Plucking the Flower from the Black Garden
The night the princess’s kidnapping was resolved, Raphaelo sent a messenger to his mother, who was still staying in the capital. The Gillian viscount family was one of the western pillars. Having decided to dismantle it, he needed to secure the greatest possible gain.
I must reach a decision before the day is out. By tomorrow, either the Gillians or the imperial palace will certainly make a move.
Moreover, Prince Rezef’s eyes had looked far from ordinary. He had to restrain the notorious mad prince before he acted on impulse. Only then would Cayena be safe.
He lifted the unconscious Cayena into his arms and felt to the bone how thin and fragile she was. He could not leave her to flail alone against the violent currents of the imperial palace. He needed to devise an alternative, and quickly.
The carriage halted at the Kedrey mansion. The moment Raphaelo stepped down, the household servants sank to one knee in unison.
“Congratulations, Your Grace!”
Raphaelo had always been indifferent. Because of that, he failed to realize how long the vassals had waited for this very moment.
Until now, it would have been fair to say the Kedrey ducal house had been sustained by the duchess alone. Duke Leo Kedrey had washed his hands of everything and withdrawn to the mountains long ago, leaving the western duchy. The true head of the family had been absent.
Raphaelo had lent a hand in governing the house as heir, yet his relationship with both parents was poor. He had never wished to entangle himself deeply with the household. Only the vassals had grown anxious, carefully watching the young duke’s mood. Today was a joyous occasion for them.
“All of you, rise.”
Yet for Raphaelo it was not particularly joyful. Not because he bore any special grudge about inheriting the family, but because of Cayena.
“This is the day Her Highness the Princess suffered a calamity. Conduct yourselves quietly.”
“Yes, Your Grace!”
As the vassals dispersed, Baston, who had been guarding the mansion, approached swiftly. Raphaelo accepted the letter the man offered as they entered the house.
The Gillian viscount family has long been sharpening their blades, so overturning them will cause no trouble. The rest now falls to you as master of the house. Handle it well.
— Noah Kedrey
As expected, his mother had grasped the situation instantly. The moment she received the news, she had transferred authority to him. She had taken only the minimum measures and left everything else to Raphaelo.
He burned the letter over a candle flame.
“Request a private audience with His Majesty. I will attend him tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, Your Grace!”
* * *
Raphaelo knew the root of his parents’ discord was infidelity. Before entering the Kedrey family as a son-in-law, his father had loved another woman and had apparently never forgotten her, continuing to meet her in secret.
Once, he had tried to discover who she was. But someone had erased every trace of her existence.
That alone told him the opponent was formidable. Sensing that further digging might prove dangerous, Raphaelo had stopped investigating whom his father met.
In any case, the important truth was that his father was selfish and had inflicted enormous damage on the Kedrey family. Any affection Raphaelo once felt for him had been discarded at age ten. He felt some pity for his mother, but that was all.
Now he intended to shape everything according to his own will. He had no familial bonds, and his course was clear. He would sell his father—the man the emperor so despised—to His Majesty.
“I greet Your Majesty the Emperor.”
He gazed at Emperor Esteban, who sat propped against the headboard. No one else remained in the bedchamber. Even Chief Chamberlain Luden had been dismissed; only the emperor and Raphaelo existed in the room.
“So you are the one who rescued the princess.”
“It was only what I ought to do.”
The emperor closed his eyes for a long moment without speaking.
“Do you hold feelings for Cayena?”
Raphaelo had not expected such a question. While he faltered, a faint smile curved the emperor’s lips. It seemed he had already received the answer he needed.
The fact that he had proposed offering no protection to Raphaelo’s father from the Kedrey house had already made the situation clear.
“I have little time left, Duke.”
When Esteban opened his eyes again, he spoke not as emperor but as a father who had a daughter, and simply as one human being.
“This imperial palace is a truly wretched place. Those who fill it began as people, yet every one of them has become a monster.”
His voice no longer held its former strength. It had changed considerably from even a few months ago.
“I, too, was once the strongest monster of all. I believed my power and youth would last forever. But they did not.”
The emperor’s and Raphaelo’s eyes met.
“I remain foolish, still staking my life on past failed decisions.”
“What do you mean, Your Majesty?”
Emperor Esteban spoke calmly.
“Prince Rezef is not my child.”
“...Pardon?”
Raphaelo could not believe what he had heard. If Rezef was not the emperor’s son, then whose was he? His heart began to pound faster.
Emperor Esteban spoke as though branding the words into his flesh.
“He is your father’s child.”
The emperor continued the devastating revelation with eerie composure.
“Your father was the late empress’s lover. After giving birth to Cayena, she went south to the warmer climate to recover.”
That was when Rezef had been conceived.
“I have already silenced the mouths of nearly everyone who knows this. With the exception of your mother, most likely all of them.”
