Chapter 128

Ruys, who had been pouring out words bordering on lament at a rapid pace, fixed Kennard with a glare.

“Even the gods are cruel,” Ruys said bitterly. “They make me find the way to make you the most miserable not with my own hands, but with yours.”

He curled one corner of his mouth upward and let out a derisive snort.

Kennard found himself wondering whether his brother had truly lost his mind.

Ruys had always hurled barbed words at him without restraint, ever since they were children.

At first, those words had wounded him. At some point, though, Kennard had simply stopped listening, letting them pass by unheard.

He knew his brother was emotionally unstable and inferior to him in every respect, yet Ruys was still the empire’s first prince and his elder brother. It had seemed only natural that Ruys should inherit the throne.

That was why, when their father, the former emperor, had tried to pass the crown to him, Kennard had fled to the battlefield as though running away.

“Why not? Because you are the strongest pureblood among the Black Wolves? Even so, you are nothing more than a grand duke. If that was the case, you should not have run away back then. You should have taken the emperor’s seat yourself.”

Kennard recalled the words Marten had spoken on the day he learned that Elena was carrying his child.

Yes. Just as you said. I should have accepted Father’s command. I should have thrown away that shallow pity I felt for my brother.

Kennard drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

“So this is why you abducted Elena,” Kennard said. “For you, Brother, you have truly gone all in this time.”

For a split second, Ruys’s face flushed a dark, purplish red.

“You bastard…”

“But,” Kennard cut him off sharply, raising his voice higher than Ruys’s before he could shout, “there is one thing you have overlooked.”

Kennard strode toward the dais where Ruys stood.

“You touched something you never should have touched,” he said. “If it were anything else, I could have pretended not to see, not to hear, just as before. But this is different. You laid hands on the one I embraced at the cost of everything I am.”

As Kennard advanced, spitting the words through clenched teeth as though he might chew them apart, Ruys flinched and retreated up the steps.

Startled by Kennard’s sudden movement, Verhill  and the soldiers standing nearby swallowed dryly.

“You know full well this is not a place for you to interfere,” Serin said, stepping in front of Verhill as he moved to follow Kennard.

Serin had not drawn his sword, but his voice carried a clear warning of what would follow if anyone attempted to harm Kennard.

Even without his words, none of them could move easily.

The pheromones pouring from Kennard’s body, thick with killing intent, pressed down upon the vast audience chamber like a crushing weight.

This time, Kennard did not stop. He mounted the dais.

“How dare you climb up here?” Ruys shouted as he stumbled backward, nearly losing his footing. “Do you intend to trample the dignity of your emperor and commit treason?”

Fear and humiliation flickered together in Ruys’s golden eyes, the same shade as Kennard’s.

“Dignity?” Kennard scoffed. “Have you ever possessed such a thing, even once?”

“You dare insult me?” Ruys yelled.

“If I wished it, taking that paltry throne would be nothing,” Kennard said. “You know that better than anyone. If only you had devoted yourself to governing and becoming a ruler worthy of respect while I wasted away in foreign lands.”

He took two or three steps at a time and soon stood directly before Ruys.

Though Kennard was standing one step below him, he still had to look down at his brother.

Ruys’s eyes trembled with naked fear. His face was drenched in cold sweat, hair plastered to his skin, his neck flushed a vivid red.

Watching Ruys gasp for breath, unable to steady himself as he looked up, made Kennard’s chest feel tight.

“If you wish to see sunlight even a moment longer, speak now,” Kennard said. “Where is Elena?”

He wanted nothing more than to twist Ruys’s neck on the spot, but he held himself back.

Killing Ruys alone would not end this.

No matter how strong he was as the greatest pureblood, killing the emperor without cause would be treason.

He needed justification, and he needed to uncover the forces backing Ruys and Marten.

More urgent than any of that was finding Elena.

“Your Grace, I will guide you,” a voice said from behind.

