Chapter 22
There was only a severed head in there.
The knight had been alive up until this morning.
The Emperor gave a sadistic smile to Karpel.
“Isn’t it quite valuable?”
Karpel realized that the Emperor was grinning at what he called “it”.
He was referring to Inaila who was in his arms.
“Is it still precious when its grandfather killed your father and made you like this? Is it still precious even when its aunt is gasping for pleasure every night in my arms?”
How unbelievable it was, the Emperor implied, that Karpel still held Inaila dear to him even though her relatives were the Emperor’s wife and father-in-law who gave him the throne.
“Then keep an eye on ‘it’.”
With the final word, the Emperor left.
The Duke of Krenberia hurriedly came to Inaila’s side when he heard that the Emperor had visited.
The Duke, who looked like an unkempt animal as it had been a long time since he had last shaved his beard, took Inaila from Karpel’s arms immediately, noticing that she looked exactly like her mother.
The little warmth that supported Karpel disappeared, and so his heart cooled.
Frightened by the pressure exerted upon her by the Emperor, Inaila fell asleep only after she sobbed for a long time in the Duke’s arms.
Meanwhile, the servants disposed of the gifts that the Emperor had brought with him.
Karpel looked at Inaila, who grabbed her father’s collar tightly and buried herself into his arms, entirely protected now.
The Duke, who gazed at his sleeping daughter’s face, mulled over the Emperor’s visit and the ‘gift’ he left for Karpel. The boy looked stricken.
After finally coming to his senses, the Duke sincerely begged the boy, who was only ten years old.
“Your Highness. Please, please abandon my child. Do you know why the staff at the estate change so frequently? It’s because all those employees that cross the threshold of Krenberia and take care of Your Highness will die by the hands of His Majesty. Your attention is poison to everyone.”
Only then did Karpel realize that his caretakers often changed because they had all died.
Karpel had been bothered by this for a long time, wondering why his teachers had to change so often.
That’s why he asked if he could have just one teacher.
How stupid he must have looked to the people he asked.
They were all taking care of Karpel with their lives at risk.
If he lived quietly, he thought he’d be allowed to live longer.
He had fun while learning, but he never intended to use his knowledge for anything.
From the very start, he knew that there was nothing left for him in the future but death, but the light that he held in his arms was so bright that he forgot about it for a bit.
Karpel was only ten years old at this time.
Still, he knew that if he stayed like this, he would lose the light that was more precious to him than his life.
He didn’t want her to disappear. Inaila was already Karpel’s treasure.
Karpel felt alive for the first time when he held that warmth in his arms.
He couldn’t kill Inaila.
And so, Karpel began to distance himself from her.
* * *
The moment Duke Krenberia snapped out of his reverie, he started giving more time and affection to his daughter. Like bubbles being blown by the spring wind, he was careful not to break any as they fluttered away.
Inaila basked in her father’s sudden care.
Compared to the small amount of affection the Prince could give her, considering his limited resources as an exiled royal, Duke Krenberia, who poured everything he could into her care as he slowly regained his influence over the Duchy could give her more.
Inaila loved her life as the precious young lady of a ducal family. It was all splendid, enjoyable, and fun.
However, a month before Inaila fell in love with her life as an aristocrat, Karpel came to her attention.
Karpel’s presence was breathtaking.
Feeling that Karpel always kept his distance, she began to actively chase after him.
In his own way, it made him desperate.
He treated her coldly and usually didn’t even respond to her at all.
But there was something that neither the Duke nor Karpel knew.
Karpel was everything to Inaila, just as Inaila was everything to Karpel.
So no matter how coldly he treated her, Inaila would never give up on him.
Karpel tried to numb his heart even more. He would ignore her, go even as far as scaring her away.
The deeper her affection, then the greater the sense of betrayal would be once she changed her mind about him.
And as Inaila would reminisce about these experiences, her hatred for him would surely grow.
However, years later, Inaila still looked at Karpel with loving eyes.
That’s why he relented to the engagement. Both Karpel and the Duke were weak to Inaila’s will.
It was all the same.
They could have just ignored the little girl’s whining, and yet it was impossible for them.
No matter who looked at it, the engagement was ridiculous.
