Winter Bud - Chapter 85

“What are you thinking about?”

The grandmother standing beside Slan calmly parted her lips. The emperor was looking over documents the vice minister had brought in the study. As for the schedule after this, he’d said he would meet with the principality’s ambassador. They said the director of the Privy Council was also waiting for an audience, so he must’ve been extremely busy.

Slan thought his father would be sprawled in a mess. He didn’t love his mother, but he didn’t want to lose his mother. He didn’t know whether that was obsession, or lingering attachment to possession. Slan thought it didn’t matter what it was.

“Can I consider it all over now?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the Crown Prince’s birth mother.”

“She’ll come back.”

“Orestes.”

“Please leave now.”

The low murmur was no different from an order. He moved his quill again. Slan stared blankly at him, then chewed over the words that she would come back. His grandmother, who had been watching him stiffly, parted her lips.

“What does that mean? You’re the one who told her to leave.”

“The Crown Prince’s birth mother can’t live outside.”

“What?”

“Jerix Rotusi also isn’t someone who can live as that wench’s husband.”

“You….”

“Don’t you think so?”

Unlike the Empress Dowager, who was glaring at him with an agitated face, the emperor was smiling. That smooth smile that didn’t have even a crude distortion was chilling. Shrouded in madness, he didn’t seem to be in his right mind. Slan swallowed and stared at him, then turned his gaze away.

“You tried to attach another man to your mother?”

“Stop it.”

“Where did you learn to do something like that, betraying your father that way?”

“Orestes!”

The Empress Dowager raised her voice. Orestes met his mother’s piercing gaze. As if shielding a child, the Empress Dowager standing before him crumpled her pale face. The woman who had been staring at him steadily ordered her grandson to leave.

Slan listened to his grandmother’s words without showing even a bit of fear. Orestes watched the back of his young son striding out, then turned his gaze.

“You son of a bitch!”

Smack!

His cheek snapped to the side. It was a harsh blow, sharp enough to make his eardrums ring. Orestes slowly straightened his head. Moisture pooled in his mother’s eyes. He couldn’t understand it. The one who should want to be distorted, the one who should be a mess from insult and betrayal and want to ruin everything, was him.

He had never experienced this kind of humiliation in his life. He had never experienced a similar kind of failure or frustration either. There was never a time he couldn’t get what he wanted, and never a time he tasted inferiority from that. In truth, he originally had a disposition that didn’t want anything.

He became the founding emperor who toppled the Old Empire, but it wasn’t that he fervently wanted the throne. At the time, what he could do, and what he had to do to survive, was to found a new nation. Since that was directly tied to survival, you couldn’t call it a craving for possession or a deficiency. But….

“Why did you try to give your son’s wench to a bastard like that?”

“Orestes.”

“Have I done even one thing wrong to you?”

“I only made a decision for everyone.”

“You’re saying tearing that wench away from me was a good decision?”

His twisted breath scattered past his lips together with laughter. It felt like his cold face was going to shatter as it was. Jophie stared at her son with a face enduring something foul.

Nanna was a woman unsuited to the court. Her life at court was lonely and arduous. The imperial family also no longer needed her. Jophie pitied her. And no matter how lacking her status was, there was no way being demoted from Empress Consort to concubine could be something she welcomed.

So Jophie made a decision. Orestes, too, hadn’t he agreed about her leaving the palace? But she hadn’t known he would be this enraged about Nanna’s remarriage. Nanna needed shade too. Jophie wanted to give appropriate compensation to a woman who had done everything she could do.

If that child had wanted not remarriage but enough abundance to live on, she would have prepared a suitable residence and property for her outside the palace.

“Nanna is my woman.”

“Why?”

“That woman is my….”

“Do you love her?”

It was a short question. Jophie stared at Orestes. She thought he would answer no. Just because she had his child. That he was only enraged because she was a woman he’d held and he was furious at the thought of her lying beside another man. She thought he would say that. She thought he wouldn’t have any heart beyond that.

But Orestes couldn’t answer that short question and froze white. Jophie stared at that face like sharp shards of glass.

“You don’t know lack. You’ve never felt regret about something you couldn’t have. But Orestes. No matter how noble someone is, they can’t possess everything.”

“….”

“So accept it. Let her go now. That child was loyal to you and to the imperial family. Compensation….”

“…I think I love her.”

Orestes lifted his gaze. Jophie’s lips trembled slightly, then she bit down hard on her molars. There wasn’t any confusion on her son’s face. Not even the slightest disarray could be seen. The gaze that had been circling in empty air was neat. The hand that had slapped his cheek once rose again. She wanted to strike him, but her strength drained and she couldn’t move.

Orestes looked quietly at his mother like that, then laughed a little. Empty laughter flowed at the murmur he spat out past his lips.

Just, just… because he didn’t want to spit out this murmur that felt like he’d been cut in half. No, he didn’t want to admit it. In fact, he didn’t know either. About this embarrassing heart. The annoying lust, desire, and craving for possession that tormented him… he had avoided for a long time the truth he couldn’t accept or acknowledge.

He didn’t want to love Nanna. That woman was a wench with nothing but beauty. A shabby, lowly wench with no use at all even if you grabbed her in your hand. A farmer’s daughter who almost got sold to a brothel. He hated Nanna. More precisely, he felt that he was being drawn to that woman… and he thought that desire was filthy.

Even so, he wanted Nanna’s love to be his. In truth, Nanna had loved him too. That her heart had him in it. When he realized that, twisted satisfaction filled him. From then on, he thought: even if he didn’t love her, that woman had to love him. It felt like the only thing Nanna had to do was that.

But….

“Orestes.”

“How do I end this?”

“What?”

“It’s strange. That it’s all over….”

He laughed a little. It was a sharp laugh that felt like it could cut. Jophie clenched her hands tight. It was hard to face eyes soaked in madness. Unable to endure the sensation that made her knees go weak, she sharply turned her gaze away.

“…Whatever you’re feeling, forget it now.”

Jophie turned away. Anyway, everything was wrapped up. Nanna would give birth outside the palace. They would bring that child to the imperial palace, and then she would marry Jerix Rotusi and start a new family. That would settle everything.

The same went for his feelings toward Thea. Whether he’d mistaken it for love, or whether the love had cooled, it didn’t matter. Not every married couple in the world could be bound by feelings like that. Rather, in noble society, “love” was a luxury. If you truly wanted love, you could have a mistress. Thea was a woman suited to the position of empress, and above all, a woman who could carry out that role very well.

So they only had to live like this. Jophie didn’t regret what she had arranged. Now, the only thing left was to finish Orestes.

But why did she feel like this? Jophie turned back and looked at her son. Orestes was staring at the window. At the sight of her son’s expression, which she had never seen before, she crumpled all at once.