Kennard turned his head and looked at the speaker.

Verhill was sheathing his sword and bowing deeply toward him.

“Verhill,” Ruys snapped, glancing anxiously at Kennard’s expression. “How dare you act without my command?”

“Your Majesty, I beg your forgiveness,” Verhill said. “But if you detain the Grand Duke’s wife, the resentment of the people will be severe. Please. Even now, please rescind your order.”

“You dare…” Ruys began, but his words faltered when Kennard fixed him with a hard stare.

“Be grateful that at least one rational servant remains by your side,” Kennard said. “But know this. You will pay the price for what you have done.”

He descended the steps at a near run.

“Lead the way.”

At Kennard’s command, Verhill headed toward the entrance of the audience chamber. The soldiers standing stiffly parted to either side, opening a path.

“It is useless.”

Ruys’s voice struck the back of Kennard’s head like a thorn.

Kennard frowned but did not turn around. It was not worth it.

And yet, against his will, his body reacted first, his head turning instinctively toward Ruys.

“It is already too late,” Ruys said, his bloodshot eyes gleaming as he stared back.

***

The place Verhill led him to was the castle rampart.

The soldiers stationed there straightened sharply when they saw Kennard appear so suddenly, tension etched across their faces.

No matter how carefully he scanned the area, he saw no one but the guards on watch.

A sense of unease crept over him, and he swept his gaze again across the surroundings, all the way to the distant towers.

No matter how keenly he focused, he could not sense even a trace of her pheromones.

“Are you saying Elena is truly here?” Kennard demanded.

Verhill, who had gone pale as stone, suddenly dropped to his knees.

“Your Grace, you may kill me if you wish,” Verhill said. “But I could not fully defy His Majesty’s command. This is as much as I could reveal.”

“What?”

Kennard glared at him, forcing down the surge of rage climbing up his spine.

“Do not tell me you lured me here as well.”

“No,” Verhill said quickly.

“Then what is this?”

In an instant, Kennard seized Verhill by the throat and lifted him off the ground.

Verhill kicked helplessly in the air, clawing at Kennard’s grip, but it was futile. His face darkened as his breath came in choking gasps.

“Where is Elena?” Kennard demanded.

Without effort, he carried Verhill toward the edge of the rampart and tipped him over the railing, as though he might drop him at any moment.

The rampart stood high above the ground, and the wind howled around them in violent spirals.

Kennard felt none of it, not the wind, not the hair lashing against his eyes.

“Y Your Grace,” Verhill choked, gripping Kennard’s wrist with both hands in terror.

“Tell me where she is,” Kennard said.

At that moment, something forced its way into his vision, freezing him in place.

Across the Bellad River that encircled the castle, hundreds of people were gathered like a mass of clouds.

Yet Kennard’s gaze did not linger on the crowd.

He narrowed his eyes, drawing his brows together as he focused.

On a boat floating on the river, several soldiers were prodding the water with long poles. After a moment, they hauled something up.

What they dragged aboard was a woman, limp as if dead.

“What is that?” Serin asked sharply from beside him.

Kennard could not answer.

For a brief instant, he thought it was Elena, and his heart lurched. Then he saw the woman’s brown hair and released a breath he had not realized he was holding.

The relief lasted only a heartbeat.

This time, it felt as though someone had carved his heart out entirely.

Everything before his eyes slowed, as if time itself had grown sluggish.

Near the riverbank, set apart from the crowd, stood a large apparatus like a massive pulley.

From the end of a long beam extending over the water, a rope hung down, binding an empty chair.

Kennard stared at the chair swaying in the wind, as if entranced.

The soldiers drew it in among themselves and fastened something to it.

What they seated there was a woman in a dress soaked through with blood.

A sack covered her head, hiding her face.

As the chair was moved out over the river, the woman’s body pitched forward.

From beneath the sack, a vivid cascade of red hair spilled free.