Chapter 35
Chapter 35
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 35
Chapter Title: The Price of Authority
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“I want to know the reason.”
Lena spoke in a voice as quiet as the night.
“The reason Lin can’t have a mate.”
“That’s……”
Lin hesitated before starting to speak. But before he could continue, Lena, reading the signs of refusal, added first.
“If it’s hard to talk about, I won’t push you. But if possible, I’d like to hear it. I want to clear up any doubts before we take sides.”
Lena’s words were polite yet clear.
“Whatever you tell me, I’ll keep it secret.”
It was a sincere promise. Last night, while talking about his mate, Lin had smiled in a way she’d never seen before. Like he was hurt. So Lena hadn’t pressed further. She thought there would be no more talk of it. She considered prying into someone else’s painful past rude. Up until today, just a few hours ago, that belief had been firm. Yet Lin had once again slipped through the locked door of Lena’s heart without permission. When the Emperor ordered them to fight, Lena would have understood if Lin had attacked in earnest. The situation left no choice, and Lena herself had been quite serious. But Lin hadn’t even hesitated. Despite being attacked repeatedly, he hadn’t wavered. Even before the tyrant’s command, he remained a kind person. So Lena could no longer look away. She wanted to hold his hand. And she wanted to know more about him.
Lena looked up at Lin without hiding her newfound desire. As if sensing the change in her feelings, Lin gazed down at her quietly. After a long moment, he murmured softly.
“……Did you hear anything?”
“Hear what?”
“About me, from the Southern Duke.”
“Roughly, yeah.”
Lin let out a sigh as he looked into the distance, nodding at Lena’s response. He seemed to have a vague idea of what the Southern Duke had said. From his reaction, it didn’t appear to be complete fabrication.
“I don’t get along well with the Southern Duke.”
Lin scratched the back of his neck with a troubled expression.
“That’s why we fought the moment we saw each other earlier.”
He was referring to the clash in front of the conference hall today. Lena just thought, *Oh, I see.* But then came an unexpected apology.
“I’m sorry for what I said at the conference hall.”
“Huh?”
“I wasn’t thinking. If it bothered you, I apologize.”
“......Then what about when you stabbed me with a sword?”
Lena muttered in disbelief at Lin’s cautious words. He was still hung up on it, apparently. The incident where he had insulted both her and the Southern Duke in front of the conference hall. Lena had completely forgotten about it, but his sincerity and gentleness made her furrow her brow and smile.
“I heard that you hurt women.”
But because of this, she couldn’t believe the rumors surrounding him even more.
“It’s strange, isn’t it? The Lin I know doesn’t seem like the type.”
So Lena asked honestly.
“Why did those rumors start? Is it related to why you can’t marry?”
Lin closed his eyes at Lena’s gentle question. He looked troubled. Like he was debating whether to speak.
“It’s not baseless rumor.”
After a long pause, he finally answered.
“Several people really got hurt because of me.”
“On purpose?”
“……No.”
Lin shook his head with a pained expression.
“I’ve never done it on purpose, not once.”
It was a story he’d never told anyone. A story he shouldn’t tell lightly. He agonized over it repeatedly, but the answer was already decided.
“What I’m about to say is a secret.”
They felt the same. Just as Lena wanted to know Lin, Lin didn’t want to be misunderstood by her.
“Promise me. Don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t.”
So in the end, before Lena’s clear gaze, he decided to reveal his secret. Even so, the words didn’t come easily. It was his first time telling it, and he wasn’t sure where to begin. Lin thought for a long time before slowly starting.
“People in the Empire think the Emperor’s Authority is divine.”
“Because it’s power granted by the gods.”
The Emperor had declared as much in his autobiography. That he received a revelation from the wraiths to save the world from them, and for that, he was granted Authority by the gods.
“But is it really power from the gods?”
“Huh?”
“It’s too bizarre for that.”
At Lin’s self-mocking words, Lena recalled the incident at the banquet hall earlier. Under Clavis’s touch, a sturdy man withered in an instant. His cheeks hollowed out, his thinned skin revealing the shape of a skull beneath, and his thick limbs dangled like rotten vines. It was the Western Duke’s Authority of enfeeblement. A power that stole the vitality from the living—definitely bizarre. So Lena nodded in agreement. But what Lin was about to say went far beyond that.
“Have you ever heard of execution compulsion?”
“The hereditary mental illness of the Northern Dukes…… right?”
Every Northern Duke had suffered from a strange neurosis. It was no longer a secret—just common knowledge. So Lena recalled what she’d vaguely heard and added.
“I know it as a condition where they’re anxious about being beheaded.”
***
At that very moment, in the northernmost vacant room of the Lake Palace, the execution compulsion Lena was describing was actually happening.
“Let me go!”
A shout echoed through the dark bedroom.
“Untie this!”
It was Rubid’s voice, filled with rage and utter terror. Rubid thrashed on the bed, bound tight. His long golden hair scattered across the pillow, he twisted against the silk restraints on his hands and feet, screaming.
“She’s coming……! Iura, to cut off my head……!”
The once-arrogant prince cried out in a hoarse, raspy voice. No one could tell if the sweat or tears wetting his flushed cheeks were from fear. Upon waking from a long sleep, Rubid had immediately gone berserk. The servants attending the prince watched from a distance, as if accustomed to the sight.
“The medicine from His Excellency is all gone.”
