Chapter 322 (2/2)

“Please go ahead, Your Majesty.”

“Please bury my body in a place they can’t find… Please…”

“I will, Your Majesty. I will swear to Vita that I won’t let them touch your body at all.”

“Thanks… ”

All the energy was drained out of my body in an instant. The faces of the knights who shed tears faded away from my vision. It became gradually difficult for me to breathe.

Several people’s faces appeared in my blurred vision. My father, the emperor, who clicked his tongue and the empress looking at me indifferently. The purple-eyed old man who laughed tenderly and the empress who shouted out loudly that it would not be easy to kick her out. The two dukes and marquis who always gave me bitter advice and my concubine who looked up at me, full of tears.

“Your Majesty, Daddy…”

A streak of tears came down the face. This was not what I really wanted. Although I was always overshadowed by the shadow of my father, called the sacred emperor, which made me resentful all the time, it didn’t mean that I wanted to end up like this.

The path of blood that had been spilt was so clear that I never excused myself by saying it was not my intention. What already happened was the thing of the past that I couldn’t do anything about, but I thought about at the last moment of my life . Obviously, I didn’t mean it. It was not my intention.

Coughing up blood, I looked up at the sky, which gradually faded away like my receding anger and resentment. All sorts of memories flashed through my mind, spanning my twenty-six years of life, which could be short but long.

<You are the crown prince. I, Jeremiah la Monique, am honored to see you>

Jeremiah la Monique, my dear mother.

When I was always lonely, hungry for love, it was like rain in a drought that I met her. So much so that I thought God gave her to me, thinking me pitiable. No, maybe she was a curse. If I had lived without knowing the feelings of affection, I wouldn’t have had to worry about the belated feeling of deprivation.

<Your Majesty is a bad child. How many times have I told you that you can’t leave the palace recklessly?>

Unlike the emperor and empress who treated me coldly, I liked her golden eyes looking at me warmly, and taking care of me in every way. Though it didn’t taste good, she brewed tea for me. She stroked my head without fear and sometimes scolded me. Watching her treat me without reservation, I thought that’s the way a mother was supposed to treat her child. Although she didn’t give birth to me, I thought she was truly my mother.

Several days before my fifth birthday, I came to discover the shocking fact that the empress was not my biological mother.

<To the outside world, I will fulfill my responsibilities and obligations as a mother, but you had better not expect of me more than that.>

That’s what she said to me coldly, whose words cut me to the bone.

I could not forget the fact that the empress, whose love and attention I had been craving for so much, actually had nothing to do with me, and that I got half the blood flowing through my body from a common woman.

<Oh, honey, my little girl!>

Squatting under the tree, I shed tears alone. I thought I would never be loved by anybody, but felt comforted when I discovered I had a lady like the marquise. I hated that little girl opening her hands to the empress with a smile. I got mad about the little girl when my father, the emperor, who was always strict to me, held her in his arms and humored her. It tore my heart out to see the marquise fixing her warm eyes on that little girl.

Why aren’t they treating me like her? Why are they doting on her alone?

Is it because I have blood from a commoner woman?

I trembled when things like that came to my mind. Perhaps my father, the emperor, hated me because of that and that’s why he doted on her, who was born in a prestigious noble family.

I was filled with burning resentment towards my biological mother. Why wasn’t my biological mother born to a noble family? Why did my father love a commoner woman and have her give birth to me?

Sad tears fell down my cheeks. I hated the baby girl who was so engrossed in their love and attention that I could not have despite my hard efforts.

<Your Majesty… please take good care of my daughter…>

I bit my lips tight. Wiping big drops of tears, I nodded at her. Then, a smile came on her grimacing face. Her hands holding me tightly trembled a couple of times as if she patted me. After calling the name of the marquis faintly, all the energy from her hands was lost. In no time she cocked her slender neck to the side.

I screamed at her to come to her senses, but her gentle voice was no longer heard. There was no more sparkling in her golden eyes that were always warm to me.

I flopped down on the floor as my legs felt weak suddenly. I could hardly breathe because I was devastated. I didn’t feel like this when the empress died, but it seemed that the world was empty with the death of my dear mother.