[CHAPTER 64]
Elpenlira Catalos e Catalos thought back to the day she was born.
Rision was eight years old at the time.
Even then, he already despised his father, and when he looked at his mother, what he felt was not affection but a deep sadness and pity.
Childlike ignorance and innocence were a luxury the first Crown Prince of the Catalos Empire could not afford.
To him, a younger sibling who arrived so late was nothing short of a miracle.
She was like a blessing bestowed by God upon a boy who desperately longed for someone to pour unconditional love into.
“Your Highness, this is your elder brother, can you recognize him?”
The wet nurse may have spoken without much thought, but it was different for Rision.
He was certain that the baby in the cradle recognized him.
When the infant, wrapped tightly in soft cloth, sparkled her green eyes and laughed brightly, Rision knew.
He knew that he would probably endure many things in his life for this small and fragile being.
When the news of Edric Loisen’s death was delivered, and when he became certain that the murderer was Roderick Belua, the first thing that came to Rision’s mind was that smile from the cradle.
From the moment he placed his finger into that tiny hand, perhaps this moment had already been inevitable.
* * *
“Why did you do that?”
The younger sister who was deeply wounded and filled with anger was no longer the baby who only smiled sweetly.
Her reproach was painful, yet no words of self-defense came easily to him.
That was because he knew he would make the same choice even if he went back in time.
You have the right to know who killed Edric.
But if you learned the truth, you would destroy yourself, so I chose silence.
Even if it meant losing precious relationships and being unjustly resented.
I planned to hide it until the very end, and only tell you after I carried out revenge with my own hands.
So that you, driven mad by rage, would not stain those pure hands and your brilliant future.
There were plenty of things he could have said, and plenty of convenient explanations.
But irrational decisions could not be justified through reason.
So Rision chose to tear open his own chest and offer the truest feelings he had hidden inside.
“…I was afraid you would get hurt.”
An emperor’s unfiltered sincerity was a poisoned chalice.
The unfamiliar and dangerous weight froze his tongue.
To keep himself from stopping, Rision clenched his fist tightly.
His neatly trimmed nails dug deep into his palm.
“After Edric died, when I saw you in despair, I knew.”
“If you learned the truth, it would become irreversible.”
“You would have pursued revenge, even if it meant burning yourself away.”
Elpenlira did not deny it.
Both he and she knew it was the truth.
“When were you planning to tell me?”
Elpenlira’s voice was calm.
But it was the precarious calm of an acrobat standing on a tightrope.
From Rision’s position, looking up at her from the ground, there was nothing he could offer except the unvarnished truth.
He had swallowed poison.
Now all that remained was to endure the aftershock.
Strangely, it felt relieving.
“Right before passing judgment on the true culprit.”
“Even if, until then, I resented you while believing you deliberately harmed Edric in order to sell me off to the Arasas Empire?”
“…I thought it was better for me to be misunderstood than for you to run at the culprit with a blade.”
His throat tightened.
Rision forced himself to suppress his increasingly rapid breathing.
“Because of my decision, Edric died, and because of me, the truth was hidden from you, and because of me, I chose to carry out revenge myself.”
“So I thought your misunderstanding was something I deserved to bear.”
“Even if it was not the right way, I thought it had to be done—”
Something astonishing happened before Rision could finish his sentence.
Elpenlira suddenly stepped toward him.
She grabbed his clothes tightly with both hands.
Overwhelmed by her fierce momentum, Rision staggered back a step.
His shocked gaze instinctively dropped downward.
The Princess, gripping the Emperor by the collar, shouted at him at the top of her lungs.
“This is exactly what’s wrong with you, Brother!”
Rision, experiencing physical coercion for the first time in his life, could not gather his thoughts.
It was not because he felt humiliation or shame.
It was closer to the shock he would have felt if Elpenlira had suddenly flailed her arms and flown up into the sky.
Staring straight at Rision, who looked down at her with his mouth slightly open, Elpenlira scolded him fiercely.
It would have been fine if she had remained a naïve and innocent princess.
He had been confident he could give her a perfectly spotless happy ending.
But Elpenlira did not walk the path Rision had carefully arranged for her.
As if mocking his arrogance, she chose a path filled with thorns.
All to grasp a single thing called love, irrational and transcendent.
And now that he had chosen to love Dianu Ortensa, Rision could finally understand Elpenlira.
“Back then, I didn’t know you were stronger than me.”
When Elpenlira came running toward him with a flushed face.
When she held out a ring and said Edric had proposed to her.
When she shouted back fiercely at Rision for the first time after he raised his voice at her.
He should have accepted it then.
That she was no longer the helpless baby in the cradle.
“I know better than anyone that I am unworthy of daring to stand beside Lady Elpenlira.”
“I also know that Your Majesty has already arranged Lady Elpenlira’s future.”
Kneeling before Rision, who was shaking with betrayal, Edric had spoken calmly.
“I have no excuse.”
“Whatever punishment you give me, I will accept it willingly.”
With his reason clouded by rage, Rision read clear defiance in that composed attitude.
That was why he had uttered words he did not truly mean, threatening to send Edric to a frozen northernmost fortress where even bones would freeze, if he did not break off the engagement with Elpenlira.
Looking straight up at the man who could turn his life into hell with a single word, Edric had replied.
“I will do as you command.”
“And I will return alive, and marry Lady Elpenlira.”
Only unwavering sincerity clung to the final words he added.
“Because that is what Lady Elpenlira wishes.”
Seeing that expression, Rision thought he had lost.
But he never had the chance to forgive Edric.
Before that could happen, the Baldin County incident erupted.
Amid deep regret and sorrow, Rision felt a certainty rise within him.
It was the kind of certainty one could only feel after finally arriving at a conclusion that should have been reached long ago.
“Yes, Lira.”
“I was wrong.”
“This is how it should have been from the start.”
Edric, who had remained kind and upright until the very end, would probably not have wanted Elpenlira to stain her hands.
“Let’s go avenge Edric.”
Rision knew this was the best atonement he could offer.
“Together.”
