Chapter 28
“…son.”
“……”
“Johansson!”
Startled by the repeated shouts, Johansson abruptly lifted his head. Only then did he realize how long he’d been walking, he’d wandered far beyond the ceremonial hall.
“Haa…”
His breath escaped him belatedly. Only then did the reason he was out here come back to him.
‘Right, Kyrie…’
He had followed her as she was dragged away by the Grand Duke the moment the ceremony ended.
Ever since the carriage Kyrie had taken weeks ago was found burned and abandoned, Johansson hadn’t eaten or slept properly.
Of all things, it had been his mistake, he’d fallen for her provocation and dismissed all the guards. The coachman never returned. A dark premonition had begun to take root.
“Damn it, damn it…”
A nameless anxiety hounded his every step. The moment the report came in, he’d set off with Veron on horseback toward the road to the convent.
‘Why do you have that?’
He’d noticed what Veron was holding in his hand. It was something Kyrie always carried with her.
The same wretched pendant necklace she’d taken from her stepmother’s funeral. A symbol of the mad dog, nothing less than that.
Then his brother had said something unexpected.
‘…It was originally our mother’s.’
‘What?’
‘You were too young to remember, but… Mother used to wear it sometimes.’
That triggered something in Johansson’s mind too.
A faint memory of his mother, smiling gently as she pulled him close and rested his head on her heavily pregnant belly.
And from within, the tiny thump-thump of a heart, his unborn sister’s.
Kyrie’s heartbeat.
‘Why am I thinking of that now?’
He felt a wave of self-loathing.
It should have been Elise, gentle, proper Elise, who was imprinted in his memory as that heartbeat. Not Kyrie.
He forcibly tore his eyes away from the pendant.
But then, he saw something in the distance, something he couldn’t ignore.
“Veron! Smoke over there!”
The wreckage they found was horrific.
The corpses were piled together, bodies tangled and mutilated beyond recognition. It was impossible to tell from the remains even what clothes they had worn, let alone gender or identity.
While Johansson stood dumbstruck, eyes wide with horror, Veron clenched the pendant so tightly that its chain cut into his palm, drawing blood.
And then they found it: the shackles that had once bound Kyrie.
Veron said nothing. And Johansson thought,
‘Kyrie’s gone.’
The one person who knew his secret was gone from this world.
That brief, secret affection he’d held during his adolescence, as he tried to make amends with Elise for the way he’d once treated her.
No one was left who knew the heart he had carefully buried when he came of age.
He should have felt relieved. His shame would remain hidden. Elise would soon be wed to the crown prince, and he himself would make a respectable match with a lady from a proper house.
But alongside that relief surged another feeling, one far more potent.
It wasn’t until he returned with Veron to the ducal estate, reported to their father, and lay down to sleep that it finally struck him.
In his dream, he had returned to childhood.
His mother gently pulled him close and rested his head on her belly.
But no heartbeat came from within.
“…Mother?”
Just then, her face, one he no longer even remembered, twisted into a sharp, mocking smile. The scene shifted.
A young Johansson was stuffing a dead rat into someone’s bed.
It was a freshly decorated, cozy room. Elise’s room.
‘I won’t accept this.’
Even though he didn’t remember their mother’s face, he had perfectly mimicked Veron’s fury, reflected it like a mirror.
The unspoken anger Veron had always held for the stepmother and her daughter had seeped into him as well.
Just like their father’s anger, which Johansson had learned by heart and used to push Kyrie away.
‘This is right.’
He’d felt his heart race as he slipped the rat into the bed and turned to leave, only to meet someone’s eyes.
“……”
It was Kyrie, looking even more ragged after the nanny’s departure.
She must have come out looking for food. She stood at the end of the corridor, partially hidden, staring at him.
Johansson’s heart thundered in his chest.
What if she tattled? What if someone found out what he did?
So he pinned it on her.
Kyrie was the kind of girl he could do that to.
She was the one sent to the punishment room in his place, the one who came out limping afterward. And Johansson… had turned his back.
‘She deserves it.’
That girl, it wasn’t surprising for her to be treated like that. It was fine. He was fine.
But then he’d meet her eyes, those clear blue eyes, and something inside him would twist.
Eyes that seemed to lay bare all his sins.
‘Don’t look at me!’
