Chapter 49 – Games (1)
Translator: Lunarise
Editor: Namita Suberi, Larkspur
Viola was seated before a mirror and her maid was grooming her.
Ivan was dumbfounded at the sight. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Her gorgeous face with ocean-blue eyes and silky, shiny brown hair took his breath away. But he wondered why she hid her beauty.
As he watched, the maid skillfully transformed her. Viola’s face slowly turned plain and the makeup done in a certain way gave the illusion of a round face in contrast to the sharp, sculpted features that were there previously. She added freckles on her cheeks. The stunning, attractive face quickly turned into a normal, bland one that had become her identity throughout the empire as the crown princess candidate.
Ivan’s heart raced. He jumped off the terrace and ran. He got on the horse and trotted straight to the crown prince’s palace. He searched for Kyle for answers.
Kyle was the head of the imperial knights. If there was anyone who knew of the happenings in this uncertain time, it had to be him. Moreover, he was part of the punitive force that had escorted Princess Viola to the kingdom. He would surely know what was going on.
“Kyle!” he said, spotting him in the palace.
“Your Imperial Highness!” responded Kyle. “What brings you here so early?”
“I know everything!” said Ivan, frantically.
“Know what?” asked Kyle, pretending to be unaware of anything that had worked up Ivan to such an extent.
But Ivan wasn’t fooled. Kyle had been Lustian’s best friend since childhood. He also took care of the imperial treasury and held the title of the Shadow Knight. He was practically Lustian’s right-hand man. There was no way he was uninformed.
“I know about Princess Viola’s disguise,” said Ivan, narrowing his eyes.
Unfazed, Kyle proceeded to organize papers on his table. “It’s no big issue,” said he, “he is just playing.”
“You’re saying he won’t expose her?” asked Ivan. “Even though she disguises herself to make herself look plain, supposedly to fail the selection.”
“Well, you know him,” said Kyle, looking at him, “he is just playing around. He isn’t serious.”
“Playing!” Ivan was astonished. “He spends every night with her. And if he had his way, every waking hour as well!”
He didn’t understand Lustian. If he liked her so much, he could send her to the Concubines’ Palace as another concubine. That way she would belong to the imperial family and he could have her whenever he wanted. Why put in so much effort?
“He must have something else in mind,” Ivan muttered as he mulled. “He isn’t thinking of declaring her the crown princess, is he? That cannot be!”
“He knows she can’t be the crown princess,” Kyle calmly replied. The crown princess had to be selected from within the Arpen Empire.
“Then he could send her to the Concubines’ Palace…,” Ivan continued to say, “the emperor will be furious if he finds this out.”
Ivan realized he was getting agitated over nothing. Embarrassment washed over with the realization. He didn’t know why his heart was racing and his mind was filled with Viola’s image. He was hit with the epiphany that only if she were sent to the Concubines’ Palace, could he have her! It was an immoral thought!
Lustian had always shunned his duties, and he had switched places with him. He had always had his way with every princess when his brother had refused. However, this time a princess had caught the latter’s eyes. He felt jealousy and greed raise their heads somewhere within the depths of his heart.
“Your Imperial Highness, you are his younger brother,” said Kyle, interrupting his thoughts. “You must not reveal this to anyone. Please don’t break the empress’s promise.”
Ivan bit his lips. He wasn’t the empress’s son. He was a bastard from one of the princesses trapped in the emperor’s harem.
“The ones not selected as God’s Companion shouldn’t be given a chance to covet the country’s imperial authority,” said Ivan. “They shouldn’t be allowed to bear children lest it leads to power struggle later.”
The Arpen Empire had taken strict precautions to make sure of this. All the royal women taken hostage after the war with any country were forced to ingest birth control pills, or subjected to other stricter methods if that failed. However, one princess who had been brought to the harem had become pregnant. It meant death for the mother and the child. Mostly, it was made to seem like an accident or suicide to save the image of the brutal empire.
But Ivan’s mother had escaped the harem. He had later found out after much digging that she had boarded a ship in disguise to leave the empire for the sake of her unborn baby. But she had been caught before she could even leave the capital. She was then dragged to the palace dungeons where she had given birth. She had made a deal with the empress. He didn’t know what the stakes were but the empress had pleaded with the emperor to let Ivan live as her child.
Ivan, who as a baby was taken away from the prison, grew up in the palace. For twenty years, he had no knowledge of his biological mother until the day the emperor had summoned him and told him the truth. He had gone to the prison then, to have a glimpse of his mother, but was forbidden from entering. At sword point, the guards had told him that anybody who tried wouldn’t survive. The drop of blood from the tip of the sword had made him turn around and leave the prison tower with unbearable grief in his heart. The wind whistling in that cold place seemed like his mother’s voice, whispering to him to believe in love even if the world was harsh.
He should have never told me, Ivan thought, bringing himself back to the present. It was a closely guarded secret that no one else knew. Not even Lustian. The crown prince, like the whole of the empire, thought he was his flesh and blood. Only a few were privy to the truth, those that were close to the emperor and the empress … and Kyle, who was in charge of Lustian’s protection.
However, Ivan was weighed down by the sorrow of never meeting his mother… the person had risked everything for his sake when she had been nothing to the imperial family but a sex slave. Nobody knew how much anguish he held in his heart.