RAMHM Chapter 103

Rhodness's Despair

My mother's necklace was delivered swiftly into my hands.

Eyes bloodshot, Novian lunged at the Crown Prince with merciless intent.

The Crown Prince resisted violently, then stumbled and fell. Novian seized the opening, ripped the necklace free, and brought it to me.

I ignored Novian's desperate gaze and examined the necklace instead.

When I opened the plump golden pendant, my mother smiled back at me—those eyes identical to mine.

There was no key hidden inside. But key or not, this was the only keepsake I had from my mother. It was precious.

I clasped the necklace around my neck and held it close.

"You're going to try to save that woman? Uncle. Are you out of your mind?"

Was anyone here in their right mind? The Crown Prince, still oblivious to his own madness, grew anxious as he felt himself being excluded.

After all, one wouldn't give a necklace to someone they planned to kill.

Once the necklace settled around my neck, the Crown Prince's bloodshot eyes blazed. He struggled to rise.

"Why bother explaining everything to this woman point by point? I thought you were babbling on and on because you planned to kill her soon, but—ha! Do you actually love that woman?"

His legs gave out. The Crown Prince abandoned his attempt to stand and slumped back against a pillar.

I frowned. Watching me, the Crown Prince's lips curved into a sneer.

"Well, she does look like she's dying soon."

The Crown Prince's gaze traveled down from my face.

Everywhere his eyes touched burned like fire.

The wound in my side—barely healing after my confrontation with the Crown Prince—had clearly torn open again.

I pressed frantically against the flowing blood.

"Adrienne!"

"Ah—. Fucking insane. Even dead, she's mine, yet he keeps saying her name like she's his..."

Startled, Novian moved toward me, but the Crown Prince's complaints poured out behind him.

My side throbbed with sharp pain. My head spun—dizzy. The glittering chandeliers blazing everywhere overlapped in layers, then straightened, then blurred again.

They'd said I'd hovered near death for nearly a week because I'd lost so much blood. No wonder I felt faint.

But my mind was clearer than ever.

I retreated behind Adrienne's glass coffin, evading both Novian trying to approach me and the Crown Prince glaring as if ready to throttle me at any moment.

Fortunately, Novian couldn't follow—too busy watching the twitching Crown Prince warily.

I stared directly at that bastard Crown Prince.

"Did you ever love Rhodness?"

Those wild, unfocused eyes sharpened with intense color for a single moment, then twisted.

"Of course. I love him more than anyone in the world, and..."

The Crown Prince's lips curled up like a demon's.

"...he's the little brother I hate most in the world."

In the center of this underground chamber, beautifully decorated, only the sound of water dripping from the fountain continued.

The silence was brief, but the answer left an unbearably long echo.

"...Brother."

And then that familiar voice cut through.

I froze in shock, my gaze sliding toward the front. Blood still oozed out, forcing me to clamp down hard on my side.

Rhodness stood there, sweat beading his forehead, his eyes disheveled as they swept over Bardenaldo, me hidden behind the glass coffin, Baroness Kuroseida's corpse, and Novian in turn.

"What... is all this?"

Ah.

Behind me lay rows of corpses, but it was Rhodness's devastated face against that darkness that felt more like hell to me.

Rhodness had been waiting for Novian Trovika when he noticed several Imperial Guard knights rushing about.

They said they were searching for Grand Duke Novian, who had injured his colleagues and fled.

Rhodness thought the fugitive Novian would only look for Adrienne, so he immediately joined them in frantically searching for both Adrienne and Novian.

All the while, he clenched his jaw, swearing to himself that no matter what Adrienne said to persuade him, he would never leave her side again.

The Imperial Palace, lit everywhere for the Emperor's birthday celebration, wasn't difficult to search. Near the Crown Prince's palace, he encountered Bardenaldo's guards, who claimed they'd come looking for him.

"Countess Acacia said she had a prior engagement with the Second Prince, Your Highness, and insisted we bring you."

"Did you hear this directly from her?"

"Yes. She said it concerned the Grand Duke and that she had something to report directly to the Crown Prince..."

If someone had been playing tricks, Adrienne wouldn't have spoken directly.

The conviction that Adrienne needed him struck powerfully. Rhodness followed the guards urgently toward the Crown Prince's palace.

Most knights had been dispatched to guard Atilchard Hall, leaving the Crown Prince's palace deserted.

"The bedroom?"

"The Grand Duke also arrived."

Rhodness cursed quietly under his breath, then the door opened.

Bardenaldo's bedroom—which Rhodness had never entered in his life—was a disaster zone, with all three sets of double doors thrown wide open. Vases and glass ornaments that must have been placed throughout lay shattered everywhere.

"My lady!"

Unless they were playing hide-and-seek...

He could hardly believe Adrienne had entered the Crown Prince's bedroom in the middle of the night, but the thoroughly disheveled yet empty room felt even stranger.

And Novian Trovika had entered here too. The premonition was bad.

Rhodness boldly checked the wardrobes, beneath the bedding, even the locked windows, but couldn't find any trace of people.

Then suddenly, he felt eyes watching him and turned his head.

A massive portrait of Empress Letina hanging in the corner smiled down at him with gentle affection. He moved toward it as if entranced.

