TPOSAWB 66

The Price of Saving A Wicked Beast

Translator: Rae

With his child’s life in jeopardy, the count feared nothing anymore. If only he could get Adelaide out of this denlike imperial palace, even if it meant exchanging it with his own life—if only he could let her live a life completely unrelated to the imperial family or the North—then he did not care what became of him.

“My brother Roem is due to return briefly for the grand duke’s wedding. If she boards a ship to Clayton without anyone knowing, even the North will have no way to stop it. So, Your Majesty, please allow Adelaide to leave for Clayton with her brother.”

Steadfast resolve weighed in every one of his words. But then Adelaide spoke in a low voice.

"No, I'm not leaving.”

At her unexpected answer, the count’s gaze wavered greatly.

“What are you saying, Adelaide? This place is dangerous. You could truly die.”

“If I go to Clayton with Brother Roem, will I be able to get away from all of this?”

Marquis Brundell’s face, his eyes bloodshot as though he were shedding tears of blood as he stared at her, never left her mind since then.

“Mother. Father. You two are this sincere for my sake, so do you think Marquis Brundell’s heart is any different? He thinks I k*lled her daughter. He will surely try to take revenge on me.”

Even if she left discreetly, it would only be a matter of time. Just as an assassin had waited at the end of her journey with Killian, hidden amid the festival.

Adelaide lowered her eyes. She did not like Katarina, but she had never wished for her to die. The fact that Katarina, close to her in age, had been used and k*lled by her fiancé’s scheme felt nothing short of horrific.

The Emperor watched Adelaide closely. To be honest, he was quite surprised. Only a few months ago she had been nothing but fragile, yet she had grown considerably determined.

"I think you have a good idea, Crown Princess.”

The Emperor looked at Adelaide with a faint smile. Adelaide gave a very small nod.

“Until I came before Your Majesty, my thoughts were in great turmoil, but I believe I’ve begun to see a thread that may lead to a solution.”

“I see. Can you tell me what you are thinking?”

Adelaide hesitated for a moment, because she was not sure her thought was truly a proper solution.

But her hesitation was brief. Adelaide soon opened her mouth and began to convey the thought that had just passed through her.

*** 

“Wine! Bring more wine!”

A bottle hurled at the wall shattered with a crash, glass fragments spraying in every direction. With shrill screams, the maids jumped aside. Marquis Brundell bared his eyes at them and roared.

“Bring wine! Quickly!”

He could not endure it unless he was drunk. The body of his daughter, who had been staying at the grand duke’s residence, was laid out in the room next to where he was.

In just a few days she was meant to marry the grand duke. Katarina, who should have become the most beautiful bride in the world, lay with her breath extinguished, remained quiet no matter how many times he called.

"What should I do?”

“I can’t go. The marquis is too frightening.”

The maids trembled, exchanging glances. They were afraid that if they approached him without cause, his anger would explode and they would suffer for it. Though they had served the marquis’s household for a long time, it was their first time seeing him lose all reason like this.

Then, someone walked toward the marquis’s room carrying a tray with glasses and bottles on everyone’s behalf. The maids recognized her and cried out in shock.

"Bonnet?”

"I'll go to the Marquis.”

It was Bonnet, who had been kept by the Crown Princess for weeks and unable to return. At her calm manner, as though nothing had happened, everyone stared after her in stunned silence.

The marquis’s room was dark. With no lamps lit, only moonlight through the window broke the darkness. The room was already a mess. Shards of glass and slashed garments were strewn across the floor.

“My Lord. I’ve brought wine.”

The marquis turned around. He frowned as he looked at Bonnet.

“You’re… Katarina’s…”

“Yes. I was the young lady’s attendant… Bonnet, Bonnet.”

Tears streamed down Bonnet's eyes. 

“My Lord. It isn’t true, is it? Really? The young lady, really… it isn’t, is it? Please tell me it isn’t.”

Soon Bonnet sobbed like a child and, as if pouring out her heart, told him how she had managed to leave the Crown Prince’s palace. Hearing that misfortune had befallen Katarina, she said she had begged to be allowed to see the young lady.

“Did you come to see Katarina?”

