Chapter 118
“Your engagement was truly a farce. It’s nonsensical that someone’s heart could change like that overnight. Did you promise the Bolshevik something in exchange for helping you become Emperor…”
Smith couldn’t finish his sentence and unconsciously touched his throat.
For good reason—the ash-gray eyes, previously impossible to read like a wasteland, now gleamed with unmistakably clear and sharp murderous intent.
Though Einar clearly stood under the bright sunshine, he resembled a predator lurking in darkness, as if ready to tear out Smith’s throat at any moment.
Smith’s hand, frantically feeling his neck, began to visibly tremble.
It was fear, shouted by his survival instinct.
That fear was surely the definite reason why Smith, though uncomfortable around Einar, couldn’t take his eyes off him.
Einar, who had made Smith freeze with his mouth open, looked down at him and cocked one eyebrow.
The gesture appeared so much like a beast baring its teeth that Smith’s eye twitched.
Smith remained stiff as a pillar of salt even as Einar moved unhurriedly, closing the distance between them to just a handspan.
Einar slowly placed his hand on Smith’s shoulder.
And the next moment.
—Crunch.
There was a sound like bones being crushed, but no pain.
Or perhaps there was no sound at all?
Smith’s breathing grew ragged, and his instantly bloodshot eyes rolled toward his shoulder where Einar’s hand rested.
“It’s not broken. Crushing it would just make you troublesome.”
Einar whispered as if reading Smith’s thoughts.
Smith’s eyes rolled back to meet Einar’s gaze.
A white sneer spread across Einar’s lips as he faced Smith’s pupils, shaking more violently than a small boat in a storm.
Like sees like, they say.
What did he promise her when he became Emperor?
How very like Smith to think that way.
Emperor? What’s so special about being Emperor? He had no interest in sitting on the imperial throne.
It wasn’t as if he had suddenly developed an interest that hadn’t existed before.
Born a prince, he would fulfill the obligations that came with his rights for his entire life, but he had not even a whisker’s worth of determination or desire to become Emperor, to be responsible for the lives of all imperial citizens, to be their shield, and to walk at the forefront of their path.
There was only one person he wanted to share his life with, to devote his lifelong attention to, and to walk alongside.
Hair redder than fully bloomed roses and eyes blue and clear as ice, yet with unfathomable depths, appeared vividly in his mind, as if stamped there.
Thinking of Riina, he naturally wanted to go see her.
He felt he needed to see that white face.
She had even prevented him from sincerely telling her that she was going to leave, that she couldn’t be with him, the Second Prince, because she wanted to be free.
Even knowing that she wouldn’t disappear right now, and thinking that he would do anything to prevent her from leaving, Einar’s mouth went dry whenever he thought of Riina.
Running his tongue over his parched palate, Einar stared blankly at Smith.
Smith would never become Emperor.
It wasn’t a question of whether he had the qualifications to be Emperor or not.
But such matters were secondary to Einar.
What mattered was that if Smith became Emperor, there was a possibility Riina would be troubled, and…
‘He discarded me the moment he decided I had no value.’
It was because of what Smith had done in the story Riina had shared one day about the time before she turned back time.
To think he could become so enraged over something from the past he had never experienced, only heard about.
He wondered if something was wrong with his head, but he was willing to embrace this irrational anger.
“Even if I told you I have no interest in the throne, you wouldn’t believe me. But you know what.”
Smith widened his eyes at the low voice that seemed to pierce his lungs, gritting his teeth to stop himself from trembling.
“I told you, didn’t I? Because you want that position more than anyone else, I won’t let you have it.”
He had heard these words before. But now they came from a deeper place inside…
Einar’s voice, grown even lower, carved itself into Smith’s ears, which struggled to function with his terror-stricken mind.
“Don’t involve Riina. Not with your eyes, your mouth, or your ears. If you so much as brush against her like a passing wind.”
At this explicit, grotesquely meticulous, and terrifying warning, Smith finally realized.
That ‘the’ Second Prince, who had tormented his ears and insides endlessly as the Third Prince, had returned.
Perhaps with a little more time, he would also come to understand what it meant that Einar, who had never held anything in his eyes his entire life, had finally fixed his gaze on a single person. But that moment was not now.
