Chapter 22 – The Name of the Vanished Daughter
It was the name of the daughter who had vanished without a trace on the first day of the new year.
A daughter born of Diana’s womb and carrying the blood of Atreid, yet unfortunately resembling Anna.
‘Was that her name?’
He had tried so hard to avoid her that even her name felt unfamiliar.
And yet, whenever he did visit—rare as it was—she would always greet him with a bright smile.
Then suddenly, she vanished.
More accurately, she was kidnapped by someone.
Leopold opened a drawer and took out a small note.
Though the handwriting and texture were different from the letter Dimitri had just delivered, there was one peculiar similarity:
An insufferably arrogant and provocative tone.
[Do your best. Only a father can find his daughter, right?]
Leopold’s eyes flared coldly as he re-read the note left behind at the 1st Princess’s Palace, where Nina had disappeared.
Disgusting.
Not just because of the cheap and clichéd phrasing, but because the sender clearly knew he couldn’t publicly declare the First Princess was missing—and used that to mock him.
‘Foolish.’
But Nina had never been his to begin with.
Just like Anna.
She was someone who belonged to him, yet didn’t.
He had never once voiced this truth, but he had known it from the beginning.
And he also knew that Diana was aware of what he knew.
That must’ve been why she allowed him to stay distant and indifferent.
Still, there were times when even Leopold couldn’t understand how Diana treated Nina.
When he first heard Nina had been kidnapped, he wondered if it was one of Diana’s sick games.
More precisely, whether Diana had conspired with Rabian.
Diana was the type of woman who would pull such a stunt—using a daughter who resembled Anna—to simultaneously torment both brothers: Leopold and Rabian.
Who else could have gotten past all that security and spirited away a child from the middle of the imperial palace?
‘But if it was that bastard…’
The thought of his debauched younger brother brought forth a deeply buried rage.
A long-standing, deep-rooted fury, bordering on hatred.
Yet even he couldn’t deny the possibility that Rabian would be completely unfazed by any of Diana’s manipulations.
Unless Rabian had acted alone to get back at him by kidnapping Nina.
‘Rabian, was it you? Or was it Hamelin, unrelated to you?’
The reason they couldn’t formally investigate the First Princess’s kidnapping wasn’t just because of the Emperor’s obsession with maintaining the dignity and honor of the royal family.
It was also because of Hamelin, the name tied to the recent wave of child kidnappings that had swept the nation.
Usually, these kinds of crimes were seen as the domain of the lower classes.
But Hamelin was different—every kidnapped child came from wealthy, prestigious families.
Children raised in highly secure environments were disappearing overnight—naturally, it became a national scandal.
If it leaked that Nina had also been kidnapped, the public would immediately associate it with Hamelin. That would flip the ongoing investigation, which had been narrowing its suspect pool to the disgruntled lower classes.
After all, if even the overprotected First Princess could be taken, then the culprit had to be someone with regular access to the imperial palace—someone of high rank.
Whether or not Hamelin was the true culprit wasn’t the issue.
The real concern was how public sentiment would explode.
‘I thought I’d feel relieved if she disappeared…’
Leopold set his pipe down and pressed his temples hard.
“…Damn it.”
Yes, to be honest, he had initially felt relieved.
He’d even thought it fortunate that Nina had gone missing.
Because deep down, he’d wished for her to disappear.
Her very existence tormented him.
He alone still suffered from the haunting remnants of a past he couldn’t erase, no matter how hard he tried.
All the rage, resentment, and guilt…
He knew none of it was Nina’s fault, yet it was still difficult to get a grip on himself.
The only way to soothe the pain was through Estella.
Unlike Nina, Estella was his.
His first and only wholly his child—someone who looked only at him.
Every time Estella blinked her ruby-colored eyes that resembled his, every time she burst into innocent laughter and shouted, “Daddy’s the best!”—the thirst that had plagued him all his life was quenched, if only slightly.
It felt as if the powerlessness and inferiority complex he’d carried forever were finally fading.
So he’d believed that Estella was enough.
That Estella was all he ever needed.
Because from the beginning, Estella was the only one who was truly his.
After all, Nina…
“Nina…”
Leopold murmured his missing daughter’s name once more, recalling the dream that had haunted him since that day.
The dream that came every night after Nina’s disappearance—always the same.
In it, Nina was being led away by someone.
The figure was cloaked in shadow and unidentifiable.
Feeling an inexplicable urgency, Leopold would call out to Nina. She would glance back at him with a sorrowful look—but then continue fading into the distance, led by the figure cloaked in shadow.
Then the scene would change.
He would be standing alone in a dark room.
At its center, a small bed.
Something tiny lay atop it, covered in a white sheet. He would just stand there, staring at it, until the moment he finally reached out—
And then he’d wake up.
It was always the same pattern.
He had no idea what the dream was trying to tell him.
Only one thing was clear: every time he woke, he was gripped by a gut-wrenching sense of loss.
Loss, regret, or perhaps—rage.
The rage was always aimed at the shadowed figure.
The one who took Nina away…
“Tch…”
His hand trembled slightly as he relit his pipe.
His ruby-red eyes, gazing into the swirling smoke, were turbulent with confusion.
He didn’t like it.
Neither the cursed dream nor the fact that he was so affected by it.
[Do your best. Only a father can find his daughter, right?]
“…Bullshit.”
Snap.
The fire caught on the stiff, glue-treated paper.
A small pile of ash fell silently onto the desk, and a thin shaft of sunlight—just like someone’s hair color—pierced through the window and illuminated it.
As he stared blankly at the light, someone knocked on the door.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Come in.”
Just a dumb dream.
That’s all it was.
Desperately trying to erase the lingering images, the Emperor focused on the visitor’s voice.
“…A letter from Hamelin was found alongside a child’s corpse.”
He thought he could hear a sad, bitter laugh from somewhere.
* * *
They said Rojas was more lively in the evening than during the day.
As dusk settled over the streets, Rabian glared at the top of Nina’s head as she dozed off in front of him.
It was that damn smell of cotton candy.
If he hadn’t seen her devour that giant puffball with his own eyes, he might have seriously entertained the theory that little girls were made of sugar.
“Tch. I guess I’ll have to come back again.”
“……”
“Hey, is the kid asleep?”
“…Noo, I’m not sleeping.”
Nina forced her heavy eyelids open and barely managed a response.
After all that commotion, her nerves had finally calmed down—plus the sugar crash was hitting hard, making her drowsy.
“We’ve got a long way home. Just sleep.”
Rabian tossed the words out and instantly regretted them.
Calling the kidnapper’s hideout home? What kind of twisted joke was that?
“…Home as in the hotel?”
