Chapter 7

Chapter 7

“Please let me and Leo out of the Imperial Palace.”

Van took her trembling hand.

“Adele!”

Adele’s shoulders shook as she closed her eyes tightly.

“I’m going to live like a nobody. If I leave this country, I will leave forever.”

Tears streamed down her closed eyes.

“Please have mercy.”

“I can’t stand it.”

At the resolute emperor’s words, Adele opened her eyes and looked up at him.

“…You are really heartless.”

“What did you say now?”

“I am a person. A living person. One of Your Majesty’s people.”

Adele accepted Van’s gaze without losing sight of it.

“Do you think that ordinary people have neither thoughts or feelings?”

Adele was sad. It was not a crime for the royal family or nobles to kill commoners. It didn’t matter that she died at the hands of the emperor now.

‘If he takes Leo with him, there’s no point in living my life.’

When this happened, she realized that she had only one way to go anyway. To lose Leo and die. She tried to avoid it several times, but she couldn’t dodge it, and in the end it was on the Emperor’s hand.

“Do you even know that you are complaining like a child right now?”

“Complaining?”

“Think of the future of Leopold.”

“Leo’s future?”

Adele was angry. Hearing those words like ‘future’ from the mouth of a man, who had never never raised, never seen his own child.

“The child was growing up happily and well.”

The emperor laughed at her.

“As a commoner.”

This hurt Adele’s pride.

Adele’s face hardened.

“I won’t accept it. Leo is my son.”

“Adele!”

Adele looked straight at the Emperor.

“If you don’t agree, I will starve to death. After I die, you can take the child and put him in the Imperial Register.”

“Do whatever you want!”

The emperor, as if he could not win the battle, slammed the door shut and left.

Adele was furious. She never thought that it was a pity that her son was born as a commoner under the class system.

Before her father died, he was an administrator for commoners.

He was a renowned person and had a good job, and of course, there was no one higher than the emperor in the empire. An administrator was a person who worked under the lord, so it was the envy of the local residents. Adele worked so hard in her studies. She herself wanted to be a good administrator like her father. So she had no reason to say she was unhappy because she was a commoner. But now she was sad about her weakness.

***

Van stayed in his office late at night.

Adele’s heart seemed to be very broken.

‘I was wrong.’

He thought of that for the first time.

The fourth prince, Van, was of imperial origin. The Alfred Empire was strictly hierarchical. His mother, Empress Sonaré, was a princess from a neighboring country. Perhaps because of the fifth marriage, he was born much earlier. However, perhaps because of the hardships of living in a lonely and unfamiliar foreign country, Queen Sonaré’s health deteriorated after pregnancy.

Eventually, Empress Sonaré died when she gave birth toVan due to difficult childbirth. After that, Van grew up in the hands of the maids and his nanny, who served Empress Sonaré. Van had no political background within the empire. His mother, from a neighboring country, passed away at a young age, and the ambassador of the Duke occasionally greeted him. So no one wanted to make a good impression on him. From his childhood, brothers from factions and backgrounds kept each other in check, but Van did not even fit in the circle. The same brothers, their mother, the queen, and half of them thought he was unable to participate in the struggle for the throne. Van remembered that day. He had the weakest background among the seven princes, and the friendly Van became their first target. Van beheaded his older brother, the 3rd Prince, who attacked him. It just felt terrifying. It was shocking that his brother tried to take his life, but he ended up taking his brother’s life with his own hands.

It was an unwelcome life from his childhood. He felt like he was living in a palace with his name as a part of the imperial family.

“Van, I want you to live.”

Until he heard that.

“When everyone wants you to disappear, I’ll pray that you don’t and live here with them.”

Did everyone live with such a prayer from their family or loved ones?

“I will be the person who would want you to live.”

The beginning of such a prayer is usually the mother, but when he was born, Van felt like it was a feeling that did not exist at all where his mother was absent from his life.

Since he was a child, Van looked extraordinary in appearance, so he had many women who seduced him. Perhaps it was because his mother died early, and Van had trouble dealing with women, but Adele, who spoke, was as beautiful as a fairy. The beauty caught his eye and attracted his heart. Van wanted Adele. He wanted to live with Adele. To do that, he had to live for her. In order to live, he had to see blood to the point of disgust.  It was a mountain of hell that unfolded before his eyes every day.

He endured with his heart that somewhere beyond the land flowing with blood and guts he had Adele whom he longed to return to.

“Please let me and Leo out of the Imperial Palace.”

When Adele said that, he didn’t show it, but Van was shocked as if the land under his feet was slipping off. He didn’t know how the hell to react.

