The young countess gazed at the Sovereign Elector she had sworn allegiance to, full of anticipation. The other woman once again wore a sorrowful expression. "After that battle, I was gravely wounded..."
Giafiel was exasperated. "A broken heart or a wounded heart?"
Wasn't it just a stab to the belly? She'd only lost her uterus, not had her brain stem severed.
"That's not important. Don't interrupt me, Gilly! Anyway, in the dream, it was as though I'd been cursed. My wounds were always slow to heal, and I often couldn't attend to affairs of state. Naturally, the war to conquer the Alliance failed. My children with him began another bloody civil war over the throne." Brunhilde gritted her teeth. "Two civil wars over the throne in just half a century. The dignity of the Galactic Empire would have been utterly trampled!"
If that were really the case, the vassal states, allied nations, newly conquered territories, border lords, and even the traditional nobles would all have played both sides—or raised their banners in rebellion outright. The authority of a state, of a royal house, was like a space city built in an unstable star system: building it was unimaginably difficult, but bringing it down took only the lightest tap of a finger. Giafiel sighed.
"What's more, while he was the Empire's second-in-command, he'd already planted hidden dangers everywhere. By the time we ruled jointly, The Origin had long since been published. Even in the heart of the Empire, there were more than a hundred study groups devoted to the book, to say nothing of the frontier regions and foreign countries."
"Let me guess: those study groups might be even stronger than the current Franmore Liberation Army and the Sumi Liberation Organization," Ostana said with a smile.
"Not quite, but they had