But the feelings he harbored were a forbidden love.
Disgusting.
Love between men....
Long ago, he had seen two noblemen secretly kissing on a terrace. When their forbidden love was exposed, they became the subject of everyone’s gossip.
Love between men was considered nearly taboo in the Empire.
A filthy, hideous love.
A love that should not exist.
I know.
Vilmar slowly lowered his eyes. He thought as he picked up the neatly arranged documents and turned through them.
He knew he must not love Laios.
And....
I know.
He knew Laios loved another woman.
He had seen it clearly.
The way Laios’s eyes sparkled like the morning star whenever he stood before her.
As though he could not conceal how unbearably precious he found her.
Laios loved Elika.
Not him. Not Vilmar.
I know all of it.
Vilmar’s grip tightened involuntarily as he turned another page.
He knew.
He knew this world would never tolerate his preposterous feelings. He knew Laios loved another woman rather than him. He knew that was why the two of them had ultimately married!
Then why...!
Bang!
Vilmar slammed his hands against the desk and shot to his feet. His arms trembled as he braced them against its surface.
Why?
He could not accept it.
His mind and reason understood and acknowledged everything.
Yet his heart burned. Emotions he could not distinguish as anger or sorrow churned together inside him, and his hatred ran so deep that it ached.
Yes.
He hated it!
Clenching his molars, Vilmar hurled the documents away.
Whap!
The stack of parchment struck the wall and scattered limply across the floor.
Why can’t I?
Why can’t I have him?
Why in the world?
Why
could he not possess Laios le Regnantia?
Ha.......
A ragged breath escaped him. Vilmar asked himself:
What was this feeling that made him want to kill, that suffocated him, that filled him with fury all the way to his throat?
This is... yes.
It must be love.
His love for Laios.
Love did not have to be gentle and warm.
Vilmar’s love
was hardly romantic.
His love was hideous, obsessive, and destructive.
If I cannot have you.......
Vilmar’s tightly clenched fist trembled.
Crimson blood welled beneath the nails digging into his skin,
but he never loosened his hand.
Then please, be miserable.
Vilmar wanted Laios to become the most miserable man in the world.
He wanted him to lose her in the most agonizing way possible.
To suffer endlessly even afterward.
To live the rest of his life in regret.
“Aaaah!”
“There’s poison in Her Majesty the Empress’s tea...!”
And so, time and again, he had tried to kill Laios’s woman.
“Your Majesty, another assassin came today....”
“There was poison in the meal as well.”
He hired assassins and poisoned her food.
And ultimately—
“You never know. Someone with a particularly vicious disposition might even tamper with the body—”
He stole her corpse.
On the night screams and wailing engulfed the palace,
...The wine tastes sweet tonight.
he sat atop her cold coffin and silently drank lukewarm wine.
From then on, Vilmar lived for the pleasure of breaking Laios.
The pleas to “return her body,” the anguished demands to know “what in the world do you want?”
All of it gave Vilmar a reason to breathe.
“Duke Cesica. Please.......”
As he watched the Emperor collapse so wretchedly,
Vilmar endured each day little by little.
Watching the light fade from Laios’s eyes, his shoulders sag, and his voice tremble at the end of every sentence—
Vilmar took base satisfaction in it.
Yes. That is how you should fall apart.
As much as I did.
You too—
That was enough for him.
He would be content to continue this way.
But then,
one day—
“I said that I loved you, Your Highness.”
A confession rang through the banquet hall.
The voice was low, but held no hesitation.
Young Lord Friedrich wore a confident smile,
while the Crown Prince met his gaze with wavering eyes.
.......
That day, amid nobles murmuring in shock, Vilmar witnessed the scene.
Young Lord Friedrich was confessing his love to Crown Prince Cailus.
The Crown Prince stood rigid and silent, but his crimson eyes shook violently. What passed across his face was not mere surprise.
Confusion, contempt, fear, and... a trace of some unknowable emotion.
The sight—
lodged itself in Vilmar’s mind.
......Ah.
His breath stopped.
He realized.
Why...... Why didn’t I ever do that?
Why did I never confess?
He had never told Laios that he loved him.
That he wanted him. That Laios ought to belong to him.
He had never once
spoken those words.
Leaning against the wall, Vilmar covered his mouth with one hand.
Like a man whose breath had caught in his throat.
The Crown Prince fell apart so easily from those few words....
Pain was not the only way to destroy a person.
Merely telling someone you loved them—
even those few words
could make a person crumble so easily.
......If so.
Vilmar watched the scene in silence for some time.
The commotion in the banquet hall and the nobles’ murmurs sounded distant.
His gaze remained fixed on the crimson eyes of the Crown Prince, who stood stunned after receiving the confession.
Vilmar’s violet eyes blinked quietly.
Somewhere within them, something emerged like the finest of cracks.
An emotion still too indistinct to name.
But unmistakably—
something had stirred.
He closed his eyes again and drew a quiet breath.
The scene lingered in his mind for a long time.
“The one I loved... was you, Your Majesty.”
The execution grounds froze in an instant.
Not a single breath could be heard.
Nobles, officials, and even the knights—
every one of them stood rigid as though struck over the head, unable to utter a word.
Even Emperor Laios stared at Vilmar with a stiff expression, his brow visibly twitching.
What did he...... just say?
Richard also looked down at the execution grounds with trembling eyes.
Duke Cesica... loves the Emperor...?
Nonsense.
Duke Cesica—
the Duke had clearly.......
Harbored a twisted love for the Empress and tried to kill her....
“That is why I did it.”
Vilmar continued placidly.
“I hated Elika, the woman who stole you from me, enough to want her dead.”
“.......”
“So I tried to kill her.”
Richard chewed at his lip.
No, no.... The Duke even stole the Empress’s body....
“I stole her body out of simple jealousy as well.”
And, and.......
“I wanted Your Majesty’s attention, even if that was the only way to obtain it.”
The pieces of the puzzle fell into place one by one.
It was clearly absurd.
It had to be nonsense.......
Yet words Vilmar had once spoken to him flashed through Richard’s mind.
You and I are remarkably alike.
Could that... have been what he meant?
You’re like me. Far too much like me.
Although Richard had only been acting, had Vilmar meant that they both loved men?
“.......”
Richard’s watery-blue eyes trembled faintly.
Perhaps the Duke, from the very beginning....
Just as he realized something—
“I love you, Your Majesty.”
Vilmar raised the corners of his mouth.
His smile was clear.
And cruel.
“So—”
At that moment—
Whoosh!
The sound of something slicing through the air came from somewhere nearby.
Then—
a dull thunk rang out as something buried itself in flesh.
“......!”
Someone gasped.
Richard instinctively turned his head.
The sight before him made him go rigid, his mind turning blank.
“Y-Your Majesty!”
An arrow.
An arrow fletched with black feathers was lodged deep in Laios’s neck.
His body lurched violently.
The knights of the Imperial Guard moved in perfect unison as the nobles froze.
“Protect His Majesty!”
“No one leaves! Seal the gates to the execution grounds!”
The scene descended into chaos in an instant.
Yet amid that turmoil—
Richard belatedly noticed something.
The Duke......!
He turned his head.
The guillotine platform where Vilmar had stood—
......He’s gone...?
It was empty.
The shackles that had bound him had been torn to pieces,
and only black scorch marks remained on the platform beneath the guillotine.
Black smoke.
Nothing but smoke swirled upward, enveloping the guillotine on the execution grounds.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter