RAMHM Chapter 99

There, Adrienne Lay

Even trying to pretend otherwise, Rhodness couldn't stay still.

'How can she even think of meeting Novian Trovika again?'

He'd stepped outside to cool the emotions burning through his skull—and to escape the young ladies creeping closer.

What he felt was too complicated to bundle under the single word jealousy.

Even after hearing Adrienne's words—practically a confession—Rhodness remained perpetually anxious.

Because love was love, even when built on deception.

Clinging to a single statement—I want to get closer, I don't want to be just friends—felt inadequate when the word "love" that Adrienne had once used for Novian without hesitation sat lodged in his throat like a thorn, tormenting him.

When she'd said on the terrace that she'd come to meet Novian, if only he'd reacted more calmly then, he might have earned the chance to watch from a distance.

But how could anyone stay calm about that subject?

He dragged his hand through platinum hair glinting under moonlight.

His feet had already carried him far from Atilchard Hall.

The path Novian would take after his audience with the Emperor was obvious. He'd inevitably pass the route toward the Crown Prince's palace. This is wrong, Rhodness thought, but his feet followed his anxiety there anyway.

"...Rhoan?"

A rough, hoarse voice suddenly reached him. He turned.

From the direction of the Crown Princess's palace, Doris was running toward him in her nightclothes. In an outfit nearly naked, Rhodness's face visibly hardened.

"Rhoan, Rhoan. Ah, my Rhoan!"

"!"

Calling his nickname repeatedly with a thrilled expression, Doris looked somewhat unhinged.

"There are eyes watching. What are you doing?"

Though the words carried concern, his downward gaze was cold as winter.

Despite being close enough to reach out and touch, Rhodness merely looked down at the messily fluttering waist ties without offering the courtesy of fastening them for her.

"Tonight is my consummation night with His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince."

Doris quickly grabbed his large, unmoving hand.

"Let go, Your Highness. Didn't you hear me say there are eyes watching?"

"You look ready to murder any man who clings to some lowborn woman, yet why don't you even blink when I—a noblewoman—tell you I'm being bedded by a Crown Prince I can't stand?"

"There are ears listening too. Why are you acting this way?"

"Spending your whole life worrying about others' eyes—didn't that already cost you your first love?"

Doris pulled Rhodness's hand to her chest.

Even as he jerked back in shock, she gritted her teeth and rubbed that hand against her body.

Scattering a seductive smile, she slowly raised her eyes—then her expression went pale.

Because Rhodness's eyes showed no disturbance whatsoever, only cold observation.

"Brothers, both of you, making a complete fool of me... What exactly is wrong with this godforsaken Ronteaux bloodline?"

"Are you finished?"

When Rhodness withdrew his hand with finality, nearly naked Doris felt extreme humiliation. The flush that had colored her face rushed down her throat, spreading across her entire body.

"Please, Rhoan. I wanted you from the beginning. If Bardenaldo weren't Crown Prince, I never would have stood beside him. Please, please just hold me. I'll match whatever you want. Blonde? Black hair? Anything—I'll become it!"

Unafraid of being overheard, Doris pulled her clothes open further and cried out.

"What exactly is the problem? What! I'm offering to become your first love! That pathetic fake lover too—I'll be her! That woman doesn't love you anyway, Rhoan. She said it herself! No matter how enviable a groom you are, what's the point if she doesn't love you!"

Her desperate screaming poured across the corridor floor.

Doris, who'd taken extraordinary care with her appearance tonight, was beautiful enough to captivate anyone.

But she despaired at Rhodness's impassive face.

"Keep trying. Even if this were a bedroom with just the two of us instead of outside, I would never desire you."

At the blatant words, cracks appeared across Doris's expression.

"Don't disgrace my brother. Get out of here before others see you."

Complete rejection.

Damn it!

I'd lost the Crown Prince.

I'd entered the Crown Prince's palace, but he was nowhere to be found.

Surprisingly, getting inside had been easy. Because I was the Crown Prince's assistant.

'Please let me have seen wrong.'

Racing down empty corridor after empty corridor, I prayed to God.

After flinging open doors to audience chambers and reception rooms, I was finally blocked by guards outside the bedroom.

"You absolutely cannot enter the bedroom."

"Move. I have something urgent to tell His Highness."

"Even if you're his assistant, madam, I cannot allow it."

"It's an urgent message regarding Novian Trovika."

The two guards exchanged glances. Surprised ones.

They knew what Novian Trovika meant to the Crown Prince—knew what I had been to Novian. They were guards who accompanied the Crown Prince constantly.

