Winter Bud - Chapter 79

In Falcomere, the position of an “illegitimate child” was harsher than you’d think. As he grew up, he was treated as an “impurity.” It wasn’t like he was born out of wedlock because he wanted to be, and it wasn’t like he wanted to become foreign matter in the family. But Jerix could never throw off the shell called “illegitimate child.” All his life, he had to live with that name he never wanted.

The man who made Jerix exist in this world. His father didn’t pity Jerix, who hovered at the edges of the family. He didn’t, like other nobles, irresponsibly abandon him at an orphanage or do something cowardly like hide the fact that he existed as the birth father, but Jerix sometimes thought about what it would’ve been like if he’d let him live not as an illegitimate child, but as an “orphan.” Wouldn’t that have been better? If that had happened, there wouldn’t have been discrimination from his half-brother, and there wouldn’t have been the suffering that came from it.

“I didn’t want it.”

The woman soaked all over with tears looked frailer than usual. Like she might break soon, even powder couldn’t hide her pallor, so today she looked even paler. Jerix knew what the words “I didn’t want it” meant. He knew what they meant, and how miserable they could make someone, better than anyone.

“I never wanted you.”

His mother once said something like that. His father had never said it outright, but it must’ve been the same. Jerix’s existence was filth summoned up by a “mistake.” Swallowing his misery, he looked down at the woman.

He wanted to press his lips to the woman soaked with tears. He wanted to hold her tightly, with no gaps, and soothe her. He wanted to pull Nanna out of here and run away to a far place. He didn’t want to let her end up carrying a child she didn’t want anymore.

It was obvious even from afar that Nanna didn’t want the emperor. The noble ladies of the court whispered about her as a “greedy bitch,” but he knew how lonely Nanna was at court, and how badly she was being harassed by the emperor. So….

“Your Majesty.”

The emperor, looking down at him with eyes frosted over, was like an evil spirit. Those amber eyes were like a still life, not like a living person. Even so, the atmosphere he gave off felt vicious, like a beast.

Like he was about to tear him limb from limb….

“I, your subject… guh!”

His neck was grabbed. The emperor shoved him straight into the railing. More than the fear of being choked, the thought came that he could twist his neck with both hands and snap it. It was instinctive terror, and he couldn’t restrain it.

Unrefined rage poured down on him. The man with his ribcage swelled literally drove him toward death. A fundamental question arose. He was a guard. At the edge between life and death, he was someone who had to obey absolutely. If the emperor wanted to kill him, he had to accept death as it came.

But even if he weren’t in that position, he thought there was no way he could defeat him. The emperor was overwhelmingly strong. How brutal he’d been on the battlefield. How that savage notoriety had been made, Jerix had watched from closer than anyone.

That terrible notoriety wasn’t made up out of nothing.

“Kh, hhk….”

“There’s no way you’d lay a hand on a woman carrying my child unless you’d gone crazy.”

The emperor’s eyes as he said that were the very eyes of someone “gone crazy.” A face that had lost reason, with nothing visible through the rage. And so Jerix wondered. It didn’t look like anger toward a woman who’d betrayed him. It wasn’t a feeling that small.

Usually, it was mostly anger toward a woman who had damaged his pride. Even a mere commoner would discipline his wife with that kind of emotion, but the emperor seemed to be swept up in something more primal than that.

So it was like… it looked like “jealousy.” Jerix swallowed dryly. Even he, who had seen plenty of ugly things on the battlefield, felt his flesh crawl from the ominous air. It was, literally, murderous and vicious. To the point it wouldn’t have been strange if his throat were slit like this.

At this moment, the emperor looked less like a sovereign and more like just a man. Then the emperor drew a dagger from the waist of the knight guarding his side. Jerix stared at him without wavering. The tip of the blade, holding a sharp gleam, touched his Adam’s apple without hesitation. Jerix didn’t close his eyes and looked at the man.

“Stop!”

A wet scream rang through the balcony. Hair shining thickly like starlight leaped into his chest. Jerix looked at the woman who jumped into his chest like a small cat. Her tear-soaked face was pale and pitiful. He began to distort little by little.

“Move.”

