Classified (COMPLETED)

File 2, Part 6 - Her Imperial Majesty

After the royal court meeting about the dragon campaign, the events were an utmost blur.

For the next two days, I made as many antipsychotic potions as my body allowed, and some other extra potions in cases of emergency. My older sister ordered several guards from the orders she selected to leave in advance and station some of my potions in select houses closest to the dragon and some secret bases along the area. She also entrusted them with a handsome payment for the house owners and tasked them to relay updates about the potions back to the palace. As for her, she and her remaining guards ate and rested sufficiently to prepare for departure.

Dread was rife in the palace when its people saw my older sister and her companions off.

What could cause the instability in the palace? Would a significant number of guards die? Would the empress's life be at stake?

Those were the common questions.

While my older sister was away, I accomplished her duties and reinforced the palace's security. As part of that, I also did my best to stay alive by drinking antitoxin potions, strapping my body with linings that shielded me from dagger cuts, and secretly practicing how to shoot pistols, use and throw knives, and punch and kick. I also started researching how to optimize my potions and barriers' results.

Generally, matters went smoothly, except for some minor mishaps in the logistics of the palace. Also, there was...news from a guard about someone planning to eradicate the gardener.

It stunned me. For a moment, I did not understand why anyone would want to get rid of a harmless servant from whom nobody could extort anything. However, as the guard elaborated on his account, it occurred to me.

For context, he explained that earlier, he overheard a tall, hooded man exchanging whispers with one of the shrouded sellers in the black market. The hooded man requested a specific poison, which the guard failed to overhear. The seller inquired why.

After dangling a large bag of coins and jewels before the seller, the hooded man responded that the empress's pleasantries with the duke were a bluff. Before leaving to fend for the dragon, she briefly met with the gardener between the palace walls at night. They exchanged unabashedly affectionate goodbyes, tears, gazes, caresses, embraces, and kisses. In between the loving whispers they exchanged for hours, he learned that they rendezvoused with each other long before she was crowned empress - at least four years.

Oh, my God. Have they been together for that long? Have they been hiding for that long? How did they...I...

The seller was properly horrified. She was a loose, scandalous woman, he remarked, which was not the least bit surprising. The hooded man reasoned that if they established their union, the empire would be in discord, which was why the gardener needed to go.

Truthfully, the argument sounded ridiculous because establishing their partnership was already unlikely, and killing him would stir unnecessary chaos in the castle. Whether anybody liked it or not, he became a vital household figure when my older sister fell in love with him.

However, before the latter could continue, the seller had already handed the hooded man the poison pouch.

I bet the bag of coins and jewels was enough to convince the seller, regardless of the story involved.

Of course, the guard endeavored to pursue the hooded man to identify who he was. Unfortunately, the most the former could obtain were slashes on his arm and a torn portion from the hooded man's shirt. The guard also tried to know who the seller was, but he was gone when the former returned to the latter's stall. Thus, I asked for the torn cloth, thanked the guard for his services, paid him several bags of gold to keep his mouth shut, and summoned the gardener.