Chapter 08
Roberic extended his hand toward me.
I ground my teeth in disgust, but I had no choice but to take it.
I needed to make sure Grandfather was safe.
“…Edith!!”
“Grandfather!”
Among the knights who appeared to be from the Grand Duke’s household, I saw my grandfather kneeling.
“Roberic Arne Hailian! So you’ve come to take even my granddaughter in the end!”
A desperate hatred spread across Grandfather’s face.
Roberic, gently holding my hand, began to walk forward as he replied,
“You should choose your words more carefully.”
When he reached Grandfather’s side, Roberic released my hand.
Not even understanding why he had done so, I ran to Grandfather and hugged him tightly with all my strength.
“I am Edith’s biological father. If it is for her safety and happiness, there is nothing I would not do.”
“…You bastard.”
Grandfather, holding me tightly, growled as if scratching his own throat like a beast.
Still holding him in panic and desperation, I opened my tightly shut eyes and looked around.
“…!”
And then I found him. The innkeeper, standing awkwardly beyond the knights.
So it was him.
I instinctively realized who had informed Roberic of my whereabouts.
I clenched my teeth.
I had no intention of playing along with their carefully staged act.
“What are you doing?”
“Edith!”
I released my arms from around Grandfather’s neck and turned around.
Roberic, leaning on the scabbard planted in the ground, looked down at me.
“What do you mean?”
he asked gently.
Suppressing the surge of revulsion, I shouted,
“I told you I wouldn’t go with you. So what is this? Why are you detaining my grandfather and me?!”
I knew it myself. That nothing would change no matter what I said.
But I was too furious to simply tremble and obey.
I felt like I could barely endure only by screaming like this.
“…Siorn Arkaits Bastevan.”
However, Roberic’s gaze and voice were directed not at me, but at Grandfather.
He asked calmly,
“How exactly did you educate Edith?”
…What?
I looked up at Roberic, feeling as if I had been struck on the back of the head.
“You must have raised her to be hostile toward me, as if brainwashing her. I can tell without even seeing it.”
When someone falls into their own delusions, arbitrarily reaches conclusions, and interrogates others based on them, people call that insanity.
So Roberic truly was not in his right mind.
“That’s not true! Until you came, I had never heard anything about my father!”
I shouted desperately.
The hand gripping my arm trembled faintly.
“Edith.”
Roberic called me.
I did not stop. I glared straight at him.
“No matter what happens, I won’t go with you. I’ll stay with Grandfather until I die!”
“Edith….”
Grandfather’s voice came softly.
Suppressing the tears that welled up with anger and sorrow, I continued to glare at Roberic.
“…Ha.”
Roberic let out a small, mocking breath.
Then he drew a silver sword from the scabbard he had been leaning on.
“!”
At that moment, when a breeze light enough to stir my hair passed by—
“Grandfather!”
The tip of Roberic’s sword passed me and aimed at Grandfather’s neck.
“You dared to conceal the existence of my child, and now you even attempted to spirit her away.”
My mind went blank.
Twisting the blade, Roberic murmured,
“What compensation do you intend to pay for that?”
The expression on his face was something I had never seen before.
‘Edith!’
‘Thank goodness, you’ve finally decided to talk to your father!’
‘Edith… please. Why are you doing this….’
He had always been smiling brightly or shedding pitiful tears.
A man whose head seemed filled with nothing but flowers.
That was what I had thought…
“Hmm? Please, answer me.”
Just whose face was that chilling one?
Goosebumps rose all over my body.
I couldn’t even blink.
Had he merely been wearing a mask all this time, and this cold, ruthless self was his true nature?
Unless his personality had changed entirely, how could this be possible?
“…What do you want?”
Grandfather asked weakly.
…No, that weakness was just my illusion.
“What more could you possibly want from me, after taking my honor, my family, my title, and in the end, even my daughter?”
Grandfather was quietly furious.
“Let me claim ownership for once. Edith is not yours. I raised her. From the very moment she was born wrapped in her mother’s membrane until now. Do not speak of blood ties or being her father. To me as well, Edith is the only blood left in this world by Mariette.”
Grandfather’s hand tightened around my shoulder.
“…What shall we do?”
Roberic said as if Grandfather’s words were absurd.
“The very thing I want is that child.”
“….”
