RAMHM Chapter 111

Our Enemy

Doris Castagna lay sleepless in a bedroom where not a single ray of sunlight penetrated.

From dawn, nobles from the west as well as Crown Prince faction aristocrats had lined up with requests for audience, but she had refused them all.

Silent, opulent space.

Doris lit a single candle as one might burn incense, and examined the Empire Daily that someone had brought at dawn.

[ Ronteaux's Saint, Crown Prince Bardenaldo, Passes Away ]

[ Once Again, Crown Princess Collapses from Shock ]

As Doris read the headline decorating the front page, she eventually set the entire page aflame with that single feeble candle.

Through the small fire that devoured the yellowed paper in an instant, yesterday's events flickered like phantoms.

'Bring Adrienne! Bring Adrienne...!'

'...'

A face like flawless white marble.

Crown Prince Bardenaldo, smeared with incongruous red blood, possessed a wickedly beautiful appearance too sinful to witness alone.

'Doris. Doris, bring Adrienne! Not you! Adrienne!'

His eyeballs turned crimson—as if the world would collapse if he lost the woman who had just left.

Doris observed that scrabbling wretchedness for a long moment.

'Can't you hear me? She's not a ghost, is she? It's Adrienne Pirreta, isn't it? Bring her! Bring her before my eyes!'

Keo-eok!

Bardenaldo's body trembled violently, and finally he vomited a thick clot of blood. His hand swept the air pitifully, desperately searching for a handkerchief, but no one offered him one.

'Why are you looking for a dead person?'

'She didn't die! Damn it! Adrienne Pirreta didn't die! Kul-leok! Ke-heok!'

Doris's eyebrows, which had been settled coldly, twisted more and more as Bardenaldo's coughing grew harsher.

'...Didn't die?'

'She didn't die! She died, but! She came back to life, damn it! If she were a ghost, if she were a ghost, that wouldn't be possible. Bring that woman!'

'Crazy bastard.'

Doris laughed freely at the nonsense mixed with coughing sounds.

'As if she didn't die.'

'Doris, you stupid bitch!'

'You kept looking for her so much that day. I killed her long ago.'

'Kul-leok! Kul-leok-kul-leok!'

'How could she not die? I received reports as if I were watching with my own eyes how she died, every breath she took crossing into the afterlife.'

'Keok, keu-k, kul-leok!'

One step. Another step.

Doris, smiling like a beautiful but lifeless artificial flower, finally moved when Bardenaldo began clawing at his own chest.

'It was the night I heard you say in your sleep, 'Adrienne is mine.''

Recalling the past for a moment, Doris smiled as if stepping onto a frozen lake, fragile enough to shatter.

'Julius Ronteaux. Novian Ronteaux. Bardenaldo Ronteaux... Rhodness Ronteaux.'

Doris walked slowly and perched on the edge of the bed.

'The men of the Ronteaux Imperial Family are all going mad chasing the phantoms of the dead. Julius Ronteaux can't forget Empress Letina, so he takes mistresses who resemble her. The Grand Duke, you, even Rhodness.'

'Rhoan...'

Seeing the Crown Prince react to Rhodness's name, Doris picked up a white pillow that lay beside her.

'Did you think I'd be jealous just because someone like you liked Adrienne Pirreta?'

Her slender fingers clenched the wrinkle-free pillow with a kwa-deuk.

'Someone as weak and substandard as you has no right to stand beside this Doris Castagna, Crown Prince.'

'You...!'

'From the beginning, I liked Rhodness, not you, you fool.'

Doris's thin arm stretched forward, and Bardenaldo's body—which had been folding up to sit and vomit blood—fell backward by her hand.

Like the night she drugged him with aphrodisiacs and alcohol before mounting him, Doris climbed atop Bardenaldo's body in one movement.

The tightly wrapped bandage wound must have torn open, because blood soon welled up from his chest and mouth.

Doris thought it looked just like the ruby rose Bliea Acacia always wore.

'Die, Bardenaldo.'

'No... keok... no, you can't...!'

'When you die, Rhodness will become Emperor.'

More than the command to die, Bardenaldo's eyes widened at the words that Rhodness would become Emperor.

