WPVMVA Chapter 58

“Do it. Please. I… I don’t want to lose the people by my side so pointlessly anymore.”

“Your Highness…”

Daniella looked at him with a surprised expression. This was the same Ashid who had brushed off a penetrating wound in his arm as nothing. For him to show such a pained expression… she felt a human sense of pity, but it was also a little unexpected.

Ashid saw Daniella staring at him with wide eyes and gave a bitter smile.

“Why, is it strange for me to be so weak?”

“…A little bit.”

Daniella answered honestly. The bitter smile on Ashid’s face deepened.

“I’m human too. I know what it’s like to feel the pain and fear of losing someone important, and I also toss and turn in bed on the nights I’ve been injured… I just try not to show it to others.”

“…I know that.”

Daniella recalled the night she’d first met him, when he was clinging to her and calling for his mother. But Ashid shook his head.

“No. You don’t know… how huge of a hell I live in.”

“…”

At his firm words, Daniella fell silent. Ashid looked at her and, as if in a trance, continued.

“As you and everyone else in this Empire well know, my mother died when I was five.”

“…”

“That day, I was hiding in my mother’s bedroom closet, planning a prank to surprise her. She would always widen her eyes when she saw me, even though she actually knew I was hiding there.” Ashid gave a short laugh, seemingly remembering his mother’s expression. “She would then pat her son’s head, put me to bed, and read me a fairytale until I fell asleep. I thought that day would pass just like any other… if my mother hadn’t rushed in and screamed for me to not come out.”

“…!”

At his words, Daniella involuntarily held her breath. Ashid continued in a calm tone.

“My mother blocked the closet with her body as if to protect me. Soon after, two assassins broke in and asked her, ‘Where is your son?'”

“You mean their purpose wasn’t to harm the Empress, but to harm… Your Highness?”

“That’s right. Empress Katrin’s plan was to get rid of me first, and then to ensure my mother could no longer give birth. So the Empress first bribed a servant in my palace to open a secret passage. When I wasn’t there, they came to my mother’s palace.”

“…”

“At that time, my mother was returning to her bedroom after taking a bath alone. Because of the Empress’s orders, the ladies-in-waiting in the Empress’s Palace had either been exiled or reassigned to other palaces, leaving only five. The Empress’s Palace was as quiet as a temple… and my mother, who hadn’t even been trained as a knight, noticed their presence.”

At that moment, Daniella gasped. It was as if she herself had become Empress Yulia, who had discovered the assassins.

“My mother desperately resisted them, and I, like a coward, covered my mouth with my fist to prevent a sound from escaping. I just watched, weeping, as she fought… until they left to look for me elsewhere.”

“Your Highness…”

“I came out of the closet and checked on my fallen mother, but her life was already on the verge of ending. Those bastards had strangled my mother with their filthy hands, and on top of that, they had even poisoned her.”

“…!”

“My mother called out my name one last time, told me to survive… and then she died, spitting up blood.”

Ashid’s hands trembled faintly as he paused. Daniella just stared at him, her mouth slightly agape, looking dazed. She didn’t know what to say or how to comfort him. No words seemed sufficient to console him after he had gone through such a horrendous ordeal. So instead of offering clumsy comfort, she decided to help him continue speaking.

She hoped that by doing so, he could shed some of the resentment, anger, and hatred that had built up in his heart.

Daniella asked in a trembling voice, “What happened after that…? How could they commit such a horrific murder of the Empress and not face any consequences?”

Ashid let out a short, hollow laugh and replied, “It’s all thanks to the great Empress Katrin. She got rid of all the evidence and witnesses.”

“How? Even if you can get rid of and hide everything else, you can’t erase the traces left on the Empress’s body, can you?”

“No. It was possible. The poison the Empress gave her had a ‘magic that cleanly erases all traces left on a corpse.’ It erased the marks of strangulation on her neck and the wounds she received while resisting them.”

“…What?”

“Sir Leopold Olven, my mother’s guardian knight, insisted on the truth to the very end and even found traces of the magic on her body… but the archmage who was bribed by the Empress claimed it was a ‘magic that enchants people.’ He claimed that my mother cast a spell on herself to win back my father’s lost affection.”

“…That’s absurd. Did everyone believe that?”

“They did. When dozens of people consistently give the same testimony, who would dare to doubt it?”

As Daniella asked in disbelief, Ashid answered with self-deprecation. Daniella’s face twisted in pain as she looked at him.

‘How frustrating and hopeless that must have been.’

Dozens of bribed witnesses and fabricated or vanished evidence. The Empress and the nobles on her side who concocted all of it, pretending not to know and smiling. And in front of them stood a five-year-old prince and one knight, along with a few attendants.

She could easily guess which side the Emperor and the other royals and nobles had taken, even without having seen the situation herself. Any truth would become a lie in this situation. You can’t cover the sky with your hand, but you can certainly cover the Emperor’s eyes.

Feeling a strong sense of injustice as if it were her own, Daniella asked Ashid, “So the Emperor believed that story and exiled you to the North?”

“Yes. He even gave an order that I was not to return to the capital until I became an adult.”

“…Was that all? What about other things? He didn’t… visit you, but surely he must have sent letters to ask about your well-being?”

“Not at all. When I was exiled, the North was virtually a deserted land. Conflicts were constant, and people died every other day. Sir Leopold sent letters asking for reinforcements, but they were consistently ignored.”

“…”

“It was only after I formed a knight order with mercenaries and knights who were pushed out of power struggles that the Emperor began to ‘pretend to care for the North.’ The situation in the North stabilized a little after that. It was also during that time that I started accumulating wealth from war reparations.”

At his answer, she asked again in a trembling voice, “How… could he do that? You’re his son.”

“After I was driven out of the Imperial Palace, I was never his son for a single moment. No, I should say it was after Adrian was born.”

“…!”

“He’s not the kind of person to abandon the ‘legitimate successor’ born to the Empress just to protect the son of an Empress with no decent backing.”

Ashid let out another self-deprecating bitter smile. He had once believed that the Emperor considered him a son. But it didn’t take him long to realize that it was his own delusion.

Even when the situation in the North became so desperate that a mere five-year-old child had to learn to use a sword to survive, and even when a nameless traitor leaked the North’s secret passage to the enemy, leading to Sir Leopold’s horrific death, the Emperor pretended not to know. He drew the line, saying, “That’s something the Duke must handle himself.”

This was as good as saying he wouldn’t actively try to kill Ashid, but he wouldn’t try to save him either. In this way, Ashid gradually gave up any last shred of hope. Now, he no longer had a father. There was only the Emperor.

“Ugh.”

Looking at him, Daniella bit her lower lip. She was afraid she would spew out ugly, unfiltered words if she didn’t.

‘How could he do that? A person shouldn’t do that!’

Even as an adult, it would be maddening. It would be something to hit your chest about every day out of injustice and suffer from a mental illness.