Chapter 16: Growth

When Cherott was driven into a corner by Johannus’s reckless tactics, the Emperor summoned Liam to the front. Even as he sent his son, whose voice had barely deepened, into a slaughterhouse, the Emperor didn’t bat an eye. Everyone clicked their tongues at his cruelty, but Liam alone remained calm.

“Your Highness…”

Three days before deployment, Eden approached him with swollen, tear-rimmed eyes after locking herself in her room and crying for days. She looked like she could barely keep her eyes open from how much she’d wept. And for some reason, watching her like that filled a quiet corner of Liam’s heart with a strange sense of satisfaction.

“What is it?”

After fidgeting for a while, as if struggling to put her thoughts into words, Eden finally spoke, cautiously.

“Can’t I come with you?”

It was a ridiculous request. Liam’s face instantly hardened as he gave a firm reply.

“No.”

“But I want to be of help to you, Your Highness…”

“No. You’ll only be a burden.”

“A-A burden…?”

The word shock was written clearly across her small face. Her clear eyes trembled like candles in the wind. Her eyes grew redder and her lips began to tremble, as if she’d burst into tears at the slightest poke.

‘Was I too harsh?’

Even after Eden stumbled away like someone who’d been struck, Liam stood rooted to the spot for a long while.

There was no other answer he could give. He had only said what needed to be said. And yet, an inexplicable guilt lingered. Her hunched shoulders wouldn’t leave his mind.

Liam clicked his tongue.

‘There’s not a single thing I like about her.’

At the departure ceremony, Eden was nowhere to be seen. No matter how much he looked, not even a shadow of her appeared, and Liam’s mood soured.

If she was going to sulk in the end, she shouldn’t have cried and begged to come.

Imagining Eden curled up in some corner of the palace, sulking, Liam’s face twisted unconsciously.

His adjutant, standing beside him, glanced at his expression and began treading lightly.

Truly, there wasn’t a single thing about her he liked.

Liam slowly looked over the soldiers assembled before him and opened his mouth.

“Let us bring honor and victory to Cherott.”

“To victory!”

As soon as his words ended, a thunderous cheer erupted.

Liam’s eyes met the Empress’s. A single tear slowly slid down her cheek. Without hesitation, Liam turned his head and pulled on his reins.

‘Yes. It’s just as well. I’m sure the little thing’s all puffy and sniffling again.’

Brushing away the thoughts of Eden rising in his mind for no reason, he urged his horse forward.

Once they left the capital, the traces of war became evident everywhere. As tension slowly crept over the once-confident faces of the soldiers, Liam’s cluttered mind grew calm.

The journey to the western front would take about fifteen days on horseback. There were a few ambushes from scattered enemy remnants along the way, but they were easily fended off.

Liam’s army was making good progress.

“Have you lost your mind?!”

Was, until they discovered Eden hiding in the supply cart like a rat. He’d called her a burden, and she’d gone and literally stuffed herself between boxes.

“Did you think war was a game? Or did my words sound like noise to you? What were you–”

“I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to be apart from you… That’s all…”

Images flashed through Liam’s mind, arrows raining down from hidden enemies, attackers rushing in with swords the size of grown men’s arms. His vision turned stark white.

‘You could’ve died.’

Scenes from battles he’d thought insignificant now replayed in his mind, making his chest go cold. It felt like someone had slammed his heart against the floor.

“In the week it took you to get here, you faced death multiple times. Are you even aware of that? You, who can’t even protect yourself, sneaking in like a rat, you’ve just become another liability to the soldiers. Do you understand that?”

“I-I’ll do anything! I can take night watch shifts every day. I mean it!”

Eden fell to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably. She passionately listed the ways she could be useful. She’d eat less, take watch shifts because of her good night vision, sew since she’d learned embroidery…

But Liam’s anger wasn’t because she was useless.

She may have only just turned twelve a few months ago, but she might still manage to serve in a non-combat role as she claimed. She’d disobeyed his order. That certainly angered him, but it wasn’t unforgivable.

“You… you bother me.”

What truly enraged him was fear.

Eden had awakened in him a feeling called fear. It spread slowly, tightening around his throat.

It was something he’d never felt before, even in the face of countless brushes with death. Even heading to the frontlines soaked in the stench of death, Liam’s heart had always remained calm.

But now, he was afraid. Afraid of losing her. Afraid she might get hurt. Afraid she might cry again.

‘Because of you. Because of a mere slip of a girl like you.’

—Never let yourself have anything precious. Because in the end, it’ll be the thing that cuts your throat.

Johannus’s words echoed in Liam’s ears. He had warned him about exactly this emotion.

‘Something precious…’

He was right. The best way not to be haunted was never to form attachments in the first place.

“When the sun rises, leave. I’ll notify the nearest estate to receive you.”

Liam told himself sternly: this emotion wasn’t his. What he must protect, what he must have, could not be a mere slip of a girl.

He felt the heat in his blood cool into ice. He clenched his fists tightly.

“Your Highness… please just let me stay by your side. There’s nowhere for me to go back to… Please?”

“I won’t say it again. I’ve tolerated this only because of your father. Don’t cross the line.”

The problem wasn’t Eden, it was Liam himself.

He was the one who kept memorizing her eyes, her nose, her lips. He was the one who kept losing to those sky-colored eyes, every single time. He was the one who lost all composure at the mere thought of losing her. He was the problem.

“Disobeying orders during wartime is grounds for immediate execution.”

Tears streamed down Eden’s cheeks and soaked into the dirt. Liam quickly pulled back the hand that had instinctively reached out.

