Their eyes met.
When Alicia realised this, she instinctively opened her arms and embraced the child.
Thump, thump.
She couldn’t tell whether the rapidly beating heart was her own or the child’s, who had been running moments earlier.
Perhaps she didn’t want to know.
Alicia’s arms tightened around the child.
"As expected, it was your child."
At the voice that fell like a death sentence, Alicia felt a dizzy spell sweep over her for a moment.
The eerie sensation of sweat droplets trickling down her spine sent shivers through her, causing her body to recoil repeatedly.
If she could, she would have bolted without a moment's hesitation.
But there was a child in her arms.
“Well, it doesn’t matter.”
The man walked towards Alicia with long, resolute strides.
Alicia knew it was futile, but she clumsily raised her hand to obscure the child’s face from his view.
Despite having inherited reddish-brown hair and ash-grey eyes, the child bore a stronger resemblance to someone else rather than her.
She was gripped by fear that the man might realise this.
“Alicia.”
He had only called her name, yet Alicia’s cheeks flushed as though on fire. She hung her head low.
In the past, Alicia had liked it when he said her name like that.
She knew that whenever he did that, a faint smile would appear across his otherwise indifferent face.
But now, even if he called her name, he wouldn’t smile at her.
“I told you not to bow your head before me.”
A firm hand lifted Alicia’s chin.
The warmth of his touch against her skin made Alicia nervously bite down on her lower lip.
Her eyes stung, and she felt like tears would burst out at any moment if she didn't try hard to hold them back.
Even though he was accustomed to giving orders, his touch — both then and now — remained as gentle as ever.
That fact kept making her throat tighten painfully.
“You’re in front of a child.”
Even after all this time, when she should have moved on and forgotten, his familiar touch effortlessly brought back memories of the past.
Alicia forced herself to push his hand away.
“What did I even do?”
He still hadn't done the things he genuinely wanted to do yet.
His lips twisted ever so slightly in frustration.
“Go back. Nothing will change now.”
Alicia avoided the man’s gaze.
She knew all too well that his eyes had been fixed on one thing from start to finish, and that knowledge parched her throat further.
“Nothing will change?”
The man laughed.
“Ha, yes. That’s right. Nothing will change.”
His hands clamped down on Alicia's shoulders with an unrelenting grip.
Alicia swallowed dryly.
The gaze that fell on her face was unbearably relentless, almost cruel in its persistence.
“As long as you come back.”
His lips brushed against the back of her hand as she tried to push him away.
Alicia tried to turn her head, her face on the verge of tears, but it was useless.
Even now, she couldn’t forget the warmth those lips had once brought her.
“Let’s go back, Alicia.”
The man’s hand caressed Alicia’s cheek.
His calloused hand, shaped by years of gripping a sword, felt rough — unsuited to someone of his noble status. There was even a faint scent of metal lingering on his skin.
“I can’t. ”
“Why not?”
“I have a child.”
"If I cared about a child like that, I wouldn’t have come looking for you."
The man’s eyes turned to the child.
His sharp, piercing eyes locked onto the child, and Alicia instinctively pulled the little one closer to her.
“It’s not something you can say so easily. I don’t want to be a parent who brings shame to my child. Your Grace must already have a wife...”
“A wife?”
Before Alicia could finish her words, the man gritted his teeth and brought his face close to hers.
It was so close that their noses almost touched.
Alicia instinctively held her breath as his breath grazed her lips.
The man’s breath, brushing over her lips, felt unnervingly hot.
"Ha! Yes. I’m getting a wife starting today."
The man glared at Alicia, his lips twisted in a bitter sneer.
“Gazeff.”
“Yes, My Lord.”
“Take the child.”
Before Alicia could comprehend what the man meant, he raised one hand, signalling Gazeff.
“Mum!”
“Michael!”
Instinctively sensing danger, the child whimpered, reaching out with both hands toward his mother.
Alicia tried to chase after the child being taken away, but she was quickly blocked by a strong arm.
“What are you doing? Give him back! He’s my child! He’s my son!”
“Don’t worry. I won’t kill him. From this moment forward, I shall treat him as a child of noble lineage.”
“Cabelenus!”
“...It seems I can only hear my name from your lips in situations like this.”
