109. You Are Not My Fiancé!

2024.01.17.

Tasha and Yuan simultaneously supported Empress Marilyn.

The person who appeared before the imperial couple was a woman.

A beautiful woman with light brown hair, as if freshly coated with honey, and clear eyes of a similar hue.

Yuan instinctively stared at her face while supporting the empress, but others seemed to react differently.

Yuan felt the empress’s body trembling violently in her hands.

The empress’s face was far more terrified than when she had complained of fatigue near the end of the first ceremony; her trembling lips even conveyed a visible rage.

Tasha, too, had no time to focus on the empress she was supporting—her eyes widened in shock at the woman presented by Grand Duke Drietter.

The most astonished reaction, however, came from Emperor Igor.

Emperor Igor instantly dropped his pretense of normalcy, his gaze turning obsessively toward the woman as if he would be sucked into her.

The deeper Grand Duke Drietter’s smile grew, the fiercer the savage light in Emperor Igor’s eyes became.

“She is my gift, Your Majesty.”

The woman naturally stepped forward toward the emperor, but Grand Duke Drietter’s cold, watery eyes were fixed precisely on Empress Marilyn.

Emperor Igor maintained a strange silence before suddenly bursting into loud laughter.

Though drowned out by the chatter filling Glory Hall, Yuan thought this was the most satisfied reaction she had seen from the emperor all day.

After laughing for a long while, Emperor Igor poured wine into a large ivory goblet held by an attendant beside him until it overflowed, then gulped it down.

“Ah, I’m getting drunk. How could there be another day like this? My beloved nephew has emerged into the world, and my longtime comrade has entered the imperial palace—how could I not be drunk? Uwahahaha—!”

Wiping the red wine dripping through his neatly trimmed beard with his sleeve, Emperor Igor immediately seized the woman’s arm.

“If the emperor gets drunk and behaves disgracefully, there’s no worse kind of party. I should disappear for everyone else’s sake.”

With that, he vanished behind the stage with the woman.

It happened in an instant.

And precisely at that moment, Empress Marilyn finally fainted.

“Your Majesty!”

“Your Majesty!”

Tasha Kimfri caught Empress Marilyn almost instinctively.

The sudden commotion caused the murmuring in Glory Hall to gradually fade as all eyes turned toward them.

To help Tasha, who had swiftly lifted the empress into her arms, Yuan gathered up the long train of the empress’s dress and held it close.

Following Tasha as she hurried behind the stage, Yuan hesitated, glancing back—perhaps this would be the last time she ever saw Clade.

‘Just once more… one last time…’

At that moment, with hundreds of pairs of eyes focused on them,

even when she was the only one Clade could possibly look at, his gaze was not on Yuan.

Beside Ariesta, the grand duchess, who had gasped in shock, covering her mouth with both hands and widening her eyes,

Clade’s face—part of that picture-perfect pair—was fixed not on Yuan, but entirely on Grand Duchess Ariesta.

‘This really will be the last time.’

This truly was the last time…

Yuan tightly shut her stinging eyes and turned her head away.

She bit her trembling lips and completely exited Glory Hall.

***

When Empress Marilyn fainted and was carried out of Glory Hall, the hall briefly fell into chaos.

But there was one person entirely unaffected by the disturbance.

That was Grand Duchess Ariesta.

Since hearing in the north about Clade’s title ceremony, and then the rumors that he had broken free from the curse, not a single day had passed without her shedding tears.

Her watery eyes were always brimming with transparent tears, and each time she blinked her long lashes, they pitifully moistened her cheeks.

It was then that she finally broke her long silence and decided to leave the palace.

“Clade.”

Even uttering the name she could only call in her dreams brought her to tears, overwhelmed with emotion.

She cared nothing for the men whose hearts trembled at her tears, whose eyes could not look elsewhere.

To Ariesta, who had traveled such a long way, nothing mattered as much as the beautiful violet eyes of Clade Euphris—the man she had loved and still loved.

“Clade, oh Clade. Ari doesn’t know how happy she is to speak with you like this. So happy. I never thought I’d have this moment again. I’ve been so worried about you—”

Indeed, she had.

Even now, Ariesta shuddered and trembled at the memory of that day ten years ago.

To the young Ariesta, who had been sheltered from outside affairs, the death of the late Emperor Alexei was sad, but not shocking.

Rather than despairing over the emperor’s death, she had worried more about Clade, who would grieve deeply.

When she heard that rebel forces had suddenly risen, aiming to seize the capital and the imperial palace—and even heading toward the Red Brick Mansion—Ariesta fainted from suffocating fear.

