I Am The Evil Duchess

S2: XLVI

"We will hold a hunting festival for the delegation, afterwards is a ball."

It was the Emperor who spoke, we are currently in the middle of an urgent meeting, the sun hasn't even risen, yet he called this meeting. I hate to leave my wife alone but this Emperor just ruined everything.

"Your Majesty, I don't see any reason why Azalais Empire will send those people in our land." It was Count Revelin, a neutral nobility.

"If it's because of peace, they do not need to do so because their Royal blood flows through Your Majesty's veins."

The Empress Dowager is the first princess of Azalais Empire. The marriage between Acrasia and Azalais became the peace treaty that is why the two Empire became an allies.

"There is no purpose at all, however, they will send the people of their Temple in our Empire."

I slightly jolted.

"Your Majesty, does it mean..."

The fingers that continuously taps on the throne's arm rest stopped. The Emperor looked down on us from the throne, keeping a smirk on his face.

"Yes, they're sending a hundred of Paladins to assist our Temple's subjugation in the upcoming winter."

It was known throughout the continent that every temple needs to hold a subjugation party every winter to the purgatory.

Winter is the time where the monster's eggs will hatched. When it happens the newborns will scatter around and look for food.

That food is humans...

Human meat and blood are important for the monsters, newborns are mindless but powerful monsters, however, if they taste a human, they will gain knowledge... It depends on how many humans they eat... And if they gain that, they'll be able to think rationally, like humans.

It was always a crisis during winter, and our Empire's Temple is short in Paladins. Of course the Emperor would not let them go...

"That was very generous of them. They knew that we need manpower to lessen the monsters that crosses the boarder to our Empire."

"This alliance with them has served it's purpose."

While everyone was enjoying the news, I was deep in thoughts. It's suspicious of them to send help when they did not helped the Empire's last year's subjugation. The Emperor even breached the long term contract between the Dukedom, Temple and Imperial family.

It was promised that Bizeviron will never partake in subjugation for the monsters, and will only provide Artefacts infused with divinity, instead the heirs would be trained to become the Empire's General that lead wars.

For generation it has always been like that, but last year, we didn't expected a lot of monster eggs had hatched during the winter. Almost all of the Paladins that joined the subjugation were wiped out. Because of that, the Emperor had ordered me to go myself and fight the monsters...

The memories I had that time was still clear as if it just happened yesterday. Cressida was crying, begging me not to go. But I had to. She has a terrible cold that day as well and she's suffering from postpartum depression too.

I was gone for months, and when I came back, Cressida was avoiding me. Because I just got back from the purgatory, I decided to live in a villa, away from my family.

Monsters have something that we call 'curse'.

It is a dark energy that feeds on the nearby life force that comes near it. I could endanger my family so I distanced myself from them, but after a day arriving at the villa. Cressida barged inside my office with tears in her eyes.

She was so cute that time... Yelling and throwing everything in my office.

'You! How can you just leave us all alone in that big mansion!?'

Anyways, we got back together after a few months...

Yeah, a very long painful, torturous months...

"Your Grace, should we return?"

The meeting just ended, I looked at the sky and saw that the sun had already risen. It means that Cressida is probably up by this time.

"No, Let's stop by to a nearby flower shop. I need to court a woman when we go back, I can't return empty handed."

We got on our horse, I didnt take a carriage, it would take forever so I preferred travelling on horseback. As we stroll around the Imperial Capital, we left the horses to a stable boy. Zehin gave me a cloak, I wore it and kept an eye on my surroundings.

One thing that I learned from Cressida is that she loves smut books. Of course the duchy had those kinds of books, however, it was not enough for Cressida. She complained that the novels in the library was slow paced and just not enough.

So, she often asks me to buy more smut novels in the capital. 'That is the purpose of our cloak, to hide our identity.'

What would anyone think if they saw a Duke buying such books...

It's' not that I hate it, I even read it with her... sigh.

Of course it was awkward...

As we enter the bookstore, the old lady who owns the store smiled brightly. "I was expecting you dear sirs!" She immediately stood up from her chair and strode towards us.

"New published smooches just arrived! you can come in the corner and check it out!"

"Don't bother, I'll take it all."

"Thank you! I'll send it to the usual address right?"

"W-Wait! Your Grace!" Zehin looked at me, his eyes were begging.

"Yes, send it to the usual address."

When we left the store, Zehin was sulking and murmuring by himself. Probably because the address was his. The first time that I purchased books from that store, I was alone and I gave his Address to the lady. The next day, when he arrived at the mansion, his face was red and he told me that somebody was playing a prank on him by sending erotic books at his house.

'Those are mine, give them to me later on.'

He can't even believe it...

"Your grace, I think daisies are the Madam's favorite right now. I often see her tending to the daisies she planted in the green house."

'Of course, daisies will be her most favorite flower. Because it reminds her of me.' Well, not entirely since it clearly reminds her of my number one rival.

I bought daisies and violets, Calix's eyes are indigo, violet's older sister... So indigo are perhaps connected to violet so... I'm going to stop explaining...

Since we're here already, I bought some desserts for my wife again and wooden swords for my sons, and with that we are ready to leave this place. As we walk towards the location where we left the horses, someone bumped on me, the person stretched it's arms to me but I didn't helped that person, my wifey is a very jealous wife, and since she gave birth, her smelling was so good that it puts me in trouble many times...

"We're sorry miss." It was Zehin who apologized, the woman who bumped to me just tidied her cloak.

"Let's go."

We walked again, we were already 3 meters away from that woman when I heard her spoke...

"Ahh... My Duke."

Unedited

August 28, 2022

LizzannaWrites