It was never a secret that my father had been married three times before his passing. Lady Marie was his second, and presumably a marriage of convenience. Shortly after that, he married my mother. But no one ever knew who his first wife was, all they knew was that she died very young.

　　“Very little. I do not even know her name.”

　　“Rosaline.” Augustus said. “Her name was Rosaline.” He held out the piece of parchment for me to see.

　　“Why do you know that?”

　　“When my informant was digging up paper trails of the Wright family and Lady Marie, they found a stash of letters hidden in the Wright household instead. Letters between Emperor Byron and a lady named Rosaline.” Cassian explained.

　　I frowned as I made my way towards Augustus, wanting to peer at the letter. He merely passed it to me, and the first words written in a familiar handwriting said, ‘My Dearest Rosaline,’

　　“Why would the Wright family have these?” I asked, looking away as though I felt guilty to even read such an intimate letter written by my father.

　　“They have been in cahoots with Lady Marie for years now. Andrew Wright and Lady Marie grew up together after all, so it’s not surprising that he would hide things like this for her.”

　　“This doesn’t make any sense.” I muttered. “I admit that it is rather strange that letters belonging to my father and his first wife being in the possession of the Wright household is strange, but I do not understand how this is relevant to what is happening to Isaiah.” I admitted.

　　“Well, it’s not directly linked to Isaiah, but it ties in with your theory,” Cassian said.

　　“Theory about?”

　　“Emperor Byron was murdered.” He suddenly announced.

　　The room went tense and silent as all eyes went to Cassian and yet he held his gaze on me, waiting for me to speak first. “You found evidence?” I asked, almost breathless as I could not believe that everything was slowly unravelling.

　　Cassian nodded. “The day you told me, I sent my finest men to investigate this, I wanted to tell you once you got back but then everything happened with Isaiah and now, this,” he gestured over the documents and letters piled up on the desk. “But I can confidently say that everything is linked to Lady Marie.”

　　“You are saying she killed my father?”

　　“She killed Rosaline as well.”

　　“Wait. This is a large claim you are making, Cassian. Do you have any proof to solidify your claims?” Augustus asked.

　　“All the evidence you need is right there.” He pointed at the desk. “Everything.”

　　Augustus frowned as he looked over the documents, picking up and checking a few swiftly. “These are just love letters and…medicine invoices?” his frown deepened. “And these are…letters from doctors?”

　　“Could you tell us everything you know, Duke? We might not have time to go through everything.” Aiden, the voice of reason, said.

　　“Well, I could stand here and have a story session with all of you, but I think it is better if he did it instead.” Cassian shrugged.

　　“He?” Aiden and I questioned at the same time. Just then, the door was pushed open, causing all of us to turn to it. Gideon walked in with a thick book in his hands. He paused when he noticed everyone was looking at him.

　　“Is something the matter?”

　　“You got some explaining to do, Lord Gideon.” Cassian smirked.

　　*

　　“I see…” Gideon muttered as he looked over a few documents. “You managed to find it.”

　　“Well, I can't really take all the credit.” Cassian grinned.

　　I looked at both of them, clearly lost as to what was even going on anymore. I let out an exasperated sigh, catching their attention. “Can someone just explain to me what is going on?”

　　“Ah, of course. I did not mean to keep you in the dark, princess but a lot of things have happened since you left.” Gideon started.

　　“I can see that.” I huffed, crossing my arms across my chest. “Well, please tell me everything, no more secrets, no more surprises. The faster we figure this out the sooner we can focus on freeing Isaiah.”

　　“After that day when Gideon found out I was a part of the Hallows, ah,” Cassian stopped and turned to Augustus and Aiden. “I’m a benefactor of the Hallows.” He said, even though the truth was that he founded the group. But I remained silent, knowing that it was easier to just tell a white lie now then to deal with mistrust amongst the group.

　　“As in the mercenary group?” Aiden asked.

　　Cassian nodded. “We can talk about this more later but long story short, Gideon and I have been working together to figure out what had happened to Emperor Byron. Even though his death was claimed to be from illness, Cordelia thought otherwise. Gideon then gave me a list of those who are loyal to Lady Marie to check out and I hired some of the members from Hallows to dig into the families.”

　　“But it was hard to target the Wright family due to how Lady Marie and her children were often there. But now we know that every little dirty secret of Lady Marie’s was passed to the Wright family to keep hidden.” He continued.

　　“Gideon, you knew that Lady Marie was hiding these?”

　　“Well, it was just a gut feeling before I’ve noticed things go missing before, especially official documents. Whenever I asked Byron about this, he would brush it off and write one. I was sceptical for the longest time, because I knew that Lady Marie was a rather meticulous person but to think that she had kept all of this…I am shocked.” Gideon said.

　　“Could you tell us after Rosaline? You were our father’s right-hand man since you were both young so you must have known about his first wife.” Aiden pressed.

　　?“Yes, I did know her but there is something wrong about your statement there, Prince Aiden.”

　　“What do you mean?”

　　“Bryon and Rosaline never officially got married.”

　　“Why?” I asked.

　　“Because Rosaline is of common blood and…” his words trailed off.

　　“And?”

　　“She was an omega.” Gideon stated. “When your father told his family that he wanted to marry Rosaline, no one supported him as what happened to every other member of the royal family. They said that he would either renounce his position as future emperor or separate from Rosaline. In the end, due to pressure from his family, he decided to focus on becoming king instead, but he kept Rosaline in the palace with him, claiming that she was just for entertainment’s sake. Naturally, that was just. Lie because he was very much in love with her.”

　　“…I see.” I muttered, never once knowing this side of my father.

　　“When your father was finally emperor, he was pressured into marrying Lady Marie. She was kind and caring and Byron thought that he could confide in her and tell her the truth about Rosaline and at first, we thought she did. But shortly after that, Rosaline died from illness.”

　　“Illness?” I looked up at him. “Was she sick?”

　　Gideon shook his head as he pulled out a document and passed it over to me. It was a medical report, worn and aged that it was hard to make out the words. “According to the doctor, Rosaline had no signs of being ill. But she just perished one day—”

　　“Just like father.” I gasped when I realised that the words written in the report were awfully similar to the ones written for my father’s report.? My eyes then went down to the name of the doctor who signed the report, it was the same royal doctor we had in the palace. He has been working for this family as long as Gideon. “Wait…does this mean that the doctor is under Lady Marie’s control?”

　　“He was recommended by her. I had a feeling about all these schemes, but I never could find the proof I needed to take Lady Marie to trial but now, all the evidence is here.”

　　“This still doesn’t explain why Lady Marie murdered Emperor Byron.” Augustus muttered.

　　“I think I know why.” Aiden chimed in. “Could it be that she found out the contents of the will? If Lady Marie’s influence in this palace is larger than we had expected, she must have had spies around to know father was going to announce Cordelia as the heir to the throne. With father gone, she could easily try to persuade the noblemen to favour Frederick over Cordelia, but things did not go her way when there were people who still supported you, and after you got married, your influence grew.” He explained.

　　“That is precisely right, Prince Aiden. I had come up with a solution to prevent Lady Marie from getting what she wanted—the throne.” Gideon said.?

　　“Is that why you were pushing me to fight for this position? Because you knew that if I didn’t, then Lady Marie’s plan would have worked…?” I asked in disbelief, still not fully comprehending everything that was revealed so far. “You knew all this time…and yet you kept it to yourself for the longest time?” I asked Gideon, the betrayal in my voice could not be hidden.