TPOP 99

Chapter 99

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Flaming arrows rose from the north gate. This time, it was a distress signal announcing an emergency. The deputy commander's face turned ashen upon confirming the signal.

"Your Highness, you must take cover immediately. The Crown Prince's knights are approaching...! It seems the Crown Prince has returned!"

"Damn it, head to the chapel first. Your Highness!"

"The rear is blocked. Count, imperial forces are converging. We'll be surrounded if this continues! Your Highness, to the church!"

High-ranking nobles were being held hostage in the church. They had to hold out with them until reinforcements arrived. It was part of the plan from the start.

Eisen ran at full speed, blending in among them. His mind raced incessantly. If Diana hadn't been captured yet, the Crown Prince must have pursued her into the forest. Yet he had returned to the palace.

Had he captured the maid?

Soldiers formed a circle around Eisen and raced toward the church. Eisen ran at their pace, gasping for breath. An arrow, tearing through the air with a terrifying whistling sound, pierced the neck of the deputy commander guarding him right beside him.

"Gah!"

The arrow had been fired with such force it passed clean through the man's throat, emerging through his Adam's apple. Warm blood splattered his cheek, sending a chill down his spine. Eisen instinctively sensed his sworn enemy had arrived.

Imperial knights and guardsmen surged in an instant, surrounding the rebels on three sides. Not all exits were sealed yet. Eisen sprinted toward the church with every ounce of strength he possessed.

"Haa, haaa..."

"Your Highness, this way!"

An arrow pierced the forehead of the soldier covering Eisen in place of the fallen deputy commander. It felt like an invisible hand was tightening around his neck.

Beyond the low wall surrounding the church, archers were positioned between the palace servants' quarters and the royal guard barracks. The rebels, holding the nobles trapped inside the chapel hostage, raised their voices.

"This man is the Marquis of Grandpar! Do you intend to kill him?!"

"Let go of him, you insolent fools! How dare you commit such an outrage before the late emperor's coffin...!"

"Attack, and this man dies!"

The archers, their bowstrings taut, began to waver.

Eisen bit his lip hard. This was it. Maintain this standoff, then wait for reinforcements. The original plan was to release the advance party, take the Crown Prince and nobles hostage, and while the imperial command structure collapsed, have the main rebel force waiting near the capital seize the palace. Hold out just until the sun fully rises, and victory would be his!

But the hope that flared quickly faded. The ground began to thud and rumble. Rebel soldiers who had formed a human barricade screamed and collapsed. It was a spot beyond Eisen's line of sight. Count Montagne shouted nervously.

"What is it? Who is it? Who's coming?"

A cold instinct scraped down Eisen's spine. He moved his stiff lips.

"Clear... the path."

Soldiers shifted to the sides, creating a narrow gap. Beyond the opened view, a scene of carnage unfolded.

His half-brother stood in the middle of a sea of blood.

He wore black funeral robes. His cloak was nowhere to be seen.

Blood spurting from the bodies of soldiers fallen like fallen leaves mingled with rainwater, forming a crimson stream. The blood and flesh splattering his face and hair were all washed away by the rain, making the Crown Prince appear, for a moment, like a saint untouched by a single drop of blood.

A bow lay at his feet. It became clear who had shot and killed the two rebel leaders, one with each arrow.

Eisen barely managed to inhale the breath he had been holding.

He thought Felix had gone after Diana, but his appearance was quicker than expected. Knights following the Crown Prince emerged from the rain. Judging by the shadows obscured by the downpour, their numbers were by no means small. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of swords pierced through the thick rain, aimed at them, radiating a cold, murderous intent.

Eisen forced his stiff lips into a greeting.

"I didn't know you still shot the bow so well, brother."

He remembered how, even in anger, he had never hesitated to wield a weapon. At the annual hunting tournament, the young Crown Prince consistently brought in a haul rivaling that of adults.