And just like that, he was in their mother’s arms again. She stroked his head with pride and whispered,
“Be a good big brother.”
But even then, no heartbeat came from the belly he leaned on.
Only silence, like death. And the stench of a burned carriage.
Since waking from that dream, Johansson had been unable to define his feelings. He wandered, restless and agitated.
Oddly enough, Veron seemed the same.
Their father, however, remained as calm and composed as ever.
“If there are any survivors, find them. At all costs.”
“Father…”
“Get a testimony. We must know what happened.”
His face was cold, far too cold for a man who had just lost a daughter.
“This concerns the honor of our house.”
“……”
“How dare a band of thieves attack a ducal carriage. If word of this gets out…”
His eyes glinted with something strange, like he wouldn’t hesitate to kill all the survivors just to silence them.
Johansson almost asked, on impulse:
Father… what if Kyrie really is dead?
The disgrace of our house, the girl we hated and scorned as if it were natural…
Then why do I feel this way?
And so, he lived in that state for weeks, utterly unraveled.
When word came that the Grand Duke Haswell was to be wed, he found the timing inconvenient. A waste of precious hours.
He wanted to use that time to continue the investigation, to ask the nuns at the Flobel convent whether anyone had arrived late or gone missing.
But then,
He came to his senses only to see his missing sister kissing the Grand Duke.
She had returned, with the very secret he’d buried.
Even now, he couldn’t put a name to what he felt, rising and falling in his chest.
He just wanted to look at her and ask. Was it really you? Were you truly alive?
If you were, why didn’t you tell us…?
And then it hit him, a beat too late.
She didn’t have to.
Strictly speaking, none of them had even noticed she was missing, let alone searched for her.
Had she vanished entirely, no one in the family would have known.
It was always like this.
Even as he accepted that, the fire in his chest wouldn’t die. He’d made it all the way to the bridal lounge, yet couldn’t bring himself to open the door.
And just as he hesitated outside, unmistakable sounds drifted through.
He couldn’t believe it, but, yes, they were the unmistakable sounds of heated intimacy.
He ran. That was how he ended up here.
Only now was he finally coming to his senses.
“Johansson!”
A sharp voice called after him.
“…Your Highness the Crown Prince.”
He quickly bowed to Lexion, who stood before him.
His clenched fist ached, he’d been holding it so tightly that his nails had gouged his palm, leaving bloody marks.
But he had no time to pay attention to the pain. The Crown Prince had seized his shoulder with crushing force.
“Kh!”
A cry slipped from his lips, but Lexion didn’t let go.
“You went in after me earlier.”
“…Yes, Your Highness.”
“Did you see them screwing?”
The furious question landed squarely on Johansson.
“Pardon…?”
“I asked you, were they actually screwing?”
The crude language made Johansson’s brow twitch. Somehow, he felt insulted himself.
“Your Highness…”
“Tell me. Did they really do it?”
“…I don’t know.”
Strangely, anger was bubbling up inside him. Johansson struggled to suppress the surge of rage.
“You don’t know?”
“I only got to the door and turned back…”
“So you didn’t see inside.”
“…No.”
“Of course not. As if she’d actually do something like that.”
Lexion pushed his bangs back with a rough hand.
Kyrie Ehrenberg.
She was only pretending to do it, with his cousin, no less, just to drive him mad.
Because the wound of being cast aside had been too deep. Because instead of becoming his mistress, she’d chosen to humiliate him.
Typical mad dog.
A toxic air hung around them.
Johansson fell silent, and Lexion spiraled deeper into his own thoughts. The tension between them darkened the atmosphere.
Then a bright, cheerful voice rang out.
“What are you two doing over here?”
They both turned at once.
“You’re missing the reception, you know.”
A girl like a red blossom approached, smiling brightly.
Elise looked more delighted than ever.
Johansson flinched and stepped back.
“…Elise.”
“My love.”
“Come along now. The Emperor’s personally selected chef is putting on a display.”
One could only imagine how dreadful the food would be.
As Johansson studied Elise with growing unease, she turned to Lexion with a beaming smile.
“I have something I’d like to tell Her Majesty the Empress. Would you accompany me for an audience?”
“The Empress?”
“Yes.”
The delight shimmering in Elise’s eyes deepened.
