Chapter 57

“My deepest apologies, Your Majesty, but as you know I have become alone after sending off the Duke, and I fear that if I bring someone into the house, others may misunderstand…”

“Stop spouting nonsense. If you don’t like it, just say you don’t like it.”

“…..”

Yes, I don’t like it.

Honestly.

When I looked up at him plaintively,

Rashid’s red eyes narrowed menacingly. When I’d first seen him do that, my

heart had practically frozen, but maybe I’d become more used to it—I found it a bit more bearable now.

“N-next time, someday. But today….”

“…..Enough, just keep your promise.”

Just like his footsteps pivoting away from the house, his voice turned cold once more. Had the honeyed voice I’d heard back in the water been only a dream?

My baby, did you hear it then?

I squeezed Haniel into my arms and tried whispering into her tiny ears, but there was no way she was going to answer.

I really must have heard wrong.

As I swallowed down the words that nobody would believe and turned back, something came into my eyes.

“……”

The footprint of that man, where water,

and not blood, was pooling in.

***

“Your Majesty! Are you alright!

Viscount Dion was appalled as soon as he saw Rashid, completely wet, as he came back to the royal villa. He hurriedly thrust his fingers towards the villa’s servants, standing in two rows.

“What are you doing just standing there! Hurry, go heat up the bathwater and prepare some food! No, go light a fire in the fireplace first. And get some warmly heated brandy….”

“….how noisy.”

When Rashid raised one hand and appeared to find everything tiresome, their movements stopped as one.

Step, step—every time he took a step, drops of water fell onto the ground.

At the news that the Emperor had come, Peyton and Tenon ran out to greet him.

“Your Majesty! What happened!”

“How could this be!”

“….there is no need to fuss.”

“What do you mean, fussing? This is a given!”

“….”

A given, huh.

Rashid slowly scrutinized all the people that surrounded him.

To be showered with excessive interest in the mere act of coming and going, it was truly a given if he thought about it.

Though that didn’t seem the case with someone he knew.

“…..”

“What in the world happened, Your Majesty? Did you perhaps fall into water? If by any chance you were attacked—”

“Impossible. Why would elder brother fall into water? If someone pushed, maybe, but no…”

“Move.”

He mercilessly pushed aside his younger brothers, who apparently couldn’t even consider that he’d gone in to save someone. Well, it was something even he wouldn’t believe himself.

‘…..’

No, in fact, even now he still couldn’t explain why he’d done so.

He remembered up to when he’d been laughing at the woman who kicked up a fuss over a mere baby bird drowning in the water very clearly. But after that, even he found everything to be hazy.

‘Are you crazy!’

When he’d come back to his senses, water had already come up to his knees, and in the next moment, his arms were wrapped around the woman’s waist.

And among his dim and confusing memory, only the feeling of how she had struggled in his arms remained intact.

“Your Majesty, do you have a fever? Your face…”

“….shut up.”

Rashid shoved Tenon, who had been staring fixedly at his forehead, away. To Tenon, this was nothing out of the ordinary, but today for some reason, he stared at his brother after he was shoved.

‘It’s still a life. It has eyes and ears, so you should be careful….’ (quote from Chapter 41! Once that’s uploaded, will need to change)

“Your Majesty, if may I ask why you are looking at my ears.”

“…..never mind.”

You were also a life.

Rashid made an expression as if to say he had realized something useless, then began to take off his wet shirt.

Instead of being hurt, his younger brother standing there so serenely and yet so blankly made him smile bitterly.

But the real problem was that his actions, which he’d had no problem doing up until now, was rubbing him in the wrong way now, as if he was being restrained by someone.

“….seriously, how much more will this witch…”

“Your Majesty?”

“Just take this.”