His face twisted like a child whose candy had been stolen—but only for a moment.

Doris covered Bardenaldo's face with the white pillow she was holding and pressed down firmly.

"Keo-eok. Keok. Keok!"

The sound that came from a human mouth resembled water failing to drain properly from a massive bathtub clogged with filthy impurities.

'You will be the tragic Crown Prince who died at his uncle's hands...'

'Keo-eo-eo-eok.'

'And I will be... the only consort of Rhodness, who will become the new Crown Prince... replacing his poor elder brother.'

'Kkeo-eok, kkeok!!'

'History will record us in exactly opposite ways.'

The sound of blood clots and breath sinking together into his throat rang out noisily.

And the body that had been scrabbling roughly to expel blood gradually stopped moving, as if sinking beneath the bed.

Kwa-kwaang!

The sky that had been overcast all afternoon drove thick rain and thunder down to earth instead of the early evening moonlight.

In place of the collapsed Crown Princess, Empress Grace and Rhodness took charge of the funeral.

Not only the capital but nearly all nobles rushed to the palace overnight upon hearing the news and attended the funeral arranged before the Crown Prince's palace—yet it was unbelievably modest and quiet for a Crown Prince's funeral.

Very unusually, the Crown Prince's body was not even enshrined in a glass coffin, and it was announced the funeral would end in one day.

Considering Bardenaldo was the Crown Prince, it was an extremely radical decision.

Originally, direct imperial family members and their spouses should have 100-day funerals, but "direct imperial family" only referred to imperial family members who had won the succession battle.

Defeated imperial family members called the ability to hold 100-day funerals a "privilege."

This was because miserable victims of fratricidal conflict who met tragic ends could not even hold such funerals.

Displaying glorious bodies returned from battlefields and bodies that lived nobly throughout their lives before dying was an act containing the Ronteaux Imperial Family's pride.

Therefore, Crown Prince Bardenaldo's body, killed by his uncle, could not be displayed—a miserable funeral when examined closely. Because it was not a glorious death.

Though he was a son whose final honor should be protected, Emperor Julius accepted the Empress's proposal, perhaps unable to display for 100 days the face of an heir killed by his uncle.

He too did not wish to keep seeing his son's body, who had gone before his father.

I gazed quietly at the motionless Rhodness.

He stood before the massive Crown Prince's coffin alongside the imperial couple.

When our eyes met, I couldn't bear to meet his gaze as he tried and failed to smile for me, and I looked down.

We who had kissed in the terrible downpour, devouring each other hungrily—we snapped to our senses at the scream heard from the direction of the Crown Prince's palace.

Actually, we only separated our bodies after Neil, who came looking for Rhodness upon hearing that scream, delivered the terrible news.

Soaking both cheeks with what might have been rain or tears, Rhodness immediately wrapped my wet body tightly in his cloak and left the tunnel.

Though he stood at a distance, judging by how Neil's face was burning bright red, he must have seen us kissing mindlessly.

I briefly escaped the dawn memory and looked at Rhodness again.

Having temporarily suppressed his boiling desire and hidden his wildness, his eyes were deeply submerged, making it difficult to gauge what he was thinking.

Then, a commotion arose briefly at the ceremony entrance.

Doris, haggard after a single night, finally appeared supported by Nora.

People closed their eyes or fixed their gazes on the floor to avoid sending pitying looks.

Doris, appearing on the verge of collapse, met my eyes before even reaching the Crown Prince's coffin.

"!"

A threatening light swept across Doris's green eyes, sharp enough to make the fine hairs by my ears stand on end.

But it was so brief that I wondered if I'd imagined that moment.

In the space where the high priest's prayer and organ music for silent meditation resonated softly, Doris performed perfunctory courtesy to the imperial couple, then demonstratively shed tears beside Rhodness.

"I've really been wanting to ask something since yesterday."

"..."

When a hymn praising the Lord rang out loudly, Epero, who stood beside me with Viktor, whispered just loud enough for me to hear.

"Was Crown Prince Bardenaldo your enemy?"

"...No."

I answered while gazing at Bardenaldo's coffin.

"He was our enemy."

