Chapter 035
Merwen was currently imprisoned in the castle.
Although suspected of being one of the conspirators with the Rowens, there was still no conclusive evidence.
Therefore, she was prevented from returning to Etnel, based on a confirmed charge. It wasn’t difficult to uncover her involvement in the previous embezzlement of funds.
“The crime is clear, so why should I do that? Merwen embezzled the castle’s funds. Was she hiding her crime?”
She probably wasn’t.
If she had intended to deny her crime, she wouldn’t have complied with the imprisonment in the first place.
Merwen had quietly entered the tower where high-ranking criminals were imprisoned. She didn’t attempt any statements or explanations.
She would remain there until he found sufficient evidence to bring her to trial.
Rupid bowed his head and said,
“Haven’t you recently experienced a great ordeal?”
“Speak plainly. Iella was the one who went through the ordeal.”
Sioden saw the scars remaining on the woman’s back.
The Glasyr heals wounds, but it doesn’t make them disappear completely.
Iella’s scars would probably remain forever. Scars of that size don’t disappear even with consistent application of medicine.
He felt an urge to hang everyone directly or indirectly responsible for those scars. Once he eliminated Capren’s influence… Sioden took a deep breath.
He just needed to put in a little more effort. After eliminating all of Capren’s henchmen, he planned to deal with the elders and then ask Iella about her desire for revenge.
It was tradition in the North to repay what one had suffered, so he would support whatever revenge she desired.
Unaware of his thoughts, Rupid continued.
“What happened to her is regrettable, but you shouldn’t treat Lady Merwen harshly because of that. The reason Lady Merwen was captured as a prisoner is because she was sent from the castle to the border region, isn’t it?”
Rupid was referring to the time Sioden had sent Merwen, who had been living in the castle after his marriage, to Ethel.
“Everyone in the castle knows why Your Grace did that.”
Sioden understood immediately.
After he sent Merwen to Ethel, his retainers had gossiped that he was blinded by his wife from an enemy family and had cast aside an old friend.
Sioden scoffed at their valuing even a fictitious sense of loyalty while remaining silent when Lerox, their supposed friend, behaved so poorly, and he didn’t listen to anyone.
Now, his attitude hadn’t changed; if anything, it was worse.
“Does sending Ethel’s heir back to her territory require an explanation?”
“Your Grace, I am speaking out of genuine concern for Raslet.”
Rupid bowed even lower. He appeared to be a pitiful servant being oppressed by a tyrant, but he was using Lerox to pressure Sioden.
“Lady Merwen was brought into the castle by the previous head of the family himself.”
Sioden snorted.
“If the wishes of someone resting in peace beneath the earth are so important, I wonder why you aren’t serving him down there instead of wandering around on the surface.”
“Your Grace.”
“Did you show this sensitivity, this rush to help because Ethel was attacked in her own territory, when you sold Iella?”
However, no one in Laslet had shown Iella such empathy.
“The drawing of lots was fair. All the high-ranking elders wrote down their names.”
“Fair?”
For a moment, his anger boiled over. Sioden clenched his fist, fighting the urge to hurl the teacup in front of him at the old man’s head.
“You hand over my wife to the enemy and tell me it was fair?”
Rupid, still maintaining a posture of utmost humility, continued.
“You mustn’t forget that before she was your wife, she was the daughter of Capren Rowen.”
“She’s not just Rowen’s daughter; she’s the only Laslet besides me.”
Having said that, Sioden inwardly questioned. Would she want to remain that way?
Demian Rowen had asked for his sister back. Iswen Rowen had made the same request.
Sioden hadn’t agreed. Iella was a Raslet. When no one in Rowen had stopped their marriage, he had accepted it.
If Iella’s two older brothers cherished her so much, they should have done anything to keep their sister by their side.
…Especially if they had known what she would experience in Raslet because of her family.
His thoughts were washed away by unbelievable words.
“That position was originally Lady Merwen’s.”
“Merwen?”
Sioden scoffed coldly at the man.
“Even if the mistress of Raslet were the daughter of an enemy, or even the enemy herself, it couldn’t be Merwen.”
It wasn’t just because he didn’t want to be involved with her in that way.
Sioden uttered the secret his loathsome father had left behind for the first time.
“She and I share half our blood.”
