Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 46

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 46

The moment the Emperor disappeared from view, Cleo pushed aside the attendants and servants who tried to restrain her and rushed toward me.
“You!”
Her eyes blazed with seething rage. She seized me by the collar, and I heard the sharp grinding of her teeth close to my ear.
“What exactly have you been plotting? You were confined to the Empress’s Palace until yesterday!”
I answered in a languid tone.
“Didn’t you try to make me into a cursed child, Your Highness?”
“Yet here you are, perfectly lucid! Shut away in the Empress’s Palace—what did that pretentious woman promise you to…?”
“Your Majesty the Empress ensured I received proper treatment.”
“You had nothing to lose in this affair! What grievance do you have to touch me?”
“The maids who once despised my mistress came running, worried sick about her, weeping and clinging. You made that happen.”
I smiled sweetly.
“I endured even that much.”
“What?”
“To be honest, if Your Highness had simply waited until I left the Empress’s Palace, I would have played meek and humble toward you for some time. I truly would have.”
I wanted Cleo to underestimate me as much as possible.
Even after I left the Empress’s Palace, I expected her to probe and question whether I had truly allied with the Empress, to doubt whether any such bond existed at all.
At that moment, I’d planned to don a suitable mask, feign dependence on her, and even let tears fall for her sake.
“Why did you choose to use me as a means to strike at Her Majesty the Empress right now, when you already underestimate her so?”
“You—you wretched girl. Do you think I would let your mother live? Do you think I would let you live?”
“My, are you planning to kill Elaine, Your Highness? Then I truly would become Her Majesty’s child. The Empress would soon come to serve as the foster mother of the Castrain Ducal House itself.”
“This—this—you cursed thing!”
Blood vessels burst across Cleo’s eyes, painting them a sickly red.
“You trust the Castrain Ducal House?”
Cleo whispered rapidly, like machine-gun fire.
“…….”
“You truly believe they would side with you merely because you saved their adopted daughter? That vicious family? How absurd!”
“…….”
“They use you, that’s all! Yes, I admit it—I meant to use you too. But did the Empress treat you well because of that? She, who cares for no one, even her own blood? I was the one who valued you, who paid you heed…!”
“Your Highness, why speak such bitter words between us now?”
I mirrored the smile that bloomed across Cleo’s face.
Yes—that eye-smile. The one she’d worn when she whispered to the Emperor about how skillfully our Brian hunted, suggesting they share wine and intimate hours together, crafting prey into appetizers.
Deep and severe, carved into the corners of my mouth.
Cleo’s cheeks froze as she saw my laughter inches from her face.
“I know better than anyone that Your Highness is the only one in this palace who truly cares for me.”
No one manipulated and corrupted this young Titania as thoroughly as you did, playing with my ruin as entertainment.
Though bystanders bear guilt, their sin cannot match the architect’s.
Of course, this entire affair was only possible thanks to the Castrain family’s aid.
Knowledge from the Original Work combined with newly learned texts and the power of the blade—all three pieces aligned, making certain things possible.
And Cleo conducted herself as though the Imperial Palace were her domain, her territory alone.
Until now, she’d had no true rival within these walls. The Empress had chosen to minimize damage and avoid confrontation rather than openly stand and fight.
“His Majesty would never trust or depend on you, believing you possess the Power to Kill Demons! You—!”
“Yet Your Highness doesn’t trust His Majesty either. Why demand I do so?”
I laughed, a sharp, clear sound that rang through the chamber. Cleo stared at me with bloodshot eyes and spoke.
“You’ve changed.”
“Yes, I have changed.”
“When? When did you begin betraying me, pretending to be a brainless fool? If only you had stood wholly with me, you’d know how much I could have given you.”
“A fool with a head injury who’d only just awakened appeared before her betrothed in garments little better than nightclothes and threw a tantrum. You came to assess the situation yourself, didn’t you?”
I spoke tenderly, petulantly, like a spoiled child. Cleo’s eyes trembled faintly.
“……You have caused trouble frequently of late.”
“Yet no one asked—no one at all—why I fell from merely the second floor and struck my head.”
Would the Titania of the Original Work have trusted Cleo?
Even granting her ulterior motives, there had been only one person to offer sweet, tender words, to claim concern, to comfort her saying ‘do it this way,’ to give her gifts.
Only one—even after the poison was twisted and placed in the precious Castrain daughter’s teacup, after she was led to administer it herself.
Would she have known instinctively, yet chosen not to see?
If Cleo’s affection weren’t genuine, then she’d have to admit her place in the Imperial Palace was truly that of an outcast.
That the only person who showed her any attention intended to use and then discard her—she didn’t wish to acknowledge that…….
‘Not angry, are you, my Titania?’
“What if you thought of it this way?”
A voice as tender as poison poured into the ear seemed to shimmer like a phantom.
‘Titania. Princess. Yes, it’s all that child’s fault. Otherwise, why would there be talk of breaking the engagement only now?’
In the phantom’s grip, a small vial trembled as it passed into shaking hands.
‘Medicine to induce nausea and stomach pain at that very moment. Don’t you wish to see that child ruined and weeping—to watch the Castrain men who love her desperately clinging and moaning?’
How trivial a revenge, the sweet voice whispered onward, and to hear it was to feel one’s ears melting away.
‘She’ll weep in ruin…. Oh my, if it happened in public, wouldn’t a lady’s honor be damaged beyond repair? Dear me…. Titania, my Titania. Who else knows the Castrain family’s cruelty and competence as well as you? Not a single scandalous rumor escapes the palace walls.’
A liquid the color of blood gleamed within the vial.
‘The choice is yours, you see.’
Yes.
It is foolish to blame Titania’s Ruin in the Original Work entirely on Cleo.
No matter how foolishly Titania claimed ‘I didn’t know it was poison,’ no matter if that were true.
What would change?
She suspected it might be poison.
But she did not verify.
She did not concern herself with whether the vial truly contained poison or not.
And she gave it to Bibi to drink.
“The foolish, innocent child who believed Your Highness’s affection was genuine died then, and a fake born from Your Highness’s sin took her place, it seems.”
The Empress who whispered that your betrothed loves you.
The Empress who assured herself the Castrain Ducal House would never dare break their engagement with the Imperial Family.
The Empress who whispered she had no daughter and cherished you as her own…….
Yes, little Titania would have believed her.
“Then I beg your continued favor, Your Highness.”
So I will shatter your hopes in turn.