‘Foolish girl. You cry far too easily.’

And in that moment, Liam realized something.

‘Ah. I could never hurt you. Even if you were to cut my throat or stab my heart, I could never drive a blade into yours.’

This was dangerous. Alarms blared in Liam’s mind.

As he watched Eden cry herself to sleep, he made a resolution. Once they returned, he would push her far away. So far that she wouldn’t catch his eye, wouldn’t catch in his throat like a thorn.

‘You must not come to mean anything. You must not…’

Liam’s eyes trembled violently. His tightly clenched fists quivered faintly. His lips, heavy with unspoken words, remained shut.

The battlefield, soaked in blood, was the perfect place to rid himself of idle thoughts. Liam kept cutting down the enemy, one after another. The empire’s soldiers poured in endlessly.

Liam’s body, hardened through relentless training, was now covered in scars. Sometimes, he grew so exhausted that he secretly wished the enemy commander’s sword would strike him down in a single blow.

But inside, he was rotting away. The steely commander he played was a shell. His spirit had become so desolate, even thorns couldn’t grow in it.

“Y-Your Highness! The Emperor…!”

Liam looked up to see his father’s head mounted atop the enemy’s watchtower. The price of his stubbornness and ignorance, for refusing to abandon a strategy everyone had opposed.

Liam personally gathered what remained of his father’s body and laid it in a plain coffin. There was no anger on his face. No sorrow. No trace of emotion at all. The sight chilled all who looked upon him.

“Congratulations on your ascension, Your Majesty. Cherott welcomes its sovereign.”

“Ah, yes. It’s laughable, isn’t it? My father’s head still sits on a pike, and I haven’t even washed the blood from my hands, and yet you offer congratulations. Thank you.”

He spent several seasons at war. Enough time for a boy to become a man. Though hollowed out on the inside, the Liam that emerged appeared harder than stone.

With Johannus’s death, Cherott’s defeat seemed inevitable. Victories grew fewer with each passing day. But everything changed when Liam began issuing his own commands.

They called him Demon of War, Butcher, Grim Reaper. The nicknames grew darker by the day. He didn’t care. In truth, they weren’t entirely wrong.

No matter how many times he swung his sword, no matter how much blood splattered, he felt nothing.

When the Emperor of Rodenberg was struck down by plague, the war finally ended.

Liam admitted the truth. It had been a futile power struggle, yielding nothing and costing everything. The Rodenberg Crown Prince, Julius, agreed. And so, the two men who had once crossed swords now clasped hands.

‘Something about him rubs me the wrong way.’

A sharp tension crackled between the two like oil and water.

Throughout the war, Liam had made one vow dozens of times, that he would cast Eden out of the palace the moment he returned. If necessary, he’d even kill her sixth cousin himself to make her head of the household, just to get rid of her.

“Your Majesty.”

But when she stood before him, Liam found himself speechless.

Eden, gripping the hem of her dress with trembling hands, bowed exactly as she used to, but somehow, she was nothing like the girl from before. The time it took for a boy to become a man had been enough for a girl to become a woman.

Even as he passed through the palace gates and leapt down from his horse, Liam’s eyes never left her. He hadn’t seen her in ages, yet he recognized her instantly.

His gaze moved slowly from Eden’s large, clear eyes to her now-slimmed cheeks, graceful neckline, and slender shoulders. Though the face of the child remained, it felt strangely unfamiliar.

‘It’s dizzying.’

The world shimmered in a haze of light. Liam slowly blinked. His chest stirred restlessly. The girl who crushed his composure like garbage underfoot filled him with a quiet fury. His jaw tightened.

“Edenastie.”

Her sky-blue eyes were still as clear as glass, but a heavy tangle of emotion lingered within them. Her lips still curved in that delicate arc, but the vivacity, the joy, they once held was gone.

“I’m so, so glad you’re safe… Your Majesty.”

Eden’s voice, damp with emotion, trembled softly.

From that weary voice, Liam understood: they had both survived their own wars. He at the front, she here fighting their own battles in silence.

They looked at each other for a long time without saying a word. Some things didn’t need to be spoken, like longing, worry, and…

Liam had always believed Eden stood on the opposite end of him. If he was fire, she was water. If he was darkness, she was light. But now, facing her, she felt like his mirror.

There was nothing left in Eden. Just as nothing was left in him.

That realization filled Liam with a strange blend of comfort and unease.

‘To think I’d ever feel a kinship with you.’

It made no sense. And yet, his storming heart gradually began to settle.

“Just call me Liam. I’m sick of being called ‘Your Majesty’.”

At that moment, the heavy weight pressing on his chest lightened. Just looking at her eased his breath.

A subtle floral scent came from Eden. The stench of blood that clung deep to his skin began to lift. Liam’s expression softened.

He opened his mouth slowly.

“Where are you staying now?”

“I’m in the western annex.”

“In that decrepit old place… Never mind. I’ll have a room prepared for you in the imperial palace.”

Liam decided he had to keep her close. Even if he continued to resent her, to push her away, he’d keep her close. Just for now.

For his own sake. Just until he could breathe again. And someday, not far from now, he would cast her out. Without fail.

Upon returning to the capital, Liam visited the late Empress’s grave and left flowers. A pitiable woman who had loved someone she shouldn’t have. A hollow feeling that had led only to tragedy.

A cold smirk flickered across Liam’s face. He didn’t even know who it was meant for. Vengeance was the only thing that moved him. A man with no attachment to life, driven only by rage – that was all Liam had left.