The moment she regained consciousness, she rushed to her father, then Count Drietter, and begged him through tears:

“Please save Clade! Save Clade, Father! Without Clade, Ari cannot live!”

At the time, Northern Grand Duke Igor had already declared martial law to suppress the rebellion.

The Drietter family, alongside the Kimfri family, was one of the noble houses guarding the east and possessed one of the largest private armies.

Thus, Igor had personally written a letter requesting the Drietter family’s military aid in quelling the rebellion.

But the experienced commander, Count Drietter, deeply hesitated upon reading Igor’s letter.

The late Emperor Alexei, though not strictly pro-imperial, was widely recognized across noble houses as a wise and virtuous ruler.

Despite occasional discontent due to his anti-aristocratic policies, Emperor Alexei was far from politically inept enough to provoke rebellion.

The Drietter family, too, had excellent intelligence.

Though not pro-imperial, they leaned toward neutrality, and Count Drietter had sensed no signs of rebellion whatsoever.

Yet Grand Duke Igor had immediately detected the rebel advance toward the capital and requested aid so swiftly from the very beginning.

While he hesitated over whether to accept Igor’s proposal, his beloved daughter’s desperate plea became a decisive factor.

After all, Grand Duke Igor was known as a loving uncle devoted to his nephew, and a respected commander with countless military achievements.

That his personal life was messy was irrelevant.

Count Drietter had never once resisted his daughter Ariesta.

In the end, Count Drietter became the foremost hero in crushing the rebellion and was promised the future title of Northern Grand Duke by Emperor Igor.

The tide of history had naturally elevated him to become the new emperor’s closest confidant.

As soon as Emperor Igor’s coronation ended, Ariesta rushed toward the Red Brick Mansion.

Of her twenty-four years of life, Ariesta could unequivocally name that day as the most shocking and regrettable.

She never wanted to recall it.

If only she could erase that memory—erase it not only from her own mind but from Clade’s as well.

She would have sold her soul.

Especially when she saw the blackened outer walls of the burnt Red Brick Mansion, Ariesta remained speechless, unable to step out of the carriage for a long time.

Though the interior had been somewhat restored, the exterior was a scene of devastation resembling a battlefield—something unimaginable to the young Ariesta, who had grown up surrounded only by beauty.

And then what happened?

Hearing that Clade was nearly alone in the ruins, she summoned all her courage and stepped inside.

For her, merely entering that space alone was an act of bravery.

Ariesta carefully carried a bouquet of Vitocina and Grandiflora flowers—once used to decorate Clade’s palace—and a basket of homemade cookies as she approached Clade’s bedroom.

Lancelot Rev, dozing off with his head drooping at the door, suddenly woke up, sniffing the sweet scent of cookies, and greeted her.

Lancelot tried desperately to stop her.

Looking back, Ariesta realized she should have listened to Lancelot Rev.

She should have waited until Clade had calmed his heart and her own feelings had grown stronger.

That day.

Ariesta committed an unforgivable wrong against Clade.

She harshly snapped at Lancelot, who refused to step aside, accusing him of daring to lay hands on a lady, then knocked again and again on Clade’s firmly shut bedroom door.

She desperately wanted to see her beloved fiancé safe and sound.

The rumors people whispered—“the cursed crown prince”—she refused to believe.

She knew Emperor Igor might even abdicate in favor of Clade when he grew older, and that Clade was a strong youth who could overcome any illness.

Yes, the 14-year-old her truly believed it. With utter naivety.

When Clade finally opened the bedroom door after nearly an hour of relentless knocking,

Ariesta vividly remembered the moment his wide, joyful smile—surely born from longing to see her—slowly faded away.

What happened next, Ariesta could never tell anyone in detail—except her nanny.

The rumors that she screamed and fled the mansion were greatly downplayed.

That day, Ariesta screamed upon seeing her fiancé, whose body was twisted and contorted.

Unaware that the bouquet and cookies she brought had spilled to the floor and been trampled under her own feet, she rushed into Lancelot’s arms, trembling violently.

Clade’s eyes, bloodshot from burst capillaries, were filled only with emptiness.

And in those eyes, a look of resignation settled instantly—as if he had never expected Ariesta at all.

Calmly steadying her racing heart, Ariesta erased her own shameful outburst before Clade by hurting the blameless Clade with words.

“You! You are not my fiancé!”

“Bring me my fiancé! Bring me Clade! Monster!”

Before Ariesta’s screaming face, the heavy wooden door slammed shut once more.

That was the last time.