NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 35 : The tale of two letters
Luke’s POV
March 23 853. Luke and Clarice were on day 2 of their travel to reach the Cimmerian outpost. They continued travelling incognito due to fear of an assassination attempt on Luke. Luke knew that there was an attempt to take his life but he had no clue as to how they attempted it. He tried not to ponder too much about it as his thoughts were now stuck on what had transpired last night. His face turned red.
Clarice, who could sense something, looked at Luke’s face and made a guess. “ Don’t tell me you’re still thinking of what had transpired last night? “ she questioned him, making Luke turn even redder. She started giggling.
“It's all right Luke. You don’t have to beat yourself over it. I understand it was an accident”
“ Uhm. Thanks, Clarice” he replied feeling a little more relaxed. He had no idea how he had grabbed onto her innerwear while sleeping. Did he physically assault her? Did he grab hold of her breast? He started thinking as he stared at her two beautiful peaks.
Bonk! Not a second later, Clarice hit him on the head. “ You were thinking of something rude weren’t you?” being spot on about what Luke was thinking. “ Jeez at this rate I will have to make sure you don’t meet my dad or mom. They can't wait to tie me up and put me in a room alone with you if it means giving them a grandchild.” She continued.
“ What? This is the first time I've heard of this” Luke replied baffled. That’s right. What did he feel about Clarice? While he cared a lot about Vivienne it was mostly due to the fact of how she is ignorant of everything and if he wasn’t present she would most likely end up hurting herself and everyone around her. He certainly didn’t feel butterflies in his stomach every time he saw Vivienne but he dismissed that off mostly because he had spent a lot of time with her and he never really got to experience it because he had convinced himself that he would marry Vivienne one way or another due to the engagement and the binding alimony that was put forth by the Sterlings in case one side wanted to break off the engagement without the other’s consent.
While Luke was pondering about this Clarice handed over a letter to him.
“ Before we left the Demotfort mansion, your father asked me to hand it over to you once you have calmed down. I was hesitant to hand it over to you but considering how you handled the human trafficker calmly today morning, I would say you deserve to read it now.” With that, she handed over two letters. One from his family and one from the first Princess Aurelia Vespera.
‘Hello Luke, I'm sorry I had forced you to quickly move on to Abyssal Borderlands. The moment we knew that you had accepted the duel, we wanted to rush to the academy to stop you from making the foolish mistake. Well, I don’t wish to blame you for it. If it had been me in your shoes, I would have done the same for your mother. From what we know, and the information we gathered with the help of the Lux Hesperus consortium, it was evident that the Sterlings were still very much interested in keeping the engagement alive.
If that was true then why did you let me make the mistake and why did you choose to strip me of my title as the heir you might ask. The reason was twofold but once you read them I'm sure you would agree with them as well.
First, as you are aware, we replaced your armour and made significant changes to the duel conditions last minute because we got to know that someone had tampered with your armour.
On surface-level examination, it looked like whoever was responsible just wanted to make sure you lost the duel which could have been lethal in its own right. But once we examined the state of the core, we got a shocking result.
If you had proceeded with the armour, there was a high chance of permanent damage to either your hand or worst case your heart depending on which core went off first because the cores that were found in your armour were unrefined black market ones which had high risk of blowing up.
Now adding to this fact we had found several of the empress’ maids searching for someone in the academy arena let us conclude that the empress is likely behind this and the engagement between us and sterlings had put such a damper on her plans that she decided to act this way.
I am not sure how she managed to get through our guards and change the core in your armour but this caused a huge panic for us. It was good fortune that we had managed to find and foil her assassination plan. We have since significantly tightened our security and left you under the care of Clarice to ensure your safety.
Our plan is simple, we will try to set up a trap for the empress if she tries to assassinate you again. Based on our intel from Hestia, it looks like the empress is very likely to attack your carriage and in an attempt for your life if we somehow sway the decision to send you to Abyssal Borderlands.
This is why we chose to send you there ahead of time and let things play out here. Once we catch them red-handed, we can make sure that this never happens again.
The second reason is simple. As you are aware, our faction is already weak and the multiple attempts on Princess Aurelia’s life had forced her to go abroad for her education. The princess had been suspecting for some time that several houses were planning on defecting to the aristocratic faction. Having those houses on our side might prove to be fatal considering the position we are in.
The princess wrote that she was troubled at what to do when Hestia had given her an idea. We leverage this situation between us and the Sterlings to create an outward appearance of bad blood between the two houses. This would cause a huge panic in the houses that support the princess.
Hestia suggested using this situation to bait some houses into betraying us now rather than later. This way we get rid of all the bad apples in one go. It would require a bit of sacrifice from your end for some time.
Princess Aurelia wrote a letter to you personally describing her side of the story and why she chose to do what she did. She has been striving hard to make it. We had let her down the moment you accepted the duel without consideration of how it would affect her. Read her letter and let me know if she expects anything from us. It’s the least we can do considering how we had let her down.
Considering the sterlings don’t want to break off this engagement even under the worst-case scenario, we can bring you back as the next head of the Sterling family and push the sterlings to the level of marquis that is if you’re still interested in pursuing Vivienne.
The alternative is to carve your own house out in the Abyssal Borderlands if you don’t wish to see Vivienne anymore.
Your mother wanted you to get engaged to Clarice and take over the whitewood house. I am sure if Clarice knew about this she would try to beat you up in the disguise of a duel so best keep it to yourself. Whatever your final decision we are here to support you. For now, we expect only one thing from you. Survive this and make it back alive.
Love,
Your dad.
P.S. The letter contains sensitive political information which could jeopardize our plans if it made its way to our enemies. Use standard protocol to destroy the letter once you finished reading it. ‘
The letter created a mix of emotions in Luke. But the one that was icing on the cake was his shock once he learnt about how his life was attempted at. There was no doubt about it. The security was clear and top-notch. He had verified the armour and cores the day before he accepted the duel. There was only one other person who had access to his room and armour apart from him. Vivienne. He couldn’t help but put a hand on his head and sigh.
‘Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it looks like it can. Did Vivienne collude with the empress to kill me? No. Its impossible.’ He was thinking about it.
“Uhm Clarice, once we arrive at the Cimmerian outpost, I would like to send a letter requesting intel. Did Vivienne at any point visit the empress’s palace anytime before or after the duel?” he asked her with a feeble voice.
Clarice understood that the letter had shaken him up again. But he had to swallow the bitter pill sooner or later. Every time she saw Luke with her she would get a bad sensation. Her chest would hurt a bit. Was it her battle instincts? She never knew but she did know one thing for certain Vivienne was trouble. “ Luke, there is no need to send any letter. It looks like Hestia had informed the Duke about it. I happened to hear it from your mother. Vivienne was spotted coming out of the empress’ palace not too long after the duel.”
Luke took a minute for the information to sink in and understand everything. He felt horrible that even at this instant when he knew that it was Vivienne that tried to kill him, he didn’t want to rat her out. What is the use of wishing to protect someone when they attack you for trying to protect them?
“Are you all right?” Clarice pinged him to see if he went back to his old state again.
“Yes. It's better this way. Now I can focus on what is important. If Vivienne wants to be controlled like a puppet by the empress, then so be it. I shouldn’t let her impulsive decisions drive our family into a corner anymore. I have had enough of trying to protect her.” Luke replied with a firm resolution
Clarice who heard this hugged Luke. “It's all right Luke. No need to act tough. Even without power, you can still protect the people you wish to protect. I will teach you how to. Be prepared to make your sense of morality grey.” She whispered as she continued to hug him to which Luke replied with the nod.