Chapter 29

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 29
Chapter Title: A Nightmare and a Promise
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Beneath the naturally cascading brown hair, those piercing black eyes always made one feel restless whenever they met his gaze.

Whether it was simply due to his gaze or his strikingly handsome features for a man, she couldn't tell.

Lucy bowed her head to hide her flushed cheeks.

“How could Your Highness…! I thought you wouldn't be attending the banquet today….”

“Why would you think I wouldn't come? It is my beloved consort's birthday; of course, I must attend. Surely my presence isn't unpleasant?”

“Of course not!”

Lucy lifted her head, her eyes filled with longing. Far from being unpleasant, she was overjoyed to hear his words of celebration.

The Crown Prince smiled faintly and turned his head, motioning to an attendant. The attendant approached Lucy and respectfully presented her with a box he was holding.

“What is this…?”

It was a small jewelry box.

The size suggested it might hold a small bracelet or a brooch, not a necklace.

Did he know it was her birthday and prepare this in advance?

As she looked up at him with sparkling eyes, the Crown Prince’s eyes curved as he spoke in a deep voice.

“Open it. You will like it.”

With a fluttering heart, she carefully opened the box.

The moment she saw its contents, Lucy screamed and threw the box to the floor.

Inside the box were fingers.

Two pale, slender fingers.

Likely… a woman's fingers.

“Ugh…!”

She covered her mouth with her palm, suppressing the urge to vomit. As her vision spun, endless questions welled up.

Why.

Why on earth would he do this? Did he truly give this as a gift?

Averting her gaze from the floor, Lucy forced her clenched jaw to move.

“What is this…! What in the world are you doing!”

“I told you it was a gift. A memento of the one you so love and cherish.”

“The one I… love…?”

“Seeing as you ignored my pleas to reveal the royal passage, I thought it necessary to procure something to remind you of your position. I prepared it especially for you.”

Lucy’s eyes widened as she stared at him in horror. The sentence preceding his mockery rang like an alarm bell in her heart.

What did he just say? A memento of the one I love and cherish?

“What… W-What did you just say?”

“Look closely at the fingers.”

Nausea churned in her stomach, but her anxiety was even greater. Lucy forced herself to look down at the fingers.

There, on one of the bloodstained fingertips, she saw a small ring.

A crude ring made of thin silver, with a silver thread and a red thread twisted together. The ring, which seemed to have no monetary value, was….

It was undoubtedly the ring Lucy had given her mother as a gift, praying for her health, before she came to the Empire.

“Th-this. This is, this is…!”

Blood vessels burst in her wide eyes, turning the whites red. She couldn't control her trembling limbs.

The owner of these fingers.

Her mother was, now…

“I told you. Just tell me about the secret royal passage, and I will ask for nothing more.”

A faint sneer was mixed in his low, resonant voice. A large hand then slowly stroked her hair.

“You seem to resemble your mother a great deal, my dear consort. She was a stunning beauty. It was a pity, truly a shame, so… I made sure her end was painless.”

Tears did not come. Only a seething groan escaped her parted lips.

In her mind, which had gone completely blank, the only thing left was the image of her mother’s fingers scattered on the floor.

I'll kill him.

I'll kill him.

That mad bastard who doesn't see people as people, who lops off heads like falling leaves if they defy his will. A beast worse than an animal who, had he not been born a crown prince, would have been branded a murderer and sent to the guillotine long ago.

To kill you, you bastard!

That's why I came back. Why I became king. To take your head, I claimed Dawn!

I will not fail this time. I will use every ounce of my strength to kill you. I will gift you the most horrific death scream!

You madman… you son of a bitch!

“I’ll kill you… you piece of trash…!”

Cursing, she slapped away the hand stroking her head. She tried to scream, but only a pained moan escaped her raw throat.

Again, a large hand came down and touched Lucy’s forehead. She reflexively grabbed it.

Were the Crown Prince’s hands this big and rough…?

The calloused, coarse hand felt strangely foreign. Belatedly, Lucy realized her eyes were closed and snapped them open.

“You… son of a….”

The lips muttering curses mumbled and swallowed the words. With a crestfallen expression, Lucy stared straight up.

The man looking down at her was not the Crown Prince.

Black hair falling over his forehead, skin so fair it was hard to believe he was a soldier, and large eyes somehow reminiscent of a cow.

His lips, pressed into a straight line, gave him a somewhat stubborn and unyielding look.

“Are you all right, Your Majesty? You look very pale.”

It was him. Walter.

Her sword, the very man who had guided Lucy to the throne.

Lucy sighed and closed her eyes again. The hand she had been holding quietly slipped away, and the thing her head was resting on stirred.

It seemed she had been using Walter's thigh as a pillow.

“Where am I?”

She asked in a hoarse voice, her eyes still closed. The deep resonance of the sound suggested she was in a different place from where she had last closed her eyes.

“This is the private residence of House Hyverge. As neither the royal palace nor the command headquarters was in a suitable state to receive you, I took the liberty of bringing Your Majesty here.”

“And the aftermath…?”

