Chapter 7
There was a faint smoke lingering in the room.
Gideon glanced at the low table. Nearly untouched sleeping pills and painkillers were scattered in powder or pill form. Probably, as Chloe described, the bowl containing the weakest herbal mixture, meant to be smoked, was more than half empty.
“Who’s behind this?”
It was a question from Luke, with the intention that Gideon would naturally understand. Gideon looked at the smoldering incense stick in Luke’s mouth. Luke’s face also looked quite drowsy.
“It’s the Marquis of Retentor.”
“My foolish relative caused trouble again. Was the Marquis of Retentor not involved?”
“If he were, it wouldn’t be this sloppy.”
“It’s a pity that the Marquis’s child failed. If he had one more child, he would have discarded that one long ago.”
Luke clicked his tongue with a face that showed no pity.
The Marquis of Retentor, the loyalist who inherited the wealth and power once held by the Langsher family. Luke didn’t particularly like the man who was his grandmother’s brother. However, regardless of personal preferences, that man was a powerful figure in the empire, second only to the Emperor.
When Gideon, at the age of 12, fled the capital with Luke in his arms, Duncan Retentor, then a viscount, accepted them on the pretext of lineage. He then raised Luke as his ward and eventually raised him to become the Emperor.
He should have been satisfied with receiving the marquisate in return.
“Power knows no satisfaction.”
“When Your Majesty gives opportunities, one can’t help but seize them, can they?”
Luke frowned irritably at the nuance of defending the Marquis of Retentor. It was a threatening presence that would have made most people shut their mouths, but Gideon, who wasn’t particularly attached to the Emperor’s favor, just sighed.
“So, get married, Your Majesty. Whether it’s a prince or princess, if you have one child, what will those people do?”
At the end of the civil war three years ago, almost all of the imperial family’s direct descendants died. In order to prevent the line of succession from being cut off, Luke needed to have children somehow, but surprisingly, the nobles didn’t say much about Luke’s marriage.
The reason was simple.
Three years ago, during the rebellion, the Marquis of Retentor, who secured the youngest princess, Sylvia, who was 8 years old at the time, before Luke, swiftly betrothed the young princess to his son in his twenties.
If Luke died without children, the throne would pass to Sylvia. To the stupid son of Marquis Retentor and the young princess married to him.
Most nobles, who knew the situation well, chose to remain neutral and keep their mouths shut, leaving only the marquis and the emperor’s closest aides to wage a war of nerves.
Knowing this situation well, the nobles of the Emperor’s faction looked at Luke, who was resisting marriage, and sighed with frustration.
-…If I were a woman, I would have attacked Your Majesty, even if I had to see my brother’s face. Why am I not a woman? Why did our parents only have sons…
Suddenly, Gideon’s mind was brushed by the drunken ramblings of his brother.
“Now the only solution is for you to have a daughter, Gideon Edant. You can do it! Even now, dump that witch-like woman and marry someone else…!”
It was a dreadful nonsense. Anyway, he had no intention of having children. Gideon quickly brushed off the thought that had come to mind.
“Your Majesty’s refusal to marry is fueling false hopes for the Marquis of Retentor as well. Don’t you realize, Your Majesty?”
“I don’t think that bastard would quiet down just because I get married.”
“There are ways to make him quiet down.”
At the retort with a hint of bitterness, Luke chuckled and tossed away the almost burnt incense stick, replacing it with a new one. The other medicines scattered nearby remained untouched. Gideon swallowed his anxiety discreetly.
“Just because of that reason, you say I should get married?”
“Since marriage is something you’ll have to do eventually, what’s the point of delaying it?”
“Well… I feel like I’d die faster than getting married. But no one seems to think that way.”
Luke accurately pinpointed the thoughts of the very few aides who knew his exact condition. It was obvious what they thought, as even he felt like he wouldn’t last a few more years. If his insomnia continued to worsen, and if the medicine stopped working altogether… would there be any other option but death?
Becoming the first Emperor to die from insomnia, unable to sleep, Luke sneered inwardly.
“So, haven’t you considered wanting an heir even more, Your Majesty?”
“I don’t want to create a child who will lose their parents at a young age. It was pretty terrible for me when I experienced it, you know, Gideon?”
“Is that really the only reason?”
“What else could there be?”
As he replied unenthusiastically, Luke lit a fresh incense stick. As the smoke rose, Luke’s eyes, which had been wide awake, drooped lazily, as if he were struggling with sleepiness.
“Or perhaps there’s someone else you have in mind…?”
“There’s no way that would be the case. If I had met someone else, there would have been rumors.”
There was no hint of feigned emotion in Luke’s nervous tone. Gideon carefully observed Luke’s demeanor and inwardly felt relieved.
Luke Olfenster, because his emperor was a coward.
Gideon knew Luke Olfenster, who pretended to be Chloe Langsher’s fake lover. It was sincere. He might not know it himself, nor did he try to find out.
