“Come on, stab me now.”
“Your Majesty…”
“I’m sorry to ask you to do this to me. I appreciate your great service until now. I won’t forget it even if I die. ”
“Your Majesty!”
Behind the knights swallowing tears, those who made up the situation seemed to laugh at him.
At that moment Ruve felt a surge of anger at them. He wanted to kill that old man with sparkling purple eyes. How could he hide such a mean scheme while pretending to be friendly to me all along?
How stunned he was when their conspiracy that lasted for more than a decade was revealed!
When Ruve realized what he had done for a long time, it was too late.
After struggling with despair, Ruve turned to his reason that he finally regained and tried to find a way to turn the tide. He was looking for a magical method to correct his mistake, but it seemed that it was too late.
“There is no time. Hurry up.”
Hiding his bitter heart, Ruve pretended to be composed. Although he understood their position, even now the enemies were approaching him every moment.
“Your Majesty, please think twice about it…”
“Stop. Are you going to have me suffer the disgrace of being captured by them? Even though I will be remembered as a bad emperor, I want to keep my honor. So, stab me right now. Hurry up!”
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty. Forgive me for not having served you faithfully to the end. ”
Drawing a dagger, Earl Penril, the Captain of the Royal Knights, ran towards him with a scream. The moment the dagger stabbed him, Ruve felt a burning shock in his chest.
Blood flowed down the cold sword.
“Earl Penril…This is my last request…”
“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 his body in an instant. The faces of the knights who shed tears faded away from his vision. It became gradually difficult for him to breathe.
Several people’s faces appeared in Ruve’s blurred vision. His father, the Emperor, who clicked his tongue and his mother, the Empress looking at him 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 him bitter advice and his concubine…… who looked up at him, full of tears.
“Your Majesty, father…”
A streak of tears came down the face. This was not what Ruve really wanted. Although he was always overshadowed by the shadow of his father, called the sacred emperor, which made him resentful all the time, it didn’t mean that he wanted to end up like this.
The path of blood that had been spilt was so clear that Ruve never excused himself by saying it was not his intention.
What already happened was the thing of the past that he couldn’t do anything about, but Ruve thought about at the last moment of his life . Obviously, he didn’t mean it. It wasn’t his intention.
Coughing up blood, Ruve looked up at the sky, which gradually faded away like his receding anger and resentment. All sorts of memories flashed through his mind, spanning his twenty-six years of life, which could be short but long.
***
‘Jeremiah la Monique, my dear mother.‘
When he was always lonely, hungry for love, it was like rain in a drought that he met her. So much so that Ruve thought God gave her to him, thinking him pitiable.
No, maybe she was a curse. If he had lived without knowing the feelings of affection, he wouldn’t have had to worry about the belated feeling of deprivation.
Unlike the Emperor and Empress who treated him coldly, Ruve liked her golden eyes looking at him warmly, and taking care of him in every way.
Though it didn’t taste good, Jeremiah brewed tea for him. She stroked his head without fear and sometimes scolded him. Watching her treat him without reservation, Ruve thought that’s the way a mother was supposed to treat her child.
Although she didn’t give birth to him, Ruve thought she was truly his mother.
***
Several days before his fifth birthday, Ruve came to discover the shocking fact that the Empress wasn’t his biological mother.
When she said to him coldly, her words cut him to the bone.
Ruve could not forget the fact that the Empress, whose love and attention he had been craving for so much, actually had nothing to do with him, and that he got half the blood flowing through his body from a common woman.
Squatting under the tree, Ruve shed tears alone. He thought he would never be loved by anybody, but felt comforted when he discovered he had a lady like the Jeremiah.
Ruve hated that little girl opening her hands to the Empress with a smile. He got mad about the little girl when his father, the Emperor, who was always strict to him, held her in his arms and humored her.
And it tore his heart out to see Jeremiah 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?‘
Ruve trembled when things like that came to his mind. Perhaps his father, the Emperor, hated him because of that and that’s why he doted on that girl, who was born in a prestigious noble family.
He was filled with burning resentment towards his biological mother. Why wasn’t his biological mother born to a noble family? Why did his father love a commoner woman and have her give birth to him?
Sad tears fell down his cheeks. Ruve hated the baby girl who was so engrossed in their love and attention that he could not have despite his hard efforts.
***
<Your Majesty… please take good care of my daughter…>
Ruve bit his lips tight. Wiping big drops of tears, he nodded at Jeremiah. Then, a smile came on her grimacing face. Her hands holding him tightly trembled a couple of times as if she patted him.
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..
Ruve 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 him.
He flopped down on the floor as his legs felt weak suddenly. Ruve could hardly breathe because he was devastated. He didn’t feel like this when the Empress-mother died, but it seemed that the world was empty with the death of his dear mother.
Eventually, Ruve was barely able to pull himself together after a long time. He felt bad about her who didn’t leave any comforting words for him, but Ruve comforted himself by thinking that Jeremiah didn’t say anything to him because she trusted him.
Ruve reached out his trembling hand and closed her eyelids, which she could not close because of her concern about her husband and daughter, then strained his wobbly legs after letting out the royal guards trying to support him.
When he came out into the hallway, reflecting on her last request, Ruve heard a child’s laughter somewhere.
When he slowly turned, Ruve saw the girl smiling happily, holding a doll her size.
‘Oh my, you are driving me nuts…!‘
He pushed the baby girl running towards him with a thrill. He took it out on this little girl.
‘My dear marquise, were you so worried because of this little girl, who was laughing happily without even knowing her mother’s death? Why did you not leave any comforting word for me who regarded you as my mother? Which part of her made you think she was more valuable and greater than me?‘
All the resentment of her that he had accumulated since childhood exploded at once. Ruve turned, staring at the child coldly, who was starting to cry after falling on her buttocks.
He hated everything about her, including her golden eyes that linked her to her mother by blood.
***
<As for Lady Monique, she’s only twelve, but she is so excellent! She is quite good at not only etiquette but also learning. Indeed, she is perfect to be the spouse of the great emperor.>
Ruve stared at Duke Veritas who was turning after closing the book. He was sick and tired of people around him extolling Lady Monique everywhere.
‘What did he say? She is perfect to be the spouse of the great emperor? What the heck are you talking about? No matter how hard I try, I can’t be a great emperor like my father. Why don’t you install her as the emperor instead of me? It would be much more efficient than you guys struggling to teach me.‘
Gnashing his teeth, Ruve took off his jacket and threw it away recklessly. The more he reflected on it, the more annoyed he was.
At a banquet where he left after dancing to the first tune, Ruve went to see Lady Monique, thinking he was too mean to her, but was shocked to hear her saying that.
<‘I don’t know, maybe because I don’t have any memories of my mother, or maybe because she’s gone, I don’t feel uncomfortable at all’>
What did she say? Nothing inconvenient or uncomfortable even when she had no mother?
Ruve was so angry that he could hardly say anything.
‘Well, you might not know how much your mother loved you, and how worried she was about you enough, so much so that she could not close her eyes at the last moment of her life.’
‘You never know because you lost any memories of her. You don’t know you actually denied your mother’s love as well as even me who craved for it so much.‘
By.Piooky 