00:00Hello, Isabel, Marguerite's voice had said, calm and unhurried.
00:04I believe it's finally time we met properly.
00:08Empire Call had gone silent.
00:10Adrian stood frozen in the palace office, phone pressed uselessly to his ear,
00:15the deadline ringing in his mind louder than any sound in the room.
00:19Marcus, he said, voiced tight with barely controlled panic.
00:23How far is your sister's house from here?
00:26Two hours by road, Marcus said, already grabbing his keys.
00:31Less if I take the old service routes.
00:33Then we go now, Adrian said.
00:35In the cellar safe room of Marcus's sister's home, Isabel stood frozen.
00:40Lucia clutched tightly against her chest, staring at the small security monitor mounted near the door,
00:47the only camera covering the property's exterior.
00:50The monitor showed a woman standing calmly in the driveway,
00:53silver-streaked hair catching the porch light,
00:56hands folded in front of her with unnerving composure,
01:00making no move toward the house at all.
01:02She's not trying to break in, Isabel whispered to Marcus's sister, Elena,
01:07who stood beside her with a shotgun steady in her hands,
01:10decades of rural self-reliance evident in her calm grip.
01:13She's just standing there, waiting, Elena said, for you to come out, probably.
01:19People like that usually prefer conversations to confrontations, if given the choice.
01:25I'm going out there, Isabel said suddenly.
01:29Absolutely not, Elena said.
01:32My brother would never forgive me.
01:34She's not going to hurt me, Isabel said,
01:37though her voice trembled slightly with the uncertainty of her own claim.
01:41If she wanted me dead, she's had a dozen easier opportunities tonight
01:46than standing calmly in your driveway, waiting for me to notice her.
01:50Tutelashimi.
01:51That's not exactly reassuring logic, Elena said.
01:55I know, Isabel admitted.
01:57But I've spent three years hiding from questions I never got to ask directly.
02:02I'm done hiding from this one.
02:04She handed Lucia gently into Elena's arms.
02:07If anything happens, get her somewhere safe, please.
02:12Isabel stepped out onto the porch alone, the cold night air sharp against her skin,
02:17Marguerite watching her approach with an expression that held none of the menace Isabel had expected.
02:22You came out, Marguerite said, almost pleased, braver than I anticipated.
02:28What do you want? Isabel asked, keeping several careful feet of distance between them.
02:33To finally speak with the woman who accidentally became the reason my entire plan started unraveling.
02:39Marguerite said, you were never supposed to survive that accident three years ago, Isabel.
02:44When you did, everything I'd carefully built began shifting in directions I hadn't fully anticipated.
02:50Then finish it, Isabel said, forcing steadiness into her voice.
02:55If I'm such an inconvenient loose end, here I am.
02:58Marguerite studied her for a long, quiet moment.
03:02You misunderstand me completely.
03:04You're a path, Ray Chauveté.
03:06The man who ran your car off that road three years ago was never acting on my orders.
03:12He was a low-level member of Marcus's original private security operation, panicking on his own initiative, exactly as everyone
03:20eventually pieced together.
03:22Then why did that message tonight say you intended to correct the mistake of my survival?
03:28Isabel asked.
03:29Because your survival, Marguerite said, meant that Edmund's discovery of the missing marriage paperwork suddenly mattered far more than it
03:37should have.
03:37If you had genuinely died that night, Edmund's plan to expose the Crown's hypocrisy around suitable marriages would have unfolded
03:46far more cleanly without a very inconvenient, very alive princess complicating every step.
03:52So this was never actually about hurting me, Isabel said slowly.
03:57It was about controlling how inconvenient I became to your plan.
04:01Marguerite's expression flickered with something almost like weariness.
04:05Everything I've done has been about controlling variables I couldn't afford to leave unpredictable.
04:12You, unfortunately, became one of the largest variables of all.
04:16Edmund told us about Sophia, Isabel said carefully, watching Marguerite's composed expression crack for the first time.
04:24He shouldn't have, Marguerite said quietly.
04:27That was never meant to become part of this.
04:29Then why involve Lucia, Isabel demanded, anger finally breaking through her careful composure.
04:36Why watch my daughter sleep in her nursery for eighteen months if this was only ever about Sophia?
04:43Marguerite's eyes softened, just slightly, grief visible beneath decades of careful control.
04:49Because I understand exactly what it feels like to watch a daughter denied a place in a family, simply because
04:56the world decided she didn't fit its definition of acceptable.
04:59I wanted to see, with my own eyes, whether Lucia would grow up in a world that had learned anything
05:05at all from what happened to Sophia, and to me, and has it.
05:09Isabel asked quietly.
05:11I don't know yet, Marguerite admitted.
05:14That's precisely why I'm standing here tonight.
05:17Lucia, what do you actually want, Marguerite?
05:20Isabel asked.
05:21Not revenge, not chaos.
05:23What's the real endgame here?
05:25Recognition, Marguerite said simply.
05:28For Edmund, legitimately, as the king's son.
05:31And for Sophia, protection, dignity.
05:34A formal place within this family's care, rather than hidden away in private facilities the world never has to acknowledge
05:40exists.
05:42I want the Crown Council to formally establish protections for children like Sophia, born into families with power, but denied
05:49any place within them because of circumstances beyond their control.
05:53That's not an unreasonable request, Isabel said slowly.
05:57So why all of this?
06:00The kidnapping, the manipulation, threatening Maya's brother, staging your own death for 20 years.
06:06Because reasonable requests, Marguerite said, bitterness finally cutting through her calm exterior, have never once been enough to move an
06:15institution built entirely on protecting its own convenience.
06:18I learned that lesson 30 years ago, when King Frederick chose the crown over me, without a second thought.
06:26Headlights swept suddenly across the driveway, as Marcus's car screeched to a stop at the property's edge.
06:32Adrian already out the door, before it fully halted, running toward the porch.
06:37He shouted.
06:39Marguerite turned calmly toward the approaching car, entirely unbothered.
06:43Right on time.
06:44Get away from her, Adrian said, positioning himself instinctively between Marguerite and Isabel.
06:50There's no need for dramatics, Adrian, Marguerite said.
06:53I came here to talk, and we've done exactly that.
06:57But since you're here now, there's something you should know before this conversation ends.
07:01She reached slowly into her coat, producing a small folded document, holding it out toward him.
07:08They're incomplete.
07:09There's a second document, one your father's own private secretary, myself, decades ago, before all of this, helped bury alongside
07:19Isabel's marriage certificate,
07:20a document that changes the entire order of succession, should Edmund ever choose to use it.
07:26Adrian took the folded paper with trembling hands, unfolding it slowly beneath the porch light.
07:32His face went completely pale.
07:34That's not possible, he whispered.
07:37Coming up in episode 23, the second document, Adrian confronts the full weight of a hidden truth
07:44that could reshape the entire line of succession, as Marguerite finally reveals the true stakes of everything she's built.
07:52But he's going to be able to influence his own black belt.
07:52In this document, Alfred Medall아 outreach means thenie-s seiner teacher,
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