As Einar lightly patted Smith’s shoulder and stepped back abruptly, Smith shook his shoulders violently, like a harpooned tuna.
His back, drenched in cold sweat in just a few seconds, felt clammy, and the unpleasant sweat that had flowed down from his forehead reached the corners of his eyes.
As the sticky sweat flowed into his eyes, causing a stinging pain, Smith realized his pathetic state and shouted as if in agony:
“If… if you have no interest in the imperial throne, where did you get such advantageous information for the Crown Prince test!”
Even as he shouted, he dared not mention Riina.
Of course, not because he feared Einar’s warning, but because he needed to bring up the more important imperial throne, he told himself in earnest self-justification.
Facing Smith, who was gasping for breath, Einar readily answered as he had done all along.
With remarkable simplicity, as if the savage words he had just uttered had been a lie.
“Oh, by chance.”
At this insincere and flippant answer, Smith’s face crumpled like a used tissue.
“What? Chance? If all of that was by chance, then you’re absurdly lucky.”
Though his lips trembled, Smith managed to speak sarcastically, causing Einar to widen his eyes momentarily as if hearing something unexpected, before bursting into laughter.
Until that sudden and excessively cheerful laughter, that clear sound that stretched out freely, subsided, Smith could only stare at Einar with a dumbfounded expression.
Following the laughter that had echoed in the sky and then faded, Einar’s voice, dry as a desert, added:
“Yes. I was lucky.”
Two days had passed since Sierre’s request, and on a morning when a drizzle that had been falling since dawn gently beat against the ground.
A wind swept into the youngest prince’s palace, which had been submerged in silence and the suffocatingly strong smell of medicine, just as it always was.
“His Highness the Second Prince!”
The servants of the youngest prince’s palace, greeting Einar for the third time now without an appointment or even prior notice, seemed to have grown more accustomed to his visits, as they were not as flustered as before.
Cutting through the bowing servants and heading resolutely toward Sierre’s room, Einar was accompanied by Riina, who walked beside him.
The path was familiar, and the silence between them was even more familiar, making it comfortable.
Soon, standing before Sierre’s door, Einar paused instead of flinging it open as he had done before.
“I wonder what decision he’ll make.”
Despite the seemingly random comment made before the door, Riina answered without hesitation:
“There’s no point in guessing.”
“That’s true. We’ve already come this far.”
Letting out a faint laugh mixed with a sigh, Einar turned his gaze from the door and looked at Riina.
“Thank you for being there for Sierre.”
“I haven’t done anything. Please at least let me do that much.”
Those words were quite literal.
After Einar had mentioned that something unpleasant would happen to Sierre, and after recalling Sierre’s funeral before the regression.
Riina had wished, of her own will, that the funeral would never take place at all.
So she had decided to intervene with Sierre, but unlike with Becky or Lione, there wasn’t much she could do.
Understanding the circumstances of the child’s death only required a bundle of documents, and removing the cause needed only Sierre’s decision.
During the short outing—not a mushroom investigation, not even mushroom gathering—she was fortunately grateful that he didn’t seem to dislike human warmth, and wanted to be by his side on a day like today.
Because she still remembered that when she was sick and struggling, when her heart was first wounded and bleeding, the moment someone held her hand by her side was warm.
Einar gazed at her intently.
Her properly drawn chin, straight back, squared shoulders, and direct gaze.
“You’re already standing magnificently on your own.”
“What did you say? I couldn’t hear clearly.”
As Riina tilted her head slightly, Einar tilted his head in the same direction.
A shadow fell over the bridge of his nose, obscuring his expression, but his answer came promptly:
“No, nothing.”
Einar was relieved that she couldn’t see his expression, yet at the same time, he was unbearably curious about how Riina would react if she saw his raw emotions.
For he was yearning.
Yearning for her not to push him away in order to stand alone.
Though he had no intention of losing her, if despite all his efforts, she ultimately decided to leave him behind.
Should he kneel at her feet and beg?
If only Riina would reach out her hand to him, he would be nothing short of delighted.
He must have spent quite some time lost in thought before the door, as Riina’s voice dimly reached him.
“…nar, Einar? Are you all right?”
