Chapter 28. The Horse-Headed Count’s Family

2023.10.28.

Yuan followed them in a daze, only snapping out of it when their elongated shadows had nearly vanished beneath her feet.

She saw the Emperor ascending the stairs to the second floor, following Clade Euphris.

And from somewhere, the First Prince Bollonico passed by Yuan, tailing them like a shadow.

A single parrot brought by Bollonico, along with dozens of foreign servants, trailed behind in a line like ducklings obediently following their mother, entering Clade Euphris’s private domain.

The excited atmosphere, the hushed whispers—everyone was brimming with anticipation, like spectators entering a circus.

Yuan stood alone on the landing, covering her face with both hands.

Tears, endless and helpless, seeped through the gaps between her fingers—tears she didn’t even realize she still had left to shed.

She wept without even knowing she was crying.

Then, a man’s anguished cry gripped and shook her, distant as if from far away, or perhaps echoing from within her own mind.

She clamped both hands over her ears, unable to block the flood of sobs, and silently screamed in that very spot.

Just as she had done for the past ten years, locking herself in a room in the Pelliese mansion and screaming into the void.

Just as she had desperately hidden her writhing pain from others, no matter how much it hurt.

Perhaps Clade Euphris had locked himself in that bedroom all this time, refusing to come out, merely to preserve the last shred of his dignity.

“Stop, please… just stop…”

The mere thought of becoming someone’s spectacle made Yuan feel so ashamed she wished she could die.

Clade, who had never shown even half of his grotesque disfigurement to anyone, who wouldn’t step one foot outside his room, was now in that place.

Standing before the Emperor and countless others, reduced to a clown.

Regardless of intent.

All because he hadn’t turned his back on her that night.

On that night.

For the first time in several days, the tortured screams of Crown Prince Clade Euphris echoed through the second floor.

But alongside them was a new, unfamiliar sound.

The snickering voices of the audience.

Even the eerie cry of a parrot repeating over and over, “Look at that. Look at that. Goodness. Goodness.”

***

The audience on the second floor didn’t return to their rooms until dawn.

The bedroom, filled with the darkness just before sunrise.

Yuan saw a long, crumpled silhouette lying on the floor like a discarded rag.

Entering with swollen, bloodshot eyes, she noticed Clade flinch at her presence and quickly reassured him.

“It’s me, it’s me.”

Clade lifted his head abruptly, still lying facedown, his body tense.

The man with only half a face staggered to his feet unsteadily.

Clade strode forward and seized her shoulders.

Dragging her with him, he pinned her against the wall, grinding his teeth together as if trying to suppress the aftershocks.

“I told you not to wander around alone.”

“Treatment… treatment—”

“What are you still doing here, loitering like this? Huh?”

This was the first time Yuan had seen Clade genuinely angry.

Such intense emotion had never surfaced even when unwanted guests intruded, or when he endured unwanted nights.

Yuan nodded, wiping away tears that streamed down regardless of her will.

A tear clinging to her chin trembled. But Clade wasn’t satisfied—his scolding continued.

“I told you not to go around alone. Not on your own. Not wandering around recklessly. Not without permission. Not alone. I told you not to wander around like that. Me.”

He was clearly referring to everything—including last night.

Remembering the unceasing cries of pain she had heard all night despite covering her ears, Yuan nodded soothingly.

“I’m sorry. I was wrong. I thought it would be fine here, since it’s home.”

“Home?”

Clade stretched his bloodied lips into a smile, his shoulders twitching a few times. It was a hollow laugh.

Yuan held her breath, terrified that the words “This isn’t your home—get out” might spill from his mouth at any moment.

His eyes, brimming with an emotion she couldn’t define—contempt? disgust? or perhaps… anxiety?—seemed ready to shatter her face with their gaze.

What could she possibly say to make him stop looking at her like that?

Instead of offering an answer that might anger him further, Yuan reached out with trembling arms.

She stretched out slender fingers, tracing his torn and soiled uniform, and finally pulled him into a careful embrace.

She pressed herself against his body, rigid and unyielding as if refusing to be drawn in.

Her tear-soaked cheek touched the hardened chest skin of Clade—whom others claimed was rotten and decayed.

Yuan held him tightly and whispered.

“I was wrong. I wasn’t careful enough. I didn’t know the Emperor would go that far… I didn’t know he was that kind of person. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Like a child throwing a tantrum, Yuan repeated the same words over and over, begging. And at the same time, she absorbed his pain.

The agony of being tossed around before a tyrant all night long poured into her like rain.

