I Slept with the Villain Holding My Hand Chapter 126

Helena twisted her lips, which had been drawing a pleasant curve.  

 

“What, now?”  

 

“You must be aware that the assassination of a royal is the gravest crime warranting immediate execution,” Reukis recited in a hardened voice.  

 

Her bewilderment lasted only a moment before Helena regained her composure, hiding her trembling hands as she asked,  

 

“Shouldn’t that punishment befall the Grand Duke instead? Everyone here witnessed how you dared to invade the Empress’s bedchamber, cut down an innocent knight, and attempt to harm me.”  

 

Helena swept her gaze around, lacing her words with scorn.  

 

Ariene’s nape was still clutched in her grasp, and several of Helena’s maids stood frozen against the far wall.  

 

Paralyzed by fear, they could not even turn their heads, forced to witness the scene unfolding before them.  

 

Helena studied each of them carefully, as if etching their faces into her memory.  

 

‘They’ll serve as useful witnesses later.’  

 

Yet, the Grand Duke only tightened his grip on his sword in response to her words. He even callously tossed aside Ariene, who had been writhing in his grasp.  

 

Thud—

  

Ariene, flung against the wall in an instant, let out a faint groan.  

 

Despite her pain, she immediately tried to rise, fearing Helena had been harmed. But there was no way someone thrown aside with such malice by a dark mage could move so soon.  

 

“H-Helena…!”  

 

Ariene’s head slumped to the floor.  

 

Helena’s brow twitched slightly as she watched.  

 

In the next moment, Reukis pressed his sword to her throat and said,  

 

“Confess the truth, and I will grant you the mercy of a swift death with minimal suffering.”  

 

“…”

  

Helena held her breath, glancing sideways at the sharp blade against her neck.  

 

“Did you order the murders of the former princess, Daphne Tristan Frederick, and Bennett Frederick?”  

 

“How dare you! Do you even know whose throat you’re holding a sword to?!” Helena snapped, but Reukis showed no intention of listening as he continued,  

 

“Answer me. Why did you… kill my parents?”  

 

Reukis gritted his teeth against the surge of emotion. He knew no reason could quell this rage.  

 

Perhaps hearing the reason would only torment him further.

 

Even so, she wanted to ask just once.  

 

What in the world drove you to commit such acts? Did you take my parents from me to obtain something precious and sacred?  

 

He looked at Helena, who wore a disgustingly indignant expression. But upon meeting those repulsive eyes, Reukis changed his mind.  

 

Even if there were some valid reason, he swore he would never listen to a single word of her excuses until the moment she died.  

 

Gritting his teeth, he tightened his grip on his sword.  

 

“Frankly, there’s no need for excuses. Baron Verusella has already revealed everything.”  

 

“How…!”  

 

Helena’s face turned pale as she covered her mouth.  

 

“The penalty for assassinating a member of the imperial family is death—such is the law of the Grand Tristan Empire. Accordingly, I hereby sentence Helena Lovietta to immediate execution.”  

 

Throughout its long history, the imperial family had always secretly turned on itself.  

 

Even after an emperor who had survived a bloody succession struggle enacted strict laws against harming royalty, the tradition never faded.  

 

After all, the dead could no longer speak, and if the survivor ascended the throne, the matter would naturally be buried.  

 

To secure one’s own peace by stealing another’s future— That was the fate of those who stood at the pinnacle.  

 

And so, Helena had merely played her part.  

 

To place the child she bore in pain upon the throne of this vast empire, Altheon had to disappear.  

 

Moreover, she was the imperial consort of the Tristan Empire.  

 

No matter how influential the grand ducal house might be, were they not merely nobles who bowed their heads to the imperial family?  

 

Daphne was the emperor’s sister, but she was also the lady of the grand ducal house.  

 

While punishment for killing someone with the title of grand duchess was inevitable, immediate execution was unthinkable.  

 

“Now, now—let’s be reasonable. There must be some misunderstanding…”  

 

But it was clear that such words would do nothing to stop Reukis now. This was the intuition of one who had witnessed the grand duke’s fury and despair firsthand.

 

As Helena desperately searched for a way to escape, Reukis raised his sword high. Her pupils dilated in shock.  

 

What escaped Helena’s trembling lips next was not a scream—but another frantic confession.  

 

“It wasn’t me! That witch acted on her own—!”  

 

Her quivering finger pointed directly at Ariene.  

 

Ariene inhaled sharply, her eyes widening.  

 

‘Witch.’  

 

That word, long buried in her memory, felt like a sharp blade tearing through her chest.  

 

‘This witch! How dare she glare at me like that—a wretch who survives by begging from an old fool!’ 

 

Since childhood, she had been cursed with that hateful slur, met with fearful eyes and waves of resentment.  

 

“Lady Helena…,” Ariene murmured, her face blank.  

 

Long ago, when Helena had taken her in after her mutation awakened, she had said:  

 

— “A witch? To me, you seem more precious and wondrous than anyone. Shall I take you with me? But you must stay quietly by my side, Ariene.”

 

The Helena who once sparkled with warmth and wore faint smiles was gone. Now, she was nothing more than a trapped insect, struggling to escape the Grand Duke’s grasp.  

 

“That girl—that wretch—is the one who took your parents from you! With power like hers, she’ll be useful. Kill her if she displeases you.”  

 

If only she could escape this moment.  

 

If only she could buy even a sliver of time before the Emperor learned of this—She would not hesitate to sacrifice her own pet to the Grand Duke.  

