Emperor’s Alternate - Chapter 85

I remember my sixth birthday.

Back then, a crowd of noble daughters around my age flocked to the Grand Duchy, each eager to be seen. At the time, my sense of hierarchy was still blurred by youth, so I only thought, “It’s nice that so many people came.” I took it at face value and smiled.

But looking back now, I see it clearly for what it was — a ball designed to parade the prestige of the ducal house.

I can’t recall a single name or face of the young ladies who offered me gifts that day. What remains vivid is the moment my mother held me in her arms and whispered a few parting words.

“When you grow up, Winter, I hope you become the kind of person whose name makes others smile before they even speak.”

“A person who makes others smile?” I asked.

“Yes, I hope you’ll grow into someone who brings happiness to others. And if you become famous enough for your name to be known far and wide… Well, that would be wonderful too. You’re a child full of boundless potential, Winter.”

She beamed as she spoke, her voice light with hope. I laughed with delight, echoed her words in agreement, and threw my arms around her with all the conviction a six-year-old could muster.

“I’m going to become someone amazing when I grow up. Just like you said — a person who makes others smile.”

And now I wonder, all these years later, have I kept that promise? Have I done right by the wish she entrusted to me?

***

I was fifteen years old.

Unlike Lucian, who suffered chronic pain from mana regression, I was rarely ill — strong, for the most part, and quick to recover. But once, I caught a severe flu that left me bedridden for over a week. And each time I opened my eyes, the Courtesan was there.

“Your Majesty… why are you here…?”

“You were unwell. Did you think I could focus on anything else? I canceled all my shopping appointments, my ball invitations — everything. I came straight to you.”

Was it my mother I longed for or the idea of her? That archetype of maternal affection carried in the shape of a woman called “mother”?

The Courtesan nursed me with care. She was, undeniably, my guardian — the one who shielded me from those who sought to harm me. But she was never a good guardian. Just as she had once forced Lucian and the Sixth Prince into a ‘heart imprint’ against their will, her methods were always brutal, her regard for people no more than that of tools to be used and discarded.

She liked to feign cleverness, but her intellect was embarrassingly shallow. And she was enthralled by a delusion — that the world must, at all times, revolve around her. A woman drunk on her own elegance.

The Courtesan’s exploitative nature revealed itself most vividly in how she treated me. My noble lineage, something she could never claim even in death, my aptitude for study, my grasp of magical theory… to her, they were trophies. Not mine to own, but hers to brandish. And yet, without warning, she would unleash her fury on the Sixth Prince, baiting him to take it out on me in turn.

If I displeased her, she could have simply spoken to me. But instead, she inserted herself as a mediator, sowing discord with deliberate care. As a result, the Sixth Prince was trapped in a mire of ambivalence — loathe to love me, yet unable to hate me cleanly.

And when his insults cut too deep, when I withdrew into silence, she would come to me like the angel of the century — consoling, praising, and assuring me that no one else in the world mattered to her as much as I did. A performance, all of it, to earn back favor.

But had she chosen even slightly different actions from the start, none of those humiliations would have been mine to endure.

Some might ask, what kind of adult does that to children? But that was simply the kind of person the Courtesan was.

Even as she watched the Sixth Prince unravel under the slow corrosion of her quiet abuse, she took a certain satisfaction in it, delighting in the fact that her presence would be etched into a royal soul for the rest of his life, even if only as a scar.

I knew the Courtesan’s soul. No matter how beautifully she dressed the shell, I could still smell the rot underneath. And yet, when she nursed me with tender, practiced hands, mimicking the mother I had lost, I found myself impossibly letting down my guard. Some part of me wanted to understand her.

“If you’re in pain, so am I,” she said.

It was warmth the Sixth Prince had never once been given. I watched from my sickbed as she sat him down across from us and lavished me with endless, honeyed words, as if daring him to bear witness. In his eyes, just beneath the surface, rage slowly gathered.

Whatever anyone said, he was her real son. And he was only twelve years old at the time — an age when a child most longs to be seen by their parents, to be loved, to be wanted. I understood his anger.

All her praise, her affection, her sweet indulgences were poured onto me. And all the resentment she stirred found its way to him. He had no choice but to hate me for it. How could he not?

“I suppose I must be off now — so busy, as always. In the meantime, dear Prince, could I trust you to look after our precious Winter?”

“…Yes, Your Majesty.”

The Courtesan offered a smile that felt deliberate, then left the room.

“……”

The Sixth Prince stayed silent, perhaps waiting until her presence had faded entirely. But once we were alone, it was almost inevitable. He grabbed the vial of my flu medicine and hurled it across the room.

“Does mother truly not see it? That pitiful little flu of yours — do you know how much worse the illness I had months ago was? It hurt. It really hurt!”

He shouted, pacing back and forth in a frenzy of grief and rage. Then, catching sight of me lying sick in bed, he let out a laugh tinged with bitterness.

“Serves you right. Did you think I’d nurse you? I’ll smash every last bottle of medicine that comes near you.”

“…Have you ever stopped to think why you treat me like this?”

The flu had left my throat raw, and the words came out ragged and broken. But the Sixth Prince ignored them. Of course he did. Even if I tried to show him the truth about the Courtesan, he wouldn’t believe me. And if he did, the story would twist and coil its way back to her lips, and I was too afraid of what she’d do then.