The Reason Why the Forsaken Fake Returned Chapter 75

“The public thinks of you like the triumphant protagonist of some revenge drama, but the nobility sees it differently.” Declen set down the teacup in his hand and went on in a calm voice. “Shailoh. What you did was like throwing a boulder into still water. With the fall of the Diponz family, which has its roots sunk deep into this kingdom, everyone connected to them had to go through hell.”

 

Instead of answering, Shailoh simply nodded, as if to say she agreed.

 

Declen finished, his tone turning hard. “There are plenty of people saying you should be banished from the kingdom for good. If you stay here, you might get swept away by that current.”

 

“So you’re saying you’ll be my buoy in all that.”

 

“It’s what I ought to do.” The former Duke Yesiol’s rights were his rights now, and the responsibilities laid on his shoulders were his to bear as well. “I’ll let you start over from the very beginning. I’ll introduce you as my younger sister who went abroad to a distant nation to recuperate due to poor health. In the North, my word is as good as prophecy. No one here knows the circumstances of the North, so they’ll accept it without much fuss.”

 

“On the condition I never show my face here again, right?” It was a sharp point.

 

Declen let out a harsh sigh, then tried a different angle. “Aren’t you curious about your real father? Don’t you want to find out for yourself about your roots, your homeland?”

 

“…” Shailoh lifted her bowed head and met her half-brother’s eyes.

 

What he was offering was, undeniably, a tempting lure. She’d lived like seaweed drifting with nowhere to take root. The place she thought she had finally found to stay had turned out to be a sandcastle that could collapse at any moment, and there was a part of her that just wanted to lean on something, anything, and rest.

 

“I do want to know. I… have so many questions about my father too. What kind of person he was, what he looked like, everything.”

 

“Then—”

 

“But I can’t.”

 

“Shailoh.” Declen swallowed his next words at her firm refusal and looked at her with complicated eyes.

 

“Like I said earlier, there’s something I have to resolve.”

 

Silence passed once between the two siblings. Then, when she’d said nothing for a while, Declen asked quietly, “Does it… have to do with the second prince?”

 

“How did you know?”

 

“Because you’re not saying you want to be with him.”

 

“…”

 

“If there’s anything I can help with, I will.”

 

“This is between him and me. Just the two of us.” Shailoh cut him off cleanly, flatly refusing his offer.

 

At her repeated refusals, Declen slowly closed his eyes. “…I see. Understood.” It was a shame, but he couldn’t drag her away by force. He didn’t want to be a raider or a kidnapper, just her brother. Letting out a long breath, he slowly pushed himself up from his seat. “I head to head back before the day is over.”

 

“Already?” For all that she’d turned him down so firmly, Shailoh rose when he did, her face tinged with regret.

 

“If anything comes up, get a message to me through Countess Kalen. I’ve explained everything to her, so she’ll be on your side.”

 

“What do you want from me?”

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing in this world came without a price.” Shailoh clapped a hand over her mouth, startled by the words that had slipped out.

 

Declen’s brow, which had stayed smooth over his otherwise expressionless but gentle face, drew together. “You think I’m doing you a favor because I want something from you?”

 

“…”

 

“Then you’ve had me wrong this whole time. And I’ve done the same.” He muttered the words like he was spitting them out, then opened the church door without a moment’s hesitation and walked out.

 

I can’t let him leave like this. Snapping out of it belatedly, Shailoh ran after him to stop him. “Brother!”

 

It was the first time she’d ever called him that. Declen, who’d been about to swing up into the saddle, froze in place.

 

“When everything’s settled, would it be alright if I asked you to take me with you?”

 

“…”

 

“After there’s nothing left here that I regret, after I’ve untangled every last knot.”

 

She needed somewhere to go back to. Somewhere to lay down her tired body. She wanted even the hollow comfort of words.

 

As Declen gazed down at her in silence, Shailoh opened her mouth again. “Is that still too shameless of me to ask?”

 

“…No.” The corners of Declen’s mouth lifted as he reached out and mussed her hair, like a gentle older brother stroking the head of a much younger sister. “As much as you like.”

 

“…Thank you.”

 

In her heart that had gone cold as ice, a tiny spark finally flickered to life.

 

Withdrawing his hand, Declen swung himself up onto his horse. “Then I’ll be waiting. Back home.”

 

“Wait a moment.” Before he could nudge the horse’s flank, Shailoh, who had nodded, took a handkerchief from her bodice. “It’s clumsy, but I embroidered it myself.”

