Chapter 4
The moment Kaella slapped her own cheek so hard that it turned bright red in an instant, all of Pheon’s thoughts came to a halt.
The always bright and cheerful girl had struck her pale cheek with a completely expressionless face, the smack echoing loudly. It looked painful enough that anyone would wince just watching. And in truth, Kaella felt the pain.
It hurt. Her cheek stung so fiercely that it snapped her fully awake. She couldn’t forgive herself for the audacious emotion she’d just felt with a single slap. So she had to hit herself once more. She swung her hand back hard.
“Kaella.”
With a low, forceful voice, Pheon caught her wrist firmly.
“Why are you doing this all of a sudden?”
The dream was relentless. Her burning cheek, the large gloved hand wrapped around her wrist with its unyielding strength—it all felt too real. His urgent question and the surprise in his eyes looked so much like genuine worry.
‘Crazy girl.’
Kaella berated herself inwardly as she mumbled.
“I couldn’t wake up.”
She was still using formal speech. Pheon felt a sense of wrongness more from her tone than her words. Even though they only met two or three times a year now, Kaella had always called him “Oppa” and treated him with the same familiarity as when they were kids.
No matter how others distanced themselves from him after learning about the complicated imperial affairs as they grew up, Kaella never did.
Even after everything was taken from her and she was forced to marry him, Kaella had initially always shown him a smiling face and acted in private as if nothing had changed between them.
Her speech or attitude could have shifted, but what bothered him was how much he missed her old way of being. Apparently, far more than he’d realized.
Had she not learned noble forms of address? Call me properly. She pretended to be so well-mannered usually, so what was this about ignoring etiquette whenever it suited her?
It was no one but him who had erased Kaella’s friendly attitude—the one that treated him unchanged even after losing her father and being forced into marriage. He was the one who had turned their joyful childhood memories into nothing. Restrictions or whatever, it was all on him.
The young Duchess, desperate with nowhere to turn, had tried so hard to make things work with the older brother figure who was now her husband. But she’d lost her smile, lost her words, and become frantic just to follow his orders and maintain proper etiquette.
“You can just go back to sleep.”
“No, I can’t. Not when Her Majesty the Empress has collapsed.”
That petty emperor, who nitpicked over the smallest things, would surely throw a fit at the thought of her daring to sleep while the Empress lay fallen. She’d dealt with it so many times that Kaella’s mind always jumped to such worries.
If she always maintained her dignity, exercised patience, and treated others kindly, rewards would come someday. That was the virtue she’d been taught.
She’d thought that virtue would work in Lüsenford too and tried her best, but the result had been a miserable death.
Dignity and patience? Kindness? All nonsense. What did she have left after diligently practicing those virtues? Not just death, but a wretched, horrific one.
So instead of upholding dignity, she had to use her wits; instead of patience, strike first before suffering; toss aside kindness and act utterly selfishly just to barely survive. Even then, her chances in this cutthroat imperial palace were slim.
“I’ll stay awake instead. It must hurt—why did you do that?”
The Grand Duke—her husband—kept checking her cheek over and over.
Oh, that worried gaze. If she were just a younger sister he knew rather than his wife, she could accept such concern so easily. Was it God’s prank? An illusion? Or a nightmare? Whatever it was, it was relentless.
‘The man who helped kill my father—why save him this time?’
It made no sense. Kaella, still unable to fully shake off her daze and habitually leaning on Pheon, even after slapping her own trembling cheek, tried to collect herself. Think coldly. Coldly.
“Yes, it hurts, so why did you do it? Don’t ever do that again.”
Adeo, startled by his daughter slapping her own face, spoke firmly and sternly as well.
“Yes.”
Kaella answered perfunctorily as she thought. She had no idea how she’d ended up here after dying in the North Tower—whether it was the Evil Dragon Overlante’s mischief or the emperor playing around with some magic artifact—but she had to be cautious.
‘Just because my father is alive doesn’t mean everything’s fine.’
As long as the emperor still lived, she’d have to live in constant dread of when death might come next.
