PMBA | Chapter 3
by Quill‘Crown Prince…Lexion?’
For a moment, she thought it might be the Crown Prince, but the Crown Prince she knew had no association with the color silver. His colors were the gold of his shimmering hair and the deep green of his emerald eyes.
‘I thought our eyes met.’
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Could she have been mistaken? While she pondered this, Johansson continued to rage.
“Don’t you have any sense of gratitude?”
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“Gratitude?”
“It’s by Father’s grace that you were able to reach adulthood unharmed. Do you truly not realize that you’re disgracing our family by clinging to the Crown Prince?”
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“…”
“Every moment you engage in such behavior gives His Majesty another opportunity to seize upon Father’s weaknesses…”
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“Ha!”
Kyrie burst out laughing.
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“You’re the one who should be questioning your own gratitude, Johansson.”
“What?”
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“You were the one who put the dead rats and insects in Elise’s bed.”
Johansson’s face paled, as if he were about to faint.
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“You…”
“What? Did I say something untrue?”
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In truth, most of the rumors surrounding Kyrie were things she herself was unaware of. However, for some reason, there were a few things she knew for certain.
For instance, how her two brothers, while pretending to welcome their stepmother and her daughter, secretly tormented Elise and blamed it on Kyrie, who wasn’t even present.
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How the maids stole the remaining belongings of her nanny and hid them in the Duke’s office, and how she tried to break in with an axe, only to starve for a week and still not retrieve her belongings.
‘How could such a girl be born into the ducal family? Do you think the deceased Duchess had an affair?’
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How she slapped the cheeks of the Countess’s daughter who badmouthed her to Elise, resulting in another confinement.
How she sought solace in her mother’s beloved greenhouse to calm her emotions whenever she felt hurt, only for a poisonous plant to be coincidentally discovered there, leading to rumors that she had poisoned her stepmother.
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How the greenhouse was subsequently demolished, and she lost yet another sanctuary…
Recalling these events, Kyrie gently stroked the pendant on her neck. Her nanny’s voice echoed in her mind.
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‘This belongs to you, my lady.’
‘Mine?’
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‘It’s something your late mother wanted to pass on to you. It’s a necklace made with jewels that symbolize happiness.’
‘…’
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‘You must never let anyone take it from you. Because it’s your happiness.’
That was why she had to protect this necklace, even while being beaten that day. To reclaim her happiness, she had to cling to it desperately, even if it meant being covered in blood.
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Kyrie had simply endured, clenching her teeth and smiling. Because nothing was as worthless as her despair or tears.
At some point, she began to smile even when she was angry, and even when she wanted to cry. She smiled with bloodied hands, smiled while being whipped in the punishment chamber, smiled as she crawled on the floor, starved and limping.
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When she smiled like that, people would mock her for a while, then quickly run away in disgust. They feared her as if she were a vengeful spirit and no longer bothered her.
So she smiled and acted like the mad dog they called her. She squandered her meager allowance on dresses and jewels before the servants could steal it, and she slapped the faces of the servants who dared to look down on her and serve her rotten food.
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She didn’t care if she earned the reputation of being extravagant on top of being a mad dog. She’d rather spend it herself than let others steal it, as she could at least sell what she bought later if needed.
When she protested against the rude servants in her own way, they became wary of her for a while. In stark contrast to her neglected, dusty, and cobweb-filled room, her jewelry box and wardrobe became ostentatiously lavish.
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And through it all, she always smiled brightly. That expression had become natural for Kyrie.
“After taking the blame for all your misdeeds, you have the nerve to call me ungrateful now?”
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“…”
“Aren’t you barking up the wrong tree?”
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Her two brothers, who had always shifted the blame for their actions onto Kyrie, had, after puberty, accepted Elise and their stepmother as family as if nothing had happened.
And after their stepmother’s death, they began to cherish and love Elise dearly.
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As if repenting and feeling guilty for wrongdoings they have committed. As if she was their only true younger sister.
Why couldn’t they extend the same guilt and remorse to her?
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At some point, Kyrie stopped wondering about it. Instead, she started acting “ungrateful,” as Johansson had accused her.
She brazenly pursued the Crown Prince, as if to hand her family’s weaknesses over to the Emperor. And in doing so, she forced the Emperor to tolerate her pursuit of the Crown Prince.
