Chapter 34
Chapter 34
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 34
Chapter Title: Lover
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Duke Turbul was a man whose expression barely changed. However, this time he was furious. All pretense of a subject's decorum had vanished.
He had laid eyes on something too disgraceful to behold.
“Are you in your right mind?! Your Majesty, the person you just kissed is Her Imperial Majesty the Empress Dowager—your mother!”
The duke's face was one of utter devastation. Asherad observed it closely, his gaze sparkling beautifully like the glass eyes of a doll.
That transparency held no emotion at all, rendering it profoundly alien.
The emperor felt no anger at being spied on, no shame whatsoever. Asherad smiled at Duke Turbul, as if daring him to continue. The duke's face contorted.
“Your Majesty……! Why on earth!”
Duke Turbul, the empire's steadfast pillar and its central anchor, yearned desperately for Asherad's explanation. Asherad had always pursued righteousness, earning the people's admiration as a paragon of moral emperorship.
For such a man to shatter not merely basic morals but the deepest taboos—kissing his own “mother.” And yet, he wore an expression of mild annoyance.
Asherad spoke with a smile.
“My late father made such a spectacle over women too. Is it something his blood kin like me can't do?”
“Your Majesty!”
Duke Turbul shouted, as if he could bear no more. To Asherad, his rage seemed nothing more than amusing entertainment.
Duke Turbul looked thoroughly incensed. Daphne, knocked to the floor by him, reeled from the shock of the situation but felt a strange kinship with the duke.
Asherad regarded her anger with that same detached, observational gaze. A remote thought surfaced: *So it's not just directed at me.*
“Duke, what rudeness is this before His Majesty!”
Kallista cried out sharply. She stepped forward as if to shield Asherad.
“Did you spy on His Majesty's chambers without permission?”
“Even Your Imperial Majesty the Empress Dowager—why are you doing this! If you possess any discernment, you know this is unacceptable! You can't…… you simply can't.”
“…….”
“Your Majesty, what would the late Lady Sabrina—your mother—think of this!”
The duke cried out to Asherad in anguish. A cold sneer crept across Asherad's steadfastly impassive face.
“I never knew Duke Turbul cared more about my dead mother than I do.”
It was a soft remark, laced with razor-sharp bone. As Duke Turbul's expression hardened, Kallista interjected once more. She had restrained herself somewhat thanks to Asherad, yet she still failed to discern when to speak and when to hold her tongue.
“Duke, I speak from the years we've shared. Keep this silent. And what is there to make such a fuss over? We're all in the same boat!”
“…….”
“As long as it doesn't come to light, nothing will happen. So just keep quiet.”
“Do you truly believe that?”
From the start, Duke Turbul had ignored Kallista, his eyes fixed solely on Asherad. With no reply forthcoming, the duke spoke flatly.
“There are witnesses here, so we should kill her.”
He flung the door wide open, and all eyes turned to Daphne, kneeling on the floor. Kallista narrowed her eyes, furrowed her brow in thought, then suddenly recalled who she was.
Asherad glanced at the prone Daphne before turning to Duke Turbul.
Duke Turbul watched his throat bob. For some reason, Asherad's perpetually composed face had stiffened with tension.
“This woman secretly watched the two of you kiss. She's a mere maidservant. Shouldn't we kill her?”
If Asherad so much as nodded, Duke Turbul seemed poised to end Daphne's life on the spot.
Daphne blinked in startled shock.
She would die. She harbored little attachment to life, but the immediate threat set her heart pounding.
What she had witnessed was the emperor's fatal secret. The emperor consorting with his stepmother? It was inconceivable.
What was Asherad thinking?
What thoughts had driven him to kiss Kallista while staring straight into *her* eyes? At that moment, Duke Turbul took a step toward Daphne.
His icy gaze promised instant death. Strangely, from this outwardly calm man emanated clear murderous intent toward her. He was a giant of a man.
Without a sword, he would surely kill her with his bare hands. Those massive fists would crush her skull; his grip would snap her neck in an instant.
“Yes, Duke—kill her now!”
Kallista screamed. At the Empress Dowager's words, Daphne realized all hope of survival was lost.
Asherad felt the same. Lost in thought, his brows slightly furrowed as he stared fixedly at Daphne. This man had no intention of sparing her.
