172. The Final Dance

2024.03.20.

Bollonico knew it instinctively.

That the Emperor, too, had not truly found the Pelliese treasure.

That the Emperor’s black sword was not the entirety of the Pelliese treasure.

Just as Bollonico desperately wanted to obtain that treasure to become Crown Prince, his father was also unsatisfied with the present and wandering in search of the ‘real’ treasure.

The real one was with Bollonico.

The most crucial sacrifice for the experiment his father had desired! Bollonico pulled Yuan closer, embracing her tightly with overwhelming emotion.

He was immensely glad for the woman who fully embraced him. She appeared more lovely than anyone else ever could.

This woman alone could give him what no other woman in the world ever could.

“When I touch you, it feels as though all peace in the world enters my heart.”

The arms that once held Clade Euphris. The face that Clade Euphris gazed upon. The body and scent Clade Euphris once enjoyed.

Now they were his, and would remain his. Bollonico savored an extreme exhilaration so intense that he momentarily forgot the agony of torn flesh.

“Quickly take away all my suffering. Understand me.”

Like a child whimpering in pain, he urgently sought Yuan’s lips like an oasis found in the desert.

The moment their breaths entwined, the pain vanished as if it were a lie, and his soul seemed to cry out in rapture.

Feeling as though there was nothing in the world to fear, he deeply kissed Yuan’s lips and whispered.

“Love me, okay?”

He pulled her slender body close and inhaled her breath. Though his wounds remained torn and ruined, that pain had completely disappeared as if washed away.

Tears of joy wet Bollonico’s cheeks. Passion filled the face of the man, perfectly sculpted like a doll.

“Love me.”

Then I will gladly love you too.

His childish plea, like a child begging for more sweets, circled Yuan’s lips and nape before gradually fading.

The deliberately painted red of his lips had smeared like blood across his pale mouth.

Unconcerned about the spreading stain, Yuan looked down at Bollonico’s face, peacefully asleep with wounds grotesquely exposed, and vigorously rubbed her lips clean.

Underneath the clothes naturally shed and dropped near his feet, only a thin slip remained.

Indifferently adjusting the loose strap of the slip, Yuan put on the outer garment Bollonico had removed and headed toward the bedroom’s back door.

The door leading to the Path of Loyalty, accessible only secretly by the closest attendants, never left open under normal circumstances.

Without hesitation, Yuan flung the door wide open.

***

The corridor, rarely used except under special circumstances, was overwhelmingly majestic.

Step by step, she walked forward into the dark corridor, as endless and shadow-filled as an underground abyss. The marble beneath her pale bare feet was icy cold. The moment the heavy door closed behind her, light vanished. Yuan’s small figure, back turned to it, continued advancing into the darkness.

“What must be done if the Crown Prince is to avoid death?”

With each step taken, relying on the dim glow of yellow night jewels embedded in the walls at regular intervals, the conversation she’d had with Eugene Kimfri before leaving the Kimfri estate came back to her.

“You truly intend to help the old count and the Crown Prince conspire, don’t you?”

Yuan had overheard the conversation between Eugene Kimfri and the old count, who had completely let down their guard around her.

From their talk, she pieced together why Clade had eradicated the southern pirates, and why he had lied to her about having business in the east.

Then she clearly heard it.

The families whose seals had been taken as proof of loyalty would struggle to assist the Crown Prince by mobilizing knights during the Emperor’s monster hunting festival.

How Emperor Igor had used the east to crush the south, and how Eugene Kimfri’s father and older brother had died because of it.

Why Eugene Kimfri had remained attached to a royal family he did not truly serve.

When the lines between enemy and ally had become clearer.

Facing death, Yuan hesitated no longer.

She was certain that Eugene Kimfri could know her true intentions toward Clade, and the reason she stayed by Bollonico’s side.

So she stepped forward. She blocked Eugene Kimfri’s path as he followed the old count, who intended to aid Clade, stepping into the corridor.

“Tell me what I can do.”

In the dim corridor of the Kimfri estate, Yuan Pelliese conveyed her firm resolve to Eugene, now an ally.

As she retraced that corridor in her mind, Yuan’s feet finally reached the entrance of the Path of Loyalty.

She paused briefly, scanning the towering glass display cases standing in rows on either side, as if they were there to greet her.

The symbols of those who might side with Clade welcomed her, while the emblems of those fanatically loyal to Bollonico seemed to glare with hostility at the sudden uninvited guest.

Yuan’s bare white feet walked delicately down the corridor where无形 treasures watched.

At last, standing at the center of the Path of Loyalty, Yuan whistled three long, precise notes.

After a brief silence, a parrot hurriedly flew in.

Flap, flap.

Its curved talons carried a golden key that sparkled in the light.

The bird, which had flown close without suspicion upon recognizing its master’s clothing, suddenly hesitated. Yuan smiled, stretching her lips where red had smeared.

Soon.

The tip of the golden key in Yuan’s hand slid in and out, one after another, finding its rightful place.

