Episode 87
Whooosh.
The wind that had been blowing from somewhere grew stronger.
‘How does his train of thought leap like that?’
Though flustered by the Crown Prince’s baffling logic, I quietly opened my mouth.
“I don’t understand how that leads to Your Highness asking me to come to you.”
“I saw you receive the golden corsage at the villa. Don’t pretend you didn’t.”
“Even so…”
“You know everything too. You know exactly why the Duke tried to place you by the Grand Duke’s side. And you went along with it, didn’t you? Because you love him.”
Fortunately, it seemed the Crown Prince still didn’t know the true nature of my relationship with Chris.
He just assumed I was using the Duke’s orders as an excuse to be near Chris and indulge my own feelings.
“Do you think that’ll end well?”
“……”
“Do you think the man you poured so much love into will still keep you by his side once he finds out about the Duke’s intentions?”
The Crown Prince gave a bitter smile. It didn’t suit him, which surprised me a little.
“Even if he pretends to love you on the surface, he’ll leave you eventually. All men do.”
“Just like how Your Highness toyed with the hearts of so many young ladies?”
It was right after I said that that the Crown Prince spoke something completely out of the blue.
“I gave up on my mother.”
“……”
He was referring to the Empress, long deceased.
‘What does that have to do with anything right now…?’
“My mother was married to my father through a political match. It was my grandmother’s will. For a noble lady of her age, she was unusually naïve—almost like someone who didn’t know anything.”
The Crown Prince, offering a surprisingly cold assessment of his own mother, stared off into the air.
“And because of that naivety, she fell into her own trap.”
He let out a dry laugh.
“The trap called true love.”
“……”
“My mother fell in love with my father and poured all her heart into him. But to my father, it was a marriage of convenience. He had many women besides her.”
The Crown Prince looked at me with dry, emotionless eyes.
“It was the same even after I was born.”
“Your Highness…”
“My mother poured all the love she couldn’t give him into me…”
His voice remained calm.
“But I could never be a substitute. She began to lose herself.”
I found myself listening closely—this was the first time I’d ever heard anything about the Empress like this. I had no idea she’d been that kind of person.
“It was around that time I gave up on her.”
His voice came down like a steady rain.
“She harmed herself trying to win his love, wounded herself in all sorts of ways. Many attendants and maids died from failing to stop her, but nothing changed.”
‘…So that’s why he seemed to know so much about those kinds of wounds.’
It was a shocking confession. I swallowed hard.
“I refused to receive the love of a mother who saw me only as a stand-in for my father. If I didn’t, I truly thought she would lose her mind.”
“……”
“Sometimes, things are so precious that you have no choice but to give them up. For me, she was that.”
The Crown Prince looked down at me. I was surprised by how calm his gaze felt, despite the story he had just told.
“Don’t you have something like that, Lady?”
Swoooosh.
Another gust of wind blew. My ash-gray hair fluttered wildly. Just as I was thinking how annoying it was, the Crown Prince suddenly reached out and tucked it behind my ear.
“In the end, it was the worst decision. She died not long after. That day, when she said she would die if he didn’t come to her—my father thought she was bluffing.”
I hadn’t expected such a dark backstory. The original novel was told from Aria’s perspective, and the Crown Prince’s trauma had only been vaguely hinted at.
But now, I finally understood why he’d grown up the way he did. I slowly opened my mouth.
“…I’m sorry to hear that.”
It was the only thing I could say. Honestly, I felt a little overwhelmed. The fact that he was telling me all this was…
‘When Chris told me about his mother, it didn’t feel like this at all.’
“You’re thinking about the Grand Duke again.”
The sharp remark snapped me back, and I looked at the Crown Prince with wide eyes. Was it really that obvious?
He continued, his face still emotionless.
“I’ve always found that kind of blind love fascinating… and laughable. Why do people get so obsessed with it, to the point they’d die for it? Sometimes, it made me so angry I wanted to destroy it all.”
“……”
“Some might say I received love from my mother too, but I disagree. I was loved only as a replacement. That’s not real love.”
Somewhere in the distance, bang—a firework went off. The sound felt strangely distant, like it was coming from another world.
“So when I first heard about your story, I was curious.”
“…Is that so.”
“I wondered what kind of fool had thrown herself into another bout of blind devotion, choosing to drink poison for someone else. For a man from the enemy’s family, no less.”
“……”
“I thought I’d just watch from afar. But then…”
The Crown Prince suddenly grabbed my wrist. His gaze burned, as if he were seeing the golden corsage wrapped around it.