In truth, from the moment she was caught fleeing, Daphne had abandoned any hope of joyful living. Surely she posed no threat to Fabian's family, their names long faded into oblivion.
She closed her eyes, deliberately avoiding Asherad's gaze. She braced for pain. For the first time, a sense of relief washed over her features.
Yet nothing she anticipated arrived.
“If you wear a face like that, begging to die, it only makes me want to deny you that much more, Daphne.”
A soft voice reached her. She felt long fingers tracing her closed eyelids.
Opening her eyes, she found Asherad standing beside her. Her gaze silently questioned *why*, but Asherad merely looked down at her face.
“If this is your attempt to provoke me, perhaps you should stop, Duke?”
Asherad turned to face the duke. He grasped Daphne's hand and pulled her to her feet. Her eyes wide, she stared straight ahead.
Why?
Wasn't this the same Asherad who had always ignored her? Why step forward now, shielding her like this?
*You're not this kind of person.*
Had her death-wish expression simply irritated him?
She couldn't know. What mattered was that Asherad had publicly defended her for the first time.
Was she truly no better than a dog? Why did this spark joy in her? Daphne loathed herself.
“Asherad, kill her! What are you doing!”
Kallista shrieked through gritted teeth.
The man who had just shared such an intense kiss with her now turned his back, approaching the wretched seductress to protect her.
He didn't even meet Kallista's eyes. Ignoring her cries as if they were nothing, Asherad took Daphne's arm and helped her stand.
“Your Majesty—what is the meaning of this!”
Asherad chuckled softly at Duke Turbul's exclamation.
“There will be no killing this one.”
“What…….”
“She's my lover.”
Lover? Daphne blinked. So abruptly? Kallista let out a demonic howl.
“What are you saying!”
It struck like thunder from a clear sky! Asherad suddenly had a lover? Had he finally lost his mind!
“Are you protecting that woman now? How utterly wrong this is…….”
“To play the rake, this kind of rake isn't so bad.”
Asherad murmured quietly, still clasping Daphne's hand. Yet his words pierced the ears of both Kallista and Duke Turbul.
“You're not planning to announce her as your official lover, are you? That mustn't happen!”
Duke Turbul declared in a resolute tone. His menacing bulk and features lent the words a grave threat. Asherad dismissed the ominous air as lightly as a passing breeze.
“Duke Turbul—do you fancy yourself emperor because I entrusted you with state affairs?”
Sometimes, soft and airy things terrified more than heavy, disciplined might. Asherad regarded the duke with a smile.
Daphne glimpsed Asherad's coldly sunken eyes. His motives for protecting her might be impure, but he had opposed the duke for her sake.
Even she knew the Turbul Ducal House's unparalleled prowess. And that it embodied the nation's “uprightness.”
“Your Majesty, that's not it! You…… you know better than anyone why you're doing this!”
“Even so, obey the decision I've made.”
“…….”
“You may be my teacher, but you're no father to me. My tolerance for advice ends here.”
At Asherad's unyielding words, the duke fell silent. Asherad had no thought of retracting.
“Your Majesty. I won't kill her. I overstepped……. It won't happen again—so please withdraw your declaration of making her your lover…….”
“No. I've changed my mind.”
Asherad caressed Daphne's cheek.
“I'm starting to get annoyed, little by little.”
He eyed Duke Turbul's face as if seeing it anew. Kallista as well. Gone was the smiling, affable Crown Prince Asherad—only the emperor remained.
He had dreamed of his mother, leaving him in a foul mood. Kallista's excessive demands for affection grated on him. Duke Turbul's meddling grated too.
Daphne's attitude grated as well. The rest, he could endure.
But Daphne—offering neither plea for life nor even a beseeching glance—had snapped something within him.
So, how best to irk them all?
“I'll tread my father's path for once. From now on, I'll prepare a room for my Daphne, cherish her…… and love her.”
“Your Majesty, you mustn't! What are you doing!”
Kallista wailed. Asherad realized something fresh. He no longer needed to tread carefully. He had known it, but exercised excessive caution.
“Asheraduuu!”
To the hysterically shrieking Kallista, Asherad replied.
“Shut that mouth of yours, Mother.”