The man let out a hollow laugh, tilting his head askew in mockery.
Alicia bit her lips tightly, her eyes trembling with emotion.
"I don’t go back on my decisions. If you want the child back, become my wife. That’s the only way you can reclaim the child from me."
“...Do you even know who that child is?”
"If that were important, I wouldn’t have come all this way."
“Cabelenus.”
Alicia grasped the man's arm, her eyes brimming with tears.
His cold gaze was unfamiliar, but for the sake of her child, she couldn’t turn away.
"I don’t care whose child it is. Even if there's no blood relation, even if it’s the child of a traitor, I’ll raise them as my own."
"You're going to raise a child whose father is unknown as your own bloodline?"
“Yes.”
It was a response with no trace of hesitation.
Alicia froze, her breath caught in her throat as she stared at the man in front of her in stunned silence.
Even at this moment, his golden eyes, as dazzling as the sun, still held her entirely captive.
Just as in the past, when she had been blinded by their brilliance.
"Don't even think about using that child as an excuse to run away anymore."
The man gripped Alicia's shoulders tightly and growled like a starving beast.
"Even now, I’m barely holding back the urge to crush that tiny life form that stole you from me."
Alicia gritted her teeth and clenched her fists, fighting back the tears that threatened to spill.
The skin beneath his large, calloused hands felt searing hot as if scorched by his grip.
・・・・・
That year was marked by an unusual abundance of crimson.
Starting with the cavalry unit that arrived with blazing torches, blood flowed instead of raindrops onto the parched and cracked earth.
The sharp clang of blades rang through the air, sending chills down the spine, only for it to be drowned out repeatedly by the mingled screams and battle cries.
The knights of Neustein hurriedly put on their armour and fought against the invaders, but everyone present already knew the truth.
Resistance was futile.
The more the blades clashed, the clearer the disparity in skill became, and the outcome was even more so.
Leading the cavalry mounted on horses clad in steel armour was the Wolf of Schwarhan, Cabelenus von Schwarhan Blanche.
He had never fought a losing battle, not even once.
Cabelenus raised his sword high towards the sky, the blade gleaming brightly in the sunlight.
The sword blade gleamed golden under the sun.
Despite having swung it countless times, not a single drop of blood stained his sword.
The soldiers' cheers grew louder.
Wherever Cabelenus passed, there was no longer a presence that could be called an enemy.
Blood of unknown origin flowed endlessly, but the numbed sense of smell could no longer detect anything.
Only the accumulating corpses marked the passage of time.
It was more a massacre than a battle.
The King of Neustein despaired as he watched his soldiers fall helplessly. Clutching his gold and silver treasures, he abandoned his retainers and family to flee alone. However, he did not get far before a maid's accusation led to his capture.
The Wolf of Schwarhan beheaded the King, who had desperately begged for his life and hung his head from the top of the castle.
It was an empty, even futile end for a king who had once ruled a nation, but history was always written by the victors.
In a single day, the Neustein royal family, which had boasted a legacy of five hundred years, was erased from history. From the castle of the fallen royal family, the sound of execution bells rang out relentlessly, announcing another death.
“Execute!”
At the cry of the executioner, bodies that had not yet been cleared lay scattered beneath the guillotine, their heads and torsos severed. The survivors, paralysed by the terror of death, remained silent.
They knew all too well that tomorrow, the bodies rolling under the guillotine could be their own.
The foreign man who had seized the royal palace showed no mercy.
He knew how to handle everything with a single hand.
Every time Cabelenus, seated arrogantly on the throne with his legs crossed, raised or lowered his hand, life and death were sharply divided.
“Next.”
The voice that was casually uttered was dry, but far more threatening than shouting or hurling insults on purpose. The soldiers quickly brought the next group of prisoners forward and made them kneel before Cabelenus.
The prisoners, who had been screaming, grew silent with each toll of the bell announcing the execution, gradually becoming as docile as chickens that had been plucked clean.
Cabelenus surveyed the prisoners with an expressionless face.
His aide, Gazeff, stood beside the throne, calmly reading the prisoners' identities and charges.
The prisoners, discreetly shifting their gaze and gauging the atmosphere, still glimpsed a faint hope that they might survive.
They didn’t know what fate had befallen the prisoners who came before them.
