Ch#228
A Very Strong Kid is Looking for Dad Chapter 228
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The voice from his childhood echoed in his ears.
'Pides, you poor thing. My pitiful son......'
Voices crushed with sobs.
'Sob, Your Majesty! People are whispering about our Pides!'
Ravennia, the Empress of the Empire.
His mother, who had entered the palace by the grace of the previous Empress.
And in the end, she had stabbed the Empress in the back.
'I merely fulfilled my duty, Your Imperial Majesty.'
'......'
'How could I defy Your Highness? You desired it so much—should I have told you not to? I did say that.'
Ravennia chattered to the maids while Pides slept on her lap.
'You should have seen her face then. The late Empress was like an old mural—impressive from afar, but up close, no color, no breath, nothing. That's why even His Majesty discarded her.'
'Of course. She was the complete opposite of our radiant, flower-like Her Highness the Empress.'
'Right? Look at Ardiana now. Just like her mother, she always keeps her mouth shut tight. A girl who doesn't know how to act cute or be adored.'
He had heard it so often his ears blistered.
How stifling and hypocritical the Empress was.
How pathetic and unworthy Ardiana, born of her, was.
'Isn't it ridiculous? Some call it grace? They say the Empress took in a dying me—that's grace. Outrageous. I only remember it as shame.'
'......'
'People in high places find compassion so easy. If they want, they can do anything, and call it mercy. If that's mercy, I've already bestowed it a thousand—no, ten thousand times!'
'......'
'The Empress was the same. Those eyes looking down on people. When I was pregnant with Pides, you should have seen those ever-still eyes twist. You had to see it.'
Ravennia hated the Empress.
That hatred didn't fade even after the Empress passed away.
'Just thinking of that woman makes me smell rotting figs from somewhere. Like I'm suffocating.'
As he grew, Pides vaguely realized.
It wasn't the Empress's problem—it was Ravennia's.
Her hometown burned to ashes.
A life where, despite her beautiful appearance, she had to wallow in poverty.
Her deep-seated inferiority didn't vanish even after ascending to the Empress's position.
Just as a person breaks when given more than their vessel can hold.
'Even without Pides, you would have loved me, right?'
'......I said I must go.'
'Just answer this before you leave! State affairs can wait—you're always leaving me locked in this prison-like palace, waiting for you alone! Sob.'
The Emperor seemed weary of such Ravennia.
Yet he couldn't cast her aside.
'......Do you miss your hometown?'
'I do. Not the one burned away, but before the monster attack. There was a great lake. I swam there every day, played, and my parents were all alive......'
At the dinner table.
By his bedside before sleep.
Following behind as they strolled the gardens—Pides would immerse himself in those stories too.
'Your mother grew up miserably, but I'll raise you differently, Pides.'
'......'
'Remember this. You came before that child. You were the first in the world to bear His Majesty's blood.'
'......'
'Imperial Princess or succession rights—mere shells. Shells can shatter anytime. But you have His Majesty's favor, don't you? Because your mother is me, Ravennia, the Empress of the Empire and lady of the palace.'
He must have been ten.
On a hill for flower viewing, he saw a half-collapsed peak.
That day, Ardiana had her back to him, gazing down a dizzying cliff.
With eyes like rocks, just like the dead Empress.
"Brother. Why no answer."
His mind cleared in an instant.
Pides met Ardiana's gaze, breathing heavily.
'Those eyes again.'
Everything around her blurred hazily.
The lavish food and decorations for today's Myeongsong Festival.
The eyes watching him.
Even the Emperor's sigh from behind.
Ravennia's nagging rang like an auditory hallucination.
'Get a grip, please! How much more must your mother do? Until when! Now you must protect me! You must seize the palace soon so I can breathe!'
His heart pounded.
His mind reeled, connecting severed memories.
'......Are you going to kill me?'
Standing at the cliff's edge, Ardiana had asked in a childish voice.
What possessed him to reach out.
Why he thought to push her—he still couldn't be sure.
But,
'Do it.'
What mattered was that at her words, his body froze as if by magic.
Pides could do nothing.
Like a rabbit before a lion, he lost completely and utterly.
'If killing me eases brother's heart, then do it.'
Ardiana, only eight, seemed utterly fearless unlike him.
Not the sheer cliff behind her.
Not Pides' hand, which could push her to death with one move.
And,
"Enough."
Watching it all from behind,
"Such commotion on a good day."
Even the Emperor, who said nothing to the end.
Pides stiffly turned his head.
The Emperor stared at him with a sunken face.
"The Princess is right. Let it be revealed here."
The Emperor looked at Ardiana a beat late.
"Until now, the Princess has secretly aided in state affairs regarding national missions and mercenaries."
People murmured.
"As you all know, the Princess has been excluded from state affairs due to poor health. Despite having succession rights, she secluded in the palace for that reason."
In truth, health was an excuse.
Not just Pides, but everyone at the Myeongsong Festival knew it.
The Emperor's attitude toward Ardiana had been transparent and consistent.
Ignoring, excluding.
So Pides could justify his actions.
The first poisoning attempt at thirteen after the cliff incident.
All the subsequent assassination plots.
"In that sense."
But the Emperor continued calmly, as if such pasts didn't exist.
"Let us all raise a toast to celebrate the Princess's recovery."
The hand with the signet ring lifted a glass.
The nobles hesitated to their feet.
"For Talochium."
"For Talochium!"
The frozen atmosphere quickly returned to normal.
People deliberately chattered brighter and more cheerfully than before.
Feeling the Emperor's gaze lift, Pides glared at Ardiana, his fist trembling.
"......Follow me. Quietly. We need to talk."
"Sure."
Ardiana replied expressionlessly.
Pides turned away, silently cursing under his breath.
Ardiana didn't follow immediately, pausing at her seat.
She bent her waist to meet Tia's eyes.
Neat eyebrows.
The white forehead above them.
A few weeks ago, Tesetan's secret letter smuggled by a maid circled her mind.
[There is a fact I learned from beyond dimensions.
A fact you should know too.]
She pondered what it could be.
Why Tesetan wrote so vaguely.
Fortunately, with nothing but contemplation in the palace, she had time.
Then, they began to surface.
'What nonsense. Me, pregnant?'
'I hesitate to say, but......'
While walking the garden alone.
Or gazing at trembling leaves.
In the rising memories, she was in a dark, cramped space.
With only a single candle for light, an elderly doctor bowed awkwardly.
'Your Highness's body has endured too much poison. Now even ordinary medicines no longer work.'
'What the hell does that mean!'
'Didn't you drink antidotes like water? Now your body mistakes all medicines for poison and rejects them. Poisons, antidotes, other drugs—all......'
Was the window open?
The child's fine hair seemed to sway in a breeze from somewhere.
'What the hell did you do to my lady?!'
It would be a lie to say learning the truth at the High Palace's underground plaza didn't feel strange.
She loved Tesetan.
That such a man had a child with someone in the future and raised them.
'I wondered.'
Who was Tia's mother?
Not her, barely surviving in the palace, so naturally someone else.
Bitter, with a heaviness in her chest.
But.
'......The medicine isn't working.'
Last night.
Another scene unfolded like an answer before her eyes.
In it, she was endlessly breaking down.
Clutching her sole maid Cardia, swallowing pitiful sobs as if dying.
'My body rejected the medicine. A child formed by my mistake. I'll kill that child. Make them die like me. I, I...... Sob.'
Ardiana's eyes trembled as she looked at Tia.
Not rock-hard, but precarious like dew on a blade of grass.