Up close, the portrait hung slightly askew. Like a door not quite closed.

"...A door?"

Rhodness stepped into the entrance of a suffocating underground world and descended recklessly until he encountered voices both familiar and strange.

"Did you ever love Rhodness?"

"Of course. I love him more than anyone in the world, and..."

The voice he'd searched for so desperately, and—

"...he's the little brother I hate most in the world."

The voice he'd protected all his life.

"Oh, Rhoan!"

The Crown Prince sprang up and staggered toward Rhodness, welcoming him.

Rhodness's eyes swept over his body continuously. Not with concern, though.

"I asked what all this is."

"Can't you see? Right now, Uncle and his mistress conspired together to cause this mess!"

Lips that couldn't even produce a bitter smile pressed tightly shut.

The Crown Prince began pouring out words enthusiastically. His face showed not a shred of doubt that his ally had arrived to rescue him from numerical disadvantage.

"Quickly, quickly dispatch those wretched bastards! Rhoan! I was so terrified I thought I'd die."

"What are all those corpses? Adrienne's body, why..."

His voice, barely suppressed in the face of this unbelievable scene, began to shake when his eyes met Adrienne's.

His thick Adam's apple bobbed as if forcibly swallowing something down.

Thanks to the tall coffin, Rhodness couldn't see the blood flowing from Adrienne's side. Adrienne was grateful for that.

"Why does Brother have Baroness Kuroseida's corpse?"

"It wasn't me! Novian Trovika—our uncle created this space supposedly for me! Isn't it a bizarre hobby? Good God, how shocked was I? That woman deliberately approached me too! I was being lenient because she was the woman you cared for!"

Disgusting. I wanted to scream that it was a lie, but Adrienne maintained her silence while observing Rhodness first.

With each word Bardenaldo uttered, Rhodness's face crumbled more devastatingly.

Bardenaldo, who'd been explaining fervently, suddenly brightened when Rhodness seemed not to believe him at all.

"Are you—are you doubting me right now, Rhoan?"

"...I prayed it wasn't you, Brother."

"What?"

"No matter how much Novian Trovika—that son of a bitch—testified about you. Even when he swore you instructed the Grand Duke to deceive Adrienne. The brother I know isn't that kind of person. At least not this much of a monster. I thought there must be some misunderstanding."

"It wasn't me!"

"But what is all this? How do you plan to atone for these sins?"

"It's not my sin! I told you it's Novian Trovika's doing! Rhoan, Rhoan, please..."

"I've lived my entire life for you, Brother. I never even hoped for gratitude in return."

His distorted voice fell toward Bardenaldo like coughed-up blood—drop, drop.

"I loved you, and because I loved Mother, I simply lived according to her wishes."

Unlike his sorrowful voice, his wildfire-red eyes burned quietly.

"Wasn't it enough that I sent away the one person I wanted so desperately? What is that corpse? You watched me running everywhere trying to obtain that person—how can you possess Baroness Kuroseida's corpse as well?"

He should grab those shoulders and shake them. Should shout accusations.

But Rhodness clenched his jaw and restrained himself, gripping the Crown Prince's damp shoulders tightly.

The abnormally wet face and upper body. The fever-flushed face—even he could see it.

This isn't Bardenaldo.

This person in this state, among these corpses, in this situation—this couldn't be his brother. He denied it, denied it, denied it again.

"...How insolent you've become, Rhoan."

Eyes bloodshot, Rhodness's gaze clashed sharply with the deep blue eyes he'd always coveted.

Rhodness had locked eyes with countless enemies in battles of will, but never like this with Bardenaldo.

"I am this nation's Crown Prince. If I want something, I take it."

The heat drained gradually from Rhodness's rage-flushed face. It felt like confronting some demon he'd never experienced before.

"You said it yourself, Rhoan. When you came to me saying you wanted Adrienne Pirreta."

Lips that had maintained propriety despite sensuality twisted grotesquely.

That face—mocking the world's most wretched enemy—made Rhodness's expression harden instantly.

"You said you could yield everything else, but not Adrienne Pirreta."

Bardenaldo raised his eyebrows, narrowed the space between them, and laughed as if incredulous at the memory.

"Yield?"

"..."

"Who are you to yield anything to anyone?"

Clear mockery.

The exaggeratedly drawn-out lips, the gleaming eyes that seemed angry instead—nothing could explain it except mockery.

"It was always like that. Always. Did you think I didn't know? That you always pathetically let me win?"

Bardenaldo ground his teeth and shook off the grip on his shoulders. Rhodness lowered his arms and stared down at him blankly.

"You didn't even know who was really showing mercy."

"I never showed mercy. I simply had no desire to win. How could there have been any malice? What does that have to do with Adrienne?"

"Because Adrienne Pirreta is mine!"

Bardenaldo shrieked. Layers of suppressed emotion scraped his throat raw—a metallic sound.

"Whether Castagna's daughter or Pirreta's daughter, both should rightfully be mine, but when I heard one of them liked you, I was so twisted with resentment I could barely stand it."

The Crown Prince's face—grinning until his mouth seemed to tear—was a demon incarnate.

"The one who should yield isn't you—it's me. You didn't even understand that, yet you dared babble about not being able to yield to me, so is it a crime that I told my dog to hold onto her for a while?"