Chapter 149
Chapter 149
Translation: godsn
'R-right. Would that witch really let me go so easily?'
The gentle girl before her had shattered the once-mighty Regent to his core, crushed the forces that had once gripped the kingdom in their hands, and brought them all to their knees.
'I—I can't stand against the Princess. I'll just be crushed like an ant, like the Head Maid, like the ministers...!'
Rising terror stripped Mariyu of even the last remnants of her defiance.
Hadn't she witnessed it all from the sidelines? How the Princess lured her enemies into traps and brought them to ruin.
Learned helplessness shattered her will.
As if her legs had given way, she slumped to her knees and pressed her forehead to the ground, begging.
"P-please, spare me, Your Highness. I didn't sell any information. I kept your orders. Please believe me......"
"......"
"If you just let me live, I'll disappear like the dead. I'll never show my face again. But... but if even that isn't enough, then at least spare this child."
Mariyu's face was streaked with tears.
She had never imagined she would feel such desperate love for the child in her womb.
When she first learned of the pregnancy, fear had outweighed joy. She had thought herself incapable of maternal affection.
But with each passing day, her feelings for the child had only grown.
This child was the fruit of her love with Samon, her only flesh and blood. In this barren world where even her own mother had abandoned her, the baby was the only being who shared her blood.
Mariyu could never give it up.
"......"
Anyone would have pitied her, seeing her desperate pleas for her child's safety. But Medeia remained cold.
Her chilling emerald eyes, impossible to read, swept over Mariyu.
Then, the Princess bent down, bringing her face close to Mariyu's.
The shadow cast at her feet. The faint scent of flowers brushing against her nose.
Mariyu trembled like an aspen leaf, still hunched over.
"Not Samon's? You're carrying a child?"
A soft hand cupped Mariyu's chin and lifted her face.
"If Samon welcomes you back—if he acknowledges this child—then I will do the same."
"......What?"
"Acknowledge it? No, I'll do more. I'll bring your child into the Royal Palace and raise them myself. They'll receive a royal education and be treated as one of the royal family."
"Y-you mean it?"
Mariyu couldn't believe her ears.
Medeia was the King's only sister. No one could deny her legitimacy.
If the Princess acknowledged the child, their future would be set in gold.
'They might even be added to the line of succession.'
The child of a mere commoner maid could become part of the kingdom's elite. They might even be granted a minor dukedom, like their father Samon.
For a fleeting moment, pleasant fantasies unfurled in her mind, curling into tendrils of desire.
But Mariyu quickly snapped back to reality and stared at Medeia with suspicion.
'The Princess wouldn't do something like this for me without a reason.'
"W-what if he refuses?"
"Hmm."
Medeia smiled faintly.
"We'll discuss that when the time comes."
Why hadn't she realized then? That smile was the noose of a hunter tightening around her neck.
Mariyu shook her head as she packed her belongings.
She shoved the pouch of hidden jewelry, buried deep in a drawer, haphazardly into her bag.
"I knew it. The Princess knew it all along."
That Samon would reject her child.
'She's using me... What is she planning? No, maybe...'
Her thoughts spiraled to the worst possibility. That the Princess wasn't using her—but her child.
"N-no...!"
Her heart pounded wildly. Nowhere was safe.
"They all want to take my baby away!"
Muttering under her breath, she suddenly let out a frantic scream.
"I have to run. My baby, they won't leave us alone."
One hand tore at her lips, the other cradled her stomach as she muttered hysterically to herself.
She had to escape—from Medeia, from Samon.
And so, late that night, the creaking of rusty hinges echoed once more.
There was no hesitation in her steps as she left the cramped, dingy room.
Clutching her belongings, she slipped out of the palace in secret.
'Just make it to the city gates. Then I can hide in a cart heading beyond the walls...'
The alley was pitch black, as dark as ink.
For some reason, her chest felt tight.
It was as if someone would appear any moment and seize her by the nape. Like a hunted animal, Mariyu kept glancing around frantically as she quickened her pace.
