Chapter 32

Touching her hair, groping her shoulders, and then stroking her collarbone, Kathia was ready to vomit instead of screaming.

Then the Prince tore off the ribbon of Kathia’s nightgown.

The last time that damned god was about to throw her off a cliff was that time.

[End of CW scene]

“AAAACK!!!”

A shriek rang out.

Entangled in a mess, whether it was Kathia’s, the Prince’s, or someone else’s who came late, she couldn’t tell for the life of her.

It’s just that— sigh — Everything turned red.

The noise of red, bloody violence. Red-hot fire iron. Red blood.

Blood.

A stream of blood.

A puddle of blood.

The fire iron used to peacefully feed the fire was suddenly used to crush open the Prince’s head, held by someone.

Someone. Someone delicate.

The only person who would save Kathia acted like they were insane, swinging the fire iron while shouting.

“Get away from my daughter! Get away!!”

A screeching scream. Brutal violence. A writhed face like an angered yakshini.

[T/N: A yakshini, the female counterpart to a yaksha, is a benevolent nature spirit, but may occasionally act unpredictably, i.e. due to an emotional response.]

Not even thinking of wiping off the splattered blood on her cheeks, she gawked at Hannah, it was her first time seeing her like that.

Am I crazy if I thought Mom looked surprisingly captivating like that?

“What’s going on!?”

“AAACK! Blood!”

Amid the uproar, Madam Murphy and the maids began to rush in. In the meantime, the dumbfounded women grabbed and held down Hannah’s flailing arms and legs.

Even if Hannah was restrained by a few maids, she did not calm her violence towards the Prince. She was more petite than an average woman, so where did all that strength come from?

The prince was twitching like a bug and soon plopped dead. That’s when Hannah finally dropped the fire iron.

Clang! The sound of the metal hitting the floor rang in the room. All the women looked down at the man who was turning cold.

He died.

The Crown Prince died. Hannah beat him to death.

“T-T I-Imperial Crown Prince…!”

The news traveled from the maids to the palace guards, then from the palace guards to the main palace.

Until the palace guards with torches soon arrived at the scene, the witnesses to the murder scene did not dare move about.

The palace doctor who ran alongside the palace guards didn’t dare put his hand on the Prince and shook his head. There was no possibility of survival; he had clearly already turned into a lump of meat.

The palace guards carefully picked up the busted-open, shredded-apart, crushed-in prince’s body. Then the guards immediately searched for the suspect, although it wasn’t hard at all to guess.

Out of the women, only two were stained with blood and one of them confessed frankly.

“I did it. Where do I need to go?”

The Third Consort who received boundless love from the emperor confessed without any resistance.

The face thought of as the most beautiful in the empire was still dripping with warm blood.

Her gleaming red hair looked as if acid was melting it.

Ignoring her overwhelmingly sullied aura, the guards gulped and arrested her.

“M-Mom…”

As Hannah was taken away, Kathia finally blinked and then swung about her arms lifelessly; not once did she blink throughout the entire encounter. She often screamed in silence.

Madam Murphy was the one who stopped Kathia’s young wild animal-like rage. She held onto Kathia tightly before shouting to the other maids.

“What are you doing, not even hurrying to get the bathwater ready!?”

After scolding the maids, Madam Murphy rushed the trembling Kathia into the bath.

Seating her down carefully by the fireplace filled with logs, Kathia showed no reaction.

It was still rowdy outside, filled with imperial palace guards. Even if they arrested the culprit, they couldn’t just leave the place where the Crown Prince was murdered.

Perhaps, if time were to pass, all of them would want to examine this place and Kathia wouldn’t be an exception.

In such a disorganised situation, they were being considerate to the princess for the time being, but as soon as they were to say a word to the guards…

Clenching her teeth, Madam Murphy grabbed tightly onto Kathia’s arm.

“Princess, Your Highness. You must come back to your senses.”

“…”