The emperor had always coveted Ostein, the prosperous territory overflowing with gold granted directly by the previous emperor. Wasn’t that why they were all gathered here even now, watching his every mood? The thought brought exhaustion crashing back over her.
‘Was I not supposed to survive?’
For Kaella, already worn to the bone, the idea of enduring hardship all over again was torment itself. That was why she’d hoped this vivid moment was just a dream.
“A basin and towels.”
As Pheon gave the order, Duke Ostein grabbed his daughter’s hand in disbelief. Her palm was swollen bright red from how fiercely she’d struck her cheek.
“If you’re sleepy, sleep. If you want to chase sleep away, walk around. What is this? Don’t ever do it again.”
But at her father’s gentle tone, Kaella instantly forgot her fatigue. Her father’s rough hand wrapping around her wrist felt warm, and his scolding voice brimmed with affection.
Somehow, her eyes heated up belatedly, and Kaella bowed her head. This was what being alive meant. Affection and attention, received so long ago, now pouring over her as if it were the most natural thing.
“Yes.”
Her voice thick with emotion, Kaella hurriedly swallowed her tears.
Meeting her father again was so joyful and glad that it even erased her thoughts of escaping everything through death. This might be an overwhelming opportunity. Perhaps God had pitied her and let her live again.
“Kaella.”
A gruff voice called her. The moment she turned her head instinctively, a cool wet cloth touched her cheek. She flinched in surprise, and Pheon lowered his voice further.
“Keep it pressed there. It’s really swollen.”
“Give it to me.”
As Kaella quickly took the wet cloth, Pheon silently soaked another towel in the basin, wrung it out tightly, and placed it on her swollen red palm as well.
“I can handle this myself. Thank you.”
“Show me your palm.”
She tried to pull her hand away quickly, but his firm tone wouldn’t let her. It was hard to refuse the commanding tone of a man accustomed to giving orders.
After four years of desperately trying to look good for him, it was even harder. He placed the cool wet cloth over her reddened palm, and since she hadn’t positioned the one on her face properly—unable to see a mirror—he adjusted it precisely for her.
This man was never this kind. Finding it hard even to meet his eyes, she looked down—and suddenly, she was wandering the cold Lüsenford again.
She had suffered a lot there. Colds were common, and the worst was when she’d slipped on the frozen stone stairs and broken a bone. And that had happened right in front of the Grand Duke.
“I can do it myself.”
Your Highness, it seems Duchess Your Highness has suffered a fracture.
She remembered it vividly. The slick stone stairs from repeated freezing and thawing, more dangerous for it; the excruciating pain; the whispering onlookers; and the Lüsenford Grand Duke who had only looked down at her coldly, just like them.
They had a banquet coming up and had to enter together. Sweat beaded coldly on her skin from the pain, but he’d waved dismissively, as if annoyed.
Let her in.
It was a gesture to clear her out of the way. He hadn’t even said to call a doctor. As always, he hadn’t spared a single glance at her groaning from the broken bone.
In Lüsenford, illness was your own loss. The maids’ perfunctory, icy stares; her husband who wouldn’t even glance at his wife while personally checking on mares during foaling or injured hounds—it was all poison to Kaella.
Even without being branded a spy and executed, she wouldn’t have lasted long there. She’d been treated worse than a single warhorse or hunting dog.
“Give it to me.”
In other words, if she hadn’t been forced into marriage, they might have remained close enough for him to dote on her like this. It was over since she’d died, and now Pheon was a stranger unrelated to the husband she’d known—yet the resentment of not being respected welled up fiercely.
“Kaella.”
Pheon called her quietly.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Kaella’s blue eyes widened. She stared at him as if he were some bizarre creature. Why was this man acting like this?
“Or is it because it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other?”
He forced a smile. It was hard to meet those eyes, not deep blue but so clear and bright they almost hurt. She still had that much shame left, it seemed.
“Why are you suddenly speaking so formally?”
“Yeah, you used to call him ‘Oppa’ so naturally.”
At twenty-one, before Adeo died, Kaella had always used informal speech with Pheon, just as she had since childhood, calling him not “Grand Duke Your Highness” but “Oppa.”
