Chapter 218: Chapter-218

“Eyes front, Lord Helmut. There’s no rescue party coming for you today. You guys are really funny, huh?”

She crossed her arms, shifting her weight to one leg as if she were chatting with a neighbor over a garden fence rather than addressing a man who had just tried to orchestrate a massive political coup.

“I mean, truly. Let’s look at the logistics here,” Heena continued, gesturing vaguely to the empty throne at the top of the dais. “At least if you want to do something against the throne, at least bury me first. Have a funeral. Serve some bad wine. Fake a few tears. At least use common sense! You can’t just try to redecorate the imperial power structure while the current owner is still breathing in the other room. It’s incredibly rude, and frankly, it’s just sloppy paperwork.”

The entire throne room held its breath. The silence was so profound that the crackle of the torches in the iron sconces sounded like distant thunder.

Heena uncrossed her arms and slowly turned her gaze away from the hyperventilating Lord Helmut. Her dark eyes swept over the sea of kneeling aristocrats, eventually landing on the rigid, pale form of Duke Valorian—Adrian’s father and the primary architect of the secondary consorts’ political faction.

“Is that right, Duke?” Heena asked, her tone light and musical.

The Duke flinched violently. Despite his decades of ruthless court experience and his usually impeccable composure, a visible tremor wrecked his posture. He swallowed hard, bowing his head even lower, his lips moving frantically to form an excuse that wouldn’t result in his immediate decapitation.

“Y-Your Majesty,” Duke Valorian stammered, his voice lacking all of its usual booming authority. “We… we were just thinking about the empire. We were deeply worried that the empire might fall into the wrong hands during your… tragic incapacitation.”

Heena blinked. Once. Twice. Then, a bright, genuinely amused smile spread across her face.

“Uh-huh,” she said, nodding slowly. “Wrong hands? Really?”

She took a few leisurely steps down the dais, her bare feet making absolutely no sound against the marble. System 427, currently in his miniature golden lion form, floated securely by her shoulder, his tail swishing back and forth.

“We care so much about the empire, right?” Heena cooed, her voice dripping with enough sarcastic sweetness to rot teeth. “But if I’m not wrong—and let’s be honest, Duke, I never am—you are usually so busy. Busy managing the northern borders, busy counting your treasury, busy ensuring your son maintains his extremely important duties as a… what was it again? Ah, yes. Second consort .”

The Duke’s face turned an ugly, mottled shade of purple at the public reminder of his son’s humiliating demotion, but he didn’t dare look up.

[He sent Adrian here to the palace with the expectation that he would become the emperor consort; however, he ended up as merely a simple consort. Thus, in his perspective, this represents a demotion, especially since that position now belongs to Larus.]

“How did you get so free all the time to worry about all these little succession things?” Heena asked, tilting her head. “You really should pace yourself, Duke. Stress is terrible for the complexion.”

Without waiting for his answer—because frankly, watching him sweat was answer enough—she pivoted smoothly on her heel. Her eyes scanned the crowd until she found a specific, grizzled face among the kneeling masses.

“Then there’s you,” she said, her voice losing a fraction of its mocking edge. She turned to look at Duke Robbiston, the scarred, veteran general who had remained one of her few steadfast loyalists. “Duke, what are you doing standing there in the middle of this mess? Come here.”

Duke Robbiston, whose weathered face usually looked as though it were carved from solid granite, immediately stepped forward. He bypassed the groveling traitors, dropping into a crisp, impeccably deep military bow before her. When he looked up, a rare, genuine smile crinkled the scars around his eyes.

“We are really happy to see you alive, Your Majesty,” Robbiston said, his voice booming with military precision. “You have managed well.”

Hearing this old, battle-hardened man speak with such sincere relief was like someone had suddenly sprinkled fresh water onto a parched desert. It was the only honest thing that had been said in the room for the last hour.

Frankly, hearing that, Heena also smiled. A real one this time.

“Of course I have,” she said warmly, reaching out to lightly pat the old general’s armored shoulder. “Do you really think I would die before burying all these people first? I have a schedule to keep, Duke. I can’t just pass away with a messy to-do list.”

Normally, if someone else had said this—if a king or a minister had so casually joked about burying the highest-ranking nobles of the land in broad daylight—the aristocracy would have literally climbed on their body by now. They would have drawn swords, screamed about tyranny, and launched a full-scale rebellion before the echo of the words faded.

But she is the Empress. She is the Black Lotus who split a massive oak council table with a single sword strike just to make a point.

So how would they do it? They wouldn’t dare. They just kept their foreheads glued to the floor and prayed she didn’t know their specific ring sizes for when she inevitably severed their hands.

Suddenly, Heena felt her head violently aching.

Damn, she cursed internally, her perfectly composed smile freezing on her face for a fraction of a second.

Just after waking up from a medically induced coma caused by an undetectable, high-grade poison, she had marched straight here to crash their little treason party. She hadn’t even had the time to properly circulate her energy, to breathe, or to fully assert control over her own mind and the lingering toxins in her bloodstream. Her temples throbbed with a heavy, sickening pulse, and the edges of her vision blurred with a faint, static-like gray.

She discreetly raised a hand, elegantly rubbing her forehead with two fingers as if merely brushing away a stray lock of hair. She took a slow, deep breath, forcing the pain down into a dark, locked box in the back of her mind. She could pass out later. Right now, she had an extortion to run.

She looked at the trembling sea of nobles with a brilliantly refreshed smile.

“Listen,” Heena announced, her voice echoing brightly off the vaulted ceilings. “I really wanted to cut you all down here right now. I truly, deeply did. It would have been incredibly satisfying.”

The collective gasp from the floor was audible.

“But,” she sighed, throwing her hands up in an exaggerated gesture of defeat, “I cannot do this, right? Because you guys are the almighty nobles. The pillars of our great society. The foundation of the Eternal Phoenix Empire.”

Hearing that, the nobles were still trembling, thoroughly unconvinced by her sudden pivot to flattery. They knew better. When the Empress complimented you, she was usually just tenderizing the meat before tossing it into the fire.

“So, how about this?” Heena proposed, clasping her hands together cheerfully. “Being the true sovereign of this beautiful, totally-not-treasonous nation, I know that every single noble who signed that little succession petition today is definitely thrilled to see me alive, right?”

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