Chapter 210
Chapter 210: Your Mother Has Returned
Dong!
The palace gates slowly swung open, and a crowd of nobles and ministers streamed inside.
Aubrey, supported by servants, walked slowly toward the throne and settled steadily into it.
The moment those nobles and ministers entered, they launched into their daily quarreling.
It seemed as though they always had a mountain of affairs requiring the Emperor's attention each day.
Yet among all of it, the matter most worthy of attention was still the incident of the Second Prince being beaten.
A Prince sustaining injuries—that sort of thing could never be kept quiet no matter what.
Several broken ribs…
That was already tantamount to an assassination attempt.
The nobles simply set their own concerns aside and began discussing the Prince's injuries in a clamor.
"This matter must be thoroughly investigated!"
"The Prince's dignity concerns the prestige of the entire Imperial family!"
The old Emperor rested one elbow on the armrest, propping his face against his fist.
He watched the ministers below in silence as they argued on and on.
It all seemed rather dull to him.
But soon, a single report caught Aubrey's attention.
"Your Majesty! Count Viktor's manor has been demolished…"
This had practically become the talk of the entire Royal Capital.
The esteemed Count Viktor—a Mage Council member, no less.
Powerful, decisive, the sort of man who moved like a storm—and yet someone had torn down his home.
It was utterly beyond everyone's expectations.
The last time news had broken of someone's house being razed, it was Viktor who had demolished Jess Rether's estate himself.
That incident had forced the Rether Family to publicly capitulate to the Clavena Family and offer compensation.
Jess had promptly distanced himself from the Royal Capital and never dared return.
But that was beside the point. The minister below was still delivering his report.
"With his residence destroyed, Count Viktor and his family intend to return to Blairstone."
Blairstone—that was Viktor's territory.
Upon hearing this, quite a few nobles quietly exhaled in relief.
To be frank, they couldn't quite explain why.
It was simply that whenever Viktor's name was mentioned, they would feel a wave of oppressive pressure.
After all, it had only been a matter of months.
Viktor had gone from notoriously infamous to universally revered in just a few months.
With him around, every genius in the Royal Capital was overshadowed into obscurity.
Now that word had come of Viktor leaving the Royal Capital, many let out a long breath.
Upon hearing the news, the Emperor gave only a casual nod and said nothing further.
The Emperor's continued silence made the atmosphere within the entire palace feel unusually heavy.
Those ministers fell quiet as well.
Only then did they sense that today's Emperor seemed somehow… off.
Finally, Aubrey spoke.
His very first words were directed as a question to the ministers assembled below.
"Owaise—has he woken?"
A minister, hearing the inquiry, quickly stepped forward and reported to the Emperor:
"Your Majesty, His Highness the Second Prince is now conscious. His injuries have been brought largely under control, though he still requires rest."
Aubrey nodded, straightening in his seat.
"Bring Owaise here. Tell him."
"There is someone who wishes to see him."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
A guard received the order and departed in haste.
The other nobles and ministers exchanged glances with one another, unable to understand what the Emperor intended.
Why would His Majesty summon the gravely wounded Owaise up here?
Before long, a guard wheeled a chair into the palace hall, bringing Owaise inside.
The heavily wounded Owaise had his chest wound tightly in bandages, a wretched sight.
"Father…"
The moment he entered, he made to rise and salute the Emperor, but the pain in his body left him unable to move. He could only offer a bitter smile.
Aubrey looked at the Second Prince in that state and waved his hand indifferently.
"Dispense with the formalities."
"Bring him a seat."
The servants nearby carried over a chair, and the guards lifted the Second Prince into it.
Owaise settled heavily into the chair, then turned to face the Emperor once more.
"Thank you, Father."
The Emperor turned to look at Owaise and spoke:
"Owaise, how many years has it been since your mother left the palace?"
The Second Prince looked puzzled, but answered all the same.
"Father, she has been gone for sixteen years."
Aubrey leaned back in his chair, tilting his body back, and let out a sigh:
"Is that so? Sixteen years."
"Tell me—have you thought of her?"
The Second Prince was stunned silent.
His mother had been gone for sixteen years. Truthfully, he had nearly forgotten what she looked like.
To say nothing of whether he held any feeling for her at all.
But his father was asking this in front of an entire assembly of nobles and ministers.
Thinking it through, his expression shifted, becoming laced with a few shades of bitterness.
His slightly furrowed brow seemed to convey the suffering of a man tormented by longing.
"Mother has been gone for sixteen years. All this time, I have never stopped thinking of her."
"Every day, I wished that things could return to how they once were."
Hearing this, Aubrey let out a laugh—though whether it was one of amusement or mockery, no one could tell.
"Is that so?"
He sat up straight again, and amid the baffled stares of the assembled ministers, spoke in an unhurried tone:
"Claudia. Come and meet your child."
The moment that name was spoken, the entire palace fell silent.
Everyone froze on the spot—none more so than the Second Prince, whose facial muscles went completely rigid, only his eyes wide and staring in disbelief.
Under the gaze of all present, from the passage beside the throne, a woman slowly emerged.