"..."

"So? Do you feel like becoming friends with me now?"

As one song ended, another began. When I glanced sideways, Epero clearly showed signs of hesitating over what to say.

"...If I become your friend, what do I gain?"

"What are you trying to gain?"

I deliberately lowered the corners of my mouth and snorted, lest anyone see.

"Do you think you can only become friends if you gain something together?"

"..."

"A true friend is..."

I gazed at Doris sobbing with her face buried in a handkerchief and finished my answer.

"...Someone who eliminates enemies together, isn't it?"

Epero seemed to mull over the meaning of my words for a moment before looking at Empress Grace, whose exhaustion was evident.

The Empress had already held funerals for six princes this way, so he must be worried.

I squeezed his arm once, both comforting and ensnaring him, then released it.

Startled, Epero stared blankly at the arm that had been gripped, then swallowed dryly as if making a decision.

"I still don't really understand what's what, but..."

I withdrew my gaze from him and looked straight ahead. Epero pressed closer behind me and whispered.

"I do understand that if I become your enemy, I might be the protagonist of the next funeral."

It was a remark aimed at Bardenaldo, who despite being Crown Prince wasn't even enshrined in a glass coffin and was being hastily buried.

Since yesterday, Epero seemed stunned by the Crown Prince's sudden death.

Without Bardenaldo, the situation he so desperately wanted—"to keep staying in Ronteaux"—might continue.

Watching Epero unable to take his eyes off me, I demonstratively lifted one corner of my mouth.

Epero's face looked as if he'd found hope at his brother's funeral, apparently recalling my words about letting him stay in Ronteaux.

Before sunset, starting with the Emperor who eventually disappeared complaining of a headache, even imperial family members living far away headed to their villas, and those who had stayed out of courtesy all returned.

Countless gazes examined Rhodness quietly watching the Crown Prince's coffin before falling away.

Some hurriedly disappeared to discuss the succession structure that would change in the future, others mentally drafted invitation lists for tea parties, wanting to gossip about various conspiracy theories surrounding the Crown Prince.

Adrienne also quietly left the ceremony with Epero's party.

Rhodness's gaze, which had been directed at the coffin lid throughout, followed Adrienne's retreating back as she left the ceremony, then turned to the adjutants remaining by his side when she disappeared from view.

Vincento and Neil quietly kept to his side.

The servants watching for cues and priests who would continue prayers for Crown Prince Bardenaldo through the night also briefly left the ceremony.

The adjutants glanced at each other, wondering if they should withdraw for Rhodness's sake, and took a step forward.

And at that moment.

"Vincento."

"Yes, Your Highness."

Rhodness's voice, which hadn't spoken a word throughout the funeral, dropped bluntly before Vincento.

Rhodness's gaze still rested somewhere on the coffin.

"What will you do now?"

"...Pardon?"

The answer crawled out from Neil instead of Vincento.

It was a reflexive response when Rhodness, who should be commanding them, suddenly asked what they would do.

"Since my brother has passed, you have no need to remain by my side, do you?"

Has His Highness gone mad?

Neil raised his eyebrows and chose his words for how to respond to his lord facing his brother's death. At first he thought it was just lashing out.

"...Vincento?"

No answer even when called.

Until he saw Vincento frozen in the same position, having taken one step forward, as if time had stopped.

"I know you were my brother's eyes and ears."

While saying things Neil had never heard or seen, Rhodness still didn't give them even a glance.

"Your true master is dead, so handle your own disposition from now on."

Thud.

Vincento collapsed to his knees on the spot. Rhodness's gaze finally moved from the coffin to the ceremony entrance. They still weren't in his field of vision.

"Your Highness, Your Highness, that is... when, since when..."

Neil gaped wordlessly, overwhelmed by this absurd situation.

"...From the beginning."

Toward Vincento asking with a deathly pale face, Rhodness's voice dropped low, already several steps ahead.

"Since you volunteered to apply as my adjutant. Did you think I wouldn't know?"

Rhodness's retreating back was as robust and broad as always, yet strangely looked lonely.

Neil unknowingly reached out toward his lord, then examined Vincento's devastated face.

He was crying.