That was the end of his story.
“…”
And when the story was over, Pristin said nothing with an expression of shock. In front of Pristin, Jerald told the backstory.
“Father didn’t want it to be revealed that the crown prince of the empire had been bitten to death by a dog. In the end, Arthur’s death was disguised as a drowning, and mother fell into despair until her death.”
“…”
“Father chose a new empress, and Claret was born shortly afterward. My uncle… Yeah, he’d been aiming for the throne since then. Although he was not punished due to lack of evidence.”
“Oh…”
“That’s it, Pristin.”
After finishing his talk, he smiled lightly. It was a smile that didn’t suit the situation. Pristin’s eyes turned red. Her heart ached because it seemed like a forced smile where he was made to pretend everything was okay.
“Are you disgusted with me as well?”
“…Your Majesty.”
“Are you scared of me, who abandoned my brother to survive and escaped alone?”
“…”
“Even if that’s the case, there’s nothing strange about it. I too… I’ve long thought that I’m a terrible person. So…”
At that moment, Jerald’s words ended unnaturally without being finished. Jerald looked at Pristin, who was hugging him with enlarged eyes.
Pristin hugged his wide back carefully without saying a word. Then Jerald’s body stiffened and he couldn’t move.
“Wouldn’t anyone act like Your Majesty in your situation?”
“…”
“Don’t blame yourself. Even the late crown prince would not have wanted it.”
“…It might be a delusion.”
Jerald said in a weak voice.
“Sometimes, I have nightmares of that day. My brother grabs my ankle and tells me not to go, but I step on his wrist and run away alone. The dogs devour my brother as he curses me, and only then do I wake from the nightmare.”
“The dream is Your Majesty’s unconscious mind, not real.”
Pristin again denied Jerald’s idea in a clear voice.
“Perhaps you implicitly think that way, thinking that maybe the late crown prince… may hold a grudge against you.”
“…”
“No, Your Majesty. I can say this with certainty because I have a younger sibling too. The crown prince would never…”
Pristin closed her eyes tightly as if it was hard to keep talking.
“He would not have resented Your Majesty; rather he would have been relieved that Your Majesty had lived…”
Before she knew it, tears began to drop from Pristin’s eyes.
“He’d be sad to know that you’re suffering from what happened then.”
“…Even if I’m terrible and scary.”
At that moment, he said something else in a slow voice.
“Stay with me, Pristin. I’m begging you.”
“…”
“I know it’s audacious to ask for such a thing, but I can’t help it. I…”
Jerald bowed his head and muttered in a low voice.
“I really don’t think I can stand it if you leave me.”
It was revealed through a desperate voice that the words were not false.
The sincerity of his words was clearly conveyed through his desperate voice.
Pristin thought he was in a dangerous state. If he lost his last strand of hope, he might not escape the abyss of despair. Without realizing it, Pristin tightened her grasp on him.
“Even after knowing all about your past, my position regarding you remains the same.”
“…”
“I’m not scared or disgusted by you, Your Majesty.”
Pristin whispered, patting Jerald still.
“So rest easy; at least if I leave Your Majesty, it will not be for that reason.”
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
After a while, Jerald fell back asleep.
Pristin stood by him silently and slowly exited Jerald’s hospital room only when he fell completely asleep.
“…Oh.”
And confronted an unexpected man.
“Young Lord Bachell.”
“Countess Rosewell.”
Akkad said with a voice of surprise.
“I didn’t expect you to be here.”
“Oh…”
Pristin hesitated for a moment and replied candidly.
“I came here because I was worried about His Majesty. I think I need to give him some medicine based on the prognosis.”
“Did he wake up?”
“Yes. A while ago.”
Pristin nodded.
“He’s safe and sound. It was just a fainting spell, as the palace doctor said.”
“He must hate dogs a lot if he’s so stressed out that he’s going to collapse.”
When Pristin heard Akkad, she was unknowingly surprised, but when she looked at Akkad’s face, she didn’t think he was saying it knowingly. Pristin brushed it off.
“…Well, I don’t know. Whether there was another reason. I don’t know about that either.”
Pristin deliberately dodged the statement.
“More than that, the Young Master came here…”
“I heard that His Majesty had collapsed and couldn’t help but worry.”
Akkad smiled lightly and said to Pristin.
“If I had known Your Excellency was here, I would have stayed at the herbal garden with confidence.”
“Nonetheless, His Majesty just fell asleep. It would be better if you come next time.”
“I’ll have to. Are you going back to Camer Palace now?”