Click! Click! Click!

Sharp, ringing sounds continuously tapped against the dark corridor.

Alongside them rang in her head the voice of Bollonico, whispering to her in a daze as she drifted off to sleep.

“The time has come, my love.”

“I’ll participate in the monster hunt. We’ll depart early tomorrow—come with me.”

“You’ll do this for me, won’t you?”

Finally, every glass case door, each holding countless seals, swung open.

After a brief moment of relief, excruciating pain poured over her entire body.

The pain she had just absorbed and contained surged through her heart, exploiting the momentary release of tension.

Relentless whipping, the agony of torn flesh, the sensation of leather straps studded with studs striking her back—each assaulted Yuan.

She quickened her pace, fleeing from the pain.

A groan like an animal’s cry traveled from the Path of Loyalty to Bollonico’s paradise.

The animals, recognizing the scent of the woman who always took away suffering, grew restless and began to whimper.

Click! Click! Click!

The cheerful sound of opening cages blended with Yuan’s groans.

Each time pain overwhelmed her, Yuan clenched her teeth harder and desperately opened the doors, pushing the whimpering animals out.

“Huff.”

When a giant fist struck her cheek, her head snapped violently sideways. A suffocating sensation gripped her twisted neck, and she recoiled backward.

Her back and abdomen were kicked in turn, and soon her body collapsed to the floor.

As merciless lashes rained down upon her trembling form, Yuan fled again.

Click! Click! Click!

While matching the speed of the leather straps lashing her body, striking the metal bars, finding the keyholes, absorbing and storing new pain.

The pain already seeping from Bollonico had become a tether, pulling and pushing her like a puppet, making her move as if controlled by strings.

That night.

The night before First Prince Bollonico, having received the Emperor’s final ultimatum, would lead the procession departing the capital for the northern monster hunt.

The woman who sensed the end danced her final dance through every corner of Bollonico’s paradise, using the clanging of metal and cries of agony as her song.

Occasionally accompanied by laughter that sounded like screams.

***

Empress Marilyn’s bloodshot red eyes turned toward the Marquis Companni family’s personal seal.

The Empress’s palace, which had been silent as a grave since her return, erupted into chaos.

It was because of the Marquis Companni family’s personal seal, displayed proudly wrapped in blue silk, placed directly before the Empress’s bedroom that morning.

Noel, who had arrived early that morning, stood speechless before the seal, only glancing worriedly at his mother.

The Empress also knew of the existence of the “Path of Loyalty.”

She knew that Harol Companni, despite being from a branch family, had immediately brought his personal seal there upon becoming head of the household, surpassing Federico.

Still, Bollonico was her eldest son. The heir to the throne of this nation.

She had endured, believing he would one day surely lift the burden of being labeled “remnants of the rebellion,” a stigma borne by her and the south.

But what had Bollonico done?

He insulted Lord Marco, hailed as the hope of the south and beloved by the southern people, calling him a servant of rebels.

And when southern pirates, the region’s greatest menace, attacked the coast aiming for her treasure, he turned his back and fled for his own life without a second glance.

“What is Federico doing now?”

“He has recovered from his injuries, but he is unable to walk or run as he once did.”

When one elderly maid who had served Marilyn her entire life burst into tears, the sound spread like a plague among those nearby.

In the sea of sorrowful weeping from the old maids, Empress Marilyn’s golden eyes trembled, low and stormy.

“They say he insists on participating regardless and is heading north for the hunt.”

“In that condition!”

Empress Marilyn cried out, tears streaming down her face. Her son had been severely injured in a monster extermination campaign forced upon him, yet the Emperor still sent an invitation to the southern monster hunt—without sending even a single court physician, without a single kind word of comfort.

And the Emperor openly declared his intention to attend the hunt with his concubine, lavishing sweet words of love upon her.

Like father, like son.

Bollonico had obediently followed his father without a single word of protest.

He ignored Federico—the true heir of the south—and prepared to depart for the hunt alongside the branch family, not even visiting to pay respects despite knowing his mother was bedridden.

She could endure it, for herself.

Marilyn was used to her husband’s neglect and her son’s selfish actions.

But she could not allow the maternal family that would firmly protect her even after her death—the Marquis Companni family, built over hundreds of years by the sweat and blood of ancestors—to be so utterly destroyed while he pursued his own path.

Empress Marilyn twisted her delicate face. She shivered with rage, her blood running cold.

Federico had nearly died.

Just like late Marquis Rev of Mosan. He had nearly died so pointlessly.

Empress Marilyn tightly gripped the ornate seal display, its surface rough like turbulent waves.

Her bloodshot eyes wavered repeatedly, then finally hardened with resolve.

She did not know who had sent her this seal.

But if this was perhaps the will of the heavens, she had no intention of letting the opportunity slip away.

“Noel.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Noel, quietly answering, stood anxiously by his trembling mother.

Empress Marilyn’s bloodshot eyes swept over the endlessly gentle and affectionate face of her second son.

“Go to the north.”