1.
Every person has a place where they are meant to be. For Philomel, the execution platform was both the designated place for today and the final destination of her life.
A large crowd had gathered at the execution grounds to witness the end of the villainess. Philomel had struggled, protesting that she did not want to die, but she soon fell silent under the merciless kicks of the guards holding her arms.
The Emperor, Eustis, watched the existence who had once been his daughter with indifference from the highest seat, and beside him, the pale-faced Princess Ellensia clung tightly to her father.
“Hear me, you traitor!”
The official presiding over the execution stepped forward and began to recite Philomel’s crimes one by one.
The crime of conspiring with her mother to impersonate the Princess for over a decade.
The crime of envying and framing the Princess, despite having been spared by her mercy.
And finally, the crime of inciting conflict between the Magic Tower and the Empire to provoke a national crisis.
Several other minor charges were listed in detail as well.
“Therefore, you deserve the death penalty!”
No sooner had the official finished speaking than rough shouts and curses erupted from all sides.
“Kill her at once!”
“How dare a person of lowly blood pretend to be the Princess!”
“She should have been executed along with her mother long ago!”
Eggs and stones thrown by the angry mob struck Philomel without mercy.
After a long while, the official raised his hand to restrain the furious crowd.
“While this is a right not usually granted to a criminal such as you, the merciful Princess Ellensia has bestowed upon you the grace to leave a last word. Do you have anything to say in your final moments?”
At that, Philomel’s yellow eyes, which had been lifelessly staring at the ground, turned toward the Emperor.
“……Fa, Father.”
The Emperor’s eyebrows rose slightly at the raspy voice.
“I did not impersonate the Princess. Until now, I truly believed I was your daughter……. I will not beg for my life, as my other sins are enough to deserve death. I only wish for you to know that one thing…….”
It was something she had thought about incessantly while trapped in a solitary cell where not a single ray of sunlight reached.
Countless people had lost their heads simply because they were somewhat close to her, or because they had shown sympathy for her haggard appearance.
With that, all the attachments that had bound her felt utterly futile.
Why had she struggled so desperately, yearning for love and fearing to lose her place? In any case, neither the affection nor the position had ever truly been hers.
However, there was one thing.
Among the list of crimes, she felt aggrieved that the very first and greatest one was not the truth.
It didn’t matter if others didn’t believe her. She only wanted one person to know of her innocence.
Father. Eustis, Emperor of the Belerov Empire.
The man who had never shown her even a sliver of interest during the ten-plus years he believed Philomel to be his own flesh and blood.
The man whom she had still hoped to be loved by, thinking he was her only family.
Now that she had come too far, she knew she couldn’t hope to erase his hatred, but she at least wanted him to know the truth.
That she had never intended to deceive him from the start. That she herself had only learned she wasn’t his biological daughter after Ellensia appeared.
When she thought about it, it was an incredibly obvious story. Philomel’s biological mother had swapped her daughter and the Princess when they were both newborns.
After that, Philomel lived in the Imperial Palace as the Princess, and Ellensia lived as a commoner with her biological mother, so they hadn’t even had the chance to meet.
So when could she have met her mother to conspire, or how could she have plotted to deceive everyone?
Anyone could have deduced this simple fact, yet everyone treated Philomel like a swindler. It was due to the infamy Philomel had built up over the years.
Nevertheless, she had harbored hope. Even if no one else believed her, perhaps the rational and wise Emperor might discover the truth.
Of course, it was a vain hope.
“Guards. Go and fetch thread at once to sew that thing’s mouth shut.”
The commotion, which had been dampened by the Emperor’s command, ceased for a moment before erupting again.
“That is right!”
“Do as His Majesty commands!”
“Sew it shut! Sew it shut!”
The attendants scrambled to find thread to sew the criminal’s mouth, and Ellensia, whose complexion had turned even worse, gripped her father’s sleeve tightly.
Ellensia, who possessed beautiful golden hair, unlike Philomel’s common brown. The Emperor’s beloved daughter, who resembled the late Empress so perfectly.
Philomel’s eyes were drenched in despair.
‘What on earth was I expecting?’
She had known full well it would come to this.
Perhaps her head had gone strange from being tortured for so long.
‘Let’s just accept death quietly.’
That was the only way to preserve what little self-respect she had left.
Yes. No matter what anyone said, she had once been the Princess of the great Belerov Empire.
‘That is, only that…… is my one and only pride.’
“Your Majesty!”
She had clearly intended to do just that…….
Philomel rose as if jolted and called out to the Emperor, despite herself.
Despite living on nothing but breadcrumbs for days, an strangely loud voice burst out of her.
As Eustis’s cold gaze reached her, words she hadn’t anticipated spilled from her lips. Tears also streaked down her cheeks incessantly.
“Have I, have I ever been a daughter to you, even once? Have you ever thought of me as a daughter, even a little?”