“I can’t remember what I said,” he said.

Adele was crying when she said those words, and he was embarrassed and angry at her to the point that he shouted at her before leaving. But he has a hazy memory of both what he heard and what she answered.

He only remembered thatAdele asked him to let her go. She had been like this since he left the room. Van looked at his watch. It was 1 o’clock in the morning.

It was time for Adele to sleep. Van headed to Adele’s room.

When he returned from the battlefield, he could only see Adele and Leo for one night, and he couldn’t express in words how happy he was to take them to the palace, his home. But he was impatient as he made his way to her room today.

Van crept halfway to the terrace. He opened the window without making a sound and went in, and Adele was asleep on the bed. He rubbed Adele’s half-dried lips with his fingers.

‘She didn’t even drink water.’

He gently stroked Adele’s hair. He lay down next to Adele and pulled her tiny body into his arms. Her fragrant scent reached the tip of his nose. His heart sank heavily at her request to let her go, a feeling he normally would have just wished for.

“Van?”

There was strength in Adele’s voice calling him.

“Adele.”

Van got his body up, holding his Adele. He opened the water bottle on the bedside table and poured it into Adele’s mouth. Adele thought it was a dream, so she took the water he gave her and drank it.

“You’ll have to eat soup too. Do you want fruit?”

It was when she thought he was the Van of her dreams.

“Van.”

Adele pushed herself and sat up. Van fell from Adele in a flash.

“Why are you not feeling well today?”

Van hid his embarrassment, and he treated Adele as usual.

“Van.”

Seeing Adele’s sunken look, he felt strangely uneasy.

“Now don’t come out of my dreams.”

“what?”

Van opened his eyes wide.

“Why? for what reason.”

That was then. Adele reached out and caressed his cheek. Adele smiled softly with deep eyes.

“Van, I love you.”

His heart was beating wildly. It was the same heart that was stolen by Adele earlier. That heart was put to the test to find its master, and it ran to Adele, like it was from the beginning.

“But not anymore.”

Van was shocked by her unexpected words.

“The one I love is you. Not the emperor.”

“I and he are the same person.”

“No, I’ve always wondered why you appeared in my dreams.”

“Why do you think that…?”

“It was an escape from reality.”

Adele smiled sadly.

“I guess I wanted to be loved by Van.”

“I love you. Adele.”

Adele chuckled.

“That’s why this Van is good. You just tell me what I want to hear.”

Adele got up and put her arms around his neck and put her forehead on his. Next came her nose and lips. Her lips that touched Van’s were gentle and she gently bit his lips. Van grew impatient.

“A little bit more.”

He took Adele’s hair to one side with one of his hands, and breathed deeply. She was terribly sweet. Her kiss, which started with her soft lips, warmed the inside of his mouth. Van moaned at that tingling feeling.

It was as if a ferocious beast he had barely suppressed, seemed to wake up inside.

“No, now stop.”

Suddenly, Adele was lying on the bed, disheveled.

Van was breathing heavily. He pressed Adele’s wrist and looked at her.

“This is the last kiss.”

Tears welled up in Adele’s eyes.

“I can’t love you anymore, Van.”

Van froze at the spot.

“What do you mean?”

“I will no longer dream of you.”

Adele was saying goodbye to him.

“Adele, I lived because of you.”

Van wanted to cry.

“You didn’t let me live.”

“I now know who you really are, so that’s enough.”

Adele laughed and cried at the same time.

“The Emperor… That person shouldn’t appear in my dreams.”

Seeing that scene, her stomach rumbled.

“I never want to see you in my dreams again.”

Adele sobbed violently.

Sobbing

Van’s hands lost strength. As her wrists were freed, Adele covered her face with her hands and wept.

“Adele…”

“Don’t call my name! Get out of my dream!”

Adele wept for a long time and then fell asleep as if exhausted from it.

Van’s mind went blank. He barely managed to walk out of the room after pulling a quilt over Adele and covering her.

The dark imperial palace corridor twisted diagonally.

“Your Majesty, the Emperor.”

“Your Majesty”

The servants standing guarding the hallway of Adele’s room looked at him and bowed in surprise. No one knew yet what Adele was to him. Van went through the window into Adele’s room. But now he was so shocked that he forgot that he wasn’t even supposed to come out the door himself.

She was a woman who first moved his heart and had feelings.

“I can’t love you anymore, Van”

So he was the first to lose that love. That feeling was inside him…

He was hurt as if he had been bitten by the spot and he felt sick to death.

“…. Adele doesn’t love me.”