Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Riena bit down on her lower lip, then stood up with determination.

"Oh, Your Highness! You shouldn't move while we're doing your hair. All right?"

"This isn't important right now!"

She quickly tied up her half-finished hair with her small hands and hurried out of the princess's room.

"Y-Your Highness, where are you going?!"

"To see Father!"

Before anyone around her could stop her, Riena headed straight for the Emperor's office.

The Emperor's eyes and hands stopped in the middle of reading a petition.

He couldn't believe what he'd just heard.

He had asked several times, but Riena's answer remained the same.

"You said you want to go on an inspection?"

"Yes, Father."

"No."

"What?!"

Riena stared at him in disbelief.

You said you were going to make me Crown Princess, but you won't even let me go on an inspection?

"Before the heavy snow starts, I want to personally inspect..."

"I said no!"

His heavy shout echoed through the office.

Riena flinched for a moment, but then she forced herself to meet his gaze.

The Emperor sighed.

"Ask me to buy you the finest handmade dollhouse instead. All right?"

"I don't need something like that. It would be a waste of money...."

The mention of wasting money made the Emperor chuckle.

"I understand how you feel, but outside the Imperial Palace isn't a playground. Do you have any idea how dangerous it is? There are assassins, spies, and all kinds of threats."

"Then you can assign knights you trust to protect me!"

The Emperor was speechless at her bold answer.

He had expected her to either apologize or throw a childish tantrum about wanting to go.

"Father, I never thought of this as going out to play. All right?"

The Emperor let out a low hum and squeezed his eyes shut.

Letting a six-year-old conduct an inspection was certainly a problem.

But Riena wasn't exactly wrong either.

Francio finally opened his eyes with a determined look.

"I'll give you exactly three hours. No matter what happens, you must return within three hours. Understood?"

"Thank you, Father!"

Riena smiled brightly like a child.

The Emperor couldn't help but let out a helpless laugh.

The Cartes Duchy had always been hell.

But after the Harvest Festival, it became even worse.

Duke Cartes looked at the neatly prepared dining table and growled in a low voice.

"Who told you to prepare food for that brat too?"

His furious shout froze Kanter's limbs.

His throat tightened, and his emerald-green eyes widened before dropping to the floor.

"Don't make that face. It makes me want to kill you!"

With another shout, the Duke overturned the entire dining table.

Kanter stared at the scattered dishes and swallowed his tears in fear.

"You're just as lowly as your mother!"

"I-I'm sorry, Father."

The word Father twisted the Duke's expression even further.

His bared teeth and trembling jaw revealed deep murderous intent.

"Shut up. Unless you want to disappear without a trace just like that woman."

Sweat gathered in Kanter's small hands.

His pale chin trembled.

He pressed his shaking hands between his knees, but it did nothing to calm his fear.

Tears gathered in his bloodshot eyes.

He bit his lower lip until blood appeared, but the tears still wouldn't stop.

"Every time I think about the Harvest Festival, I can't even show my face outside anymore.... My face!"

Kanter felt as though he might faint from the shouting.

Still, he gritted his teeth and endured it.

"Nanny, starve that brat. If you don't, I'll kill you myself."

"...Yes, Master."

Bang.

The Duke stepped over the dishes scattered across the floor and left the mansion.

The moment the door slammed shut, the nanny rushed forward and pulled tiny Kanter into her arms.

"O-oh, my poor young master...."

Held in her embrace, Kanter cried silently.

His chest felt so tight that his throat burned as though it were being torn apart.

But he never made a sound.

His body was already covered in wounds.

Yet none of those wounds hurt as much as having his soul ripped apart in that hell.

"Young Master, please eat just a little of this stew. Please?"

"I can't.... What if Nanny gets punished because of me...?"

"I'm fine...! So please, just eat!"

He shook his head.

His eyes had sunk deeply into his pale face, and his full lips were cracked white.

"At this rate, something terrible really will happen...!"

The nanny hugged Kanter and sobbed, but his little mouth stayed firmly closed.

He was afraid she might force the stew into his mouth.

And if his father found out, the nanny might die too.

"Water...."

The nanny jumped to her feet and rushed toward the kitchen.

The Duke hadn't returned home in three days.

For those three days, the servants had been watching the two of them from all around the mansion.

"Isn't that kid going to die like this? Shouldn't we feed him something?"

"Leave him alone. We can just bring in another child who looks like the Master."

"Still... he's the Master's only blood relative."

"What are you talking about? The Master is sterile. Why do you think he never has children no matter how many women he sleeps with?"

"What?! Then the young master isn't really his son?"

"Probably not."

"Tsk. What a waste of a handsome face."

The horrifying words casually passed through the walls and doors and reached Kanter's ears.

