It was only then that Asha realized why he didn’t smell of roses, but of a scent she had never experienced before.
She understood that the reason his eyes weren’t red was that he was not from the Rose Family.
Dart frowned and smiled, but his smile looked twisted and sad.
“It is said that all the flowers that disappear from the Empire are those who have committed treason. But did my father really commit treason? No. Would a commoner like him have had the power to rebel against the royal family all by himself? Ricardo Rode Etzheim, the former rose, had accused my father of treason. It was to welcome my mother as his Vanessa. The child born of a butterfly becomes the next emperor, so in order to maintain the Rose Family, the Imperial Flower must marry a butterfly and have children.”
Asha’s eyes trembled in shock.
Dart spoke in a self-deprecating voice.
“My father must have been a thorn in their side, as they needed a pure butterfly to marry as a wife. Thanks to that, my father disappeared without a trace from this empire, and I was forced to abandon his last name without even knowing his face. I was just an illegitimate child they should have killed… I really had nothing.”
Dart’s eyes were shadowed with deep sadness and anger.
Asha couldn’t find any words to say.
“Still, it seems that my mother tried to save me in some way. Considering that she left me at the temple, hiding me from the eyes of the Imperial Family.”
Asha remembered a story the High Priest had told her before.
A newborn baby, wrapped in a shabby basket, abandoned on the snowy ground in front of the temple entrance…
She felt her heart clench at the thought of how much his mother must have cried, her body shivering in the cold wind as she left the baby behind and walked away.
Calendula, her surname, also had the flower language of ‘sorrow of parting’.
Dart lowered his gaze and continued.
“When I was young, I met my mother when she visited the temple.”
Asha’s eyes widened.
Dart spoke in a damp voice.
“She was the first Vanessa I met in my life, and she was really beautiful. In the all-white temple, her blonde hair was dazzling. I could see why people called Vanessa a saint the first time I saw her, even at a young age. Strangely enough, I felt like she kept looking at me. Wherever I went, her gaze always fell on me.”
Asha’s eyes trembled.
Did she recognize her son?
With his pure white appearance and unmistakable fragrance, she must have recognized him at a glance.
“She always had a sickly look on her face, but she always smiled at me. She said I was a really pretty boy. As someone who never had a mother figure, I loved the warmth and gentleness of her touch. Even though I couldn’t see her often, she always gave me small gifts whenever we met and asked if I wanted anything. When I was young, I thought that all the butterflies in the Empire were kind and warmhearted like her.”
Dart looked down.
“……I unconsciously wished that she was my mother. Maybe it was my instinct as a flower. Whenever I saw her, I wanted to be loved, mischievous, and clingy. So, when she asked if I needed anything next time, I unknowingly spoke my mind.”
Dart, who was young, blushed and looked around, then looked up at her and said.
‘What I need is… my mother.’
“As soon as I said those words, she was shocked as if waking up from a dream, and she never came to the temple again. Maybe she thought I had figured out her identity. However, I didn’t know anything, so I blamed myself, thinking that I had said something wrong, that I had been too attached and caused her to leave, or that my real mother had abandoned me because of my mistakes. I cried for a week, confessing my sins to God and asking for forgiveness.”
Asha was heartbroken and looked at him pitifully.
His mother must have been terrified when she saw her son.
She must have realized that she could never be a mother to him, that she had shown kindness to him for no reason, and that if he were to be exposed, he would be killed for no reason…
“But I didn’t find out that she was actually my mother until after she passed away from illness. As a priest belonging to the Lotus Temple, I forcibly erased the existence of my mother and followed the High Priest as my father. But sometimes, I was curious about the mother who left me and wondered who she was. Did she live happily in the Palace after she abandoned me and my father?”
Dart tightly clenched his trembling hands.
He then smiled with a sigh.
“But I heard that my mother lived a life as miserable as mine, just like the proverb ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’. As I listened to the story of my mother’s miserable life and tragic end, tears flowed down my cheeks without my knowledge. Although I had resented my mother so much, I felt like I was vomiting blood upon hearing about her tragic life. To think that my mother was separated from me and that she died after being treated so poorly ……”
Asha felt so sorry for him and his mother’s story that tears welled up in her eyes without her even realizing it.