Whispers circulated that he likely added the shares of the dukes and knights hunting with him, but Eisen knew he was truly skilled with the bow. Not just the bow, but swords, spears, any weapon with a blade.

"Those are precious hands, Brother. Aren't you being too rough with them? I'm afraid you might hurt yourself."

"No need to worry. I'm careful enough when I need to be."

They had had such conversations before. He never showed it, but Eisen knew Felix valued his hand enough not to strain it unnecessarily.

Yet seeing it now, one of Felix’s hands looked terribly unnatural.

Only then did Eisen realize the two arrows had missed their mark. Both had aimed for his neck, but the shots had failed, embedding themselves in the knights' throats instead.

'His right hand?'

Felix's wrist was twisted at an unnatural angle. The back of his hand, hanging beneath his sleeve, was pale. It was held in his black, blood-dripping left hand.

A rebel soldier charged at him, bellowing loudly. Felix swung his sword as if swatting an annoying insect.

Using his left hand didn't seem to pose much difficulty. However, it felt less like he was calculating the sword's angle and swing, and more like he was tearing men apart purely by sheer force.

Who on earth had crippled the Crown Prince's hand like that?

Felix sliced through the soldiers blocking his path, closing in bit by bit. Clad entirely in black, he resembled a grim reaper wielding the scythe of death. Eisen scanned the area widely. Among the knights mingled with the rebels, he spotted Hugo Christen. The woman he sought was nowhere to be seen.

Eisen wondered. Had they captured Diana?

Soldiers surged forward, forming a wall in front of Eisen. Felix vanished from view, blocked by them.

Instead, a muffled voice came through.

"Did you take her, Eisen?"

There was no direct object. But the implication was clear from the context. Eisen's pupils gradually dilated.

He hadn't captured her.

His brother hadn't found the maid.

"What did you tell Diana?"

Eisen swept his hand, clearing the knights blocking his path. Once again, he met his brother's sapphire eyes, now tinged with madness.

"Ha...!"

Eisen couldn't hold back and burst out laughing. She ran away. The maid ran away!

"Ha, ha ha...!"

Victory glowed in his narrowed eyes. Bending at the waist, Eisen let out a loud laugh before gasping for breath.

"So you couldn't find her either, brother? That woman."

The silence, thick with hostility, was his answer. Eisen felt a sudden lightness in his chest, like a toothache had vanished.

Often in childhood—actually, quite frequently—his brother’s gentle face had seemed repulsive. He sometimes loathed that part of himself. His brother was a kind boy who accepted his half-brother without hesitation, yet the inferiority complex of being a concubine’s child gnawed at him.

When the Count of Montagne succeeded in assassinating the Empress, he felt an inexplicable sense of satisfaction. From that day on, Eisen resolved to acknowledge his own ugliness.

Yet he was certain once more: the truly ugly one was Felix.

And Eisen succeeded in placing a noose around his brother's neck, in a manner he knew would surely disgust him.

"Diana truly was the woman heaven sent for my brother."

He had sent over a hundred spies and failed but finally succeeded with one mere maid. It wasn't quite the picture Eisen had envisioned. He had hoped the love-blinded Crown Prince would become as foolish as his father and fall right into his palm, but this outcome wasn't bad either.

Who could have imagined that blind woman would dare to flee this very palace? Yet Diana did it. And the man who lost her was shattered far beyond anything Eisen had vaguely imagined.

Eisen chuckled, watching his brother's face, more flustered and disheveled than ever before.

"The noble of Karman? He's nothing but a beast who falls so easily for a mere street whore. Don't you think he's been overrated? Brother. The people of this country are being deceived."

"Who are you putting on the same level?"

"Why? Do you think you're any different from our father? Or do you think Diana is any different from my mother?"

"She is different."

Felix lifted only one corner of his mouth, his face expressionless. The list of differences was endless, but there was one clear distinction.

"Because your mother died by my hand."