“It drove me insane. Every time you looked at the Grand Duke… those eyes of yours…”
The Crown Prince’s previously emotionless eyes, dry while speaking of his mother, now burned with intense heat—so hot it felt like he might burn himself from the inside.
“Those eyes… they looked like they could go mad with joy just from having me at their end.”
I swallowed without realizing. The Crown Prince whispered.
“You and the Grand Duke aren’t going to end happily anyway.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I don’t need to be sure. All it takes is the Duke stepping in, and it’ll all fall apart. When that time comes… come to me.”
The Crown Prince spoke, radiating heat.
“Give me that kind of love too. I’m not like my father. I can give you all my attention. I can tend to your wounds.”
His eyes moved across my clothes with a gaze that made my skin crawl.
“……”
“If you do that, I’ll promise you anything you want.”
I slowly looked up at him—the man who was desperately craving a love he should have received from someone else.
A man who wanted something he was never meant to have… because he met the wrong person at the wrong time.
“Your Highness.”
And I spoke.
“With all due respect… it’s simply not true that you’ve never received that kind of love.”
The Crown Prince flinched.
I remembered the brooch he once sent me, engraved with the letter A. And those who, in the original story, had risked everything for his sake.
Even though he hadn’t ended up with Aria, there were still many who loved him. He just never looked at the love that was already by his side.
“Mindia Reinhardt.”
“Even if things don’t end well between His Grace and me…”
I opened my mouth slowly, making sure the words were unmistakable, looking him straight in the eye.
“I will not stand at your side, Your Highness.”
“Because of Aria Reinhardt? That woman will become Crown Princess even though she doesn’t love me—”
“Do you really think the Duke won’t make that happen?”
“……”
“You said it yourself. Once the Duke gets involved, it’ll all fall apart. That applies to you too, Your Highness.”
“Mindia.”
“There’s no way the Duke would allow me to stay by your side—unless you remove him first.”
My final words came out laced with sarcasm. I couldn’t help it.
I couldn’t look at the Crown Prince without remembering those eyes—eyes that once looked down on me while I was being tortured.
‘You covered for the Duke even then.’
He turned a blind eye to the truth, refused to hear my voice.
The more I cried, the more he liked it. The more I suffered, the more he seemed to enjoy it. He broke Chris’s bones, tore his flesh, and whenever Chris didn’t respond, he subjected him to unspeakable pain.
There’s no way all of that can just disappear now.
“Do you really think I can’t beat the Duke?”
Snap.
As that dark voice rang out, I yanked my wrist free. He let me go more easily than expected.
“Who knows.”
I turned away without hesitation.
“Stop! Mindia Reinhardt!”
“……”
“You’ll regret this!”
His angry shout rang out behind me, but I didn’t stop. If he came after me, I was ready to scream.
But whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, no hand reached out to stop me. A mocking smile crept onto my face again.
‘You don’t know anything.’
At the start of the conversation, I’d felt a little guilty, honestly. If not for me, he might’ve met Aria safely and fallen in love.
He might’ve filled all the voids in his heart and become a completely different man, even a wise ruler, as the original story had intended.
But the more I faced him and spoke with him, the more guilt gave way to something else—rage.
“You’re so selfish.”
He didn’t want to give love first. He wanted others to pour it into him. And he never looked at the love already within his reach.
Chris had a tragic past too. But unlike the Crown Prince, Chris didn’t grow up twisted.
Again, I remembered the bloodstain on the balcony that Chris had once told me about, and my chest tightened.
As my heart grew heavier—
Bang!
This time, the firework exploded much closer. Startled by the sound, I stopped walking.
Neigh!
“Get out of the way!”
Only then did I realize—I’d stopped in the middle of the street. The carriage was rushing toward me. My eyes widened—then, a hand wrapped around me, pulling me close.
“…Your Grace.”
Chris, having finished the auction, was looking down at me.
* * *
“Your Highness.”
Someone appeared beside the Crown Prince, who had been left alone. It was the attendant who always knelt loyally at his side.
“…The item?”
“We found it.”
The attendant bowed his head slightly and discreetly revealed something from within his cloak.
It was a relic of the Ducal House—stolen long ago by Harold.
“There was heavy resistance… I had to kill him to take it.”
“That man was no longer head butler of the Ducal House anyway. No one will notice he’s dead now.”
The Crown Prince’s eyes gleamed as he reached out toward the relic.
“Let’s see if it works as the rumors say.”
Only a bitter coldness remained in his eyes now.
