Chapter 83

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 83
Chapter Title: Rain and Blood
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It was a perfectly natural question. Aileen belonged to Cesare. Unless he cast her aside, she had no intention of ever leaving his side.

As Aileen slowly nodded, the strength left Cesare’s hand. *Clang.* The letter knife fell with a sharp noise.

There were those eyes again. Shattered, like desolate ruins where nothing remained…

Cesare caressed Aileen’s neck with his bloodied hand. He slowly traced the handprint he had left behind, then closed his eyes for a moment.

“Why…”

After steadying his ragged breath, he met Aileen’s gaze once more.

“Why didn’t you fight back?”

At his low question, Aileen parted her lips.

“You must have… a reason…”

She had meant to say that she believed he, of all people, must have had a reason. But as a cracked, hoarse voice emerged, Cesare stopped her.

“Promise me, Aileen.”

She was filled with nothing but questions. Aileen looked up at him, her eyes wet with tears.

Cesare spoke with the desperation of someone cornered at a cliff’s edge.

“That you won’t die for me.”

She had heard similar words from him before. But for Aileen, it was a difficult promise to make. Yet, when Cesare pressed her, urging, “Now,” she had no choice but to agree.

The moment she uttered the promise, Cesare pulled her into an embrace, as if trapping her in his arms. Aileen felt a faint tremor. At first, she thought it was her own body trembling, but it wasn’t. The sensation was coming from Cesare.

Aileen found herself hugging him back. Her body, having just survived the brink of death, cried out in terrible fatigue and pain.

But she couldn’t resist the urge to hold the man before her. Silently, Cesare pulled Aileen a little closer.

As the tension left her, her vision quickly blurred. Her body, having exhausted its last reserves of strength, signaled its limit. Fighting to stay conscious as her mind rapidly faded, Aileen whispered to him in a voice that was barely audible.

That she was okay. That it didn’t hurt at all.

She managed the words in a raspy, metallic voice, but they didn’t seem to reach Cesare. For the man she saw just before losing consciousness still had those same broken, ruinous eyes.

***

The sound of rain tormented his ears. The downpour beat relentlessly against the window. His gaze fixed on the raindrops tracing paths down the glass, Cesare looked at Aileen, who lay on the bed in the grand ducal residence.

He didn’t know what he might do if he fell asleep in the brick house again, so he had brought the unconscious Aileen back to the residence. With his own hands, he had wiped the blood from her cheek with a damp cloth, changed her into a fresh nightgown, and laid her on the bed.

Standing by the window, he watched Aileen on the bed before looking down at his own palm. The palm he had mangled with the letter knife was already about halfway healed. By tomorrow, the wound would likely vanish without a trace.

But even if his wounds healed quickly, it didn’t mean he couldn’t feel pain. Whenever reality felt ambiguous, Cesare would resort to self-harm. Pain was one of the few things that reminded him he was in a reality where Aileen existed.

Gazing blankly at his palm, Cesare let out a small, bitter laugh. The more he replayed the moment he had choked Aileen with his own hands, the more his memories muddled reality and illusion into a messy blur. The intensifying sound of the rain disoriented his mind.

It had been raining when a young Aileen had fallen asleep in the prince’s chambers, and it had been raining when he had killed her in the bedroom of the brick house.

And it had also been raining on the day he went to the tavern where Aileen’s head had been displayed.

He forced himself to pull apart the tangled memories and rearrange them. He recalled the time before he turned back the clock seven years, after he had returned victorious from war only to learn of Aileen’s death.

***

When he learned that Aileen had been executed, beheaded at the guillotine.

Cesare couldn’t readily grasp the reality of it. It felt like being trapped in a terrible nightmare, and he clung to the vain hope that when he woke, Aileen would be alive and breathing again.

But eventually, Cesare was forced to realize the truth. This was a cruel reality, not even a nightmare.

It was the day he went to the tavern where they said Aileen’s severed head had been put on display.

A sudden downpour fell that day. The sky, clear just moments before, had abruptly unleashed a torrent. Dripping with rainwater, Cesare entered the tavern. As his knights, dressed in plainclothes, followed him in, a server rushed out, clutching a pile of dry cloths.

Cesare took the cloth the server offered and roughly dried himself, his eyes sweeping impassively over the interior. The largest tavern on Fiore Street was packed with people. Despite the foul weather, it was filled to the brim. As he scanned the crowd, the server glanced at him several times.

He had pulled the hood of his robe down low, but his distinctly different build made it easy for him to draw attention. His knights, their faces uncovered, attracted even more notice.

Ignoring the stares with practiced ease, Cesare pressed a gold coin into the server’s hand and was shown to a table. The sight of several tall men and women entering made people glance over, but their interest was fleeting, and the boisterous chatter soon resumed.

The tavern, which sold liquor and women, was filled with humans in heat. The eyes of the men gleamed with lust; thoroughly drunk, they were already half out of their minds.

They cackled as they threw crude jokes at the female singer performing on the central stage. The singer continued her song in silence, ignoring their harassment.

“Why can’t I return to that day? I still remember you. You remain so vivid within me…”

Cesare scanned the faces of the patrons one by one. Until that moment, he had planned to simply confirm what he needed to and leave immediately.

“Her eyes were the hottest part. Fuck, such a waste she was dead.”

Until he heard them talking about Aileen.

Cesare’s gaze slowly locked onto them. The drunken man didn’t notice the red eyes watching him. He just kept spouting vulgarities, mimicking the act of groping his crotch.

“Ah, even though I was too late and it was all messed up, it was still magnificent. The owner must’ve made a fortune back then. Forget Fiore, he probably raked in all the money in the capital and then some.”

The man’s companions burst into laughter, adding their own comments. They said the owner had a hell of a time prying her dead eyes open. They said everyone thought the condemned bitch was ugly when she was alive.

Even a dead noblewoman of higher birth wouldn’t be as arousing as that bitch. It would’ve been great if the corpse hadn’t rotted. Then they could still hang it here for everyone to enjoy. All the bastards who come to the tavern still talk about her…

Cesare listened to the entire, drawn-out conversation. He didn’t miss a single word, and then he suddenly burst into laughter.

After laughing for a while, Cesare slowly pushed his chair back and stood up. Then, he approached the men who were still laughing and talking about the young, executed woman’s head.

Startled by the man’s sudden approach, the men flinched and turned. Cesare’s eyes swept over their table. A long knife for carving meat lay there.

Without hesitation, Cesare picked up the knife.

The man who had been speaking the loudest let out a short, “Uh.” His eyes widened as he fumbled at his neck, but his hand found nothing. That was the man’s final moment.

The knife was pulled free, and a fountain of blood erupted. Bright red blood sprayed as the man’s body tilted backward. A heavy *thud* echoed through the tavern, and a chilling silence fell over the space that had, until moments ago, been filled with noise.

In the frozen silence, the first to move were Cesare’s knights. Rotan, Diego, and Senon blocked every exit from the tavern. Michele leaped onto the stage, dragged the singer—the only other woman in the room—into a corner, and hid her.

And so the slaughter began. It was the first day that the sword that protected the Traon Empire began to massacre its own people.