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It was also the last option Kyrie could choose.
‘Marriage is the best way for a noble lady to leave her family.’
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Kyrie had thought of nothing else since that fateful funeral. The blood-soaked pendant in her hand had whispered to her.
‘You must be happy, Kyrie.’
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Those words were seared into her mind like a brand. Even as her bloodied hand became infected, even as she burned with fever and her consciousness faded, those words remained.
Kyrie decided to survive. She decided to smile more joyfully and strive for happiness more desperately than anyone else.
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To do that, she first had to leave the ducal family. Marriage was just a necessary means to an end.
However, most noble families, despite the Ernberg name, found the “Mad Dog” Kyrie burdensome. Naturally, no family proposed marriage to her.
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So Kyrie sought a man who was in a position where he could not help but receive the attention of others.
And in the year of her debutante ball, she secretly proposed a deal to him.
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She would agree to marry him, and then, when the time was right, she would give him grounds for divorce based on her own misconduct. She would provide him with a dowry and even steal a list kept by Duke Ernberg, a record of the weaknesses of various nobles.
That person was Lexion, the Empire’s one and only Crown Prince.
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There was no other meaning to it. He was simply the best option in her situation.
Blinded by power, the Emperor didn’t even like his own son, to whom he would eventually have to hand over his authority. And he didn’t interfere with whomever his son courted.
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Lexion, for his part, seemed eager to attract the Emperor’s attention in any way possible. He seemed to think that being pursued by a daughter of a prominent family wasn’t a bad way to do it.
‘Alright. I’ll marry you when you come of age. However, the divorce must happen within six months.’
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‘…’
‘To avoid tarnishing my reputation, you must create a scandal. A scandal significant enough for anyone in the Empire to demand a divorce.’
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Kyrie readily accepted his condescending offer and the position of the Crown Prince’s secret fiancée.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
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Her reputation had long been dragged through the mud. A scandal would be easy enough to fabricate.
And now, Johansson, standing before her, didn’t know about her deal with the Crown Prince, which was why he was provoking her.
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‘How annoying.’
Kyrie defined him as such, then whispered, still with a smile on her face,
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“If you say one more word, I’ll reveal everything you did to Elise.”
“You…”
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“So get lost while I’m still being lenient, Johansson.”
“…You’ll regret this.”
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Johansson, pale as a sheet, spat out the words before finally leaving her and heading towards Veron.
Regret?
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‘I have nothing left to lose, so there’s nothing to regret.’
With Johansson gone, the nobles who had been lurking around for entertainment lost interest and dispersed.
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Kyrie, left alone in the silence, stroked her necklace. Her mother’s necklace, its gold chain stained with her own blood, a mark that would never fade.
‘I’ll be happy, I promise.’
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And to do that, she first had to secure Lexion.
Contrary to their agreement, Lexion had been busy avoiding her ever since they both came of age.
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In fact, he had even spent much of the past year away from the capital, following Duke Haswell, who had been dispatched by the Emperor to pacify neighboring countries, accumulating military achievements.
‘…If not today, then never.’
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Lexion would leave again, using the excuse of going for another expedition. She wanted to hear a definite answer about their marriage before then.
‘I have a bad feeling about this.’
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A few days ago, about a month before her birthday, the Duke had done something he’d never done before. He had summoned Kyrie to the morning meal.
And then, wordlessly, he handed her a booklet. Kyrie remembered the words written on the fragrant booklet’s cover.
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[Flovel Convent]
Kyrie quickly grasped the Duke’s intentions.
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‘He wants to lock me away in a convent.’
The convent in question was notoriously strict, even harsh. There were even grim rumors of women sent there dying one after another.
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‘I won’t wither away and die, trapped in a place like that.’
Whatever happiness was, Kyrie had to grasp it. Otherwise, there would be no meaning to her endurance thus far.
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And the beginning of that happiness, whether she knew it or not, would be ushered in by Lexion. By marrying her, and then divorcing her.
‘I’ll never let them have the ending they desire.’
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As Kyrie thought this and quietly lowered her gaze, a man inside the Crown Prince’s Palace was watching her.
“Your… Your…”
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One of the attendants hesitantly addressed the man.
“Your Grace, Duke Haswell.”
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At the words squeezed out with effort, the man turned his head.
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