54
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The bridal chamber was a mess. It was so bad that they couldn't even lie down on the bed, so it seemed they would have to sleep in another bedroom. Cesare held the limp bride in his arms.
He simply draped a gown over her and wrapped Aileen's body in a blanket before lifting her up. A pitifully crumpled lily in the corner of the bed caught his eye.
It seemed Aileen had brought it. Cesare chuckled, picked up the lily, and gently placed it on top of Aileen. The scent of the lily pleasantly tickled his sense of smell. Cesare gazed at Aileen, who was asleep with the pure white flower, and slowly moved his feet.
It seemed he had been too much for their first night. He had tried to hold back, but it had turned out like this. He couldn't help but laugh at his own flimsy patience. Cesare walked down the hallway and entered an empty bedroom. He was about to lay Aileen down on the bed, but instead, he sat down on the sofa, still holding her in his arms.
"......"
His languidly relaxed crimson eyes darkened. Cesare suppressed the familiar urge and slowly buried his face in Aileen's neck.
He quietly licked her sweat-dampened neck. Remembering the moment when her slender, straight neck had been brutally severed, he lingered, running his tongue over it and biting it with his teeth to leave marks.
He felt the faint salty taste of wet flesh on his tongue and the soft texture of her skin against his teeth for a long time, but he couldn't shake the memory that surfaced in his mind.
Cesare recalled the time when the child's neck had been cut.
The day he returned to the Empire, knowing nothing.
After a three-year war, the Traon Empire had achieved a great victory. Cesare, who had forced the Calpen Kingdom to sign a humiliating treaty, returned to the Empire. Throughout his return journey, he thought of the child's smiling face.
He thought he should give a small gift to the child who must have been eagerly waiting for his return, but instead, he was greeted by Aileen's death. Leone delivered the tragic news with a somber face, and Cesare slowly closed and opened his eyes. Then, he asked again.
"Why?"
If his brother, the Emperor, had personally stepped in to protect her, the child wouldn't have died. Or at least, if he had announced that she was a child cherished by Archduke Erzeht, he could have bought time until his return. He couldn't understand it logically.
But Leone couldn't readily open his mouth. Cesare patiently waited for him to answer. After a long silence, he finally spoke, but it wasn't the answer Cesare wanted.
"I'm sorry, Cesare."
Tears welled up in his blue eyes. Watching him wet his cheeks with tears, Cesare asked a second time.
"I asked why, brother."
"Aileen Elrod… chose death herself."
Leone, barely managing to speak, uttered the words that were the hardest to say.
"For the sake of Archduke Erzeht's honor."
Cesare stared at Leone silently, then twisted his lips and let out a hollow laugh.
What was his honor that the child would die for it? It was a combination of words that could never be reconciled.
"The nobles were trying to use this incident as an excuse to attack the Imperial Family."
Cesare listened to Leone's desperate excuses from beginning to end.
After the late Emperor died from drug addiction, Leone, who had newly ascended to the throne, created a strong punishment law related to drug distribution.
It was a move to catch the anti-Imperial nobles who had illegally distributed drugs and created a source of funds during the Empire's civil war.
If he were to save Aileen, who had violated the national law, it could become an opportunity for the Imperial Family's hard-won power to be handed back to the nobles.
Abandoning a noble cause to save Aileen, a mere young lady from a humble Baron family, was an extremely inefficient and politically detrimental act. Leone's judgment was rational and logical.
Even Aileen herself had requested the death penalty. Without begging for her life even once.
Leone had tried to save Aileen by any means possible, but Aileen, upon learning of all these circumstances, knelt before the Emperor who had come to the prison and begged him.
She pleaded with him to handle it according to the national law. She desperately begged for the death penalty, asking him to end everything before the Grand Duke forcibly saved her. It was solely to protect Archduke Erzeht's honor.
Thus, the Emperor of the Traon Empire made a reasonable judgment. Not informing the commander-in-chief of this situation while the war was nearing its end was also a very appropriate action. Cesare already had a history of deserting the battlefield for Aileen.
Cesare had poured all his power into the conquest of Calpen. He believed that Leone would protect the child no matter what happened since he remained in the capital, but it was a complete misjudgment. Leone acted not as Cesare's brother, but as the Emperor of Traon.
Thanks to that, Cesare didn't even see the child die. He returned, knowing nothing, wearing the laurel wreath of victory for the Empire.
"Brother."
Cesare stared at Leone with calm eyes. He asked his brother, who was confessing his sins, with an expressionless face.
"Why do you think I made you Emperor?"
The child was dead.
The dead cannot return. That was an immutable law. Believing in the resurrection of the dead was something only his dead mother would do.
"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, Cesare…. I wanted to protect everything……."
Leone took off the Imperial Crown he was wearing and handed it to Cesare. He sobbed and begged for forgiveness.
"I was waiting to return it to you. I'm no longer qualified……."