“Yes. Sniff… sob… My Lord. Please avenge the young lady. How could they do something worse than animals to her? The poor young lady’s soul has nowhere to lean but you, her father.”

At Bonnet’s grieving words over Katarina’s death, the marquis nodded again and again, like a man briefly out of his mind.

“Yes. I must. I intend to. I’ll take the heads of those who deserve to be torn apart and offer them at Katarina’s grave.”

The marquis gritted his teeth and glared into empty air. He desperately wanted to plunge a blade into the Crown Prince and that woman at once. At his fierce response, Bonnet wiped her tears and nodded repeatedly.

“You must, my Lord! Use me. Thankfully, the Crown Princess keeps me close. She says she owes me because of what happened to Marcella.”

Marcella. It was a name the marquis remembered as well. The girl, once Katarina’s personal maid, had become her daughter’s attendant at the grand duke’s request, tasked with siphoning information from within the Crown Prince’s palace.

He had heard that while carrying out an errand for the Crown Princess, she had fallen out of Killian Nachtmann’s favor and been executed. It seemed the Crown Princess pitied Bonnet, Marcella’s younger sister, because of that incident.

It was welcome news. His gaze, having been hazy due to the drinks, suddenly narrowed.

“Is that truly so? If you help me gain access to the Crown Princess, I will bestow a great reward upon you and your father.”

 

“My Lord, I do not speak for the sake of reward. One thing alone is enough for me: rightful vengeance against the one who reduced the young lady to this.”

Bonnet looked up at the marquis, her eyes gleaming. She clenched the hem of her skirt tightly.

Her grief over Katarina’s death was feigned, but her promise to aid the marquis’s revenge was sincere. She, too, had a vengeance to exact. The one who had used and discarded her sister Marcella would have to pay for his deeds.

“Leave it to me. I will ensure that you slay the young lady’s enemy and offer his head at her grave.”

By chance, the marquis’s enemy was the same as her own. Helping him was no different from taking revenge on Marcella’s k*ller. At some point, a cold shadow of hatred had settled over Bonnet’s face.

*** 

The day of Katarina Brundel’s funeral was exceptionally sunny. As her body needed to be transported to the North without delay, the funeral was held two days after the accident.

Expressing his regret over the accident that had occurred in the imperial palace, the Emperor ordered that her funeral be conducted with full ceremony and without neglect.

However, upon hearing this, the Northerners raged that if the Emperor truly lamented the accident, he should not hold a grand funeral but instead hand over the k*ller, Crown Princess, to appease the marquis’ daughter’s unfair d*ath.

It was the Dared Grand Ducal House that quelled the North’s resentment. Fabian declined the Emperor’s favor and personally presided over Katarina’s funeral.

Though they had not been able to hold a wedding, Fabian treated her funeral equal to someone with a grand duchess’ title. At the words that Katarina would be officially recorded as his first wife, Marquis Brundel, who had been holding back his grief, finally broke down in tears.

On the day of Katarina’s funeral, no one from the imperial family attended. Neither the Emperor, nor the Crown Prince, nor the Crown Princess.

When the solemn funeral ended, Marquis Brundell stood watching helplessly as the coffin bearing his daughter’s body was loaded onto a carriage and departed.

“Marquis Brundell.”

At some point, Fabian approached his side. He quietly handed the marquis a handkerchief.

At Fabian’s consolation, tears once again flowed from the marquis’s eyes.

“Thank you… for preserving Katarina’s honor.”

As she had died without marrying, she should by rights have been buried in Brundel Marquisate, but through Fabian’s consideration, Katarina was laid to rest in the grand ducal tomb.

“Do not bury yourself too deeply in grief. We still have an enemy upon whom we must exact revenge.”

“I know. I will shed tears only until today. If this father continues to show such a pitiful state, Katarina will not be able to depart for heaven in peace.”

The marquis spoke in a voice steeped in sorrow. After staring endlessly in the direction the carriage had gone, he finally turned his head when it became no more than a tiny dot out of sight. He then spoke to Fabian, who stood beside him looking the same way.

“As it happens, there is a matter related to that which I wished to discuss with you, Grand Duke.”

***

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