Chapter 41
Plop.
The red piece of tart slipped from Kairen’s fingertips and fell to the floor.
That small, faint sound pressed down even more heavily on the silence that had settled over the room.
Karla stood by the door, unable even to breathe properly.
Her gaze shifted uncontrollably between the tart on the floor and Kairen’s face.
Seeing that unfamiliar expression on his mother’s face, Kairen suddenly recalled a lesson from Count Eisen, his master.
『Young Master, there is a type of person you must be especially careful around.』
Count Eisen’s uniquely cold, clear voice echoed in his ears.
『People who use 「a way of speaking that unilaterally provokes the other person’s guilt」.』
‘Unilateral guilt....’
『Of course, if those beneath someone as noble as you were to do such a thing, you would notice immediately. But... people who must become your equal through marriage, members of the Imperial Family... and parents.』
When the people closest to you—those whom you must never suspect, and therefore must suspect—use such a way of speaking, it can be the most fatal of all.
‘Mother....’
Had she really treated him and his elder brother Karl that way all this time?
No.
She had never used such a vile way of speaking.
Because Mother was a kind person.
And that was why her expression now....
‘Feels so utterly unfamiliar....’
She was not one of those wicked people.
Why did his heart hurt so much?
Why did she have the eyes of a cornered beast?
“...Mother?”
Karl, who had been sitting in his wheelchair, turned around in surprise.
“What brings you here without even knocking....”
Karla flinched and turned her gaze toward Karl.
Her pupils wavered anxiously, unable to settle anywhere.
“Ah, ah... I came to... collect the plate. Yes, I came to collect it. I wondered if you had eaten it all.... Like before....”
“Ah....”
Karl lowered his head with a bitter smile.
“I’m sorry, Mother. I didn’t have much of an appetite, so I ended up leaving some again. You take such good care of me every time... I’m ashamed.”
His elder brother’s kind apology pierced Kairen’s heart like a dagger.
Unaware that the poison he had consumed was ruining his body and taking away his appetite.
His elder brother was apologizing to the culprit instead.
But Karla seemed unable to hear her son’s apology at all.
All her attention was fixed on the tart that had fallen to the floor and the pieces still remaining on the plate.
‘Kairen... mustn’t eat that.’
Karla hurriedly poured out an excuse in a trembling voice.
“Ah, no... More importantly, I checked the grapefruit in the kitchen earlier, and I found some that had gone bad....”
She stammered as she watched Kairen’s reaction.
“I was worried that... perhaps something was wrong with you, Karl... that your stomach might be hurting or something....”
A lie.
Kairen bit his lip.
‘Grapefruit that had gone bad?’
It was absurd.
His mother was a perfectionist when it came to desserts.
The possibility of spoiled ingredients being mixed into food meant for her son approached zero.
Moreover....
That trembling was far too clumsy.
The scheme in his mind right now.
His mother’s reaction was far too immature and inept to carry out that meticulous, cruel plan of slowly killing his elder brother and making herself the Grand Duchess.
As though she were someone who could not even bear what she had done.
The excuse that she had been afraid he might eat spoiled food lost all its force.
Kairen himself had eaten the tarts made today, after all.
The Sweetie Version, but made with the same grapefruit they had bought today.
If the grapefruit had truly been spoiled....
She should have been worried about her own stomach too.
He had to make sure.
He had to turn this cruel suspicion into certainty.
Kairen slowly reached out.
His hand picked up another piece of tart remaining on the plate.
The Bitter Version, its red flesh still vivid.
“K-Kairen! No!”
His mother screamed.
“Don’t eat it! I told you it’s spoiled! Can’t you hear your mother?”
His mother rushed toward him.
But Kairen did not hesitate.
He brought the tart to his mouth.
“Kairen?”
He ignored even Karl’s startled call.
Chomp.
Kairen put the tart into his mouth and chewed.
Crunch.
The tart crust crumbled, and the bitter grapefruit flesh burst across his tongue.
And then.
Gulp.
His throat bobbed as the red flesh and the poison hidden inside it traveled down his esophagus.
“......!”
His mother screamed and staggered.
She grabbed the doorframe and nearly collapsed.
Kairen slowly chewed and swallowed.
‘Bitter.’
The Bitter Version was still bitter enough to sting his tongue.
A faint tingling that seemed to numb the tip of his tongue.
This was the taste of the pain his elder brother had swallowed every day.
The taste of the deadly poison his mother had wrapped in the name of love.
But Kairen did not furrow his brow.
Nor did he show any sign of pain or surprise.
