Chapter 52
“Then why... did you grab Karl by the leg?”
“......!”
The Grand Duke's cold breath hung over the bedroom.
“You thought of him as no different from your own son... You claimed to love Karl so much... so why did you keep that child from standing?”
The Grand Duke tightened his grip.
Karla's pupils shook frantically.
‘He... knew?’
The Grand Duke's other hand clamped around Karla's breast, near her heart.
Clench.
“Aah… Your Grace…!”
A sharp pain rose from the breast crushed in the Grand Duke's grip.
The corners of her eyes trembled at a pain worse than the breast engorgement she had suffered when she first nursed Kairen, when her blood vessels had swelled as if they would burst and even a brush against them drew a scream.
A horrific pressure came with it, as though a rough-surfaced wooden coffin had been placed on her tender palm and she were being forced to clench her fist and crush it.
“Ngh…!”
But Karla swallowed the pain as a moan instead of a scream.
This breast was where she had nursed Kairen.
She had never tried to justify the sin of trying to kill her stepson simply because he was her own son, born from her womb and raised at this breast.
‘Yes... this is atonement….’
The karmic retribution born of her twisted maternal love was returning as pain through her husband's rough touch.
“Karla....”
Her gaunt ribs, prominent enough to be felt through her clothes, brushed the Grand Duke's wrist.
“You've lost... a lot of weight. Because of the poison.”
“......!”
“Did you think I wouldn't know?”
The Grand Duke gave a cold laugh.
“That you were dying while taking the same poison as Karl.”
The Grand Duke had known.
That Karla was using poison.
And that she was taking poison herself out of guilt.
He had watched it all.
“Ah, ah....”
Karla's lips moved soundlessly in terror.
Had the Grand Duke remained silent because he also knew she was being threatened by Slokina?
As Karla sat stunned, the Grand Duke began to reveal his sinister intentions.
“Once a snake's venomous fangs have bitten you, the snake has already had ample time to prepare its next bite.”
The Grand Duke whispered low without loosening his grip on Karla's neck.
“Even if you realize only after the venom has made your legs go cold that the snake is acting in secret, you cannot recklessly strike at its head. With your legs buckling, you cannot reach far with your hand, and the snake will already have prepared its next dose of venom in the meantime.”
Slokina.
Those cunning snakes were holding Karla hostage.
If he moved rashly, Karla—and Kairen—could be put in danger.
“That was why I needed time. After learning that Karl was dying... I waited for an undeniable pretext.”
“J-justification, you say....”
“A pretext for war.”
The Grand Duke laughed hollowly.
“The one thing I have over Karl is that I'm despicable enough to use even a family's death as a pretext.”
“......!”
“I waited for Karl to die. Only then would I have grounds to utterly crush your homeland, that damned Slokina.”
A father who had planned his revenge by holding his son's death hostage.
The father had remained silent, waiting for Slokina to cross the line and for his son to draw his final breath.
“Those disgusting Slovenheim bastards... I intended to cut them down one by one with my own hands.”
Red light burned in the Grand Duke's eyes.
Fueled by the killing intent he had honed while watching his son die over the years.
“The royals of Slovenheim... I repeated the names of those with that vile blood every night. The king, the queen, and even that bastard Oscar, the Second Prince who threatened you.”
The Grand Duke tightened his grip even further.
“I intended to flay their skins and hang them on the walls, scrape every bone clean, and grind them in a millstone. Then I would mix that powder with salt and scatter it over Slokina's fertile soil, turning it into a barren wasteland where nothing could ever grow again.”
Though his voice was calm, what he described was no different from an image of hell.
“I meant to dam the flowing river with their corpses and make its rotten waters flood their royal capital. I intended to return the pain my son suffered ten thousand times over—no, a hundred million times over.”
“Y-Your Grace….”
The fury and madness that had been building beneath her husband's silence had grown in proportion to his love for Karl, taking on a destructive life of their own.
“Though I failed spectacularly... that was why I tried to absorb the outlander races and build my strength... and waited for you to reach the end.”
The Grand Duke's gaze pierced Karla.
“But....”
For the first time, the Grand Duke's voice, cold when he had uttered those chilling words, wavered.
“Today, you changed your mind. What changed you?”
The Grand Duke asked as though he genuinely wanted to know.
“All you did was let yourself and Karl waste away. Was it Eisen? Or that irritating barbarian? The prince? Or... merely one last whim now that your time to die has come?”
Tears streamed endlessly from Karla's eyes.
Choked by the pressure on her throat, she struggled to move her lips.
“...Kairen... ”
“Kairen?”
“That child has somehow... grown into an adult who has to bend down to meet my eyes.”
Karla recalled the look in her son's eyes that she had seen earlier.
“And he showed that he was just like Karl, wanting to protect everyone…. He called a sinner like me... Mother, and helped me to my feet.”
“......”
The Grand Duke's eyes wavered.
Kairen, whom he had thought of only as an immature youngest son.
That child had become an adult ahead of them all, following Karl's example despite his twisted parents.
The Grand Duke asked no more questions.
He placed one hand around Karla's neck again, kept his other hand clamped around her gaunt breast, and lowered his head.
Then he covered her lips with his own.
“Mmph... mmph!”
Karla's scream was smothered by the Grand Duke's lips, reduced to a muffled, breathy sound.
The constriction around her throat and the searing heat pressing into her lips.
Her body grew hot beneath a fierce kiss that could have been love, murderous intent, or punishment.
A long while later.
The Grand Duke pulled his lips away.
“Haa... haa....”
Karla collapsed onto the bed, gasping for breath.
