The Sand Bride - Chapter 78

Karzhen glared at Hakan for a while, then smiled a cunning smile that made observers feel suspicious, and roughly pulled away the hand that had gripped his neck. And he turned away, but this time Hakan grabbed him. He gritted his teeth and looked at Karzhen. His eyes were desperate.

“Don’t go.”

Karzhen let out a hollow laugh.

“Why are you so troublesome today? I’m not forgiving everything you’ve done, so shut up and wait your turn.”

Even with the momentum to break his neck at any moment, Hakan did not yield and fiercely bared his teeth.

“What will you do if you chase her? Will you beg her?”

“What?”

“Will you tell her you regret it and beg for forgiveness? Or will you tell her you love her, and grovel at her feet and plead, I asked.”

Having said that, Hakan sneered.

“You don’t want forgiveness anyway, brother. You just want that woman. You probably don’t even know what’s wrong.”

Karzhen’s face was greatly contorted, but he offered no suitable reply. Because Hakan’s words were correct.

If Karzhen truly felt guilt for his actions and intended to repent, if he knew what his wrong was, he should have let Esther go instead of chasing and capturing her. He should have allowed her to leave, simply wishing for her happiness even without him.

But Karzhen could not tolerate it. He wanted to see Esther smile, but it had to be by his side, smiling because of him.

The thought of her smiling at someone else or thinking of someone else made him so furious he couldn’t bear it, and he felt a deep jealousy even towards non-existent targets. It was the same with Bianca.

Karzhen knew well that Esther had not run away because she fell for Bianca’s trickery, as others claimed. She must have chosen to take Bianca’s hand and escape on her own. Thus, Karzhen harbored a deeper jealousy towards Bianca than anger.

He was that kind of person by nature. Insensitive to others’ pain, yet sensitive to his own. It was habitual for him to extort and natural for him to subjugate.

How, in the first place, was he recognized as the King’s child and became the royal family’s eldest son? Karzhen was one who would not hesitate to be covered in the same blood as himself if he desired.

“You are my sons.”

Karzhen’s mother was Sayar, and his father was a man who, before becoming Sayar’s consort through his outstanding abilities, had held a fairly high official position but was of common birth.

He, who had caught Sayar’s eye and had two sons with her, most feared that his children would not be recognized as the King’s children. Yet, he was so ambitious that within him, a complex of commoner inferiority and pride at having risen to such a high position solely through his own abilities was intertwined, with an arrogance like a glass sword always embedded within him.

“My sons must be recognized as the King’s children.”

The man, looking down at his brothers with an impassive face, continued in an understated tone.

“At least one of them, that is.”

The man harshly pushed Karzhen and his younger brother. He subjected them to rigorous and systematic training and studies, and raised them to pursue only the strength required by Gharyam. Under this, Karzhen grew splendidly, even making the man proud.

The young Karzhen would challenge and defeat worthy strong opponents, placing them beneath him, and treated the weak, those not worth confronting, like lowly livestock. And he always won.

Surely a proud son to be recognized as the King’s child. The man regarded Karzhen, who was growing into his ideal, with utmost pride. This child, now, when there are no children yet recognized as the King’s, would surely be the first to be acknowledged as the King’s child and rightfully become the eldest son.

But then there was another son. Karzhen’s brother festered in his shadow. The brother, who inherited his father’s twisted inferiority complex, envied his outstanding older brother.

That temper, like a bomb waiting to explode, finally erupted when Karzhen was fifteen. In the year he was to prove his qualifications to his mother, be recognized, and formally acknowledged as the King’s child, Karzhen faced the blade of his brother, who had been coiled like a hibernating viper.

“If I defeat you and take your head, I can become the King’s child.”

In a sword training session like any other, Karzhen’s younger brother bared his teeth, wielding a sharp blade. It wasn’t a blunt blade like the sword Karzhen held; it had the keenness of a real sword, freshly sharpened. A silver-line-like blade licked Karzhen’s shoulder. Even though he quickly dodged, blood seeped like a thread from the shallow wound.

“You’d be recognized by my head, would you?”

Karzhen, realizing this was no mere sibling sparring, growled as he adjusted his own sword.

“Then I have no choice but to be recognized by your head.”

Unlike its ambitious start, it wasn’t long before the younger brother’s sharp blade rebounded off Karzhen’s damaged sword. Suddenly disarmed, the younger brother stared blankly at Karzhen, who had been trying to kill him just moments before.

“B-brother! I was wrong! I, I just, F-father…….”

As the shimmering reflection of the blade painfully pierced his eyes, and the fear of death clutched his throat, his younger brother began to plead. Karzhen, looking at his younger brother crying hideously, begging for his life with scornful eyes, brought his sword down without hesitation.

Since the blade was blunt, it took a long time to sever, but he patiently tore off his brother’s head. To him, his disfigured brother’s head was no different from a dragonfly’s. Because he had not been raised to understand the weak.

“M-My son!”