He simply stopped his elder brother, who was trying to force himself up from the wheelchair despite being in no condition to do so, and approached his mother, Karla.
Step. Step.
His footsteps echoed through the room.
Karla backed away in terror.
Her son had eaten poison.
But then.
‘No.... It’s all right....’
A momentary flicker of reason returned to Karla’s eyes, which had been consumed by fear.
The poison she had used was not an acute, deadly poison that would immediately make him vomit blood and collapse.
It was a vicious, insidious poison designed to paralyze the nerves and drain away vitality over a long period, disguising its effects as an illness.
She had been feeding Karl small amounts of poison, so its effects were gradual.
Therefore, Kairen would not die just from eating that one piece of tart.
He would not vomit blood, nor would his eyes become bloodshot.
Kairen was fine.
But.
‘It’s too late....’
Her reason had returned, but it was too late to salvage the situation.
She had screamed and rushed to stop her son.
That excessive reaction itself was tantamount to confessing that there was ‘something wrong with this food.’
More than anything, there was the look in Kairen’s eyes.
Those calm, cold eyes staring at her without a change in expression were saying it clearly.
I am not a puppet moving according to your plan.
‘I... couldn’t become a monster.’
Karla despaired.
She knew better than anyone about the poison she had been feeding Karl.
She was the woman who had fed poison for years to Karl, the former wife’s son, while smiling without batting an eye.
She had willingly chosen to become a monster for the sake of her goal.
But then.
Yet a single drop of poison in Kairen’s mouth was enough to bring down all the masks and composure she had built up.
Her love for her own son.
That shallow yet tenacious emotion had ensnared her.
She had failed.
She had failed utterly.
As Kairen watched his trembling mother, he once more engraved Eisen’s teaching into his mind.
『People who use 「a way of speaking that unilaterally provokes the other person’s guilt」.』
He was now turning that tactic back on his mother.
It was an act of filial impiety, but it was the only weapon he had to uncover the truth.
“Are you all right, Mother? You must have been terribly startled.”
Kairen asked in an utterly calm voice.
Then he put an arm around his mother’s trembling shoulders.
“It doesn’t seem spoiled. It’s just... a little bitter.”
“K-Kairen....”
Karla’s lips trembled.
“Brother.”
Kairen turned around and spoke to his elder brother.
“Mother seems a little dizzy. I suppose she overexerted herself baking the tarts. I’ll escort her to her room and return.”
“Ah... All right. Please do. Mother, be careful.”
Karl looked at her with concern, not understanding what was happening.
“Don’t worry.”
Kairen linked arms with Karla.
A devoted son appeared to be supporting his mother.
But Karla knew.
The grip of her son’s hand tightening around her arm was harder and colder than ice.
She could not shake him off.
Kairen half-forcibly led his mother out of the study.
Click.
The door closed, leaving the two of them in the hallway.
A place outside his elder brother’s sight.
There was no one in the long corridor.
Only their footsteps broke the silence.
Kairen slowly walked while supporting his mother.
His stomach churned, whether from the poison’s effects or his sense of betrayal.
But he kept his mask on to the end.
“......”
“......”
After walking for a long while in suffocating silence, Kairen spoke in a low voice.
His voice was low and thick with emotion, audible only to his mother.
“Even so... you do love me.”
“......!”
Karla stopped abruptly.
She looked up at her son with terrified eyes.
Kairen smiled bitterly.
“When I tried to eat it, you panicked and stopped me... You even screamed.”
The poison meant to kill his elder brother.
When he had tried to eat it, his mother had instinctively thrown herself in his way.
Even at the risk of exposing her crime.
Paradoxically, it proved that his mother loved her own son—him—with frightening intensity.
Even if that love was twisted and wrong.
“I’ve confirmed that your love for me hasn’t changed. Thank you, Mother.”
“K-Kairen... Kairen....”
“Shh.”
Kairen pressed his index finger to his lips.
“Don’t speak here. Someone might hear us.”
Kairen tugged at his mother’s arm again.
“Let’s go. In the bedroom... we can have a private... conversation.”
Kairen’s eyes glowed red.
In Karla’s gaze, Kairen’s red eyes seemed to burn even more fiercely as he smiled.
Like a red sunset hanging over the mountains.
And the shoulder of the son supporting her... felt broad.
Like... Karl’s shoulder when he used to support her....
Kairen had grown.
Too much for his mother to lift into her arms.
But ironically, red tart crumbs still clung to the corner of his mouth.
Because Kairen himself was not entirely in his right mind at that moment.
His heart was constricting so tightly that he had forgotten his mother’s admonition to wipe his mouth.