“We’ve already sent for more from His Excellency Rubel, so wait. He’ll bring it soon……”
The servants whispered anxiously among themselves. The prince’s mania had flared up again after a period of calm. The cause was likely the failed expedition. The normally boastful prince would turn vicious at the slightest setback, unjustly lashing out. Terrified that his brother Iura would behead him. It was the same this time. Though the first expedition had ended in惨 defeat, Iura hadn’t blamed his younger brother. He hadn’t demanded accountability or punishment. Yet Rubid, preemptively gripped by fear, was throwing a fit. Had his hands and feet not been bound, he probably would have fled long ago. But this wasn’t just Rubid’s problem. For generations, the Northern Dukes had suffered from mental illness. Without any basis, they believed family, friends, or servants would decapitate them. It was bizarre. There were other ways to kill—poison, strangulation—yet they feared only beheading. Thus, people coined the term “execution compulsion” for the Northern Dukes’ shared, obsessive anxiety. On that deep night, Rubid was tormented by it. His usual arrogance was gone. There was only a trapped beast writhing and trembling.
***
The anxiety of being beheaded, a mental illness hereditary to the Northern Dukes. Lena’s answer about execution compulsion was textbook. Straight from common knowledge, perfectly sensible. But it wasn’t the answer Lin wanted.
“Execution compulsion isn’t some mental illness.”
“Then what is it?”
“The price of receiving the Emperor’s Authority.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I have the same problem.”
Lin’s voice was flat. But the meaning behind his words was anything but. Lena stared at him in shock. That gaze hurt, and Lin continued quietly.
. . .
Among all the dukes, the youngest, most ambitious, and ruthless—Eastern Duke Rig-nan Aiterner—had become duke at just thirteen years old. Seven years ago, Eastern Duke Naza Aiterner Grasha had died. So the Emperor passed the East to his only son. But Naza’s son was a bastard, tainted with the blood of a colonial slave. Thus, Rig-nan Aiterner was denied the Grasha name. Naturally, the Empire’s haughty nobles refused to acknowledge him. They feigned acceptance only because of the Emperor’s decree, but no one believed he could properly fulfill the role of duke. And they were right. Thirteen years old. At the time, Lin could barely speak the Empire’s language and was almost entirely ignorant of its customs and imperial etiquette—an utter foreigner boy.
*How did it come to this?*
Even after arriving at the imperial palace, Lin still felt like he was dreaming. So he slowly ran his hands through his hair. Amid the strands, he felt a faint scar. From just a fortnight ago, when he’d fallen from the castle. The day before Naza Aiterner died, Lin had jumped from the Eastern Duke’s castle. To die. The boy’s attempt had nearly succeeded. Plunging five stories onto stone, he was injured beyond recovery. He struggled to breathe, lasting maybe a day or two at most. But the next day, defying all expectations, the boy rose fully healed. His wounds had miraculously closed, his body restored. And without realizing it, he had become the new Eastern Duke. Without preparation, understanding, or consent. That was why he’d been pitifully dragged all the way to the imperial palace.
“That brat’s the Eastern Duke?”
“We had hopes since he’s Naza’s son.”
“There were even rumors he killed the Eastern Duke.”
The palace he entered did not welcome him. Countless gazes and whispers stabbed into the boy’s young back. But Lin endured, recalling the advice: *Never let them look down on you.* Treated like a spectacle, he entered the palace. But it wasn’t a particularly novel experience. Three years prior, when dragged from his homeland, he’d been through something similar. So the boy inwardly mocked himself, thinking prisoner or duke—it was all the same. But that was a complete delusion.
It was the first night after Lin entered the palace. Exhausted from tension all day, he finally relaxed in bed. As the boy drifted toward sleep, a faint sound of the door opening brushed through the darkness.
“Hello, little Duke?”
A voice like sweet honey followed. Startled awake by the noise, Lin bolted upright. A strange woman was in the room. Too dark to see clearly, but the dim moonlight was enough. Her lithe figure and seductive movements were captivating. Still just a boy—no, precisely because he was still a boy—Lin was helplessly ensnared by her sensual aura.
“Who……”
“Who do you think?”
Unable to tear his eyes away, Lin asked, and the woman playfully replied as she perched on the bed. Lin flinched involuntarily, pulling back. The woman grew bolder, kneeling onto the bed and crawling forward. As she leaned in, Lin froze solid.
“How cute.”
The woman smiled sweetly at the rigid boy. She’d planned to seduce him slowly, but he seemed ripe already—no effort needed. Having bribed the knights to enter Lin’s quarters, she was the daughter of a mid-tier noble. Bold and cunningly ambitious. Even if a foreigner, he was lord of the East. The sole legitimate heir to the Aiterner name. Claim a place at his side, bear his child, and she’d be Lady of the East, mother to the next duke. From prisoner to highly enticing prey.
“Were you lonely alone? I’ll keep you company, Duke.”
The woman whispered, caressing Lin’s cheek. Her long, smooth nails grazed his skin, sending chills down his spine. It was frightening. But he couldn’t refuse. She was beautiful, her touch warm. The embrace cradling his head was soft. Longing for human warmth, the boy let her encroaching hands be.
The woman tilted her head as if to kiss him. Terrified, Lin squeezed his eyes shut. Soon, soft flesh pressed against his lips. The sensation, the heat, the seeping moisture— all thought vanished. In its place filled an impulse he’d never felt before. No, it wasn’t mere impulse. It was a command. The Eastern Duke’s blood coursing through his veins ordered the boy: *Right now, bite and kill what’s in your grasp.*