"What do you mean?"

As he glared at me, I couldn't find the slightest bit of anger that had arisen a moment ago.

"Your Highness the Duke has already gathered what I mean, right? Do you need any more confirmation from me?”

Duke Arthemius's expression slightly hardened at my answer. His only son, Arcanta, was in a very similar position to me. He and I were in a unique situation where we were the only successors to the dukes, individuals who had power that nearly rivaled that of the imperial family. This would have been very unpleasant to the emperor's eyes.

"And if I want to verify this?" Duke Arthemius stared at me seriously, swallowing dryly.

I leisurely answered while taking a sip of tea. "Well, it’s not like I can't talk about it, so to answer you, the Blood Emperor wanted to take me as a daughter-in-law and attempted to swallow my family. As empress and duke, my son would become a crown prince and the heir to the duchy, so the duchy would naturally get merged.”

Of course, when he proposed to me, it didn’t seem like the crown prince calculated this and acted based on these politics. If he had plotted this, he would...