"Where are you off to in such a hurry?"
And then, her imagination became reality.
"Hm? Miss Mariyu. Aren't you going to answer me?"
The moment the burly men appeared before her like a lie, blocking her path, Mariyu barely managed to keep her legs from buckling beneath her.
"Grab her!"
She whirled around and sprinted toward the Royal Palace with all her might.
'They... they know my name.'
They had even been waiting for her outside the palace.
'D-Did the Princess know I was trying to run...?'
"Aah! Let me go—!"
The instant the thought crossed her mind, her hair was yanked back. A rough, calloused hand seized the back of her neck and flung her onto the street.
"Aack!"
Without even a moment to check her scraped skin, Mariyu scrambled back up.
"I'll give you everything I have, okay? Just let me go. Pretend you never saw me. Please."
She gathered the scattered trinkets from the ground and held them out, but the thugs didn't even glance at them as they hauled her up.
She thrashed in their iron grip, but it was futile. Growing desperate, Mariyu tried to reason with them.
"I—I'm carrying the bloodline of Duke Claudio's house, the royal family's lineage! If you let me go, the ducal house will reward you. So—"
Even after witnessing Samon's terrifying state in the prison, cornered like this, Mariyu reflexively invoked the Duke's name—as if her body remembered what her mind had been obsessing over.
"Tch."
One of the thugs scoffed. A mocking laugh slipped through his twisted lips.
"What nonsense. The ones who sent us to kill you were from that very house."
The thug curled his lips into a sneer.
"So this is how it is. Knew you'd start yapping about carrying the young Duke's brat the moment things went south."
"Th-That's impossible."
'It wasn't the Princess?'
Mariyu denied it. No matter what, they had shared too many years together. And Samon—he wouldn't be this cruel.
"We're sparing your life out of old sentiment. Normally, both mother and child would've been dead by now."
The thug snorted.
"But you had the nerve to betray us and run? Hey, if you pull that now, we're all dead."
He spat on the ground right in front of her.
"One way or another, that brat's never seeing the light of day, so don't get too broken up over it. What're you standing around for? Hold her down!"
At his command, his companions seized Mariyu's arms.
Then they forced her head back, roughly gripping her jaw. Under that pressure, her mouth was pried open, and a bitter liquid was poured down her throat.
"No! Stop! Aaah—!"
A sharp pain exploded at the back of her neck, and her vision plunged into darkness.
"Hey, snap out of it. Huh?"
When Mariyu opened her eyes again, the world was blindingly bright.
"Ugh... uhh..."
The harsh sunlight streaming through the window stabbed at her eyes.
Mariyu blinked. It took her a moment to register the shabby ceiling in her blurred vision.
"Miss, are you all right? Are you awake?"
Several pairs of eyes peered down at her from beside the bed. They belonged to elderly women.
Mariyu fumbled weakly, her hand brushing against the rough bedsheet.
"Oh dear, be careful. You're still not well—don't strain yourself."
A plump, middle-aged woman helped her sit up as she spoke.
"Here, drink this medicine first. The physician said... well, you must tend to your body first."
Mariyu, not registering the woman's trailing words, numbly accepted the teacup pressed into her hands.
"How did you end up drifting all the way here? Wandering alone without fear—you could've been in real trouble! Do you know what kind of world we live in these days?"
"Exactly! Goodness, look at this cold sweat!"
"I thought you were dead, you know? When we found you, we nearly died of fright ourselves! Covered in blood like—"
The voices buzzed past her ears.
She barely heard their words about finding her abandoned on a pile of straw in some remote alley.
Then—
Clatter—!
The teacup slipped from her fingers.
Her mind snapped awake as the last fragments of memory surfaced—
Her desperate escape from the Imperial Palace. The dark medicine the thugs had forced down her throat.
And the deep darkness that had swallowed her whole...
"My baby—!"
She screamed, her voice breaking hysterically.