Inaila was the only young lady of the Krenberian Duchy, and her mother was a royal hailing from the Kingdom of Roselle.
She was one such young lady who could have wedded a renowned prince from another country.
But when the Duke allowed her engagement to Karpel, Inaila smiled the brightest. Her source of happiness would always be Karpel.
Throughout the engagement, however, Karpel would only see the nightmare that the Emperor showed him: Inaila with the Emperor’s sword through her neck.
He had to stop it.
He needed to halt the engagement.
But he couldn’t do anything. The engagement ceremony was done right away.
Inaila quickly went through with the engagement after getting permission from her father for fear of him changing his mind.
Karpel continued to treat her harshly, eventually distancing himself even further, all the while despising himself for having tainted Inaila’s bright future.
Prince Radiev, who had been in another country for some time, was surprised to hear about his cousin’s engagement when he returned.
“Karpel. An engagement with her is not the right way to protect Inaila.”
Though the Crown Prince didn’t want to rebuke his cousin, even without his concerns Karpel already knew this fact quite well.
“My mother is worried about the Krenberia family.”
Recently, the movements of the Krenberian retainers were suspicious.
Karpel already came upon that intel.
He had accumulated some power to go against the Imperial family.
They were people who didn’t approve of the tyranny of the current Emperor, and there were quite a lot of them.
Karpel’s informants voiced their concerns about the atmosphere between the nobles, and so the unusual air within the Krenberia Duchy was also quickly noticed.
After Karpel and Inaila’s engagement, Krenberia had been divided between the Duchess of Krenberia and the Empress. It was because the engagement led some nobles to believe that the Duke was actively supporting Karpel for the throne.
As expected, their engagement brought about many complications.
Karpel himself wanted to grasp the opportunity to be with her for the rest of his life, but he knew that it wasn’t right.
The Duke then inevitably came to Karpel and asked him to accept the engagement because Inaila had collapsed after she protested by fasting.
Karpel regretted being shaken. But he couldn’t do anything about it now.
He justified his acceptance to himself by reasoning that the engagement was processed too fast, and that the division within the Duchy was inevitable…
He knew he was being a coward.
Karpel and Radiev ended their meeting there and wandered the streets. He was regretting his actions and blaming himself for everything as he passed by the main street.
Absent-mindedly, he almost went directly to where their rebel stronghold was.
On his way back towards the Krenberian estate, he ran into a young lady, who seemed to have taken the wrong path.
Looking about the same age as Inaila and wearing well-made clothes, it was clear that she wasn’t a commoner.
If that was all he noticed, then he would have ignored her. But the moment he met eyes with her, her relieved, bright smile immediately overlapped with Inaila’s.
He only gave directions to the girl who asked for directions.
She said she was grateful for his help and asked where he lived because she wanted to repay him.
The clothes he wore were equally as fine as hers, but she didn’t seem to realize that the young man before her was Karpel Ivelox.
Still, Karpel was the only young man who was living at the Krenberian estate, so he thought he’d be caught right away if he told the truth.
But the young lady insisted.
In the end, she didn’t put two and two together, never realizing the connection between Karpel and the Krenberia household.
As his thoughts were overtaken by his yearning for Inaila, he stopped and left the young lady.
He wished it ended there.
The girl came to the Krenberia estate in search of Karpel.
Coincidentally, that young lady barged in upon the tea party that Inaila was holding, and so she was let in by the servants by mistake.
There must have been quite a commotion there.
In front of Inaila, the girl proudly stated that she came here for Karpel, and so incurring the ire of all the noble children there.
The young lady had asked for forgiveness from Inaila, but she was eventually dragged out of the mansion by the maids.
It was Karpel’s job to escort Inaila during her tea parties, even if it was only inside the estate. But then the party ended suddenly, so Karpel had to escort her back, leaving the book he had been reading at the library.
As soon as Inaila faced him, her expression was cold.
She would normally smile at him as if she were a flower in full bloom.
Normally, she would have said something about the event she had just come from. But now, she said not a word as he escorted her back to her room.
Karpel was about to ask what had happened, but he immediately stopped himself.
He wasn’t allowed to be interested in her, even the slightest bit.