Chapter 81

“Dad?”

Luci smiled and spread his arms, finding it strange that he didn’t come closer and hug him as usual.

Seeing him behaving like that, he was the child he knew, but his face was changing little by little, like ripples in a mirage.

The pretty round forehead and nicely curved eyes like Kathleen’s. Even the lips that always drew arcs have changed subtly.

His lips changed and became sharper with his chin becoming a little slimmer. His soft, warm impression had instantly become cold. The color of his shining eyes remained the same, but the shape had also changed. His nose, which was exactly like Kathleen’s, also disappeared.

Alexis stared blankly at the child’s face and walked away. Then he tripped over his feet and stumbled. He wanted to deny it. This child was Luciano. He was Kathleen’s son. But why…….

The child’s face, seen up close, did not change again. Perhaps he was mistaken so he knelt down on one knee in front of the child, lowered his body, rubbed his eyes several times, and looked again. However, the face of the child touching his face with his cute little hand was real.

His heart, which he thought had become stable, started beating loudly. His whole body heated up as if the blood had started flowing backwards.

“Dad!”

Luci whined, stretched out his arms and grabbed Alexis’ neck. He gasped and collapsed on the spot. As a result, what the child was holding in his hand was lost, and something fell on the floor and cracked.

“Master, are you all right……. Ah!”

“Y-Young Master…….”

“W-What is this!”

Behind him, terrified exclamations could be heard from the servants. If so, then he was not mistaken.

Alexis stuttered, carried the child who was holding onto his neck and looked closely.

“Dad, what is it?”

The voice of the child who asked with innocent eyes was certainly Luci’s whom he had adopted as his son. And yet he wasn’t. The face of the child which he observed closely was not Luci.

The child’s face resembled his own, not Kathleen’s.

“It can’t be…….”

Fear swept through his whole body making it difficult for him to breathe. Tears flowed down in an instant.

“Why are you crying?”

Luci, who didn’t know what to say, touched Alexis’ eyes with his small hand. Tears welled up even more at the clumsy action. His body began to tremble as if he had been struck by lightning.

“Heuk, heuk.”

The air rushing into his lungs became hot. He could feel burning as he breathed in and out.

Something’s wrong…….

That was the only thing he could think of. Right this instant, he had to call the Temple or an alchemist and turn the child’s face back properly.

Alexis held the child in one hand and tried to prop himself up by using the other on the floor. Then, as he felt his palms being cut, he looked down and saw the shattered mirror.

Red blood dripped down onto a mirror shard, and as he looked down at the reflection of him and the child…

They looked the same. Anyone who saw it would call them father and son.

‘Impossible.’

Kathleen had said that Luci was Joseph’s son. Then the child shouldn’t look like this.

The child was clearly looking in the mirror until he called him. Someone must have used magic as a medium. Surely they were trying to frame Kathleen or Luci and harm them.

As he was about to shout to immediately bring the person who gave the mirror to the child, Peter ran in amidst the servants.

“Brother, I have something to tell you…….!”

His half-brother was silent for a while after seeing the child’s face. Then he looked at the broken mirror.

“I need your help.”

Alexis, who could barely breathe, spoke to Peter.

“Someone used magic. They hid in the residence and dared to make my heir like this. Call the Temple in the name of the emperor.”

“There is no need to.”

Peter strode over with a hardened face and took the child from his arms and hugged him. Luci cried at the strange face of his father, who had changed from usual, and then immediately fell into Peter’s arms as if he had met his savior.

“No such magic was used.”

“Can’t you see! The child’s face is not normal. He definitely looked like Kathleen, but now…….”

“He looks like brother.”

He cut off his words and beckoned for Emily. As she staggered over and took the child, Peter said.

“This child’s face originally looked like this. Using divine powers, it was changed for a while.”

“What does that mean?”

“Luci is brother’s son.”

At Peter’s words, Emily muttered involuntarily.

“But she said he wasn’t…….”

When Alexis and Peter looked at her at the same time, Emily bowed her head in surprise.

“M-My apologies, Your Majesty. But the Grand Duchess said that the young master was not the master’s child. I just thought it was like that…….”

“She wanted everyone in Walten to think that.”

Peter looked down at Alexis again and said calmly.

“She especially wanted Alexis Walten to believe so. That was why she asked Joseph to change his face.”

