Heena looked directly at Seraphina and gave her a cold, mocking smile.
"...NOT any of the imperial consorts."
’WHAT?!’
The courtroom ’exploded’.
The consorts looked shocked—frozen in disbelief.
Everyone gasped—nobles, servants, guards, everyone.
And Seraphina’s face turned completely white. Her eyes went wide with shock and horror.
"WHAT NONSENSE ARE YOU SPEAKING?!" she shrieked.
Heena looked at her with icy disdain. "Lady Seraphina, you have not just insulted this court, but you have falsely accused the imperial consorts and attempted to destroy their reputations with lies."
"NO!" Seraphina scread. "It’s not true! You’re lying! You changed the results! You—"
Heena literally threw the docunt from her elevated throne.
It flew through the air and landed on the stairs several feet below—not directly at Seraphina’s feet, because even if Heena was good at throwing, she wouldn’t waste accuracy on soone she didn’t want to kill. The insult was deliberate.
Seraphina rushed forward and grabbed the docunt with shaking hands.
She read it frantically.
’’PATERNITY TEST RESULTS:’’
’’NO GENETIC MATCH TO ANY OF THE FIVE IMPERIAL CONSORTS’’
Seraphina’s eyes widened in absolute horror. She scread, "HOW?! How could this be?! NO!"
She turned wild eyes to the physicians.
"You made this up! You falsified the results! The Empress paid you to lie!"
Heena looked at her coldly. "I have been sitting in this courtroom the entire ti. Literally, if I wanted to falsify results, you would have noticed. You’ve been here watching."
She paused, then her eyes deliberately moved to Seraphina’s belly.
"Lady Seraphina," Heena said softly, dangerously, "there’s sothing I don’t understand. After all the hard work you’ve been doing—the manual labor, the stress, the poor conditions—even the healthiest woman would have miscarried by now. So how is it that you’re still pregnant and showing no signs of complications?"
Seraphina’s face turned even paler.
Murmurs spread through the courtroom. Nobles were whispering to each other—yes, that ’was’ strange. How had she not miscarried despite everything?
Heena clapped her hands once.
At the signal, the five royal physicians nodded and approached Seraphina.
"Wait! What are you doing?!" Seraphina tried to back away, but guards held her in place.
The head physician gently took her wrist and checked her pulse for a long, careful mont.
Then he turned to Heena and bowed.
"Your Majesty," he announced clearly so everyone could hear, "Lady Seraphina is not pregnant. She has never been pregnant."
Complete, absolute silence fell over the courtroom.
Disbelief was written on every face.
They couldn’t understand—first the physicians had confird she was pregnant. They’d just conducted a paternity test. And now they were saying she was never pregnant at all?
What the hell was happening?!
"NO!" Seraphina scread like a woman possessed. "You’re LYING! I AM pregnant! I have all the symptoms! The morning sickness! The weight gain! The—"
"Lady Seraphina," Heena interrupted calmly, "I don’t think I need to defend myself or the royal physicians. Their reputation speaks for itself."
She turned to the head physician.
"Doctor, please explain to the court what is actually happening here."
The physician bowed and turned to address the assembled nobles.
"Lady Seraphina has been consuming a rare fruit called the Wale Fruit," he announced. "This fruit is extrely difficult to obtain and has very unusual properties. When ingested regularly by a woman, it mimics all the symptoms of pregnancy—weight gain in the abdon, morning sickness, hormonal changes, even positive pregnancy tests."
He paused to let this sink in.
"It creates what we call a ’phantom pregnancy.’ The symptoms are real, but there is no actual child. The last ti we examined Lady Seraphina, we noticed sothing unusual in her pulse, but we couldn’t identify the cause with certainty. That’s why we petitioned Her Majesty to place Lady Seraphina in different living conditions."
"You see," the physician continued, "the Wale Fruit has only one antidote that can break its effects. And that antidote is actually quite common in the regions where the fruit grows."
He paused dramatically.
"The antidote is ’gram’. Chickpeas."
"CHICKPEAS?!" soone in the crowd exclaid.
The physician nodded seriously. "Yes. Consuming large quantities of chickpeas causes the Wale Fruit’s effects to gradually dissipate. That’s why Her Majesty ordered that Lady Seraphina be placed in the stables—where chickpeas and legus are regularly included in the als."
The crowd erupted in shocked murmurs.
Seraphina was shaking her head frantically. "No! No, this is wrong! I didn’t—I never ate any Wale Fruit! I AM pregnant! This is all—"
She turned wild eyes to Heena and scread:
"IT’S YOU! You did this! You poisoned or changed the tests or—this is all YOUR FAULT!"
That was the final straw.
Heena’s expression went from cold to absolutely ’glacial’.
She stood up slowly from her throne, and the temperature in the room seed to drop.
"Lady Seraphina," her voice was quiet but carried absolute authority and barely contained rage, "just because I have been sitting here calmly does NOT an you can say whatever you want without consequences."
She descended three steps from her throne, making herself more visible to everyone.
"SIT DOWN!" she commanded.
Guards forced Seraphina to her knees.
Heena’s voice rang out with imperial authority:
"Today, I am issuing an Imperial Edict to be followed throughout the entire empire!"
The court recorder imdiately began writing, and heralds stood ready to spread the word.
"Lady Seraphina has repeatedly insulted the throne. With my generous heart, I forgave her again and again. But not only does she fail to appreciate this rcy, she has broken imperial law repeatedly. She attempted to destroy the reputations of five imperial consorts with false accusations. She committed fraud against this court and against , the sovereign ruler."
Heena’s eyes blazed with cold fury.
"And today, she dared to directly insult the one and only ruler of this empire in open court!"
She raised her hand, and absolute silence fell.
"Therefore, I, Empress Celeste Valerian, sole sovereign ruler of this empire, hereby decree: Lady Seraphina, along with her entire family going back eight generations, shall be exiled to the Nidal Outpost. They are forbidden from ever leaving that territory. As long as my bloodline rules this empire, no mber of their family may return to civilized lands!"
Gasps and cries of shock erupted throughout the courtroom.
The Nidal Outpost wasn’t so dangerous forest filled with wild beasts.
No, it was worse.
It was a remote settlent at the absolute farthest corner of the empire—surrounded by mountains on one side and barren wasteland on the other. Because it was so isolated and resource-poor, no rchants ever traveled there. No trade routes passed through. It was completely cut off from civilization.
Only the worst criminals were sent there—murderers, traitors, the irredeemable.
Once you went to Nidal, you never ca back. There was no escape. The harsh environnt, the isolation, the complete lack of resources... life there was worse than death.
Sending Seraphina there was essentially a death sentence, just drawn out over years of suffering.
Seraphina, hearing this, felt her entire world collapse. She fell to the ground, her legs unable to support her.
"NO! PLEASE! YOUR MAJESTY, PLEASE!" She scread, sobbed, begged. "I’ll do anything! I’ll confess! I’ll—"
But no one listened.
Heena’s expression remained cold and unmoved.
"COURT DISMISSED!" she declared loudly.
With that, she turned and walked out of the throne room, her robes sweeping behind her.
Because honestly, she felt absolutely exhausted and needed to get out of that suffocating space.
Seraphina’s screams and pleas echoed behind her, but Heena didn’t look back.
User Comments
0 comments from readers