanged flustered glances.

"Inés!" Luciano was the first to run toward her, a few doors down from where she stood.

A young nobleman who had been standing nearby also hurried after him. When he reached the scene, he saw that the door was thrown open and that the barrel of Inés's revolver was pointing toward Duke Escalante, lying on the floor.

Did this mean that she had just shot her own father-in-law? The young man's wavering gaze glanced between her revolver and the duke before he discovered, a step behind the duke, an attendant of the emperor lying on the floor, bleeding. It was only then that he noticed that there was no blood on the duke.

Luciano slowly lowered Inés's hand and went inside the room first. The young nobleman stared in awe at the sight along with the others who had caught up.

Inés, having uncocked her pistol, looked at the young man. "May I ask your name?"

"Pardon? Oh, err... It's Sanchez, my lady."

"Lord Sanchez, you will have to be a witness to my justified murder."