Is Rashta’s Baby Really Sovieshu’s?

One of the questions that comes up throughout the story is the paternity of Rashta‘s baby.

⚠️ Do not read any further if you want to avoid spoilers.

The little girl we are discussing is Glorym, Rashta’s second child.

Why is there so much debate?

Some readers believe the baby really was Sovieshu‘s daughter, while others think Rashta may already have been pregnant by her former lover when she arrived.

When did Rashta become pregnant?

When Rashta’s pregnancy is discovered, some characters and readers are surprised by how quickly it seems to have happened, since it would mean the emperor and Rashta became intimate very soon after meeting.

The live-action adaptation makes the passage of time feel a little longer, but in the novel and WEBTOON it is implied that it may have happened as early as the hunting trip, which Navier did NOT attend.

This is one of the points where the live action and the original story create a slightly different impression. You can read our comparison of the K-drama, WEBTOON, and novel.

What if she was already pregnant?

This possibility is murkier, because it would mean that after losing her first baby — or believing she had lost him — Rashta had sex again.

We cannot be certain whether another encounter took place, or under what circumstances. Given Rashta’s vulnerable position, we should not assume it was necessarily consensual. Before running away, Rashta had been planning to escape with Alan, but he eventually backed out and she fled alone. It is possible that they became intimate again during that period.

Biologically, it is possible to become pregnant again quite soon after giving birth, even before menstruation returns. Some readers nevertheless question how freely Rashta could consent while she was in such a vulnerable situation.

Rashta herself also has doubts, which suggests that something did happen that gave her a reason to wonder whether the baby might not be the emperor’s.

So who is the baby’s father in the end?

The baby is born supposedly premature, but healthy and at a good weight. That is already a strange detail and could suggest that the pregnancy began earlier than everyone calculated.

Then the baby turns out to look strikingly similar to her brother. When Sovieshu summons Alan with the boy, he stares at him, and it is fairly obvious what is going through his mind. That is when he decides to accuse Rashta and order the paternity test.

The test result points to Alan as the father.

But Ergi appears there with the other child, which makes the entire situation confusing. Could blood from the first baby have been used instead of the little girl’s, causing the test to come out that way? We do not know. And even then, the question of who her father really is would still remain open.

Sovieshu may come to believe that everything was a plot to place a Rimwell heir inside the imperial family. That possibility destroys him, especially once he begins to wonder whether he made yet another terrible decision. Sovieshu and bad decisions, once again.

Because before disappearing, Ergi leaves him a note saying that the baby really is his daughter. However, Ergi’s claim is not definitive proof on its own.

Conveniently, the priest who performed the test dies, so there is no longer any way to investigate whether the test might have been manipulated.

The baby goes missing when the nanny tries to take her away on Sovieshu’s orders. He later intends to recover her and keep her anyway, even though he still does not know for certain whether she is his daughter — but by then it is too late.

And when she eventually reappears, after Rashta’s death from the mysterious pill and with Alan already condemned, the test can no longer simply be repeated.

When Sovieshu meets the girl again later, the doubt remains. He sees her, even with her hair dyed to hide her identity, and he still does not know the truth.

And that is where the story leaves it. In my opinion, the authors never really tried to settle the question completely, and that is part of what makes this plot interesting: there is no fully definitive answer.

If you want to go deeper into this part of the story, you can also read our profile of Glorym, Rashta’s daughter.

And if you want to continue with the fertility theories, read our article about the magical manastone bed and the possible infertility of Sovieshu and Navier.

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