“The enemy forces at the headquarters have been made to withdraw outside the capital. Duke Kill is detained in the underground prison of the headquarters, and the royal palace has been mostly secured. The duke’s second son insisted on staying by his father’s side, so we imprisoned him as well.”

Lucy opened her eyes and glanced at the window. What she had intended to be a short nap had turned into a long one, and it was already dusk.

Trying to hide her embarrassment, Lucy struggled to sit up.

The view of a lavish room, a world apart from the shabby villa, spread before her. After confirming no one else was present, Lucy sat down next to Walter and straightened her clothes.

“It seems only half a day has passed, yet you’ve handled things remarkably quickly. You’ve worked hard, Walter.”

Walter responded with a faint, barely perceptible smile.

Beneath his disheveled shirt, a small drool stain marked the thigh she had been resting on. Lucy bit her lip and discreetly averted her eyes.

Perhaps having had no time to change, Walter was still in the same light shirt he wore when the operation began. His naturally falling bangs gave him a very youthful impression, but even they couldn't hide the fatigue in his eyes.

Come to think of it.

He must be far more tired than her, yet he had stayed awake to handle the cleanup. A pang of guilt struck her. And to think he had even brought her all the way to his mansion to let her sleep.

“I’m sorry. I’ll take care of the rest, so you should get some rest, Walter.”

“Thanks to my training, I can go several days without sleep. Your Majesty, on the other hand, should rest a bit more. I believe you’ve had a slight fever for a while now.”

“Really? I feel fine.”

“No, you are not. You were unwell enough to cling to me and not let go. And you were in thin clothes all last night. I am concerned you may be ill….”

Clinging to him and not letting go?

Just as she was about to ask what he meant, Walter unhesitatingly reached out and touched her forehead.

His impassive eyes softened slightly, and the hand that had been on her forehead moved to cup her cheek before sliding down her back.

With an inscrutable expression, Walter tilted his head and, before she could resist, pulled Lucy into his arms. He held her tightly as if measuring something, then asked in a doubtful tone.

“You still have a fever. You should rest a little longer.”

Saying this, he lifted Lucy into his arms and started walking toward the inner part of the room.

Lucy, in utter disbelief, wondered if this man mistook her for a dog or a cat.

She twisted slightly to get away, but despite his slender appearance, Walter's body was incredibly hard, every part she touched—his arms, his chest, his stomach—feeling as if it were forged from muscle.

Walter set Lucy down in the bedroom connected to the drawing room and pulled the covers up to her chin with both hands. The gesture was so tender it bordered on reverent, and Lucy lost the will to be angry, deciding to lie still.

“There were so many things I wanted to say and ask Your Majesty… but now that I see you, I am simply grateful that you are safe.”

Walter, who had been sitting on a stool and looking down at his knees, continued with an ambiguous expression that might have been a smile.

“It was magnificent. A strategy and an achievement that no one could dare to imitate. Not as a subject, but as a warrior, I cannot help but admire the triumph Your Majesty has achieved.”

“I didn’t do it for your praise, Wal—”

“However, please refrain from such reckless plans in the future. On the entire journey back from the duchy, I was deeply worried that something might have happened to Your Majesty.”

The way he narrowed his eyes and gazed at her revealed that his words were not mere pleasantries but his true feelings.

Walter reached out and gently brushed away the strands of hair tickling Lucy’s forehead.

“What were you dreaming about to make you look so pale?”

“A dream?”

“You were breaking out in a cold sweat and talking in your sleep. It seems you were having a nightmare.”

A nightmare….

Could it even be called a nightmare?

Was there even a word in this world to describe that horrific past?

Tortured countless times, witnessing death and being killed. Starving, she ate all sorts of creatures crawling on the ground.

One day, a person of the highest nobility; the next, a prisoner in a dungeon. The constant falls from grace gradually wore away the personality that was Arsinoe.

All because of him….

A life ruined because of that one man.

She had returned to kill that devil-like bastard. That damn bastard.

“A nightmare… Yes. That’s right. Someone I want to kill just by thinking of them appeared in my dream. It would have been better if I had woken up a little later.”

“Why is that….”

“Because he gave me a wonderful gift. If only I hadn't just cried, but had smashed his head in with that jewelry box. If I had done that then, I wouldn't be having dreams like this… It’s a lasting regret.”

The dream she just had… was likely a replay of her first life. Judging by her naive reaction to his atrocity.

Yes.

It would have been better if I had just bashed his head in.

Walter tilted his head at her contextless words, but Lucy just smiled brightly and said it was nothing.

After a moment of silence, Walter rubbed the back of his neck and spoke in a subdued voice.

“I don’t know who it is, but it seems Your Majesty’s political enemy appeared in your dream.”

“That’s right. Just the thought of him… Someday, I will definitely take his head.”

“……There is no need for you to do so. Your Majesty’s enemy is my enemy, so I will bring you his head. Who is it?”

Lucy’s eyes widened as she clutched the blanket.

She had expected him to either nag her not to use such vulgar language or clear his throat and change the subject. But to her surprise, Walter was uttering the ecstatic confession she most wanted to hear.

He would kill him for her? Alex?

Her heart pounded. Lucy pressed a hand to her chest, her breathing quickening.