“Hmm?”
After preparing some herbal tea to restore Duke Schweiss’s strength, Ceres left his room and stopped in front of one of ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) the doors.
This is...
The door, which had always been closed during her stay, was now slightly ajar. She heard it was the room once used by the Duke’s younger brother. Since it was right next to Duke Schweiss’s room, she often passed by it while going back and forth for his treatment.
Ah...
Ceres peeked through the opening and saw someone inside. It was Harua, the former Duke.
“......”
He stood silently, gazing at a small, old desk.
“You may come in.”
As though he had sensed her presence, he spoke without turning around.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“It’s fine.”
Ceres walked over to Harua and noticed a framed photograph on the desk. In it, a young boy held a bundle of white flowers and smiled shyly.
“Ren... My second son.”
He looked nothing like the boy she had seen in the recording. His face wasn’t battered and covered in wounds. For once, she could see the boy’s face clearly.
It’s the same smile...
The sight of the boy smiling, as though he were waiting to be praised for not crying, was still vivid in her mind.
He wore the exact same smile in the photograph, yet somehow, the feeling it gave her was completely different. He was a child who could smile so brightly...
But those flowers...
Ceres’s eyes settled on something else.
“He was always so afraid of me.”
Harua continued gazing at the photograph as he spoke. These weren’t things he would normally tell someone he only just met. Perhaps that was why the words he had kept to himself came so easily now.
“I was a very strict father.”
Ren had been timid and prone to tears, far too weak and kind for the world. But Harua always pushed him hard. Since the ducal family had many enemies, he believed the boy had to become strong if he was going to survive in the household.
“It’s no wonder he hated me.”
At some point, the boy had stopped even meeting his eyes. He would keep his head down and hide behind his older brother.
“I never gave him a single kind word.”
Harua found it harder and harder to approach the boy as well. If only he’d known that his son would leave them so soon...
I had so little time to cherish him.
Harua gently brushed his fingers over the frame and let out a heavy sigh. His eyes fell on the flowers in the photograph.
“Whenever I came home after being away for a long time, he would always bring me those flowers.”
Back then, Harua would only sigh in exasperation when the boy approached with his head bowed, silently offering him a flower. What was he supposed to do with a child so timid? That was what he had always thought.
“He loved flowers from a young age.”
He would even plant them and tend to them himself. Harua had scolded him every time he saw him at it, asking why he was doing work meant for servants and telling him to practice his swordsmanship instead.
Haa...
Perhaps the boy had kept giving him flowers as his way of protesting. Maybe that was how he expressed his resentment...
How much must he have resented me?
How much must he have suffered? So much time had passed, yet his heart still sank whenever he thought of the boy. If anything, the pain only grew worse with time.
If only it weren’t for me...
If the boy hadn’t been born into this ducal family, perhaps he wouldn’t have died so pointlessly.
After his death, Harua’s wife passed away from the grief. From then on, everything had felt empty. He handed the dukedom over to his son and left the estate soon after.
What right did he have to remain here when he couldn’t even protect his child? And yet, he called himself a guardian of the Empire...
From that day on, he had only one goal: find the person who killed his son.
At last, the culprit had been uncovered.
If the law can’t touch him...
His eyes gleamed coldly at the thought of Marquis Merial.
Hmm...
Meanwhile, Ceres’s gaze remained fixed on the photograph. After hearing Harua’s story, her expression grew more complicated.
***
“I did well, didn’t I?”
“......”
Harua played the recording over and over. In the end, tears slipped from his eyes as he watched the boy smile despite his battered face.
The next part of the recording began.
Thud! Thud!
Someone returned to where the boy was, and Ren hurriedly hid the pendant. He didn’t even have time to stop the recording. All that could be heard was the sound.
“You brat! You think you can make a fool of me!”
Thud!
The sound of the boy being beaten continued until the pendant seemed to break. After that, the recording showed nothing more.
“That man...”
“He’s dead.”
Grind.
At Duke Schweiss’s answer, Harua tensed from head to toe. He should’ve been the one to tear that man apart with his own hands!
“.....”
Duke Schweiss watched his father in silence, his gaze heavy.
After Ren’s death, Harua had come to the ducal estate less and less often. In truth, he almost stopped coming altogether.
Every few years, he would appear only when there was something he had to take care of, then leave again as soon as it was done.
As if he no longer had the right to be here.
Schweiss knew exactly why, so he couldn’t bring himself to say anything.
What could he possibly say to a man who blamed himself for losing his child? Nothing he said would ease that pain.
He wished his father would leave everything to him and rest, but... he knew that would never happen. Not until everyone involved in Ren’s death was gone.
I’m no different.
Duke Schweiss’s eyes turned cold. He was still steadily increasing the economic pressure on Marquis Merial. Little by little, he was tearing down everything the man had spent years building.
And...
He was also tightening the noose in other ways, through the people he sent after him every day.
I won’t let him die easily.
Knock, knock.
A moment later, the butler entered the room.
“Lord Harua.”
“What is it?”
Instead of Duke Schweis, the butler approached Harua and bowed politely.
“Lady Ceres wishes to see you.”
“Ceres?”
Harua glanced at Duke Schweiss beside him.
Why does she want to see me?
“Where is she?”
“Um...”
The butler hesitated, looking somewhat uneasy.
“She’s in the garden Young Master Ren used to tend.”
“...The garden?”
The answer caught both Harua and Duke Schweiss by surprise.
Why did Ceres go there? Ren’s garden lay in the rear courtyard of the estate, but it had been left completely untouched since his death.
Neither Harua nor Duke Schweiss had gone there in all that time. They couldn’t bear to set foot in the garden, where every corner reminded them of the child.
But neither could bring themselves to remove it, either. How could they destroy a place the child had cherished so dearly?
“.....”
“......”
After a long silence, the two men finally headed to the garden together to meet Ceres. They were returning there for the first time in a long while.
***
“.....”
“.....”
The moment they stepped into Ren’s garden, the two men wore the same expression. Neither could say a word for a long while.
Whoosh.
White petals danced in the breeze.
“Those flowers...”
Harua was the first to speak.
“...They’re the flowers Ren loved.”
White flowers bloomed all across the garden. They were the same flowers Ren used to silently hand Harua whenever he returned from a long trip.
I thought they couldn’t be found anymore.
The flowers were said to grow only in this western region. Yet even here, they had become difficult to find over the years.
“Here. Take this.”
Ceres had quietly approached them. She held out a single white flower to Harua.
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