Yes. She had wanted to ask him that all this time.
Not just since Ellensia appeared, but even when she thought she was his real daughter.
Why do you always look at me with such cold eyes? Am I truly your child? Even if you cannot love me, can you not at least treat me as your child?
She hadn’t dared to ask because she was afraid of the answer she would receive. But with death right before her, a strange courage surged up.
“…….”
“Daddy, stop now…….”
The Emperor, who had been opening his mouth as if to answer, turned his gaze away when his daughter whimpered.
Kind-hearted Ellensia found it difficult to watch Philomel’s execution, even though she was the villainess who had tried to harm her.
The Emperor gently wrapped his arms around the shoulders of his lovely daughter, who was begging to leave this place, and after ordering that the execution be carried out as planned, he left the grounds, ignoring the Philomel left behind.
“……You could at least have given me an answer before leaving.”
Philomel spat out her final words in a daze.
And so, the villainess of the century, Philomel, met a death where no one sympathized with her.
Fortunately, because the Emperor had ordered her to be dealt with quickly, there was no sewing of her mouth. That was the last bit of luck granted to the villain.
Although, because they wouldn’t grant her a quick death, she didn’t die by the guillotine, but suffered a long and agonizing end at the blunt blade of the executioner.
Her only innocence was buried, obscured by her countless misdeeds, and never saw the light of day. Truly befitting a villain…….
“Kyaaaah!”
With a shriek, Philomel threw the book she had been reading.
“How can you do this! Even if I—no, even if the Philomel in the book did a few wrong things, it wasn’t enough to deserve death!”
Even though the young girl stomped her feet with her small body and clutched her chest, the content of the book would not change.
The nine-year-old Princess regretted picking up a suspicious book in the garden.
Having started reading out of curiosity, wondering what kind of gutsy person would write a novel set in the actual Imperial family, the experience left her with nothing but resentment and a foul mood.
She had been dumbfounded from the very beginning, as it introduced some unheard-of commoner woman claiming to be the Emperor’s real daughter and called this Philomel a fake…….
“I’ll report this to Father immediately and make sure the person who wrote this doesn’t get away with it.”
It was a piece of writing that bordered on blasphemy against the Imperial family.
To dare label the Belerov Empire’s only successor a fake!
And to top it off, to give her such a cruel end. If they hadn’t killed her, she might have let it slide with life imprisonment, but she wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than death for this.
“Huu.”
Philomel, who had been acting as if she would rush out at any moment, sank helplessly to the carpeted floor.
If her nanny saw this, she would surely lecture her for acting in an unrefined manner, but it didn’t matter, as she had been alone ever since she was grounded.
In the first place, the only reason she had read this absurd and insulting novel, *Princess Ellensia*, almost to the end was because she was incredibly bored.
Except for the two times a day she walked in the garden, she had to be confined to her room. And even if her grounding were lifted, she wasn’t sure if she would be able to see her father.
Eustis was an indifferent father who had no interest in his daughter. The number of times they had faced each other and had a conversation could be counted on one hand.
Whenever she tried to request a meal or tea time through others, she was always ignored, and even when Philomel occasionally approached him recklessly, she was treated as a nuisance and chased away.
The reason she had been grounded yesterday was because she had barged into the Emperor’s office and thrown a tantrum because he wouldn’t see her.
“Take that thing away at once.”
Seeing his daughter crying and asking why he wouldn’t come to see her, the Emperor had ordered the attendants with an infinitely cold face.
In the end, she had no choice but to be dragged back to her room.
As the Emperor’s cold attitude toward her persisted for nearly ten years, others also began to look down on the Princess.
Rumors that the Emperor would adopt a talented child from a collateral branch and pass the throne to them instead of Philomel only fueled their arrogant behavior.
They would openly gossip that the Emperor, who had loved the late Empress so deeply, resented the daughter born at the cost of her mother’s life.
Moreover, it was only natural that he wouldn’t feel affection for her, as the Princess didn’t resemble her mother at all and did nothing but cause trouble without excelling in anything.
A dejected Philomel walked unsteadily toward the mirror hanging on the wall.
“Do I really not look like them?”
The Philomel reflected in the mirror was a cute girl with brown hair and yellow eyes, without a single flaw.
However, she didn’t seem to resemble her father, let alone her mother, whom she had only ever seen in portraits.
The Emperor had black hair and blue eyes, and the Empress had blonde hair and green eyes. Even if one were to simply compare the colors of their hair and eyes, they didn’t match.
At least when she was young, Philomel’s hair color had been lighter, looking almost blonde.
Every night, she had prayed for it to turn even lighter and become golden, but as she grew up, it darkened, leaving her with ordinary brown hair.
Well, even if one assumed her hair color resembled her late maternal grandmother’s, where did those bright yellow eyes come from?
The girl felt depressed, feeling as if she truly wasn’t her parents’ biological child.