Chapter 64
Chapter 64
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 64
Chapter Title: Collapse of Delusions
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‘This can’t be right. He’s showing her to me on purpose.’
Calista repeated to herself over and over. But no answer came. She wanted that man to look at her, to quell her confusion.
She wanted him to notice her presence and light up with that bewitching smile, his eyes sparkling like they used to.
But this man’s face was disgustingly ordinary and meek.
The gap between them was driving Calista mad. Her feet sank into the sand like gravel, making her sway. Why? Didn’t Asherad like her?
You liked me, right?
He definitely did. Asherad liked Calista. That was the reason she was here. Right?
He’d dodged people’s eyes to send her subtle glances, stayed by her side the whole time. They’d drunk tea together, eaten together. They’d even kissed.
So why was he looking at that woman—no, that bitch—with such an expression? You love me.
It should be me……
Isn’t it?
She’d been mocked as a fake princess before, but she was never the one left out of the choosing. So whenever someone was compared, she’d always been the top priority.
She had always been loved, always adored, always praised by everyone.
Just being compared to the lowest, dirtiest woman she’d ever met was an insult in itself.
Calista believed her thoughts—more precisely, her delusions—were correct. She never even considered that it was due to Asherad’s deliberate, subtle touches and encouragements.
She had lived in her harsh world, and the sturdy walls of delusion she’d built to reject that world came crumbling down.
They had cracked several times before, so the collapse happened all too easily. This man never loved me.
He liked her from the start.
Her, that woman!
So what do I have left?
Calista thought as she gazed at her pathetic self. She had killed the husband who was supposed to be her pillar of support... with her own hands.
And now Asherad was welcoming a new empress, trying to shove her into the back room completely. Calista had thought Asherad was her savior.
Of course she had. He had saved her from the tyranny of the late emperor and her husband, Belenus, and from the social circles that mocked her for being unfamiliar with the empire.
Handsome features, flowing elegance, a sturdy body. The ideal man who would love her as a partner.
But what if not?
What did she have left?
She was nothing more than an empress dowager whose title she could lose the moment Asherad withdrew his guarantee. If only she had borne a prince back then, and that child had become crown prince, things would have been different.
Pushing Asherad aside and bedding that old man to produce a crown prince would have been horrific, but it would have been the smoothest path for her life.
Yet Calista had discarded that path with her own hands. Falling for Asherad’s temptations.
But she couldn’t be with Asherad either. They had never shared a bed, and he wasn’t her husband’s father, after all.
In the end, she was a fool who had trusted only in the heart of the one she loved and thrown her own life... into the abyss with her own hands.
As she watched that happy scene, a sinister glint entered Calista’s eyes. I won’t let them be. I won’t let them get away with this. Calista gritted her teeth.
* * *
Veronica Arald was not a beauty by objective standards. She had a plain appearance, the kind of blank canvas that became flashy when dressed up—one of those common faces in high society.
But her eyes were like a snake’s. Dark brown hair and the amber eyes typical of Thalassans. Veronica exuded a completely different aura from Calista.
“I greet the great hero of the empire. I am Veronica Arald Estalia.”
“Welcome.”
Asherad looked down at Veronica with an impassive expression. She was dressed up to the nines but not excessively like Calista—neat and clean. And she clearly intended to act differently from Calista, at least.
She had even greeted Daphne, who was watching the exchange.
Asherad was deliberately holding Daphne in plain view. Daphne felt like she might die from the humiliation of why the emperor was treating Thalassa’s princess this way.
“You must have had a tiring journey. We’ve prepared rooms for you—rest and recover.”
“Understood.”
“Also, you should take a look at your ‘sister.’”
At Asherad’s words, Veronica, who had kept her head bowed throughout, lifted it and met his gaze directly.
“My sister is the late Princess Sabrina.”
Asherad smiled brightly at that. The smile on that firm face had a way of drawing people’s eyes.
Veronica’s eyes widened as she gazed at the man who would become her husband.
Tanned skin, jet-black hair so dark it seemed to absorb light, green eyes inherited from Belenus. A sturdy, unbreakable body.
He was the kind of attractive male anyone would dream of.
But Veronica bowed her head again. They said the devil tempts in the most beautiful form. She wasn’t foolish enough to fall for it.
That was for fools like Calista.
“Your Majesty, I shall take my leave.”
With her head bowed, she glided elegantly out of the audience chamber. People had raged that it was a great insult from the first meeting, but Veronica, the one insulted, wore a calm expression.
“I’m not even empress yet—that’s not right.”
She tossed those words at her furious ladies-in-waiting and walked to the end of the corridor without looking back.
* * *
“Why, why…… Your Majesty, why did you do that?”
She had suspected it when he summoned her to the audience chamber.
Asherad looked at Daphne in his arms. From the moment Veronica entered, her body had gone rigid as stone. He could feel her tension.
Him seated on the throne, with Daphne on his lap.
To anyone watching, it was an emperor smitten with a woman and his bewitching concubine.
But that concubine wasn’t seductively charming the emperor with a smile—instead, she anxiously glanced around.
“Why?”
“…….”
“I’m declaring it to everyone. You’re my lover, so don’t touch her.”
He stroked her hair as if she were adorable. Daphne looked at Asherad as he said it.
He had introduced her to his wife candidate this way.
Why did it feel suffocating?
Why? She felt no satisfaction from exposing herself to Veronica. She just wished the ground would swallow her up.
Asherad set Daphne down from his lap and stood. Then he scooped her up in his arms. It was because her sprained ankle made her limp when she walked.
“Why?”
“Because it’s stuffy.”
As Daphne was carried by Asherad, she occasionally felt a distance from him.
Back when Daphne had tried to run and been caught, he had carried her every day. Mad with lust, he had devoured and held her like a beast.
But now it was a little different.
He spent time with her more ordinarily. He hadn’t done the textbook ‘seductress’ act that Count Rocania mentioned—sharing a bed.
Do you love me?
Nestled in his warm embrace, Daphne wondered.
She clearly remembered Asherad rushing to her when she’d hurt her ankle. Seeing his disheveled state had made her think ‘maybe……’. But she wasn’t sure. Why hadn’t he touched her?
Soon, Asherad arrived at Daphne’s room.
“Want to take a nap?”
Daphne shook her head. So he sat her in a chair. On the table—prepared by the maids, perhaps—were plump green grapes.
Asherad reached out, holding one to Daphne’s lips, and she ate it. Any questions of why had long been cast aside.
He did this sometimes. This wasn’t important. When Daphne offered him a grape, he chewed and swallowed it. A faint smile glimmered in his eyes.
He extended his long fingers with another grape.
Daphne stared at it and spoke.
“Are you going to make her your empress?”
He smiled, still holding out his hand.
“Why?”
Only then did his eyes sparkle. Only then did Daphne realize what Asherad had hoped for in creating this situation.
Her face darkened as if she might cry, and she gazed at Asherad desperately.
She made a ‘demand’ of Asherad.
“I…… don’t like it.”
Daphne took the proffered grape in her mouth. But the grape didn’t enter her mouth.
Lick.
She stuck out her red tongue and licked Asherad’s long finger.
Asherad’s gaze turned to Daphne. The blue-eyed woman looked at him with teary eyes, lips slightly parted.
Disheveled hair. A face looking only at him. That anxious expression.
Plop—.
The sound of the grape he’d been holding rolling across the floor echoed.