As her small body flailed in her arms, Rashta felt an emotion rise up her chest.
She had given birth twice, but this was the first time she had held a baby in her arms like this.
Maybe that's why she felt so strange, though she liked it.
"The baby is wiggling."
When Rashta murmured, the baby blinked with tear-filled eyes as she looked at Rashta.
In that instant, Rashta realized. She could never blame this girl.
She already loved her daughter.
As soon as she was aware of this fact, the emptiness and weakness she felt before disappeared. She was determined to protect her daughter.
'Yes. I have to be strong.'
This was no time to stand idly by. If she was thrown out of the empress position, her daughter would be raised by another woman.
A smart and astute young lady from a good family would become the Empress.
No matter that the new empress was as good as an angel, their children would still be compared, the family of that empress' mother, and even the people around her, would reject the first princess.
Even if the nobles looked down on her, she was determined to maintain her position as empress. Only in this way could she protect her daughter.
At this point, the princess's crying stopped. Perhaps because the baby was in her mother's arms or because she was in a more comfortable position.
In any case, the intense vitality that could be felt throughout the princess' body diminished drastically when she calmed down. She seemed inert.
Rashta stared in horror at the princess with her head bowed. Suddenly feeling the same sensation of the past when she held the dead baby in her arms.
At the grisly horror that swept over her from head to foot, Rashta gasped and threw the baby away,
"Out! Out of my sight!"
After throwing the baby, Rashta trembled as she clutched her head with both hands. She felt as if there was a sickening corpse smell on her arms, so she hastily swiped them across her knees and the sheets to get it off.
"Princess!"
The baby, who had been thrown to the floor, was crying inconsolably. Only then did Rashta calm down a little and asked with a blank stare.
"Is she, is she alive?"
Viscountess Verdi remembered Delise for a moment, whose tongue Rashta had cut out and imprisoned after she saw something 'she wasn't supposed to see', and the maid whose father was nearly executed for talking too much.
At the thought of what Rashta had just done, Viscountess Verdi swallowed hard.
"Is she alive?"
Rashta asked again in a rough voice.
Viscountess Verdi knew what was coming. She had witnessed a scene 'she wasn't supposed to have seen', so Rashta would try to kill her. Rashta was now stunned, but would no doubt do so once she came to her senses.
The Viscountess stepped back, holding the baby tightly.
"Viscountess? Do you not hear me? Is the baby alive?"
Rashta asked in bewilderment.
Viscountess Verdi barely managed to open her mouth to say a few words.
"The baby... looks shocked. Please wait a moment. I'll go examine her."
