“Brother, why do you think she keeps hiding her true feelings?”
It had been a while since I visited my brother’s grave.
Even though we never recovered his remains, and it was just a headstone with his name on it, I often came here when my thoughts were in disarray. Talking to him like this always made me feel a little lighter.
“Brother, that young maid you met in the Holy Empire, that was Leticia, right? So you must know why she keeps hiding her true feelings, don’t you?”
I chuckled to myself as I asked. Of course, no answer would come. The image of me talking to a gravestone was ridiculous.
“The weather’s great.”
I lay down beside the headstone, not caring about royal dignity.
This was one of the few places where I could be fully myself.
The sky was brilliantly blue. It made me want to take a trip, maybe even with her.
If she ever opened her heart to me, I promised myself I’d take her somewhere far away.
“By the way, when are you coming back, Brother? You promised you would, but it’s been seven years now.”
I sat up, resting my elbows on my knees, propping my chin up in thought. Then, almost playfully, I spoke again, as if I were truly complaining to him.
“Hurry back, Brother. I need your help with this. I’m losing my mind with this one-sided love.”
The end of my leave was fast approaching, and yet, nothing had changed between Leticia and me.
I was determined not to give up, but I couldn’t help feeling impatient.
Time felt too precious, as though it might run out at any moment.
“If you came back, I’m sure Leticia would be happy too.”
After what happened seven years ago, I spent a long time trapped in regret.
I regretted not stopping him from leaving, but I also regretted the careless time we spent together.
Back then, I thought we had forever. My brother, the most perfect person in the world, was always there, and I believed I could live comfortably in his shadow.
But I was wrong.
“Hurry back, Brother. I miss you.”
I couldn’t get his remains back now, but if I just held on, there would come a day when I would.
Until then, I just had to endure. Endurance was something I was good at.
I knew how to kneel, how to bow my head to the ground. So my brother would return. There was plenty of time.
I had to believe that.
* * *
“Give us the people of Genos as slaves to build the dam for the Holy Empire. If you refuse…”
The brief reprieve of my leave ended sooner than expected. A sudden letter had arrived from the Holy Empire.
After receiving their marriage proposal, I thought I was prepared for anything they might send, but this letter surpassed my expectations yet again.
“We will feed the remains of the fallen prince, Julios, to the beasts.”
With trembling hands, I closed the letter. The chancellor, who had delivered it, stood speechless. I, too, remained silent for a while before I managed to speak.
“I’ll need time to think.”
“I will take my leave, Your Majesty.”
Once the chancellor left, I was alone in the office.
Taking a deep breath, I reopened the letter.
The horrifying sentence in the letter was exactly as I had seen it before. My reflection in the desk mirror was pale, as if I were gravely ill.
I slowly tilted the mirror until it lay flat on the floor.
*Tack.*
“So this is how it ends…”
A hollow laugh escaped me. I buried my face in one hand, a bitter chuckle spilling from my lips. The shock was too great for tears to come.
The Holy Empire had used my brother’s remains to blackmail me before. Even during my visit to the Empire for the marriage negotiations, they had hinted at it.
Each time, I had found some way to avert the crisis.
When they demanded tributes, I opened the royal treasury. When they threatened to feed Enoch to Abraxas, I had knelt before them.
But I knew that my success in navigating those situations wasn’t because I was particularly clever or skilled.
It was because the Holy Empire had always left room for negotiation. They had given me something else to offer instead of my brother’s remains.
Because of this, I believed that they would never truly destroy my brother’s remains.
My brother’s body was my greatest weakness, and for a threat to be effective, the weakness had to remain intact.
If they destroyed the remains, they would lose their leverage over me.
So, like a fool, I convinced myself that Julios’s body would be safe.
Foolishly.
The letter had arrived while I was on leave, and because of that, it had been opened by the Elder Council first.
I opened the minutes of the Elder Council meeting that the chancellor had brought along with the letter.
As expected, the council was in an uproar.
But they couldn’t come to an easy conclusion.
The life of the living versus the bones of the dead—there was no question that the former was more important. But those bones belonged to Julios, the prince of Genos.
My only brother, who had given his life for me.
So the decision had to be mine.
I opened the drawer and pulled out the gold-embossed parchment. It was the special paper used by the king to send letters to foreign nations.
Very slowly, I began writing my response to the Holy Empire.
* * *
After handing the letter, in which I had decided to give up my brother’s remains, to the chancellor, I locked myself in my office, doing nothing.
This entire situation was excruciating.
I had thought I’d become accustomed to pain and loss by now, but I was wrong.
It felt as though every layer of callous I had built up over the years had been stripped away, leaving raw, unbearable agony.
In my suffering, I found myself laughing bitterly again.
Leticia. It was because of her.
Before meeting her, I had believed that happiness had no place in my life.
But as the time I spent with her grew longer, I began to change.
Somewhere along the way, seeing her made me smile.
My heart felt full in a way it never had before, a fullness that threatened to overflow.
Hope began to take root inside me—the hope that maybe, just maybe, she might someday look back at me.
That one day, she might soothe the loneliness that had plagued me for so long.
I had become pathetically weak.
“Ugh.”
I missed her so much it was driving me insane. I wanted to cling to her, someone who had never once looked back at me.
I wanted to tell her that I had lost my brother forever, that this time it was truly unbearable.