“Seeing you panting, your color has finally returned a little.”
The Grand Duke roughly stroked Karla's cheek.
“But... you still haven't filled out.”
“......”
“You don't have the fullness you had back when you went in and out of the kitchen to learn desserts for Karl, burned your hands, and laughed while eating the desserts you had ruined.”
Karla had been happy then, without guilt.
The Grand Duke remembered his wife from those days.
“Your punishment... I will postpone it until you regain the way you looked then.”
He declared a reprieve from her punishment.
But at the same time, he was promising to give her another chance.
The Grand Duke sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed a hand over his face.
“My last duty as Grand Duke... will probably be recorded as a failure... and you will be its chronicler.”
The Grand Duke muttered in a self-deprecating voice.
“Normally, after Karl died, I intended to pass the grand ducal seat to Kairen... and make his first duty the postwar handling of the Slokina Kingdom after it had become a sea of blood.”
A heartless plan to hand his son the sword of revenge while standing on his other son's corpse.
“I failed before it even began. That Kairen... ruined my entire plan by saving his brother.”
The Grand Duke gave a dry chuckle.
But that laughter held a strange relief.
“That Kairen... once he goes to the academy, he'll have much to learn from Karl.”
“......!”
Karla's eyes widened.
The permission he had dreamed of.
Permission for Karl to attend the academy, and to go together with Kairen.
“As early as tomorrow morning. Karl will go to Eisengard. Though the prince is there, given how sudden this is, it will be easier to discuss it with the academy from Eisengard.”
The Grand Duke said this as he covered her with the blanket.
“You may have difficulty getting around now as well... so say your farewells. You won't see him for a while.”
“Your Grace... thank you... sob... thank you....”
Karla grasped her husband's hand and sobbed.
The Grand Duke looked down at his wife, then slowly lowered his head.
This time, he kissed her forehead, still scented with her makeup.
After pulling away, the Grand Duke whispered low beside Karla's ear as she stared blankly up at him.
“And... don't call me Your Grace.”
“......”
“Kain. Call me Kain. I want to hear it from your lips again, Karla.”
Kainharts.
He shed the shell of the ruler of the North and asked her to call him by the pet name she had used when he was only her husband.
“Kain….”
“Tonight... even if the strong smell of your makeup gives me a headache, I suppose I must endure it. I'll stay by your side until dawn.”
The scent of makeup meant to hide the smell of poison and the signs of illness.
Embracing all of it, the Grand Duke gathered his wife into his arms.
Spring flowers had already begun blooming in Eisengard, but in their hearts, the long winter was finally drawing to a close.
* * *
The next morning.
Silence hung over the Northgard Grand Duke's office.
The Grand Duke stood by the window, looking outside with his hands clasped behind his back.
Behind him, Karl sat in a wheelchair, with Count Eisen standing at his side.
After a long while.
The Grand Duke slowly turned around.
“I give my permission.”
The Grand Duke spoke.
“Go to the academy.”
“......!”
Karl's shoulders heaved violently.
The permission he had dreamed of.
But the Grand Duke's words did not end there.
“Go receive treatment... and, just as you told me yesterday, try standing again.”
He had granted not only leave to recuperate, but also accepted his son's challenge to prove the family's pride despite his broken body.
“And... I entrust Kairen to you.”
The Grand Duke's voice softened slightly.
“He has talent, but he is still inexperienced. Keep a rein on him from close by. As his older brother.”
As his older brother.
Words acknowledging him as a dependable older brother who would guide his younger brother, rather than as a disgrace to the family.
Long-suppressed tears fell thick and fast from Karl's eyes, wetting his knees.
And he bowed his head deeply from his wheelchair.
“Thank you... thank you, Father.”
His voice trembled so badly that it barely came out.
“I will... I will become your proud son once more. So I will not bring shame to the name of Northgard....”
“Yes. I expect great things of you.”
The Grand Duke answered briefly and turned his gaze away.
Then his gaze shifted to Count Eisen, standing beside him.
His eyes narrowed.
They held a sharp yet strangely amused glint.
“By the way, Eisen.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Even if you did come with the prince... bringing two large carriages was rather excessive. You certainly overprepared.”
“......”
It was a pointed remark about Eisen's having guessed Karl's condition and the family's circumstances, yet chosen not to report directly to the Grand Duke, instead approaching him indirectly and arranging everything.
‘You knew everything and chose to hide it from me. What a sly old fox.’
If Eisen had reported it immediately, the Grand Duke might have refused Karl's recuperation out of pride alone.
Knowing the Grand Duke's personality better than anyone, Eisen had arranged circumstances he could not refuse.
He had even used the Grand Duchess.
‘That's why I've always trusted you most. Just as Kairen did.’
It was a light jab at Eisen's sly way of handling matters.
Reading the Grand Duke's true feelings, Eisen smiled shamelessly.
“You flatter me. I'm only an old man nearing retirement... with a short reach, so I merely prepared in advance in case something happened.”
“A short reach... even though that reach extended all the way to my bedroom threshold?”
“Ha ha, it was a coincidence.”
The gazes of two old wolves collided in midair.
The Grand Duke gave a dry chuckle and waved his hand.
“Enough. Thanks to you... I've recovered something I nearly lost.”
He muttered quietly while looking out the window.
“I hope that Kairen too... will take after you. Not be a fool who does nothing but swing a sword.”
“I'll do my best.”
Thud.
Eisen pushed Karl's wheelchair out of the office.
“And I hope your son takes after you as well.”
The Grand Duke swallowed his regret over Eisen's approaching retirement in solitude.