“…”

“Answer me. Answer! Do people here know about your abilities?”

Her uncle was in a frenzy, eyes rolling back in his head.

Yuan glared at him without responding and eventually shoved him away harshly.

“Am I crazy? Why would I expose myself to suffer? How have I lived in Peliesse?”

Her uncle, who had almost raised his hand, stiffened as if he almost fell off a cliff and then exhaled a sigh of relief.

“Thank God…” Suddenly praying, he quickly scanned the disordered surroundings due to the injured Clad and lowered his voice.

“Don’t just reveal your abilities to be used. Fulfill your duties for your family, you foolish girl!”

Her uncle’s mood flipped like the flip of a hand, and he spoke as if giving a kindly adult’s reprimand.

“Don’t worry. Don’t contact or come here again.”

Her uncle, seemingly not hearing Yuan’s words, flicked her pale cheek with his finger.

“I’ll leave for today. When you come back home, I’ll listen to whatever you want.”

As Yuan wiped her cheek with a disgusted face, her uncle smiled kindly, like when he first came to the Peliesse mansion 10 years ago. His triple-chinned face shook.

“Your aunt and cousins treated you harshly, right?”

Her uncle finally headed towards his carriage, bidding her farewell, only after the uninvited guests from the palace had almost all left through the iron gates.

“When you come back, I’ll make sure it never happens again.”

“Count Garrett Peliesse seems to have firmly instructed his niece. We might need to probe what he’s up to,” Duke Compani said, closing the carriage window with a noise, his expression displeased.

“I’m not sure if we should believe what that slippery trader says.”

“There’s no need to believe him, is there?”

Bolonico, while sprinkling food in a small golden bowl for his favorite parrot, Lorenzo, said.

As Lorenzo opened his mouth to speak, Bolonico gently stroked his colorful feathers reassuringly.

“No need to try hard to throw away trash. Sometimes, you have to carry it along.”

“What?”

“Bolonico, it’s curious.”

Prince Bolonico, with his arms crossed, continued looking out the window.

“This party was fruitful, Duke Compani.”

“Weren’t you interested in how the Emperor would treat the Peliesse people? Now, we’re returning to the palace earlier than planned without much observation.”

“It’s not just about today. I saw something interesting.”

Bolonico chuckled, recalling how his cousin, known as the treasure of Euphris, transformed into a crow in an instant, writhing in pain.

It was a rare and fascinating sight.

Meanwhile, Duke Compani, looking at Bolonico’s doll-like face, immediately recalled the horrific accident at the hunting ground that morning.

It was gruesome.

Three beast-hunting arrows.

The impact could have killed even a well-trained strong man.

Whether it was deliberate or not, the deposed prince was spared from death but left to wail in agony.

It was too cruel a treatment for someone who already lived in daily pain.

Duke Compani, tucking away his uneasy feelings, listened attentively to Bolonico.

“And, for some reason, the Emperor showed interest in that Peliesse woman. Right?”

“Yes, well… it’s not really unusual.”

Emperor Igor’s reputation for not discriminating against any woman, whether a minister’s wife or a commoner, if she wore a skirt, was well-known.

It had upset the Empress countless times.

Even the Emperor’s coveting his niece’s wife was, though disappointing, not surprising.
In the cold winter forest, every time he galloped on his horse, such whispers relentlessly shook Clad.

Clad, engulfed in shame from the night and self-loathing since dawn, gritted his teeth. He belatedly realized that his body, compared to the dreadful night and the muddled memories, felt surprisingly light. It was clear he had consumed Yuan Peliesse’s medicine and then desired her.

After riding for a while, Clad faced his uncle’s cruel smile, pointing a grotesquely twisted beast-hunting arrow at him. The reason for such an action didn’t come to mind. Only the previous night, the moment he grabbed his uncle’s shoulder as he tried to take advantage of his wife, flashed through his mind – his uncle’s eyebrows twisting in that instant.

Clad stood still amidst the vicious sound of the arrow cutting through the wind, someone’s voice shouting “Your Highness! Your Highness! Not that way!” and the surrounding chaos. It was an arrow he neither could, wanted to, nor intended to avoid.

“The Emperor is insane!” exclaimed Countess Priscilla Peliesse, her shrill scream filling a corner of the dark mansion’s garden.

Priscilla, having seen the brought-in animals and the appalling state of the deposed prince, hid trembling behind Frederick. Seeing Clad’s mask-less face and his torn body, she couldn’t help but scream.

“How could he do this?”

“Quiet, Priscilla.”

“Honey! Why didn’t you stop him when you went that far? If you went hunting, you should have hunted beasts, why, why!”

“You think I didn’t try to stop it?!”