But to Karla’s eyes, those scattered red crumbs looked like drops of blood.
Bloodstains she herself had scattered.
* * *
After Kairen led Karla out, a cold silence once again lingered in Karl’s study.
Karl stared blankly at the closed door.
“......”
A faint, bitter smile tugged at his lips.
“You’ve really grown up now, Kairen.”
His younger brother’s retreating figure, supporting their mother, looked dependable.
What he had loved doing most, but could no longer do.
Standing up, wrapping an arm around their mother’s shoulders, and walking in step with her.
He felt reassured, but at the same time, the thought that he was nothing but a burden to his younger brother weighed on his heart like lead.
That was when it happened.
Karl’s gaze stopped at a spot on the floor.
“...What’s that?”
A small glass vial was rolling across the carpet near the door.
A transparent bottle about the length of two finger joints.
It seemed to have fallen from his mother’s bosom when she staggered earlier.
‘Is this medicine Mother takes? I should pick it up for her.’
Karl rolled his wheelchair toward where the vial had fallen.
When he got closer, he saw transparent liquid sloshing inside the bottle.
‘Is Mother unwell too? Well, she does overexert herself every time.’
Karl bent his upper body to pick up the vial.
His fingertips almost touched the bottle.
Just a little farther.
“Ugh....”
Karl groaned.
His legs had no strength, making it difficult to keep his balance.
In the past, he could have braced himself with the strength in his lower back and picked it up easily.
But recently, his body had grown weak at an alarming rate.
He had almost no sensation below the waist, and it felt as though even the muscles in his upper body were melting away.
His arm began to tremble.
But Karl did not give up and reached farther.
At that moment.
Bang!
“Agh!”
The off-balance wheelchair tilted, sending Karl tumbling to the floor.
The rough surface of the carpet touched his cheek.
His body shook from the impact.
No scream escaped him.
It did not hurt.
That lack of pain instead reminded Karl of the miserable reality and crushed him beneath it.
“Haa... haa....”
Karl lay facedown on the floor, drawing ragged breaths.
He had to get up.
He tried to brace himself with his arms and raise his upper body.
But his lower half did not move at all, as though it were stuck to the floor like lead.
The weight of his legs dragging behind him felt unbearable.
Amid that helplessness, a memory from the past suddenly surfaced.
A conversation he had shared with his father, the Grand Duke of Northgard.
『Kairen is still young. He has talent, but sending him to the academy three years early would be too much.』
His father had opposed it.
『And more than anything... he still has a child’s temperament. I doubt he can endure among the nobles of the Empire.』
But Karl had shaken his head.
『Please send him, Father. Kairen can do it. His talent will surpass mine.』
『Karl, I know you care for your younger brother, but....』
『Please.』
Back then, Karl had knelt before his father and pleaded.
At the time, he still had the strength to get out of his wheelchair and kneel.
Perhaps after that day, the Grand Duke furrowed his brow whenever he saw Karl.
In truth, Kairen had not particularly cared about going to the academy.
It was because Karl had been impatient.
And Karl had also been the one to subtly coax Kairen into whining to their father.
‘My body....’
Karl crawled across the floor, biting his lip.
‘I can’t be certain my body will hold out until Kairen graduates at the proper age....’
He felt his vitality draining away with every passing day.
A vague fear that one day, all of a sudden, he might be unable to open his eyes again.
That was why he had hurried.
That was why he had acted clumsily.
He wanted to see his younger brother standing proudly in his uniform even a little sooner.
Before he collapsed completely.
He felt he could close his eyes in peace only after confirming that his younger brother could stand on his own.
Slide.
Karl did not call for anyone.
If he called a servant, they would put him back in his wheelchair, but he did not want anyone to see him in such a wretched state.
Biting his lip until it bled, he crawled across the floor with his arms.
And at last, he grasped the fallen vial.
“......”
How could picking up one tiny bottle be this difficult?
Karl gave a bitter smile and slipped the vial into his pocket.
Then, with trembling arms, he grabbed the frame of his wheelchair.
“Nngh...!”
He strained until his veins felt ready to burst, painfully—agonizingly—pulling himself up.
Thud.
Karl finally managed to sit back in his wheelchair, his entire body drenched in sweat.
He drew ragged breaths as he gazed at the red sunset outside the window.
The sun was setting, like his own life.
‘Just a little longer....’
He prayed silently, again and again.
‘Hold out just a little longer, my body.’
Until Kairen could fulfill his part.
Long shadows stretched across the study.
The shadows fell over the sunset.