We can just bring in another child who looks like the Master.

His paper-thin hands trembled as he covered his ears.

But he couldn't block out the whispers.

Some days, he hated his father.

Some days, he hated the mouths that whispered about him.

Some days, he hated the mother who had left him behind.

But in the end, the person Kanter hated most was himself.

What if they're right...? If they're telling the truth, then where are my real parents?

His half-open eyes slowly closed.

Bang.

The mansion shook faintly.

Kanter opened his eyes.

What was that?

He wanted to call for his nanny, but his lips were so dry they wouldn't move.

Before long, the loud noises grew closer and closer to the attic.

Click.

A pair of half-lidded blue eyes filled with hatred looked down at Kanter.

In the man's right hand, someone was being dragged by the hair.

It was the nanny.

"Y-Young Master... run...!"

Seeing the nanny already covered in injuries made Kanter's sunken eyes tremble violently.

He desperately wanted to grab that brutal hand and save her.

But he couldn't.

"F-Father... N-Nanny...."

Cartes looked down at Kanter lying on the bed and snorted.

"So now you lie down even when your father is in front of you? Nanny, you know what you did wrong, don't you?"

"Y-Young Master did nothing wrong...! It was all my fault! Everything was my fault!"

"Th-that's right. The nanny forced the young master's mouth open and tried to feed him!"

"We all saw it...!"

Kanter's hands and feet shook with hatred.

He wanted to scream that they were lying.

But all he could manage was to weakly stretch out one hand.

"L-li...ars."

No matter how desperately he tried to raise his voice, his throat, mouth, and lips were all too dry.

Almost no sound came out.

At that moment, Kanter found himself wishing he couldn't breathe at all.

Bang.

The door burst open.

A fierce wind tore through the mansion.

Snow blew diagonally through the doorway, strong enough to threaten even the fire in the fireplace.

"Duke Cartes! I came all this way to greet you, so where are you rushing off to?"

A clear voice.

Light footsteps.

Kanter desperately forced himself upright and reached toward his nanny.

His instincts told him that if he lost this chance, he would certainly die.

The servants of the ducal mansion stared in horror as though they had seen something they weren't supposed to see.

"Y-Your Highness the Imperial Princess!"

The moment Kanter's wide eyes landed on Riena, his small body collapsed back onto the bed.

"Y-Your Highness, what brings you all the way here...?"

Cartes quickly released the nanny's hair and lowered his head.

But there was no hiding the strong smell of alcohol coming from him.

Riena's golden eyes quickly swept across the attic.

He said he almost died and came back to life. So it really happened.

Her brows furrowed at the horrific sight.

Kanter had told her that on a freezing winter day, his nanny had been beaten to death by the Duke, while he himself had barely survived.

Even if Riena hated Kanter, that hatred belonged to the Kanter from her previous life.

The little boy in front of her had done nothing wrong.

No.

Maybe he had become a monster precisely because he had grown up enduring things like this.

You were never properly loved, nor were you ever given a chance to love someone properly, were you, Kanter...?

Her heart twisted with pain.

Then her golden eyes turned sharply toward the Duke.

First, I'll deal with this bastard.

"I came here because I thought I might ask the Duke for some help. But it looks like you're the one who needs help from me."

Perhaps it was partly because he was drunk.

But Duke Cartes couldn't hide his confusion.

"W-well, that is...!"

"Ugh. Could you move away? You smell like Father does when he drinks!"

The cheeks of the knights standing nearby twitched.

What a perfectly six-year-old way to say that he smelled of alcohol.

But then Riena's sharp gaze fell on them.

"What are you doing? Go get that sick child."

The knights hesitated.

He was the Duke's son, after all.

They weren't sure they had the right to touch him without permission.

"Did you not hear me? I said bring the patient over here."

"Yes, Your Highness!"

An attendant who had accompanied Riena from the Imperial Palace wrapped Kanter's body in a soft blanket.

"And do the servants of this mansion not work at all? How incompetent can you be? The young master you serve is dying, and none of you even noticed?"

Her thorn-covered words made the servants' faces burn.

So even monsters who nearly killed a child are capable of feeling shame and guilt?

Riena's cold gaze stung wherever it landed.

"......"

Duke Cartes's expression turned as dark as night.

Of course it did.

Even if he had a hundred mouths, there was nothing he could say.

The Imperial Princess herself had caught him abusing his child.

What excuse could he possibly make?

Riena looked at Cartes with a mocking smile.

"I saved your one and only precious son, Duke. So you'll have to repay the debt."

Her golden eyes sharpened.

"And I fully intend to collect."

The threat coming from the young Imperial Princess was cold and razor-sharp.