“What will you offer in exchange? Or do you even have anything left to offer?”
It was horrifying.
Truly, utterly horrifying.
“Ah, I misspoke. There is one thing you still possess.”
What did that blade, wandering so blatantly around Grandfather’s neck, mean?
I hated Roberic.
Now, beyond hatred, I was sickened to my core.
The way he mocked the man who had been his benefactor and mentor, after casting him into ruin, made my teeth grind.
…But he had power.
The kind of power that allowed him to act this arrogantly and vilely without paying any price.
And that power…
“-Stop it.”
…was something that might one day become mine.
Damn it.
“I’ll go with you.”
“Edith!!”
Grandfather’s shout pierced my ears. Roberic looked down at me.
“…That…”
He narrowed his elegant brows slightly.
I looked up into his eyes—the same red eyes as mine, which I had refused to acknowledge until now.
“I’ll go to the Grand Duke’s house. As you wish… Father.”
His sharply narrowed eyes widened.
I silently met his shaken gaze.
And I thought,
The blood tie between you and me is this clear and undeniable.
So someday, the power you’ve built will rightfully become mine.
When that time comes, I—grown strong beyond your ability to stop—will achieve it in the end.
Grandfather’s restoration.
“Edith…!”
And the judgment for the arrogance you have committed.
A beautiful, radiant smile bloomed on Roberic’s face, like a petal settling upon the surface of a lake.
To me, who remembered the chilling expression from just moments ago, it was unbearably eerie.
He collapsed to his knees and pulled me into an embrace.
“Thank you for accepting your father, truly… Thank you. I will do my best to grant you anything you want. No matter what, I will protect you….”
His heartfelt whisper reached my ears.
Yet among his long-winded words, there was not a single one that truly mattered.
My heart was fixed only on Grandfather, whose face I could not see behind me.
He would surely blame himself for my choice and suffer because of it.
But I didn’t know how to comfort him.
I closed my eyes.
The peace that had gently embraced my life until now turned back at this moment and declared its end.
Watching them from a distance, Perion clenched his jaw tightly.
He had exhausted every possible means because he did not want to walk the path of a beast.
Yet, in the end, it had come to this.
If asked to name the person he hated most, Perion would answer without hesitation: Mariette.
Now that she was gone, the ones he hated most were her father, Siorn Arkaits Bastevan, and her daughter.
Edith Ronen Bastevan.
Especially Mariette’s daughter—she was like a thorn stuck in his throat.
On the surface, Shastya and Alea’s positions seemed flawless.
But that was only within the Grand Duke’s residence.
‘Lowly creatures….’
‘Does the Grand Duke Hailian truly intend to pass the title to that stepdaughter who doesn’t even share his blood?’
‘Though the former Duchess Bastevan was somewhat excessively jealous, there was no one of more noble birth than her….’
‘Where in the empire could there be a woman to surpass the daughter of a hero?’
‘To think that mere commoners act so arrogantly as the Grand Duchess and the Grand Princess—it is truly disgusting.’
‘To think that the noble Hailian line will end like this, all because of a mere widow!’
These were the kinds of words heard just a few steps outside the Grand Duke’s residence.
Ignorant commoners saw the Grand Duchess Hailian as a kind and blessed woman who had triumphed over a villainess.
But the nobles openly despised Shastya and Alea.
The moment Perion heard someone claim that even the cruel Mariette had been far more outstanding than Shastya, he had to suppress the urge to draw his sword and behead the speaker.
And now, if the only biological child of Roberic—and Mariette’s daughter—appeared…
The nobles would welcome her wholeheartedly.
And they would support that child as the next Grand Duke of Hailian.
“That must not happen….”
No matter what, he had to prevent it.
He didn’t even want to imagine how far Shastya and Alea’s situation would fall if that came to pass.
That child, who would surely be as vicious as her mother, would never leave them alone.
‘…Thank you, Perion.’
She had only just found happiness.
When he imagined Shastya losing everything and being cast out, Perion felt like coughing up blood.
“….”
Perion fixed his hatred-filled gaze on Edith.
Even though she was the daughter of the woman he hated most, he did not want to stain his hands with her blood.
But now, there was no other path left for him.
The final measure he would use if Edith and Siorn were taken by Roberic.
Perion decided to kill Edith Ronen Bastevan.