This time, she truly believed she deserved punishment—and so, unlike before, she absorbed a vast amount of his suffering, not just a little.

“Please don’t abandon me.”

Don’t cast me out of this house. I was wrong, so I’ll take my punishment…

As she kept sobbing and pleading, she despised herself for resorting to such words—trying to escape the hell called Pelliese.

But this was the only way she knew to overcome her guilt: to let him rest in peace, even if just for a little while.

Gradually, the beast’s body, which had only drawn ragged breaths without reply, began to relax.

Only after laying him down did Yuan finally scream and sob for a long time.

Just as he had done throughout the entire night.

***

The night Yuan screamed in despair.

Regina secretly stepped out into the garden of the black mansion, carefully opening a letter that had arrived the previous evening.

[The Treloni Count’s family will arrive late to the party and is expected to join from the second day onward. Thinking of you anxiously searching for me, my heart aches. If you find yourself unable to sleep, would you wait for me in the garden of the mansion?]

Regina smoothed the elegant fabric of her carefully chosen outfit and sneered at the mansion, where not even a single servant was properly patrolling.

“Yuan Pelliese. While you’re suffering in that monster Crown Prince’s bedroom, I’m afraid I’m about to begin my own love affair.”

Rustle.

Footsteps approached, roughly parting the snow-covered shrubs.

Regina tightly gripped her pounding heart and spread across her face the most enchanting smile she could muster under the moonlight.

“…Miss Pelliese?”

A man’s voice, thick with flustered emotion.

Within it, just as she had expected, was not the devoted, pure-hearted affection for Yuan Pelliese, but the typical male awe upon seeing a beautiful woman—someone who had stopped breathing at the sight of her.

“I’ve been waiting, Lord Dreykub Treloni…”

But as the man fully emerged into view, Regina’s lips, which had just formed an alluring curve, stiffened.

“I sent the proposal letter to… that is… you’re… no, no, that’s not what I meant—”

The clumsy man, dazzled by the beauty before him, just as Regina had planned, erased the image of the woman he had in mind and fell for her instead.

But the problem was—

“If this is fate, I’ll accept it. I’ve fallen in love right now.”

The man who stepped forward toward Regina with flushed cheeks was, in fact, an extraordinarily ugly man—far worse than she had imagined.

***

The next morning.

Regina gritted her teeth as she saw Yuan sitting at the breakfast table, looking pale and exhausted.

“This isn’t what I imagined at all!”

Looking at the members of the Treloni Count’s family lining up to greet the Emperor, it was clear that the men of that household all looked strikingly similar, as if stamped from the same mold.

“They’re the horse-headed Treloni family.”

Sophia slipped quietly beside Regina and whispered.

Her delicate voice, soft and faint like the flutter of a butterfly’s wings, was more than enough to irritate Regina.

“Horse-headed?”

“I once overheard Lady Celentina’s circle giggling about the men of the Treloni family.”

The horse-headed count’s family?

A man who lied about Regina Pelliese having feelings for him belonged to a famously ugly noble family?

Regina froze, her mouth hanging open in shock. Oblivious to Regina’s turmoil, Sophia whispered even more quietly, her voice tinged with a hint of amusement.

“But why does that Lord keep looking at you, Miss Regina? Could he be smitten?”

“How should I know!”

Regina snapped sharply, her insides boiling with rage. She felt an overwhelming urge to unleash every curse she could think of.

“Miss Sophia. The Treloni Count’s family governs a great estate and is a respected house. Are you really allowed to gossip about them like this?”

“Huh? I—I only thought you kept staring at them, so you might not know—”

“What? Why wouldn’t I know? Am I not someone who’s grown up as a count’s daughter since birth?”

Caught off guard, Sophia looked tearfully at Regina, shrinking in fear. Sophia Melrn lowered her posture apologetically.

“A-Ah, no! How could I ever think such a thing!”

“Watch your words, Miss Sophia.”

Regina glared at her, grinding her teeth, then abruptly turned her head away.

That’s when she spotted the Crown Prince sitting near the Emperor—and her irritation peaked.

The gloomy man she had seen from afar yesterday now appeared decadent up close.

Above all, his amethyst-like eyes, catching the light, sparkled with a brilliance that could ensnare anyone’s heart. And his upright posture, his calm yet haughty gaze—Clade Euphris looked, to anyone’s eyes, like a royal not to be underestimated.

Under the pristine white tablecloth, Regina’s legs trembled.

Suddenly feeling someone’s gaze, she turned her head—only to see Dreykub smiling like a fool and giving her a foolish wave.

Her appetite vanished instantly.