It was natural—they’d played together since they were very young. To her, he’d just been Pheon Oppa from then on.
“Have you grown up and decided to put up walls now?”
Kaella flushed deeply at her father’s amused chuckle.
“Ah.”
She’d completely forgotten. That had happened.
The moment she became the Grand Duchess, her status changed, and faced with the duty to uphold propriety in Lüsenford, the tomboy who’d trailed after her favorite Oppa had vanished.
It was a past too distant for Kaella to recall, or one rendered meaningless and erased entirely.
“If I did something wrong, tell me. I won’t do it again.”
Phe on took the wet cloth she’d been holding so loosely in shock from her cheek and placed it back properly.
“So treat me like you used to.”
He hadn’t come back here to hear the stiff speech of the Lüsenford Grand Duchess from lips that had lost nothing yet.
‘……It’s just because it’s been so long.’
Yes. That must be why she was speaking so awkwardly and formally—no other reason. Pheon gripped the wet cloth tightly with unconsciously trembling fingers.
*
Even the imperial palace physicians weren’t enough; renowned doctors from the academy began being summoned to the palace. But three days after the Empress’s collapse, no one had pinpointed the cause, leaving everyone anxious and on edge.
“Deeply disappointing.”
His words were politely phrased, but the emperor was seething with irritation, drying the blood of the physicians and palace staff, and shaking the entire palace with unease.
Suspicious and obsessive by nature, the palace—already unable to breathe freely—had turned into thin ice now that the emperor’s one true love, the Empress, had fallen.
“How can you not even know why a person collapses! There has to be a clear reason—something she ate wrong, or some part of her that failed!”
The maids attending the Empress were hauled away one after another without knowing why. But the Empress hadn’t collapsed in front of the maids; she’d been found unconscious deep inside Soleil Palace, where the emperor resided.
That private area, accessible only to the emperor, left no one knowing how she’d gotten there.
For the Empress, under thorough protection—or rather, surveillance—to slip from the emperor’s grasp even briefly was reason enough for him to fly into madness.
After three days of rampaging with bloodshot eyes, the emperor finally noticed the new figure standing quietly at the door.
“Hyperion?”
“I see the eternal sun of the Empire. May you enjoy a long life.”
The emperor, who hadn’t eaten or slept properly for three days while causing chaos, showed signs of fatigue at fifty. Yet he was known for looking younger than his age and more robust than most youths.
“You must be worried about your mother too.”
Had he appeared earlier, he’d have been snapped at for a lowly thing like him prying; later, and he’d have been raged at as an ungrateful whelp who didn’t care for the mother he’d sired. The emperor’s whims were hard to appease.
Lüsenford Grand Duke Pheon glanced briefly at the four-poster bed draped in curtains before approaching the emperor.
“Your Majesty, three days have passed. You must eat and rest.”
Just one glance. That glance held all the concern permitted for his mother.
Anything more, and the emperor would find some excuse to erupt. Tormenting and abusing Pheon whenever he could was his hobby.
“You heartless wretch—how can you talk of eating when your mother lies collapsed like that!”
“Your Majesty is the sun ruling the entire Kranian Empire. The people all know how much you cherish Her Majesty the Empress, but cherishing and caring for her is impossible without health and strength. Already, many imperial relatives are worried.”
Pheon rattled off words of concern to the hated enemy who had leashed him and tormented his mother, without so much as batting an eye.
“You must eat and get at least a little rest.”
At his gruff words, the emperor reluctantly rose. Having only vented his temper without eating, he staggered immediately, and Pheon supported him at once.
“Are you all right?”
“Ah, yes, fine, fine. …I was at Altein Palace.”
The emperor’s eyes covered the entire palace—no, the whole empire.
Every move of Pheon and everyone else was in his palm. He relished the fearful reactions of those who knew it, maliciously.
“Yes. I was with Duke Ostein and the Duke’s Daughter.”
No need to mention waiting due to the Empress’s condition—it might make the emperor view it as self-aggrandizing.
“Ah, yes. That girl Kaella brought news of the Empress. …What was the reason for entering the palace?”