That even if she hated me, just for today, I wanted her to comfort me.
That even without words, just holding me would be enough. That all I needed was her warmth.
Of course, I couldn’t say any of those things.
All I could do was swallow my pleas and my tears.
No matter how hard I tried to hold it back, I felt like if I saw her face, I would spill all the words I was keeping inside.
That night, for the first time since our marriage, I spent the night alone.
* * *
When I sent the letter relinquishing my brother’s remains, the Holy Empire grew quiet. There were no more demands to send our people as slaves.
I was now certain that Josephina’s goal had indeed been my brother’s remains.
The thought of what had become of his body was too painful, so I decided to stop thinking about it.
The short break I had was naturally coming to an end. Having too much free time only made things worse, so I chose to focus on work instead.
My time with Leticia naturally decreased as well. There was no time for conversation. But I still had to be mindful of her. After what happened to my brother’s remains, the hostility toward her had reached new heights.
It seemed even worse than right after the royal wedding. People were even whispering that she should be killed.
“Josephina’s daughter is a demon. The destruction of Julios’s remains is all her fault. We should kill the demon and feed her corpse to the beasts. We must avenge Lord Julios.”
I immediately ordered my knights to clamp down on the rumors, the same way I had when similar talk had spread among the palace staff before.
‘This time, that alone won’t be enough.’
My knights are capable, and I’m sure they will carry out their mission well again this time.
But even so, I had a gut feeling that more preparation was necessary.
The people of Genos harbor both anger and fear toward the Holy Empire. Until now, fear had outweighed the anger.
Even while resenting the atrocities of the Holy Empire, they hesitated to oppose the transcendent power of the goddess.
That was why Leticia had been left unharmed until now.
But after what happened to my brother’s remains, the atmosphere had changed.
There is a tipping point in people’s emotions.
The anger sparked by the Holy Empire seemed to have reached its limit with this incident.
Though for now, their rage was still under my control, I had to be prepared for the possibility that the crowd, once driven to madness, might cross a line.
Perhaps this was some kind of instinct. The Holy Empire had defiled my brother’s remains, something they had never done before. They might be planning something even more heinous in the future.
Perhaps even I would be in danger, but protecting her was more important than my own safety.
What would I need to do to ensure her survival in the worst-case scenario?
* * *
“Horseback riding lessons?”
“Yes.”
It had been a long time since I had seen her during the day. In the midst of my desolation, seeing her in good health was a comfort.
“Why horseback riding… all of a sudden?”
Was it just my imagination? In the past, she would have just kept saying no without even asking for a reason, but her attitude toward me seemed a little softer now.
“I told you before that I’d suggest a physical activity for you to try instead of walking. Horseback riding is more of a workout than it looks. It’s also fun. When the weather is nice, riding a horse across the fields can clear your mind of all worries.”
She didn’t respond, just looked at me quietly for a moment. Then, she abruptly asked,
“Do you… even eat meals?”
“Pardon?”
“No, never mind.”
She shook her head, then looked at me with slightly more subdued eyes.
As I saw myself reflected in her clear green eyes, a strange thought crossed my mind.
Could it be… was she worried about me?
“Leticia, by any chance…”
I was about to ask her if she was worried about me, if she had heard about my brother’s remains, but I closed my mouth.
I decided to just believe that she was.
It made me happier that way, and there was no need to ask and risk hearing a different answer. Smiling softly, I changed the subject.
“Perhaps you’re afraid of horses? Even if that’s the case, you can still learn to ride. It might take a bit more time, though.”
“I’m not particularly afraid of horses. It’s just…”
She trailed off, avoiding my gaze. Her hesitation was unusual, and it made me tilt my head in curiosity.
Then she whispered very quietly,
“It just feels… overwhelming.”
That was all she said.
I had been bracing myself for harsh words, expecting her to say that she disliked me or that she hated the idea of learning horseback riding from me, so her response left me a bit taken aback.
“I’ve lived just fine without knowing how to ride a horse up until now. So, I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Is that really your only reason for not wanting to learn?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to; it’s just that there’s no need for it. So I don’t see why I should spend time on it. Besides, aren’t you busy?”
The more I listened to her, the more surprised I became.
We had carried on a conversation for quite a while, and not once had she gotten angry at me. Before I knew it, I was smiling. She looked at me, puzzled.
“Why are you smiling?”
“No reason, nothing at all.”
I shook my head, still smiling. She was being considerate of me. It was obvious, even to a fool. This wasn’t a delusion or some kind of justification I was making up.
“Then how about this? It seems you’re not interested in learning horseback riding, but I truly want you to learn it.”
“Why would you insist on that…?”
“It’s just how I feel. Horseback riding is much more useful than you think. It’s more than just exercise.”
For example, it could help you escape in an emergency.
“Consider it as granting me a wish. How about learning horseback riding?”
“Riding a horse… is your wish?”
“Yes. And I won’t take up much of your time. Two days will be enough.”
“Are you really saying that I could learn to ride a horse in just two days?”
“Well, not to master it, but two days are enough to learn how to ride to a destination.”
In truth, I wanted to teach her much more, but for now, I would be satisfied with that.
Despite my explanation, she remained silent.
Even though she pitied me, it seemed she still found the idea of learning from me uncomfortable.
“Fine, I’ll learn.”
But in the end, she accepted my proposal.
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