Chapter 32

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 32
Chapter Title: Why Are You Alone?
-----------------------------------------------------------------

The words he spoke were so far beyond my expectations that I felt my soul leave my body. Aileen, dazed and flustered, scrambled to offer any excuse she could think of.
“No, absolutely not. I would never dare to even entertain such a thought. I—As a citizen of the Empire, I have always wished for nothing but the glory of Traon…”
“Just as I thought.”
Leone watched Aileen’s rambling, a thoughtful “hmm” escaping him as he furrowed his brow. He slowly stroked his chin with his fingers. After staring at her for a moment, he broke into a gentle smile.
“Then again, the Lady Elorde I know isn’t that kind of person.”
*Then why did you ask…?*
Swallowing the words she dared not say to His Majesty the Emperor, Aileen looked at Leone, her face on the verge of tears. His question spun relentlessly in her mind.
Resentment toward the Empire. Massacring its people. A request to Cesare.
Piecing together these shocking ideas, it seemed Cesare must have told Leone something strange. As Aileen struggled to wrap her head around it, Leone offered her some tea.
Aileen stiffly drank her tea again. She could hardly tell if the liquid was going into her mouth or up her nose. She was so tense that she forgot to add milk or sugar, downing the bitter tea as it was.
Having subdued Aileen with a powerful preemptive strike, Leone leisurely added sugar to his own tea and asked.
“You’ve grown so much. Now that I think of it, has it been five years? No, four?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. It’s been four years.”
She answered quickly, and Leone smiled again, as if amused by something. In a gentle voice, he delivered a sharp remark.
“You must have resented me a great deal all this time.”
“…No, I haven’t.”
She denied it, but her reply was a moment too late. It was because she had, in fact, resented him greatly. She felt embarrassed as Leone smiled with a look that said he knew everything.
Her resentment for Leone was because of Cesare. Leone himself had become the emperor of a nation, yet he had sent his own brother—the one who had contributed most to his victory in the war for the throne—to the battlefield.
Three years ago, when Cesare’s deployment had been decided, Aileen had learned of it through the newspaper.
The moment she read the article announcing the Grand Duke’s departure for war, she longed to see Cesare. But there was no way. She could only wait desperately for him to summon her or come to see her.
As the cruel days passed, her anxiety grew. She would look at the calendar dozens of times a day, and at night, she would lie awake for hours, praying that tomorrow would be the day she could finally see him.
And then, on the day before his departure.
The instant she saw a military vehicle stop in the garden in front of her house, Aileen dropped everything and ran outside. But the person who stepped out of the vehicle was not Cesare, but Rotan.
“His Excellency the Grand Duke…”
“My apologies. He was too busy with preparations for his departure to make time.”
Her heart sank the moment she heard Rotan had come to say goodbye in his stead. Aileen clung to Rotan, weeping. She begged him to let her see Cesare, just once. Just one time would be enough.
Rotan, though troubled, eventually granted her request. He took Aileen to where Cesare was.
It was an unfamiliar house, neither the imperial palace nor the grand ducal estate. Aileen didn’t even know where she was. All she could do was sob uncontrollably as she pounded on the door of the house where Cesare was said to be.
“Your Excellency! It’s Aileen. Please open the door.”
But Cesare didn’t open the door. No matter how much Aileen sobbed and pleaded, he didn’t even let her hear his voice.
She couldn’t let him leave like this.
Every newspaper was clamoring about it—how dangerous and disadvantageous this war was, how powerful the Kalpen Kingdom’s army was.
They said the imperial army had been reduced to a pathetic state by the civil war and could not hope for its past glory. Some even said they could only pray for a miracle.
The tabloids jeered that the arrogant Grand Duke would finally experience a bitter defeat, even suggesting that the imperial family should start preparing for a funeral.
Everyone spoke of his death.
“No… Please don’t go…”
Aileen pounded on the door until her hands were scraped and bruised, crying until she fainted. Rotan carried the collapsed Aileen back home. And after that, Cesare left for war.