She was dressed in magnificent robes adorned with gold thread, the hem inlaid with thin, luminous-flowing emeralds, golden eardrops and bracelets alike glittering with light.
Behind her followed several handmaids, their heads respectfully bowed.
An air of regal elegance radiated from her person, and the crown atop her head gleamed brilliantly in the sunlight.
She stood there at the Emperor's side, head slightly lowered, gazing at the Second Prince with a gentle smile, and spoke softly:
"It has been a long time."
"My child."
When the nobles caught sight of Claudia, their faces were filled with shock.
Authority spilled from Claudia's eyes, blanketing every minister in the hall completely.
That aura—it could not be mistaken!
After fifteen years, the Empress had actually returned!
The ministers stood rooted to the spot, staring at the Empress with their mouths agape, not a single one able to find any words.
By rough calculation, Claudia before them was, like Aubrey, approaching sixty years of age.
Yet she remained strikingly young—she looked rather like a woman in her early thirties.
And of all those present, the most thunderstruck was the Second Prince.
He sat in his chair, mouth hanging open, staring in a daze at the magnificent woman before him.
That was his mother. Claudia.
He still remembered.
Back then, the Emperor and his mother had been at odds, and she had departed from the Royal Capital—departed from the Empire—with resolve.
That year, he had been only fourteen years old.
And now, she had returned.
She had returned in that same dignified, graceful manner, exactly as she had been fifteen years ago.
"Mo—Mother?"
The Second Prince's voice trembled slightly as the words of disbelief escaped him.
No one knew why Claudia had chosen to return only now.
Yet even after Claudia had left the Empire, Emperor Aubrey had kept the position of Empress preserved for her all this time.
Claudia drew close to the Second Prince and circled him a few times.
Her pupils contracted subtly, as though confirming something.
The Second Prince didn't quite understand her behavior either.
Truthfully, facing this woman he had not seen in so long, he felt very little.
His emotions were calm to an extreme.
Yet under Claudia's steady gaze, the Second Prince felt a strange unease come over him.
His body felt as though it were being pierced by wave after wave of steel spikes—amid the pain, a hollowness had taken root.
Claudia finally came to a stop before the Second Prince, reached out, and patted his shoulder.
"Rest well and recover, child."
"We will have plenty of time together from now on."
With that, Claudia clasped her hands before her skirt, her brows gently lowered, a composed aura drifting around her.
She then gave a slow bow toward Aubrey, turned, and departed.
She left the Second Prince sitting in his chair, his gaze following Claudia's retreating figure, watching quietly as she walked away.
***
The news of Claudia's appearance in the palace sent a wave of upheaval through the Royal Capital.
Every street and alley buzzed with discussion, and the headlines of countless newspapers were all about "the Return of the Empire's Empress."
In just moments, the news had spread through the entire noble circle.
After all, this Empress's iron-blooded methods had left a deep impression on every noble.
She had, with her own hands, sent her own family to the execution stand.
She was the true culprit behind the annihilation of the entire Storc Family.
After personally purging the Storc Family, the Empress had also departed from the Empire—and it had now been fifteen years.
No one knew why she had left the Empire after that act of justice carried out against her own kin.
But at the very time the Empress departed, another piece of news had also emerged.
The Emperor's other wife—the Grand Duke's daughter from the Kant Kingdom—had died in childbirth after giving birth to Auréliane.
For a time, all eyes turned upon Aubrey.
Likewise, no one understood.
Why, in the span of a single night, had both of the Emperor's wives left him…
***
In the morning, Auréliane was taking a stroll through the garden.
Every day she would spend time in the palace gardens to settle her mood, and during these moments she was almost never accompanied by anyone.
Today, however, was a little different.
Auréliane, who had been picking flowers, sensed an unfamiliar presence drawing close behind her.
She couldn't help but lift her head and turn around.
Standing behind her was a richly dressed woman wearing a gleaming crown, looking at her with a smile.
Wearing a crown… Auréliane noted this in particular.
But she did not recognize the person before her.
Before she could ask, Claudia spoke first:
"You are Auréliane, aren't you?"
Hearing the gentle voice of the woman before her, Auréliane felt a sense of ease come over her, and she gave a bewildered nod.
"You are…"
"You should have never met me before."
Claudia stepped to Auréliane's side, looked at her, and spoke with a soft expression, reaching out a hand to stroke her cheek.
Deep within her eyes, something resembling nostalgia seemed to surface.
"How lovely… you are even lovelier than your mother."
Auréliane blinked.
Her mother?
That word felt very distant to her.
Because from a young age, she had been told.
Her mother had died in childbirth when she was born.
And so she had grown up without ever receiving a mother's love, and naturally had no real concept of what a mother was.
Yet the woman before her was gentle to an almost excessive degree.
In the sunlight, a kind of maternal radiance seemed to shimmer all around her.
Auréliane felt a momentary daze come over her.
If it were a mother…
How would she treat her?
And so she asked:
"Do you—know my mother?"
Claudia only smiled, then said:
"I don't merely know your mother. I also know your father, I know your two brothers."
"And your teacher—Viktor Clavena."