Looking at the golden Imperial Crown, Cesare smiled. He stared at it for a while with his cold crimson eyes, then snatched the crown from his brother's hand and placed it back on his head.
"No, wear it. You have to pay the price too."
"Cesare……."
"Just like I have to pay the price."
It was Cesare who had caused the late Emperor to die from drug addiction. Like a storm caused by the flapping of a butterfly's wings, every moment of choice had come together to create the child's death.
But regretting the past was meaningless. Cesare coldly recognized reality. Therefore, he concluded that he would do what he could.
He would make those involved in the child's death pay the price.
It wasn't exactly for the child's sake. How would the already dead child know what he was doing? This was merely a requiem to ease his own mind.
It was the moment when the sword that had protected Traon turned towards the Empire.
Foolishly, he thought that would be okay. He thought that making the Traon Empire a hell would bring peace to his mind.
"Aileen."
Cesare readjusted the child in his arms and called her name.
"Aileen, Aileen……."
Unable to wake the soundly sleeping girl, he only whispered her name, running his tongue and teeth over the soft skin of her neck.
Perhaps he was clinging to her too obsessively, as Aileen, who had been passed out, furrowed her brow and made a groaning sound.
"Stop…. Prince, I want to stop now……."
Cesare smiled faintly at her whimpering sleep talk. Then, he picked Aileen up and headed to the bed. He let her use his arm as a pillow and, instead of covering her with a blanket, held her tightly in his arms.
He was naturally warm, so she wouldn't be cold while sleeping. And the weather had been warm lately.
He held her small body tightly, leaving no gaps, and caressed her here and there. He stroked her several times, confirming the child's existence, and stroked the finger with the ring on it for a long time. Finally, he parted her tightly closed lips and kissed her deeply before closing his eyes.
He felt like he would be able to sleep deeply tonight. Just for tonight.
Aileen regained consciousness, feeling pain all over her body. But she didn't open her eyes, remaining still with them tightly closed for a while.
Unfortunately, the events of the previous night were too vivid. She remembered each and every one of the embarrassing things she had done in detail. Aileen wanted to run away to her brick house's second-floor bedroom and hide under the covers right away.
But she couldn't. It was because of the solid body wrapped tightly around her. The newlyweds on the bed were intertwined, their arms and legs entangled, holding each other close.
Aileen cautiously opened her eyes. Cesare was asleep right in front of her. A small ray of sunlight seeping through the slightly open curtains tickled the sleeping man.
She carefully examined his face, etched with light. As if a human was secretly observing the face of a sleeping god, she looked at Cesare little by little. She couldn't believe that such a beautiful person was her husband.
As she watched him without blinking, something tickled inside her chest as if someone was fluttering a feather. It wasn't a dream, it was reality.
Cesare was Aileen's husband.
Then, his eyelids slid open, revealing crimson eyes. Clear crimson eyes, devoid of any sleepiness, were fixed on Aileen.
Aileen froze, staring at Cesare. He smiled faintly at Aileen, who was startled and stiff.
"Did you sleep well?"
Aileen, who had been rolling her eyes around for a moment, offered a morning greeting.
"Good morning…. Did you sleep comfortably……?"
"I couldn't sleep comfortably. It's our first night, but my wife fell asleep before her husband."
She didn't fall asleep, she fainted……. But she was too embarrassed by her behavior the previous night to argue, so she stammered. Cesare then said something that made Aileen feel even more wronged.
"Were you disappointed that I didn't hold you tight enough?"
Aileen opened her mouth and looked at him as if he were a shameless person. But Cesare didn't even flinch at her glare and just playfully twisted Aileen's hair around his finger. He slightly curved his eyes.
"Will you stay up with your husband until the end next time?"
Aileen was startled and asked back.
"Wasn't that until the end?"
"It was only once."
"Do you… do that twice?"
"Twice is too little."
"Then three times……?"
Cesare didn't answer and just chuckled. Then, without replying, he kissed Aileen and got out of bed. He pulled the cord next to the bed to call a servant and said.
"Lie down for a while. I'll have breakfast brought up."
Not long after, Cesare brought a tray with breakfast himself and placed it on Aileen's lap as she sat on the bed. A servant who followed him in set up a tea set on the table and neatly arranged various newspapers.
Cesare scanned all the newspapers published in the Empire every morning. He quickly looked through the main articles, and today, the day after the wedding, he kept to his routine without fail.
Aileen looked for La Verita, then lowered her head. She was afraid of what kind of article would be published.
But she was also curious. After worrying alone for a while, Aileen finally couldn't resist her curiosity and glanced sideways, just a little, very little.
A large photo was printed on the entire front page of the newspaper. Aileen widened her eyes when she saw the photo.
Next to Cesare, who was wearing his wedding uniform, stood a strange woman wearing a wedding dress. Startled, she belatedly checked the title. A sentence written concisely in just two lines.
[The Birth of the Erzeht Grand Duke and Duchess. The Founding Myth of the Traon Empire is Recreated.]
