What Became of the Tyrant After the Pregnant Empress Left - Chapter 224

“Your Majesty must observe absolute bed rest for now. Given the Empress’s particular vulnerability to stress—”

“Mind your tongue, Viscount Lafaro. I was never this frail before. Either you’ve neglected your duties, or this palace has made me so.”

Ysaris—now every inch the imperial consort of old—cut him off with glacial precision. When he stiffened, unable to rebut, her next command fell like a guillotine.

“Absolute rest, you say? Then inform His Majesty that this is why I’ll continue refusing his visits.”

“But Your Majesty—”

“Does the Emperor know what you’ve been advising me?”

The viscount’s mouth snapped shut. There was only one thing he and Ysaris knew that Kazhan didn’t, the suggestion to terminate her pregnancy.

A clear threat.

“Withdraw before I expose you.”

The Kazhan of old might have dismissed it, but the current Emperor cherished her too dearly. For a man with much to lose, it was an order he couldn’t refuse.

“…Understood. I shall return tomorrow.”

As the viscount bowed and retreated, Ysaris pressed her palm to her forehead, eyes shut. Not from fever or pain, but the throbbing weight of too many thoughts.

The memory of Kazhan’s wounded expression flashed behind her lids. How he’d hesitated, lips parting soundlessly before turning away with a hollow.

“Rest well.”

She’d heard he hadn’t slept for days while tracking her down.

‘…So what? He deserves worse.’

But it was a misunderstanding. The circumstances justified it.

‘That doesn’t erase what he did to me.’

‘What if the Tennilath ability’s side effects left him no choice?’

‘I’m a purifier. Didn’t my powers awaken after the fall?’

…Still. His sins are too great.

‘Yet he left Pyrein because of me.’

‘His decision. Made without consulting me.’

‘Would it have changed anything? You know the answer.’

“Enough.”

She dug her fingers into her temples, the warring voices in her head a tempest. She’d loved Cain. But Kazhan? Unforgivable.

And now this nightmare—Kazhan mimicking Cain’s tenderness while wearing the face of her tormentor. Thinking of him made her rage, ache, suffocate with grief and lingering tenderness.

‘If this wasn’t hell, what was?’

Knock knock.

“Your Majesty, His Highness the Crown Prince is he-.”

“Mama!”

“Mikael?”

She barely let the maid finish before calling him in. The moment the door opened, her son barreled toward the bed, peeking over the edge with eyes like hers—red as pomegranate seeds beneath platinum hair.

“Mama, sick?”

The innocent question from her two-year-old shattered something inside her.

“Sweetheart.”

‘My child. His and mine.’

‘What do I do with you? No—what do I do with myself?’

She lifted him onto the bed and crushed him against her, breathing in his warmth, his reality.

“Mama? Owie?”

“…No, Mama’s fine. See? Sitting up.”

‘I’m okay. I’ve always been okay. I will be okay…’

The lie stuck in her throat.

For her son’s sake, she had to mean it.

Time bled away.

For days, Ysaris kept to her chambers, admitting only Mikael and her maids. She turned Kazhan away daily, even banishing court physicians.

It wasn’t until a week and two days later that she finally stirred from her stupor.

“Your Majesty, the Empress—”

“Move.”

She brushed past the stammering steward and threw open the study doors.

“Ysaris?”

Kazhan shot up from his desk, but she ignored him, voicing the demand that had kept her awake nights. Before she could untangle their twisted threads, there was one loose end to sever.

“Summon Duke Barilio. We have matters to discuss.”