Chapter 91
“My older sister was the late Empress’s maid. On the day when Duke Reiffers and the army of the loyal nobles stormed the Empress’s palace, she was trapped in the tower, and everyone close to the Empress was slaughtered. Of course, my sister was no exception.”
But Nielsen spoke with such calm detachment that his words hardly felt real. At the mention of her father’s name in those dreadful memories, Elia unknowingly pressed her fingertips hard.
“Only his life could be saved. Because it was related to the Empress, even the tiniest ant near her was killed, all at the cost that the Crown Prince survived.”
The bodies were burned, and the ashes scattered across fields. The fierce flames that engulfed the Empress’s palace, the sickening smell of burning flesh, the eerie silence that no one dared break with a cry despite family and friends dying.
It all haunted Nielsen. He still did not know where the soul of his sister had been scattered.
“My sister still visits me in my dreams. Though her death was not my fault.”
Nielsen struggled to maintain his composure, but as the memories sharpened, his breaths grew longer and heavier.
“So I can’t even imagine what the Crown Prince must have felt. Thousands of vengeful souls clinging to his life… that feeling must be unbearable.”
Eventually, Nielsen frowned, overwhelmed. The only survivor from the Empress’s palace was Cyrone, who was just ten years old then.
“But he never shed a single tear. It was as if he felt nothing at all.”
Nielsen’s gaze naturally drifted beyond the window toward Welrod Palace, its towering spires reaching skyward.
“Perhaps from that moment, his body remained, but his soul had already died.”
When Nielsen viewed Welrod Palace from an outsider’s eyes, he felt a strange sensation. What exactly upheld that majestic and radiant castle? A shining golden crown? The dignity of the ruler? The bloodline chosen by God?
None of those. What sustained that castle was an ever-growing graveyard of corpses. It was absurd that the pure white palace shone brighter the more it soaked in red blood.
“That Welrod Palace is the place that made the Emperor a loser and the Empress a madwoman. It’s a hell where anyone would inevitably lose their mind or die. For the lone child left standing there to hold on to sanity, the only way was to kill his own soul.”
With Nielsen’s words Elia turned her gaze toward the window. Beyond the glass stood a world more dazzling yet lonelier than ever. What thoughts had Cyrone harbored standing there as a boy? What future did that young soul see before him?
“It may sound selfish, but I believed that perhaps it was God’s will that His Highness became that way. After all, emotions that make humans truly human are luxuries for those who reign supreme.”
Nielsen sought to free himself from the burden of guilt tied to his sister. The guilt of having survived by living off the money his sister had earned from the Empress’s palace, weighed heavily on him.
So, Nielsen wanted to make the lone surviving Crown Prince the most perfect Emperor the world had ever seen.
“I thought Cyrone Edelward was completely dead as a human. At least, until that moment.”
He felt a wave of revulsion at himself. Could he really be free from the responsibility of having created the monster called Belial?
“But it wasn’t so.”
Recalling that time, Nielsen let out a quiet chuckle.
“One day, His Highness looked back. And even stopped on the road, waiting for quite a while. I was bewildered to see such a sight for the first time, and worried about why he suddenly did that…”
Nielsen’s gaze naturally followed Cyrone’s. At the end of that gaze was the shadow that disappeared behind a tree following the direction of the sunlight, only to reappear.
Those windswept red locks.
“Behind him, you were quietly following.”
A lighter smile crossed Nielsen’s face. It was a rare expression from a fond memory.
“They say the heart is the most instinctive weakness of humanity. So people desperately hide their hearts. To have one’s vulnerable parts seen by another is truly terrifying.”
He quietly observed Elia sitting before him. Over her face appeared the visage of a girl once pure and innocent.
“But Miss’s heart was entirely visible. How could you reveal your heart so openly without fear?”
“I can never go back to those days.”
Elia murmured with a faint smile. A tale of times when she knew nothing of calming the heart, when she was most pure.
Their eyes met, sharing that same moment in time.
“Miss was the only one. The only person who made His Highness feel such emotions.”
Nielsen recalled the very first ordinary boyish face he saw in Cyrone. One who knew, felt, and began to experience the emotions that make a human human.
That realization was almost terrifying to Nielsen.
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