The messenger who’d relayed the Empress’s news had his mouth sealed long ago, but the emperor remembered even trivial details and grilled suspiciously.
“He forgot the medicine he takes,” Pheon replied.
He’d already coordinated perfectly on this point.
“How can he forget something like that already? That man’s getting old.”
The emperor glanced once more at the bed where the Empress lay. His eyes brimmed with the one-sided obsession he mistook for love. Pheon hid his disgust beneath an expressionless face.
“Did only you come?”
“Yes.”
“Why haven’t the others bothered to check in?”
Those were loaded words. The emperor, unable to secure an heir from the Empress—who had borne only Pheon—had used other women as excuses, fathering quite a few illegitimate children.
But as people whispered out of sight, it seemed the emperor simply lacked the ability to produce healthy heirs.
Most of those children hadn’t survived infancy, and among the few surviving bastards, none surpassed Pheon.
That was why the emperor flew into rages every time he saw Pheon. Pheon was proof that the problem lay with the emperor’s fertility, not the Empress.
“Only the three of you were at Altein Palace?”
“Yes.”
“Useless lot.”
He spat the words venomously and sharply. With the Empress afflicted, everyone should have been extra cautious.
This single incident could shift who might become heir—who knew. Of course, Pheon didn’t care. He was merely the Empress’s bastard, with no imperial blood whatsoever.
Time spent with the emperor was torture. Since regressing, his senses had sharpened to another level, making it worse.
Still, now free of all restrictions, Pheon had learned ways to endure. He judged himself harshly.
‘Shameless, thick-skinned bastard.’
You’re lowly-born and filthy, so maintain propriety, show loyalty, and strive to grow upright. He’d heard it endlessly.
It was true. He was brazen and shameless. Delighted that the woman he’d starved to death with his own hands was alive, using it as comfort. Joyful just from exchanging a few words.
If only, if only during their marriage he’d acknowledged this shabby, base desire. But brainwashed, he’d avoided even looking at her, acting like someone with OCD who wouldn’t share words.
Since the Grand Duke hadn’t treated her as Grand Duchess, no one else had either—leading to her not even getting proper food.
If he’d met her gaze, spoken while looking into those blue eyes, heard her soft voice, then the brainwashing would have…
“But who did you chase out of Altein Palace?”
The emperor, finally starting a proper meal after days, asked. He knew everything and was probing anyway.
“Beatrice Lavalle is your childhood friend, and the Empress doted on her, isn’t she?”
Pheon valued his few close connections dearly, especially since there weren’t many around. He cherished his mother in Kline and Beatrice, raised close since childhood.
To the emperor, those he cherished were perfect chess pieces to manipulate. Holding them hostage shook Pheon, forcing him to hold back rebellion. That was how the emperor tamed him.
And unbeknownst to Pheon, he’d even used Beatrice to bind him with restrictions. The emperor, who knew everything about Pheon’s relationships, was testing him suspiciously now.
For the emperor, Pheon had to harbor deep attachment to Beatrice and the Empress. Only then was he easy to control.
“……Altein Palace is a place for imperial family only, is it not?”
Of course, Pheon was nominally part of the imperial family—as the son of the emperor’s beloved Empress.
“It goes against etiquette and order.”
“Didn’t you ignore etiquette and order plenty?”
The emperor, who’d loved calling him mannerless, didn’t let it slide this time either. Ignore? He’d followed rules with obsessive precision, angles perfect like a compulsive.
‘No, if he’d truly followed them, he should have honored his vows to his wife.’
Stubbornly insisting his love was only Beatrice had seemed his greatest rebellion against the emperor, but looking back, it was a pathetic, brainwashed delusion.
Even with the spell, the fact that he’d done it shamed him to his core.
“If I learned them, I should at least try.”
“Ah.”
The emperor, who once wouldn’t have listened to a word, now nodded anxiously, hands trembling, as the Empress lay comatose. Pheon watched over his meal like a dutiful son, even checked his bedchamber, then quietly withdrew.
In this cesspool, his mother had gained some freedom, Duke Ostein had survived, and Beatrice Lavalle was no longer his concern.
Pheon’s leash was fully off.