The Emperor would not acknowledge his own feelings until the very end, attributing them to guilt or lingering attachment.
Like his father.
Once hailed as the perfect successor, the future of the Empire, the beloved Crown Prince, Hessel Olfenster, was murdered by the wicked Langsher.
It’s easier to hide the eyes of a coward who doesn’t even know his own feelings than those of someone else. Gideon knew that fact better than anyone.
“Enough with the pointless chatter. Contact the Marquis of Retentor. Ask him what price he’ll pay for the mistake of his only son. You have three days; if there’s no response, go find that stupid marquis. And…”
Luke’s gaze took on a cruel glint. Even though the threat wasn’t directed at him, Gideon’s nerves tingled with dread.
“If the order to poison my wine was given verbally, cut out the tongue; if it was written, cut off the hand.”
Cruelty that didn’t suit his handsome features. Gideon thought that such imbalance was the legacy left by the dead Crown Prince to his son.
Luke Olfenster was a vessel that needed things to go smoothly to become a king, but any slight deviation would turn him into a tyrant. Ironically, the current situation of playing the role of a quiet emperor due to severe insomnia felt preferable.
Those who knew his personality would say that Luke Olfenster didn’t take after his kind father, but Gideon found all of that to be ridiculous.
Kind and innocent Hessel Olfenster…
Hessel Olfenster was not innocent. Not once, he was not innocent.
“Gideon Edant, what’s your answer?”
“I will carry out the orders as instructed, Your Majesty. When do you plan to return to the palace?”
“In three days.”
That meant he would stay until the Marquis of Retentor responded. With the palace empty for nearly a week already, William, who had been holding out for six days, had already collapsed, and the Imperial Guards could only patrol the capital indirectly without revealing the Emperor’s whereabouts.
With the Emperor deciding, who could oppose it?
“Count Edant, the Marquis is waiting to see Your Majesty in the reception room of the guest house…”
Even as Gideon mentioned his half-dying brother because of the Emperor drinking poison at the Edant Manor, he didn’t particularly expect a positive response.
Strictly speaking, Hayden was Luke’s foster brother, not Gideon, even though they grew up in the same cradle. But even in his timid childhood, Luke disliked Hayden. And Gideon knew where Luke’s inexplicable annoyance towards Hayden originated.
Even though both Luke and Hayden had forgotten, and now only remembered Gideon, the past.
Most of Luke Olfenster’s life, like his relationship with Chloe Langsher, couldn’t be explained without exceptions, and this situation was no different.
“I’ll play with him.”
“Why?”
“He’s pretty. Like a rose.”
Young Hayden was objectively prettier than he is now, and young Chloe, acting like a child, pushed Luke’s hand away from hers and reached out to Hayden instead. And that day, Luke grabbed Hayden’s red hair with his small hands like ferns.
“You, you shouldn’t. Who do you think you are? What are you? Why are you here…!”
Hayden’s red hair, which Chloe had likened to a rose, was all torn out, and his face, which she liked because it was pretty, was bruised and swollen. Even though he was more injured, his face showed no signs of his usual timidity.
Among adults who dismissed it as children’s quarrels, Gideon intuited that his brother might have to endure Luke Olfenster’s rejection for quite some time.
… Of course, Gideon didn’t know that it would continue until over twenty years later, until even the memories of that time were forgotten.
“Get rid of your brother before you tie him up with the culprit.”
As expected, Gideon nodded from the familiar response from Luke. Loyalty as brothers only went so far.
“I will inform Lord Edant. Your Majesty.”
With that, Gideon was about to leave the room. If only Luke’s words hadn’t stopped him.
“Just a moment, send this up again.”
Between that brief exchange, Luke poked the newly changed candle again, revealing an expression of interest that even the speaker himself didn’t notice. A somewhat sticky interest, inherently different from light curiosity.
“Tell your wife. Isn’t she the original maker? What was her name again…?”
Although there was still no sign of the speaker himself realizing it, there was a subtle interest in the sluggish tone. A rather sticky interest that carried a weight fundamentally different from light curiosity.
“It’s Marie Edant, Your Majesty.”
However, since she was presented to Luke Olfenster, it was not unexpected to have such results. So it’s okay. ‘Marie Edant’ was a status that would soon perish.
As long as there wasn’t a crazy incident where the Emperor rushed to her after just a few greetings and a few words, it could be easily resolved. So, why not disguise Chloe as his wife?
The wife of a knight, who was once considered almost like brothers, a woman who once served as a concubine in the Langsher family.
If he had a trace of conscience left, he would hesitate once or twice. That gap was enough to give Chloe the freedom she had prepared for over the past three years.
And three days later, Gideon admitted his own folly.
What confidence did he have to think that Luke Olfenster would have a trace of conscience?
Unfortunately for the subjects of the Empire, their Emperor was someone who didn’t have a conscience at all.