Since the purges began, Cabelenus's hand had never been raised even once.
Among the soldiers, there were rumours that he would only raise his hand to drink a toast after having extinguished every last life in the royal palace.
“Wait.”
Cabelenus's gaze narrowed as he looked down at the prisoners.
"What is the matter?”
Gazeff, who was automatically about to write 'death penalty' next to the prisoner's name on the paper, halted his hand and turned to follow his lord's gaze.
At the end of Cabelenus's gaze was a woman.
"You, there. What's your name?"
The woman did not answer. Instead, she forced her hands to clench, as if trying to hide the trembling.
Despite wearing loose-fitting clothes, her scrawny body, which could not be concealed, looked pitiable.
“I asked for your name.”
Sensing his lord's mood, Gazeff quickly confirmed the woman’s name and passed it on to Cabelenus.
Despite this, Cabelenus barely acknowledged his aide’s words, his gaze still fixed on the woman.
Gazeff subtly furrowed his brow at his superior's unusual behaviour.
Even the empire's most renowned beauties couldn't sway Cabelenus, so it was surprising that the woman he became interested in was so ordinary.
Her features, faint and unconventional, didn't align with traditional standards of beauty. With reddish-brown hair and dull, ashen eyes, she possessed an unremarkable appearance, lacking anything particularly striking.
"It seems the Princess of Neustein has no mouth."
The only thing that stood out about her was that she was the youngest daughter of the king whose head now adorned the castle wall.
Gazeff idly fidgeted with the edge of the paper that detailed information about the woman.
Alicia Neustein.
Mistaken for a maid because of her shabby appearance, she was only belatedly recognised as a princess and brought to trial once her true identity came to light.
Unlike her opulently adorned siblings, the woman, with her contrasting appearance, had somehow managed to survive until now, but her luck had finally run out.
Her future, like that of her father and brothers, was to meet her end on the executioner's block.
“No — I have nothing like that.”
Alicia, who had been hesitating for a long time under the persistent gaze of Cabelenus, squeezed out her voice.
“You don’t?”
Cabelenus tilted his head.
After a brief hesitation, Alicia slowly raised her head.
"You are going to kill me anyway."
Though her face was pale with fear, Alicia did not hesitate to speak.
Despite trembling, she did not avert her gaze from Cabelenus.
Cabelenus frowned.
It wasn’t his imagination.
He knew this woman.
"Why? Do you think I'll kill you?"
Cabelenus silently stared at Alicia's tightly clenched hands.
Her hands were rough, unbefitting of a princess.
“Well...”
Alicia hesitated, her lips trembling as she carefully chose her words, and finally continued with a short breath.
“You killed everyone.”
“Not everyone.”
Not yet.
His gaze, brimming with arrogance, scrutinised Alicia from head to toe.
“Do you want to live?”
"Will you spare me if I say yes?"
A faint spark of life returned to Alicia's eyes.
"It's true that we captured the king thanks to you, so I might show some mercy to the heartless daughter who betrayed her father."
No matter how precious one's life was, he never thought they'd sell their own father.
Realising that the maid who reported the fleeing King of Neustein was none other than the princess, Gazeff silently clicked his tongue.
“Then please spare the servants in the castle.”
“Servants?”
“They are neither royalty nor nobility, nor do they have the means to resist. They have no value as hostages. If you do not intend to kill every Neustein in the castle, please, at least spare them."
"I believe I was talking about your life."
"Saving a member of the fallen royal family will only bring future troubles."
Was that a smile?
Cabelenus's eyes narrowed at the faint smile on Alicia's lips.
"Would you exchange your life for theirs?"
“If it is possible.”
Alicia was not entirely unafraid of Cabelenus.
Like the other prisoners, she too was afraid.
However, the princess before him had something that set her apart from the others.
That point irritated Cabelenus.
Translator's Corner:
Hello! I was reading the manhwa and got completely hooked, so I decided to pick this up! >^< My goal is to catch up to the manhwa before Season 2 resumes in January!
I also retranslated the earlier chapters because I'm not a fan of split chapters. This chapter numbering is more true to the original on Naver. Hope that's okay!
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If you notice any errors or broken links, please let me know and I will get that fixed~ Additionally, if you would like to support me, I have a Ko-fi ~ Thank you! 💖