Once Viscountess Verdi also left, Sovieshu anxiously asked the palace doctor,
"How is the princess?"
"She was very frightened, but fortunately nothing of consequence happened to her. If she had fallen straight to the bare floor, it would have been dire, Your Majesty. A baby is fragile, it can suffer serious injuries if thrown with a little force on a hard surface."
It was a relief that the baby was wrapped in thick blankets and that the place where she fell was a soft carpet. Otherwise, the baby could have ended up with irreversible injuries.
As the shock wore off, anger came over Sovieshu.
He thought Rashta was being sly to protect herself, but she had gone too far by throwing the baby to the floor.
Just thinking about it made him want to depose her right now.
However, he imagined the kind of comments he would receive if he kicked out the woman he had been married to for less than a year, besides the fact that she was the mother of his newborn daughter.
Even people who despised Rashta would feel sorry for her. People change their minds constantly. They could despise Rashta at the same time they pitied her.
If he made public what Rashta had done to the baby, he could not only kick her out, but also imprison her for life, but he was worried that the adult princess would be shocked to find out about this.
"If she had stayed quiet, she could have lived surrounded by luxuries like a former empress for the rest of her life. What a fool."
So far, Sovieshu had documented every one of Rashta's crimes.
He ignored it all to silently assemble a list of crimes, to the point where others might wonder if he didn't care what she did.
However, these documents were firewood.
Firewood that he did not yet know if he would use, but that if he did, it would burn brightly. It was the kind of firewood that the more it was stacked, the more intense the fire would be. In the end, that firewood would turn into a big fireball.
What Rashta did to the baby was beyond what Sovieshu could ignore.
Sovieshu rocked the restless baby, trying to control his anger.
But his eyes sank dreadfully.
'It definitely won't be a simple divorce, Rashta.'
***
Meanwhile.
Rashta felt betrayed by Viscountess Verdi and was very hurt that she had thrown the baby on the floor. Returning to the West Palace, Rashta screamed and started breaking all the things in her room.
"Ahhh... Ahhhh! Daughter! Mommy didn't mean to do that!"
As she sobbed, she was more affected by what she did to the baby than by the betrayal.
Then, Rashta knelt on the rug where the baby had fallen, and wailed with her hands on her cheeks.
"Daughter, Mommy really didn't mean to do that..."
Although she was devastated to have thrown her precious daughter to the floor, the eerie sensation of holding a dead baby in her arms remained so vivid in her memory that she wasn't sure she wouldn't do it again.
"Ah... Ah... baby... my baby. My daughter."
'How painful it must have been. How scared she must have been.'
Rashta looked as if she had half gone mad as she thumped her chest miserably.
At that moment, there was a knock at the door.
