The first to scream was a maid.
Her shriek pierced the silence, followed by the butler's panicked cry of, "Master!" as he rushed forward. Simultaneously, a knight charged like the wind and pinned Alan down.
"Don't mess with me! Don't you dare insult Mother! I don't need you! I don't need any of this! You should just die!" Alan shouted, his voice raw with rage as he struggled beneath the knight's hold.
As Alan's furious cries echoed, Gloria swiftly stepped past him, her gait almost a skip.
Father, oblivious to the cruelty he had unwittingly inflicted—lavishing Alan with the sweet gift of kindness during childhood, only to abruptly snatch it away—lay crumpled on the other side of his desk. Blood oozed faintly from his temple where the brass clover's edge must have struck him. Although the bleeding wasn't as severe as expected, his closed eyes and limp body spoke volumes.
The butler's urgent calls went unanswered. Father's chest moved faintly—he was unconscious but alive.
Gloria tilted her head slightly.
She knew better than to move someone with a head injury. Yet most daughters, overwhelmed by love and concern for their father, would forget such logic and cling to him desperately.
They would cry out, "Please wake up, Father!" while shaking him, truly believing their pleas would bring him back.
"Milady! You mustn't shake him!" the butler admonished, but Gloria, with the convincing performance of a distressed daughter, shook Father's body two or three more times. His pale golden hair brushed against the floor with each motion.
Other than the generally kind-hearted A-ko who remained flustered, Gloria's actions would seem natural to any observer. No one would suspect the truth—that she hoped the blow to Father's head might leave him in a more… manageable state, rather than recovering halfway to become a troublesome schemer once more.
No one would imagine such thoughts crossing the mind of a daughter clinging to her fallen father.
Although she wanted to shake him a few more times, the butler's stern intervention forced her to reluctantly let go.
Amid Alan's raging cries, the faint clinking of swords against armor could be heard.
The knights Kate had summoned—or perhaps others drawn by the commotion—would soon storm into the study.
Until then, Gloria couldn't move Father, nor could she ask Alan about his feelings in this moment. She was, for now, idle.
So, she watched as the brass flower crown, which had been spinning in a lazy figure-eight, gradually slowed and came to rest. While waiting for events to unfold, a memory surfaced—she had seen this flower crown before, in her half-brother's room during her previous life.