After doting on her so much, Cesare had left without even showing her his face. Left behind, Aileen lived in her own personal hell, thinking of him on the battlefield every single day.
The first thing she did upon waking was search for the newspaper. She would look for news of Cesare and read every detail about the state of the war.
On days with good news, her spirits would be high all day. On days with even a hint of bad news, she would be so depressed she couldn’t get any work done.
One night, she had a nightmare where she saw a newspaper article announcing Cesare’s death in battle. On days like that, she would write letters to him through her tears. The ink would smudge from her crying, forcing her to throw away several sheets of paper before she could finally finish one.
She prayed for a reply, just once. But just as he had left so coldly, Cesare never sent a response.
It was then that Aileen thought she wanted to give up on her one-sided love. The pain was so agonizing she wanted to cut open her chest, pull out her heart, and throw it somewhere far away.
But her feelings had already taken root in her heart and grown throughout her entire being. He was her origin, her foundation. To uproot her unrequited love would mean cutting away her life itself. The affection that had grown steadily since she was ten was that deep.
In a situation where nothing was in her control, the only choice Aileen had was to escape. First, she stopped writing letters that would never be answered.
She would read the newspaper only once a week. She would think of Cesare only at night before she fell asleep. She set one boundary after another and somehow managed to live, waiting for the day he would return to the capital.
Instead of dwelling on thoughts of Cesare, she began to research painkillers. She wanted to become someone useful to him, someone who could receive a reply from him. This desire for recognition drove her to even dabble with opium.
When news of his victory arrived, she cried with joy. She thought she would finally be able to see him, but then she heard that Cesare wasn’t returning to the capital and had instead set up camp on a nearby plain.
*Still, surely he’ll come to see me this time. Or at least send a letter.* She held onto that vague hope, but Cesare gave no word.
And then, he had suddenly appeared at her laboratory, and they were reunited.
“I tried to stop the Grand Duke.”
Aileen, who had been lost in memories, was pulled back to the present by his voice. *How dare I get lost in thought in front of His Majesty the Emperor.* Aileen chided herself internally.
Leone pushed a plate of cookies toward Aileen and continued speaking.
“As his older brother, of course I had to try and stop him from walking into his own death. Wouldn't you agree? But despite my attempts to dissuade him, he insisted on going.”
For the Emperor, it was also a life-or-death gamble. He had just barely ended a civil war, and now Cesare, the pillar of the imperial faction, was leading the army to war.
It was a war that required not just a simple victory, but a decisive one. If they failed to completely crush and absorb Kalpen, the resources and troops expended in the war could create a backlash. The empire’s nobles were always looking for an opportunity to devour the imperial family.
And Cesare had returned to the empire with an unprecedented, great victory.
“Cesare must have wanted to protect Traon. The Traon where you live, Aileen.”
Aileen wanted to dare to refute His Majesty. *There’s no way he would march to his death just for me.*
“Congratulations on your marriage, Lady Elorde.”
But what could she say to him when he offered his congratulations so graciously? She could only offer a small word of thanks. Aileen took another sip of the bitter tea.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed as well.”
His blue eyes studied Aileen quietly. They were the opposite color of Cesare’s, but their sharp gaze was similar, as one would expect of brothers.
“My brother seems to have… changed a little recently. I called you here thinking you might know something.”
Aileen also knew that Cesare was different from before. But she had nothing she could say to Leone.
He couldn’t have summoned her just to hear something as trivial as, *He seems to have become a bit more impulsive.*
*Or maybe it’s that he used to see me as just a child, but now…*
Just as Aileen, recalling the memories of that night again, struggled to keep her face from blushing…
*Click.*
The door to the audience chamber opened without a knock. Only after flinging it wide open did the man give it a light rap-rap.
“Aileen.”
Cesare tossed out the word with a twisted smile.
“Why are you out by yourself? Making your husband lonely.”