Noticing her tears, Dart lowered his head.
“…… I thought that someday when I become a great person, I will meet my mother and make her regret abandoning me. I vowed revenge many times and practiced to the best of my ability under the High Priest.”
Dart looked at the vase next to the bed and continued talking quietly.
“At the temple, I was an extremely good boy and a model student who never caused trouble. But no one knew that I actually harbored impure thoughts that I should never have as a priest. Perhaps the High Priest didn’t know, but resentment, anger, and revenge were the only driving forces for me to live.”
Dart slightly cut his finger with his own fingernail and let the blood drip onto the flower.
It was his “blood flower” which he grew in his cave.
“However, I felt very strange to see the object of my revenge that I resented so much disappear in an instant. I couldn’t bear the tragic news of my mother’s death. The hatred I felt towards her turned on me and I felt a stabbing pain in my heart.”
Dart looked at Asha with a twisted smile and continued.
“But do you know what was even more unbearable for me? The fact that my mother, who I thought had abandoned me, had actually chosen me. I gained my powers when I was abandoned at the temple. My mother had bloomed me as a butterfly before abandoning me. I was already completed as a flower from birth. But I was only able to use that power once I knew everything.”
Asha was taken aback.
Could it be that his ability to summon and control monsters was his power after blooming?
But she knew that flower spirits were sacred spirits, so it was hard to believe they had destructive abilities.
Perhaps his desire for revenge had manifested his power in that way.
“…… I felt sorry for my mother, and I was so miserable that I lost both of my parents to a man called the Flower of the Empire. I went to the chapel alone in the early morning and prayed to God with tears in my eyes. I asked why I was born into this world. Why did you give me the spirit of the flower, useless as I am?”
Dart’s eyes suddenly became meaningful.
“And then I finally realized. This was a trial and an opportunity given to me by God because he cared for me. Trials and opportunities always come together like the front and back of a coin. It was my fate to be born before the royal bloodline, like the cursed black rose that would swallow the empire. This was nothing but a prophecy for me to regain the lost throne and change the empire. I realized only yesterday that my target for revenge was not my mother, but the Rose Family itself.”
Asha’s eyes widened as she listened to Dart’s explanation.
It was not what she believed to be God’s will, and she realized that Dart had completely misunderstood it.
His unfortunate situation had made his thoughts flow in that direction, and now he stroked a bloodied white chrysanthemum with his gray eyes shining as if he were intoxicated.
“I started preparing step by step without anyone knowing. The first thing I had to do was regain the forces that would help me. People like me who have lost a place to live, have been persecuted by the Rose Family, and have had to hide and live in this empire as if they were dead. The minorities.”
Surprised, Asha asked.
“Is that why you used the minorities…?”
Dart looked at her and asked quietly.
“Do you still think that I brainwashed and used them? It seems that Lady Vanessa does not know the origin of the minorities.”
“What do you mean?”
Dart said with an expressionless face.
His face, obscured by shadow, felt so cold and terrifying.
“The origin of the ethnic minorities is…just like me, children born from butterflies.”
Asha’s eyes widened in shock.
“Children born from butterflies? Then…”
“Yes. Just like me, illegitimate children were not recognized by the Imperial Family because their parents were not from the Rose Family. Those children sacrificed by the Rose Empire to maintain its power are the origin of the ethnic minority.”
Asha once again had goosebumps all over her body.
Dart said with sad eyes.
“And that’s why the current minorities are condemned as foreigners of the empire and forced to live in hiding.”
Asha was speechless.
Children born from butterflies, the origin of the minorities…
Suddenly, she recalled some passages from the book he had given her before.
Karaf’s mother had a condition for awakening, which was to find a romantic partner and there was also a butterfly from long ago who had a condition for awakening that was having their first sexual intercourse.
It was an extremely rare condition for awakening that was mentioned in history, but now she realized why the last spy had said that this was Karaf’s last chance.
All the children born from other males except the Emperor were killed, but Dart survived.
When two flower spirits appeared in one generation, it was their chance to change the regime.