“No, I have a book to fetch. I plan on going to the herbal garden.”
She was actually on her way to the herbal garden, but then this sudden event occurred. Pristin’s expression momentarily darkened.
Akkad, who was staring at Pristin’s face, murmured.
“You seem to care a lot about His Majesty.”
It was quite a sudden remark, and Pristin was taken aback when she heard it.
“What do you mean?”
“Ever since you came out of His Majesty’s room, your expression has been dark.”
“Well… of course. He collapsed suddenly.”
“I heard he was with the countess when His Majesty collapsed.”
Akkad continued to look at Pristin’s face and asked.
“Do you have feelings for His Majesty beyond loyalty?”
“I didn’t expect to hear such words from you.”
“I trusted you because you’ve been denying it.”
Akkad said in a low voice.
“But looking at your expression today, I thought I might have been wrong.”
“…My expression?”
“Right now, your expression is like you’re about to collapse.”
It was Pristin’s heart that fell apart at the words. She asked in a bewildered voice.
“Do I look like that?”
“…I guess you didn’t know.”
Akkad spoke with an unreadable expression.
“Anyway, you seem quite shocked, so I hope you rest early.”
“…”
“See you tomorrow.”
After that, Akkad passed Pristin and entered Jerald’s room. Left alone, Pristin stood there for a long time with a stunned face.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
She came to the herbal garden, but she couldn’t get her hands on work. Rather than worrying about Jerald, who had already woken up, it was because Akkad’s words had kept ringing in her head since earlier.
“An expression like I’m about to collapse…”
At first, she denied it. That couldn’t be true. But when she came back to the herb garden and thought about it, she thought maybe Akkad was right.
Because when she heard about Jerald’s past, she felt like she was going to collapse. She felt so bad and sorry for him. She just wanted to hug him when she thought of him suffering alone for so long. So she actually did that.
Pristin thought there was no way that such a heart could not be revealed by an expression. Pristin put her hand on her chest with a struggling face.
In fact, from the time she met him again, the walls of Pristin’s mind had been punctured. It must have been because the longing suppressed the hatred when she met him again.
You would never know it had ended there, because as soon as Jerald met her again, he constantly tried to widen the hole. So there’s no way that little hole can hold out.
In the end, he achieved his goal. The hole was gradually widening as her feelings for him flooded into her heart. Maybe the hole’s too wide to fill it again.
‘I admit it. That I’m in love with him.’
Far from hating him, she was in love with him. She couldn’t deny it at all now.
But even if she admitted it, the guilt in her still lingered and bothered her. Pristin turned her head and looked at the calendar.
Tomorrow was her mother’s death anniversary.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
By the next day, Pristin had left the palace to visit her late parents.
A year ago, her parents died one after another, and Pristin brought the two to a cemetery where the family owners of the successive Lamont families slept. It was adjacent to the estate of Lamont, so Pristin had to leave early in the morning.
“Do you want me to go with you?”
Pristin shook her head as if Claret’s question was nonsense.
“It’s too far, my lady. Please stay in the palace.”
“I don’t have anything to do anyway.”
“If it becomes known that you visited a noble’s tomb, I will unnecessarily attract attention again.”
Pristin slowly nodded her head.
“I’ll quietly visit my parents alone.”
“Okay. I see.”
As she nodded her head, Claret spoke to Pristin with a worried expression.
“You must return. Okay?”
“Of course, Your Highness. See you tomorrow.”
Perhaps in Claret’s eyes, it seemed as if she would never return. Pristin gave a small kiss on the back of Claret’s hand as if to say not to worry. Then she climbed into the carriage and leaned back on the seat, looking tired. It was quite a distance from the royal palace to the Lamont Territory. Unfortunately.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
After running nonstop, Pristin fortunately arrived at her parents’ graveyard when the sun was rising. Her appearance in a black dress looked gloomy and dark, similar to when she first met Claret.
Pristin, holding a bouquet of freesia flowers that her mother liked during her lifetime, cautiously approached her parents’ tombstone.
“Mother and Father. I’m here.”
In front of the tombstone, where there was no one to answer, Pristin knelt quietly. Her knees might be cold in the cold air coming up from the ground, but she kneeled without expressing anything.
“I’m sorry, Christine… I couldn’t come with her today. I really wanted her to come with me this year….”
Pristin quickly blinked her eyes that were about to burst into tears. When she came to this place where her parents slept, her heart was always tired and distressed. What death wouldn’t be tragic, but the death of her parents was especially tragic.