It was a half he wanted to completely eradicate.
☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓 ☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓
Lerox Raslet’s later years were humble compared to previous heads of the family, but better than Evelyn’s. There were enough people who mourned him and remembered him honorably.
Twenty-year-old Sioden couldn’t bear it.
The thought of the man sleeping peacefully, as if he had maintained his integrity until the end, twisted his gut.
However, there wasn’t much he could do. At most, he simply didn’t go to see the sick man’s last moments.
It was around that time that Lerox, who had never sought out his son for personal reasons throughout his life, called him.
When he entered his father’s bedroom, Sioden smelled the scent of death mixed with herbs. To put it bluntly, it was the stench of rotting flesh emanating from Lerox.
The poison Lerox had actually been poisoned with was decaying his internal organs.
Sioden felt no pity for his father, who was rotting from the inside out. The man’s conscience had been corrupt long before his organs.
The death of his father, who had lost his humanity, wasn’t even a normal loss for him.
Lerox hadn’t called his son to seek pity, either his first or last.
Sioden soon witnessed the depths of human depravity.
‘Merwen is actually your blood relative.’
When the sick man said this, his voice more a whisper than a clear statement, Sioden scoffed.
“You’re senile. Merwen is Ethel’s only heir.”
Although her fate had changed, Merwen had living parents.
But sadly, Lerox was of sound mind at that moment.
“I hid her in Ethel, away from Evelyn’s eyes.”
That was enough. Sioden realized his father knew what he was saying.
When Lerox’s illegitimate child was born, Evelyn had noticed it by observing the growth of a tree in the family’s forest.
She struck the tree that wasn’t her son’s. If the illegitimate child had been in front of her, she might not have killed her, but she certainly wouldn’t have let her live unharmed.
Sioden glared at his father, who continued to commit loathsome acts, his eyes bloodshot.
“……You’re quite good at deceiving your wife.”
Lerox didn’t care whether his son was suffering from humiliation beyond betrayal. In his dying voice, he said something that made Sioden want to commit murder.
“Evelyn killed the Glasyr that was meant for her, so I should give her mine.”
He didn’t remember much after that.
When he came to, Sioden was being dragged out into the hallway by knights. They said he had been strangling Lerox.
Threatening the head of the family was a serious crime, but the matter wasn’t pursued. Lerox was clearly a dying man, and he was the only heir.
As was usual when he occasionally revealed his true nature and caused problems, Ben came to resolve the situation.
Ben took his now-grown master back to the bedroom and pleaded almost desperately.
“Just bear with it a little longer. Please…”
It was a serious crime to speak like that while the head of the family was still alive, but Ben, who had known his master since childhood, risked having his tongue cut out to comfort him.
Even knowing that his advisor had done it solely for his sake, Sioden couldn’t comply.
No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t let his father escape to death, avoiding his shameful past.
That evening, Sioden made his decision.
“I’ll cut down my own tree to save my father.”
Lerox had to live.
He had to live long enough to be crushed by the weight of the confessions he’d made, thinking he was going to die.
Knowing what he had heard, the head of the family’s guards prevented him from entering the family forest.
“Get out of my way.”
“I can’t obey.”
Sioden yelled at the guard, who was more afraid of his dying father than of him holding a knife.
“Should I cut your neck before I cut down the tree?”
Before he could get carried away by his emotions and hurt others, Ben rushed over anxiously.
“Young Master, Young Master, calm down.”
The man, who hadn’t even had time to put on his outer clothes, grabbed him and begged desperately.
“You can’t do this. Please think about the consequences…”
“Consequences?”
Sioden looked at Ben.
“You want me to watch my father escape to death because of that?”
What good were future consequences?
Everything was getting worse with the passage of time.
Sioden didn’t expect things to improve no matter how many more days he lived.
He said through gritted teeth.
“I can’t bear it.”
Ben didn’t deny his words.
Instead, he looked up at him with pleading eyes. Sioden looked down at the advisor, who had aged with the passage of time while he had grown up.
He finally gave up the fight. Sioden slumped his shoulders, covering his face as a final act of self-defense.
He muttered a plea without a specific target once more.
“I can’t bear it…”
But life wasn’t composed only of things one could bear.
Just before Lerox breathed his last, Sioden visited his father again.
