To The Eternal Knight (2 Chapters Left to Complete) - Chapter 49

No matter how often she went to visit her fellow officers and knights—the comrades who had endured the battlefield and fought alongside her—not a single one opened their door to her.

Even though her arms had lost all strength, she couldn’t abandon her position. She was undeniably the shield of Esteban who had ended the Hundred-Year War, regardless of the Emperor’s cold shoulder.

But having no one to help her was virtually the same as being utterly powerless.

Because her repeated knocking at every noble house’s door had become so grating, her father and Helen finally threatened her—and that day, Baron Zenax, who had been protecting Nerea, collapsed after Marvin Moore struck him squarely in the leg.

Alejandro, who had stayed with her at the count’s mansion in the capacity of a servant, witnessed everything and fell ill from sheer shock.

Nerea stared blankly at the portrait of the Grand Duke. Then, a faint smile escaped her lips as if the breath had slipped out through a newly parted seam.

So that was why he’d been so kind to her at the victory banquet.

Perhaps because he sensed a shared kinship—that he, too, was a child unloved by his father.

She only let herself dwell on questions she couldn’t possibly ask. It was the only way to keep thoughts of her father at bay, even slightly. Suddenly puzzled, Nerea tilted her head in confusion.

Why did her father despise her—his own daughter—so intensely, even more than Brienna, who wasn’t his blood kin at all? To Nerea, it was utterly incomprehensible.

Truthfully, she didn’t even want to understand.

She must have already been erased from her father’s sight.

While she was still processing the emotions she’d been forcibly suppressing, Johnny returned from sending someone out, unable to conceal his awkward expression as he reported.

“Acting Count Esteban says he’s leaving the tailor’s and heading toward the Imperial Palace.”

* * *

Read full content of this chapter on r e d c a t t y . c o m