Undeniable pain could be seen in his eyes alternating between Peter and the child. He wanted to deny reality.

But he had no choice. The child looked so much like him, and Kathleen seemed to think of him as nothing, as she would have already revealed it if she really had his child.

“But the timing is not right.”

The question raised with trembling lips was simple. Alexis said desperately.

“This child is only two years old. He’s the child she gave birth to after she ran away from me. If he is my child, he must be five. But how…….”

“What if the pregnancy was longer than you thought?”

“…… What?”

Peter lowered himself to his speechless half-brother and told him the secret.

“Kathleen bore the child for three years. It was because of her northern winter fairy blood.”

“…….”

“The first time she ran away from brother, Kathleen was already pregnant.”

“Tell me more.”

Alexis took a deep breath and grabbed his arm. Peter continued.

“Joseph was the priest who diagnosed her pregnancy, and instead of my brother, I asked Delafos to bring him here as his guardian.”

Peter told him how frightened yet delighted Kathleen was when she found out she was pregnant. That in return for revealing her abilities in the Carmine mountains, she tried to get the child accepted as his son. The time when he cold-heartedly pushed her away, and even when Peter simply had no choice but to help her escape because she had been contemplating death.

He revealed Kathleen’s love for Alexis Walten all this time.

The strength in his hand clenching his collar was released. Alexis Walten sat helplessly, lost in thought.

His golden eyes, which had lost their focus, seemed to dig into memories of the distant past. It didn’t reach the son in the arms of the handmaiden at all.

He had expected it, but felt sad.

‘It couldn’t be helped.’

Alexis Walten was a man who couldn’t love himself because of the scorpion venom. As his family, who respected and loved him, Peter knew that his half-brother lived a life wherein he wished he had not been born.

Therefore, it would not be easy to accept a child who looked exactly like him. Especially since it was the last rope that allowed him to see his dead wife.

“If it’s difficult, I will take Luci to the Imperial Palace for the time being. I will send him back if you send me a message after you have calmed down…….”

“Uwaa!”

Luci, who had been quiet in Emily’s arms, suddenly started crying. It was also not his normal cry and he struggled until his voice cracked. It was something he had never seen before, except when he was a newborn.

“Young Master, what’s wrong? Why are you suddenly like this…….”

Emily panicked and looked all over him to see if he was hurt. But the child wailed stubbornly until his face turned red.

In an instant, the clouded golden eyes caught sight of the child. Alexis stood up and reached out to Emily.

“Give it.”

“Pardon?”

“My son, I asked you to give him to me.”

Emily stared at Peter. She was at a loss as she saw her master’s hands stained with blood. Peter glanced at his brother, who seemed to have come to his senses, took out his handkerchief, wrapped it around his hand, and nodded his head.

Luci stopped crying only after he was held in his father’s arms. As soon as he hugged him, his small arms grabbed his neck tightly and hiccups ensued as he held back his tears.

Alexis took the child in one arm and silently patted his back.

‘…… Will you be fine?’

Peter looked at him with anxious eyes. Fortunately, it didn’t seem like he would throw the child away or be cold to him as he had worried.

“Peter.”

Breaking the silence, Alexis asked in a muffled voice.

“Did this child really inherit my blood?”

“…… Yes.”

“The child of Kathleen and me?”

“That’s right.”

“…… That’s why she left.”

Alexis clenched his fist, not noticing more blood seeping out of the wrapped handkerchief.

“I thought she wouldn’t be able to leave him because he wasn’t my child…… I believed so. But that wasn’t the case from the very beginning. Because he is my child, Kathleen let go of my hand so easily.”

“Brother…….”

It hurt as if the piece of truth he had realized too late stabbed his chest. He still couldn’t let it go. The last traces his wife had left behind. The proof that she loved him.

“My child will not be sent anywhere.”

It doesn’t matter who his face resembled. It doesn’t change the fact that he was the child she gave birth to. The little life in his arms that regarded him as his father was still salvation for him.

As if stamping on himself, he declared.

“Luciano Walten is my son.”

Kathleen denied and hid it but he had no intention of doing the same. The bloodline she left behind was his. He will let everyone know and will allow no one to touch.

The child in his arms was as warm as when he held her in the past. His hatred of himself as he thought of her up to this moment was driven to his bones.

Still, he couldn’t let the child go.

Alexis held the child in his arms tightly as if he would disappear from his sight.

***