 

Ariene stood frozen, her mind blank. She had always been Helena’s most devoted follower.  

 

Now, her savior was offering her as a sacrifice.  

 

More shocking than the fact that she would soon die by the Grand Duke’s hand—was the fact that Helena had abandoned her.  

 

‘All I wanted… was to repay this overflowing heart of mine with loyalty.’

 

Why does Lady Helena tear even my heart to shreds?  

 

Where has the Lady Helena gone—the one who patted my head, called me lovely, and smiled at me?  

 

Ariene stared blankly at Helena, who was desperately pleading with the Grand Duke, her face no different from those who had once thrown stones at her.  

 

For what had she trampled and ruined the lives of others?  

 

Now, she no longer knew.  

 

Helena, who had no intention of even glancing at the dazed Ariene, fervently poured out her words to the Grand Duke.  

 

“I swear on my life, I did not harm your parents! Baron Verusella refused to hand over the trade rights of the newly developed port, and in his resentment, he spread those vicious rumors!”  

 

Two people. No, perhaps three.  

 

The ignorant ones Helena had thrown to the wolves in her stead since his arrival.  

 

First, a knight who had chosen the wrong lord. Then, the witch now embedded in that wall, staring only this way. And lastly, Caesar Verusella, who had been the greatest pillar in gathering the imperial consort’s faction.  

 

There was no chance the Baron had lied.  

 

The only thing he had begged for in exchange for confessing all his crimes was the safety of his granddaughter.  

 

‘They say he came because he could no longer bear to see his granddaughter being manipulated by Helena.’  

 

To prove his innocence, Caesar had willingly drunk a truth serum—a drug so potent that its accompanying agony was excruciating.  

 

The crimes he confessed afterward were so extensive and heavy that they couldn’t even fit on a single sheet of paper.  

 

It had taken only half a day to learn that the one who had conspired with the Baron in all this was none other than Imperial Consort Helena.  

 

She had kept a strange, non-magical power wielder at her feet and used them to induce a magical outburst in the Grand Duke’s heir.  

 

This, too, was the work of Imperial Consort Helena, who had grown wary of Altheon’s rising influence.  

 

Neither a foreign conspiracy nor an assassination attempt by nobles wary of the Grand Duke’s house—it had all been carried out under Helena’s orders.  

 

Slowly, he lowered his gaze, then fixed his eyes on Helena.

 

Beneath his feet lay the end of one who had sought to command more than their share.  

 

That three-inch tongue had swung a blade, taking his parents from him.  

 

Reukis’s precious, warm days had shattered just like that.  

 

The younger Reukis, who had wished for death instead, urged him to cut down the one who had stolen his parents.  

 

The moment this sword was stained with that woman’s blood, he too could become a target for immediate execution.  

 

No matter how atrocious her deeds, she was a woman beloved by the emperor.  

 

Even so.  

 

“It doesn’t matter now.”  

 

He muttered with a sunken expression.  

 

In the end, Helena fell by Reukis’s blade. 

 

Ariene, who had witnessed it all, let the tension drain from her stiffened neck. Her head naturally slumped forward, crashing into the ground.  

 

There was too much to think about, too much to accept.  

 

‘I wish everything would just disappear.’  

 

The fact that Lady Helena was dead.  

 

The fact that she had been abandoned by Lady Helena in the end. She didn’t want to accept any of it.  

 

As if sensing Ariene’s thoughts, the Grand Duke stepped over Helena and walked toward Ariene, who had buried her face in the ground.  

 

“Ugh!”  

 

He grabbed Ariene’s hair tightly, forcing her to meet his eyes.  

 

At the very last moment, he wanted her to see the face of the one who had taken his parents from him.  

 

If she died without even seeing this, he felt he wouldn’t even have the right to miss them.  

 

Ariene’s twisted, azalea-colored eyes reflected Reukis’s golden gaze.  

 

‘He’s clearly lost his mind.’  

 

Even though his face was contorted.  

 

‘There’s no way he looks like he’s crying.’  

 

Yet, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the man about to kill her seemed to be weeping. Though his eyes were dry and rough, an overwhelming sorrow radiated from him.  

 

As Ariene studied his face, Reukis summoned the power of darkness.  

 

He was already exhausted, hollow.

 

Despair weighed heavily as no escape from the suffocating loneliness could be seen.  

 

Now, even taking another’s life felt meaningless. He abandoned his initial plan of handling things one by one and resolved to end it all at once.  

 

He intended to inflict upon himself a punishment far worse than execution—an eternity trapped in lightless darkness until his life withered away.  

 

That was the final sentence Reukis had chosen for his weak, pitiful self.  

 

Feeling the darkness creeping up from beneath his feet, he swung his hand.  

 

The shadows that tore away from Reukis coiled around Ariene’s throat.  

 

“Ack— Ugh.”  

 

Just like him, Ariene lacked even the strength to resist and did not fight back against the strangling darkness.  

 

‘If only everything could just end like this…’ 

 

Reukis slowly closed his eyes.  

 

“I want to escape this unbearable darkness.”  

 

Ironically, that was the final thought that crossed his mind— a contradictory wish, utterly unsuited for someone now imprisoned in eternal night.  

 

The cursed Grand Duke, who had lost his parents to a magical outburst in his youth, the man who had spent his entire life writhing in guilt— Reukis Frederick vanished into that darkness, never to awaken again.  

 

Without ever knowing whose heart his inner voice might have reached.