Raphaelo wanted to sigh. Yet he could not do so before the emperor, so he swallowed it. The sigh turned into a fireball that scorched his insides black.
“I could not forgive the late empress. I could not endure the fact that she had made a fool of me.”
His voice dropped to a chilling register.
“She happened to have a nut allergy.”
“......”
It was a horrifying tale. Raphaelo listened to the violent confession with an expressionless face.
“Rezef is the fruit of the late empress’s infidelity. I could not acknowledge his existence, so I made him my own child. Fortunately or unfortunately, he does not resemble her greatly.”
“...He takes after my father.”
Those gentle, round eyes and affable impression—why had he never connected them to his father until now?
“Do you despise me for speaking the truth?”
Despise him? Raphaelo was not sure.
He had always been numb to emotion. Yet in this moment he could not tell whether he burned hot or had frozen cold.
“I harbored a poison I could not raise as my own child, and in the end that poison has infected the entire imperial family.”
That Rezef had become poison, that the imperial family had reached this state—both were Emperor Esteban’s own failures.
“Cayena resembles the late empress far too much. That is why I could never bring myself to feel any affection for her, either.”
Raphaelo’s fist clenched tight. The story was painfully familiar. He himself was the very image of his mother. He had inherited the Kedrey family’s signature black hair and red eyes.
His father had looked at him with loathing. Half the blood in his veins belonged to that man. Yet even though Raphaelo was his own flesh and blood, his father had cast him aside. Because he had never loved his wife.
“I have already heard about the discord in the Kedrey house. I know that both Noah Kedrey and you were victims. Yet I cannot tell you I am sorry. I still believe my revenge was justified.”
Only now did he understand why his father, Leo, had behaved as he had. He had known the late empress died at the emperor’s hand. The sudden plunge into despair and the beginning of his heavy drinking had coincided exactly with the time of her death.
“Lately, watching Cayena’s transformation, many thoughts have come to me. I had seen her as no different from the foolish late empress. Yet suddenly that child began to shine brilliantly.”
It was a change Cayena had wrought herself. She had no choice if she wished to survive. A transformation born of unrest.
“Cayena seems to believe Rezef can change as she did. She gives him affection and tends to him with kindness. To the very brother who fed her poison.”
“......”
“The poison at the last party was Rezef’s work. I believe Cayena knows this. Nevertheless, she forgave her brother.”
This story was truly the worst. It was impossibly twisted, unbearably tragic.
In this nauseating place she had waited calmly for her moment.
Alone. Here.
It was not difficult to imagine how desperate she must have been, with no one to reach out to but him. He could not stop himself from asking.
“Do you feel no remorse toward Her Highness?”
The emperor let out a sigh-like breath.
“I do feel regret.”
Then he added in a parched voice,
“But that, too, is the fate of the imperial family.”
Red flames sparked in Raphaelo’s eyes. He wanted to seize the emperor by the collar and drive his fist into that calm face.
Ah. So this is why.
This was why Cayena had struggled so fiercely to escape. There was nothing in this place that allowed her to breathe. No—it was not only the imperial palace.
It feels as though this entire world was created to kill her.
Raphaelo regarded the emperor, who had laid every truth bare before him, with dry eyes.
“Why are you telling me these things?”
The emperor smiled faintly.
“To complete my revenge.”
He spoke, then erased the smile.
“I am glad you have come to love my daughter.”
A petty, vile man. That was Raphaelo’s assessment of Emperor Esteban.
To complete his revenge?
Yes. The emperor’s judgment was perfectly accurate. Raphaelo could not forgive Prince Rezef, nor could he stand by while the prince manipulated Cayena. After feeding her poison once, nothing guaranteed he would not take her life the next time.
Henverton Gillian’s words suddenly echoed in his ears.
“This wasn’t my doing. It was His Highness who did it.”
“Do you think such things will stop if I disappear?”
Now he fully understood why the man had spoken that way. As long as Rezef remained at her side, Cayena would fall into crisis again and again.
The emperor intended to borrow Raphaelo’s hand to suppress Rezef.
“Please grant me two requests, Your Majesty.”
Esteban once more became the emperor of the empire and faced him. The audience had been arranged because Raphaelo wanted something. Having come prepared to sell out his own father, he would not ask for ordinary favors.
“Speak.”
Raphaelo slowly lowered himself onto one knee.
“In this kidnapping incident, do not impose any punishment on Prince Rezef, who defied your imperial command and took command of the army.”
“And?”
“Do not name Her Highness the Princess as your successor, yet bestow upon her the full authority of the heir.”
If Cayena were named successor, both Rezef and Grand Prince Heinrich would concentrate their attacks on her. But if she held the authority of the heir without the title, both sides would covet that power.
That power would protect her. She was wise; she would quickly learn how to wield it. Raphaelo needed time to overturn the board. Time to establish a new successor—neither Rezef nor Eyster.
The emperor gave a thin smile.
“I approve.”
The Villainess is a Marionette