“S-sob, sob…. No. Please, please….”

Nanna lifted her head with a desperate face. Her drenched face was trembling all over. The face of a terrified woman was familiar, but this was the first time he’d seen a woman endure that fear and stubbornly stand her ground. At that moment, Orestes realized it. That Nanna didn’t love him. This woman truly had no heart for him.

This woman… had her heart with another man. Why didn’t he know? Why had he not known all this time? It was absurd. It made him laugh hollowly. The muscles beneath his eyes twitched grotesquely. It felt like his blood was surging backward. Even as he trembled, he looked down at the woman who didn’t leave the man’s arms.

Nanna loved him. She had admired him for a long time, and deep down she wanted to become his wife. The reason she couldn’t confess her heart was because he was in far too high a position. You couldn’t tolerate a maid who harbored feelings for a monarch, or her master’s fiancé.

But….

“Since when?”

“Your Majesty.”

Nanna called to him in a wet voice. His ears rang. It felt like his eardrums were filled with water. He felt dizzy. For a moment, his vision tilted, then straightened again. He stared at the woman who was hugging the man’s body with a body not even a handful in size. The woman holding the man with two thin arms had a face prepared to die.

It felt like his heart was being scraped by a rake. His insides twisted, and he was mad with rage at the bewilderment and humiliation. It was also the first time he’d felt such unrefined emotion. Distorted, he burst into laughter. The grotesque laughter scattering out past his lips really sounded like a madman’s.

“Hahahaha!”

“Y-Your Majesty.”

“You… you slut!”

Bending at the waist, he burst into laughter like a lunatic. He didn’t know what else to call this surging emotion. Anger? Insult? Hurt? Bewilderment? Disgrace? Disgust? What was it supposed to be? It felt like he’d been struck in the back of the head.

There was no way Nanna didn’t love him. In the world of this stupid, dull bitch, she should’ve been filled only with him. The only one who could hurt this woman was him.

Because Nanna loved him. So the duke coveting her wasn’t anything at all.

Because that heart belonged to him. But why was Nanna embracing this idiot bastard? Why was she holding this man like a lover? His hand trembled in small shakes. Throwing aside the dagger, he grabbed the hair of Nanna, who was in the man’s chest.

And then he yanked her away without mercy.

“Ack!”

Nanna screamed. Nanna held back the groan that burst out of her mouth like she was holding her breath. She couldn’t come to her senses from rage. Even as her hair was grabbed and she was roughly torn away, her gaze was fixed entirely on the man.

He wanted to kill. But who did he want to kill? The man in front of him? Or Nanna? Or did he want to drive a blade into his own neck?

“Your Majesty!”

The man tried to stop him. It wasn’t even permitted to lay a hand on the sovereign’s body, and yet he rushed in to pry off the hand that had grabbed her hair. He laughed a little like a madman. The man who met eyes stained with madness stiffened, but he didn’t retreat.

Orestes stared into the man’s steady eyes. He knew this man. There weren’t many guards to begin with. What was his name exactly? “Rotusi.” Yes, Rotusi.

An illegitimate child. Some idiot noble must’ve taken in a prostitute or a maid and she got pregnant when he didn’t want it. Born in filthy gutter water, he dared lay a hand on the emperor’s concubine. He smiled faintly.

“Have you never had your limbs torn apart, so you’re not afraid?”

“Please let go.”

“This wench is mine. She’s carrying my child.”

“Then please let go all the more.”

Orestes looked at the man. Nanna was crying. Sky-blue eyes were looking at another man, not him. He trembled in small shakes, then let go.

Nanna, who collapsed to the side, tried to stagger toward the man.

The man, without fearing his eyes, held the woman. Nanna, in his arms, cried helplessly. Orestes stared blankly at the sight. It was strange. It felt like the corners of his eyes were getting damp.

He was sick of the gaze nailed in place, unable to leave. He wanted to stop looking, but watching Nanna cry in another man’s arms was like self-harm.

Like he was wounding himself, and yet he couldn’t take his eyes off.

He pressed his lips tight. With his jaw clenched… toward the floor. No, he felt the sensation of plummeting straight down into the abyss.