"Still..."

Two pairs of complicated eyes swept over me.

"Second Prince Rhodness was supposed to come too—hasn't he arrived yet?"

At the mention of Rhodness, the men's faces went white.

"You don't both need to block just me. One of you should go fetch Second Prince Rhodness. It would be terrible if he collapsed somewhere after drinking at the party, wouldn't it? This is important."

Eventually the two guards exchanged glances, sighed deeply, and one left to retrieve Rhodness.

"This is urgent. I don't want to stand out here any longer either. If someone suddenly came to see His Imperial Highness, what would they think? That I'm lurking here trying to seduce the Crown Prince?"

"That, that's..."

The knight before me couldn't possibly be unaware of my gossip entangling the Grand Duke, Rhodness, and even Epero and the Ellaconian prince.

He could easily imagine that scandal might extend to the Crown Prince too.

"I'll take responsibility. When Second Prince Rhodness arrives, we can prove we had a prior arrangement."

With one sent outside, the remaining guard couldn't withstand my sophistry alone.

The hesitating knight finally backed down in the battle of wills, stepping aside.

The door opened.

The bedroom entrance with three additional inner doors came into view.

My heart felt ready to burst.

Walking quietly inside, I quickly threw open all three inner doors and entered the bedroom. The traces of someone having smashed every furnishing were vivid. But the Crown Prince wasn't there.

For just a moment, chills crawled over my skin.

"Your Highness, Your Highness...?"

No one answered.

I felt like small prey being stalked by a predator concealing its presence.

Inexplicable fear rippled beneath my feet.

'Having come this far, having committed this much... I can't back down now.'

Then—

BANG! BANG! BANG!

A heavy pounding sound rang out beneath my feet. At the vibration like a brief shallow earthquake, I flinched.

"Below... my feet?"

Following traces of shattered vases and pillows burst open with feathers protruding, I crossed the wide bedroom to find Empress Letina's portrait hanging in a corner of the wall.

BANG! BANG!

The vibration beneath my feet intensified. As extreme tension crawled up my spine, anger suddenly surged.

"What the hell. What exactly do you want me to do? Where are you, Bardenaldo?"

As if responding to that vibration, I stomped my feet hard. Then I touched and felt around Empress Letina's portrait. And in that instant, a miracle occurred.

With just a slight push...

As if the gently smiling Empress Letina were opening her arms in welcome, the painting receded and became a door that opened. It revealed endless darkness and an underground passage.

Then I heard it clearly.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

That damned pounding that had been thudding beneath my feet.

I hesitated for just a moment. If I left now to bring people, could I catch whatever was happening down there?

No—would I even be able to enter this bedroom again?

'How long are you going to hesitate? Do you have the mental capacity to run away or delay anymore?'

I took one trembling step forward.

The encroaching darkness felt suffocating, but I thought first that if I turned and fled now, I'd never know the truth.

Fumbling and shaking, I descended the stairs quickly.

Though it was midwinter, unlike the bedroom where warm air had circulated, the deeper I went underground, the bone-chilling cold clawed down my spine.

'I'm afraid of the Imperial Palace. I'm afraid of the Crown Prince too.'

'The Crown Prince's palace has bad energy.'

Why did Empress Grace's terrified voice suddenly flash through my mind?

Beneath the Crown Prince's palace in the heart of the Imperial Palace—had she known about this secret room too?

Faint light leaked from nearby. Welcome, yet simultaneously my back soaked with cold sweat.

Don't run. Don't run. Endlessly whipping myself with those words, I stepped into the dim light—and no matter how I covered my mouth with my hands, I couldn't stop it from falling open.

Bardenaldo stood in this chilling, skin-crawling space with his upper body bare, drenched in sweat.

What Bardenaldo had been pounding was a coffin. A glass coffin I'd seen before.

Bardenaldo, who'd been striking the glass coffin hard enough to shatter it, slowly turned at the sound of someone's presence.

With his bare torso, the gleaming gold chain showed more clearly. Undeniably, unmistakably—my mother's necklace.

Bardenaldo brushed his sweat-dampened hair roughly with one hand, his face flushed with heat.

"...Oh dear. You saw."

Sweat droplets scattered everywhere, and the expression on the upright Crown Prince's face—wild and feral in a way I'd never seen—was shock itself.

Suffocated by overwhelming terror I couldn't handle, I could only cover my mouth with both hands as I shifted my gaze to the glass coffin he'd been striking.

"Ah, living people... are truly tiresome."

There lay Adrienne's corpse—the one that should have been buried.