 

The red salvia flower symbolized familial love. It was the best thanks she could offer the man who had found her and reached out his hand.

 

“I’ll treasure it.” Carefully tucking the handkerchief away, Declen set off.

 

Shailoh quietly watched his back as he rode away, kicking up dust.

 

* * *

The vast dining hall held nothing but a single long table. The two of them sat facing each other at opposite ends, and between them an array of dazzlingly extravagant dishes stretched on and on. It was enough food to satisfy five or six people with ease. Gold candelabra dotted the spaces in between, and beautiful flowers had been set here and there.

 

Caleb thought of how much of the kingdom’s tax money had been poured into each of those decorations. Before returning here, he had toured the borderlands, where people lived day to day, wondering if they would have anything to eat. This meal, so trivial and insignificant to the woman before his eyes, was something those people could live their whole lives and never once experience.

 

“Duke West.”

 

While he was running a scornful gaze over the spread on the table, Queen Ingrid dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a napkin, took the water a servant had prepared in advance, swished it around in her mouth, and spat it out into the basin. It was how she made sure to taste each change of food and wine properly.

 

“You haven’t so much as picked up your cutlery. Have you no appetite, by any chance?”

 

“I must apologize, Your Majesty. In truth, I had a light meal before I came.”

 

“But of course you did.” With a sneer, the queen picked up a fig soaked in honey. “Did I ever tell you this, Duke West? In my homeland, these figs were truly delicious. Every season when they came in, I bought up the entire crop and kept them all to myself.”

 

“It’s well known that Your Majesty is fond of fruit.”

 

“Is it now?” The queen gave a faint chuckle and took a bite of the fig. “Once, these figs were stolen from me.”

 

“Stolen?”

 

“It was a maid who served me. She said her younger sister, who was dying of an illness, wanted one so desperately. So she stole just a single fig.”

 

“And what did you do?”

 

“I had her flogged and threw her out. Not long after her sister died, word came that the maid had killed herself. Some people pointed at me and called me cruel, but my father praised me instead.”

 

“…Why?”

 

“Because someone who steals something small today will covet something greater tomorrow. He said I had cut off the root of trouble and deserved a reward.”

 

When the queen raised her hand, a lady-in-waiting who had been standing by came forward with water for her to wash her hands. Scented oil had been added. A faint fragrance rose from the bowl. The queen looked down at her reflection in the water, satisfied.

 

Though the queen was well past forty and nearing fifty, her skin was smooth, without a single wrinkle. Of course it was. Every day, she took half-baths in honey and goat’s milk, and three masseuses would descend on her and knead her whole body for three or four hours. She ate only the finest foods, and if something was said to be good for beauty and youth, she made sure to obtain it, no matter how distant the foreign land it came from. It was all the fruit of such relentless effort.

 

“And yet, it’s the strangest thing. As time went by, I found myself thinking that what my father said about that maid’s heart was only natural. Aren’t people born to live in endless want and desire?”

 

“…”

 

“If you were in my place, what do you think you would have done, Duke? Would you have been any different?”

 

Wearing a mask-like smile, Caleb replied. “I couldn’t say. I’ve never been in that situation.”

 

“But of course you haven’t.” Having finished her meal, the queen rose from her seat without a trace of reluctance. “It’s late, but what happened with Albert truly is shameful. Please forgive him, Duke. The boy has never gone without anything in his life, so he must have started coveting what belonged to his elder brother. You’ll understand, of course, won’t you?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“I’m relieved. And even if you didn’t understand, what could you do? You can’t drive my son out or have him flogged the way I did that maid.”

 

Caleb met her taunt with a cool smile.

 

“His Majesty is in frail mind and body and in very poor health, and he is refusing all audiences,” she said. “That is the diagnosis of the royal doctor. If you have any questions, direct them to him, Duke West.”

 

“Your Majesty.” Caleb, who had been listening in silence, suddenly addressed Queen Ingrid. “On second thought, if I had been in Your Majesty’s place, I would have let something like a fight slide anytime.”

 

“Let it slide?”

 

“But if they’d wanted more than that—”

 

“…”

 

“I’d have crushed them all the more thoroughly. Forgetting one’s place carries consequences.”

 

The queen didn’t answer.

 

Caleb rose unhurriedly and took the coat the servant held out to him. “Then I’ll come to visit Father again. I’m sure a day will come when his condition improves.”