* * *

Cleo trembled as attendants helped her to her feet and away.
She could not shake the memory of the princess’s smile directed at her. A frightening girl. Was it all a lie—that stammering, uncertain smile she’d shown whenever she saw her? Could it truly have been?
Cleo the Empress possessed her own acuity in reading people.
Cleo’s mother had drifted between married noblemen, serving as their mistress. She did not openly sell her body, but lived by receiving support from multiple men. She happened to meet the current Rand Marquis before he became head of his family, and succeeded in bearing his child.
She concealed the child’s existence. She slipped away to the countryside, gave birth, and only then returned to tell the Marquis. The Rand Marquis was displeased with both the child and her disreputable mother. Yet he was even more unwilling to let his bloodline wander beyond his house. So he gave the woman money and brought only the child into the family.
At that time, the young Rand Marquis already had a daughter and a son by his wife. After consultation with his lady, he decided to attach the illegitimate daughter to his legitimate daughter’s household—as her personal maid.
You will never inherit the Marquis’s estate. Know your place, obey, and don’t expect to be treated as family.
Such was the sentiment that bled through his actions.
The Rand Marquis’s legitimate daughter had been pitiful even as a child. And she, in turn, despised the bastard half-sister who served her—with cruel elegance, with mockery and scorn at every turn. Cleo clenched her teeth and endured.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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