What Became of the Tyrant After the Pregnant Empress Left - Chapter 219

“Kyaaah—”

That day, it rained. What roused Ysaris, who had been bedridden for days after her abduction, unable to gather her senses, was the sound of the rain.

‘Why does my body feel so heavy? How long have I been asleep? I was supposed to meet Cain tonight…’

Ysaris had completely forgotten what had happened between her and Cain that day. Barely able to pull herself together in her disoriented state, she could only manage the simplest thoughts.

A pause.

At Ysaris’ question, the flustered handmaiden lowered her eyes and answered in a trembling voice.

Ysaris twisted the words of her longtime handmaiden. Beneath it all lay the belief that a man as strong as Cain couldn’t possibly die so easily.

But when the handmaiden, on the verge of tears, haltingly added more details, Ysaris felt as if she’d been struck in the head. There was no room for euphemisms—the blunt words declaring Cain’s death buzzed in her ears.

‘This can’t be. Cain can’t be dead.’

Denial quickly turned to anger and disbelief. Snapping at the handmaiden to stop lying, Ysaris stormed out of the room, declaring she’d find Cain herself. The horrified handmaiden desperately pleaded with her, draping a coat over her shoulders as Ysaris demanded the servants tell her where Cain was. Every one of them, with solemn faces, directed her to the same place.

A funeral site for those who had died following the king’s orders. Cain Jenut had already been buried there.

Ysaris felt the world blur around her. And that same sensation crashed over Ysaris Tennilath, who knew the truth of Cain’s survival.

A tidal wave of grief, regret, and guilt—it was nothing short of a disaster.

‘At the very least, I should have heard his last words. I should have seen him. I should have stopped him if it was dangerous.’

‘Why did he have to become my knight? Why did I keep him by my side? Why…’

Ignoring her swimming vision, Ysaris staggered to where Cain’s coffin had been buried. In the pouring rain, she clawed at the earth with her bare hands like a madwoman. The princess, screaming that she had to see his corpse with her own eyes, caused an uproar, leaving many in distress.

When Cain’s body was finally dragged from the earth, it was a horrific sight. His face was mangled beyond recognition, as if crushed by something, leaving only his hair, build, and the bracelet he always wore as the sole remnants of his identity.

Ysaris collapsed over Cain’s mutilated corpse, sobbing uncontrollably. The onlookers whispered at the excessive display of grief—far beyond what one would expect even for a close friend and sworn knight—but she paid them no mind.

Already weakened from days of illness, she wept until she fainted once more, utterly devastated by the loss of the lover she’d sent away without so much as a proper farewell.

……Unaware that it was all a fabricated death, one already revealed to her.

Reliving the past while knowing the truth, Ysaris Tennilath felt her mind reel. The depression that had gripped Ysaris Chernian after Cain’s staged death churned her stomach with nausea.

The shock of losing the one she loved at just twenty-two was far more severe than she’d imagined. No one blamed her, but Ysaris drowned in guilt alone. Waves of suffocating sorrow crashed over her at random, making her sick.

Her conversation with her father—whom she hadn’t seen in years after learning of his deal with Cain—only made it worse.