You Said You Wanted Us to Break Up - Chapter 101

Questions clearly born from long-endured suppression are filled with resentment.

Following behind him with quick steps, his younger sibling asked:

“Do you remember cursing my marriage?”

Steadfastly putting one foot in front of the other, Iswen asked himself in return. ‘Do I remember cursing the marriage?’

‘How could I have forgotten?’

The moment he chased after his sibling, who was leaving for a distant land, just to catch one final glimpse.

‘Do not expect anything from that marriage.’

Looking up at his sibling inside the carriage bound for the North, Iswen had prayed countless times inwardly.

Please, do not expect a single thing.

Do not harbor hope.

Their father possessed a brilliant talent for strangling life out of hope.

Iswen did not want his sibling to harbor hope in a faraway land, only to be forced to watch it die. Especially considering how that child’s mother had allowed herself to die after her own hope had perished.

If the alternative was to waste away and die as if forgetting how to breathe, it was better to live like someone whose heart had frozen over.

Still, he probably didn’t need to speak quite so harshly. He could have chosen more pleasant expressions or spoken in a softer tone.

If only his tongue and his eyes had truly belonged to him.

“What about when you told me I could never escape the family name and that I should never expect to be loved by anyone?”

The shout rings out again from behind his back. Over that voice, the voice of a man who deserved to die overlapped. Iswen came to a halt without realizing it.

‘Do not forget that whatever you see and whatever you say, I can see and hear it too.’

It felt as though the man’s heavy hand was resting on his shoulder.

Though he had now grown taller than his father, he always felt a similar sensation whenever he recalled the past.

In the past, Capren Rowen had placed a magical restraint upon his son’s eyes and tongue to monitor his every move. From then on, Iswen gave up on speaking like a human to his two younger siblings. This was because no trap was harder to escape than having one’s love used as a weakness.

The tongue he had resolved to turn into a beast grew sharper by the day.

Eventually, it reached a point where even his own tongue felt stung and sore, as if cut by the very words it spat.

However, if he were to reveal why his tongue and eyes were no longer his own, it was obvious what would remain for Iella: guilt and a sense of debt.

Having already experienced the seeds of such emotions at the most lavish wedding hall in the South, Iswen knew this fact all too well. If someone were to sacrifice themselves and suffer permanent injury for your sake, it would be difficult for a person of sound mind to endure.

‘She is my daughter. There is a destiny she has inherited.’

Such words are of no use.

For he had already declared, before the coffin of a woman now dead, that he refused to accept any such destiny.

Frustrated by his lack of response, the girl—who was usually so gentle—suddenly erupted in a shout.

“You tormented me like that my whole life! What difference does it make if you act kind now?!”

The girl’s trembling voice was thick with unshed tears.

Stubbornly ignoring that fact, Iswen raised his head and looked forward. The world, which would have appeared halved to his other sibling, was so bright it was painful to look at with the naked eye.

He took a deep breath. His chest, which bore no trace of the boy he once was—save for the heart beneath muscle and bone—heaved briefly.

“Nothing will change.”

“……”

“So you, too, have no need to change.”

Just as one cannot teach a child who has already learned to walk how to take their first steps, he could not play the part of an older brother to a sibling who was already fully grown.

For one who had missed the time to be together, the only thing left was to withdraw at the right moment.

On the first night of their arrival at Ethel Castle, the superior gathered Luke and Rhys together and said something they never could have imagined.

“Merwen Ethel is the daughter of the Princess of Kaulm.”

“……”

“The Countess of Ethel was the Princess of Kaulm.”

Listening quietly, Rhys’s eyes widened.

“Don’t tell me… the reason you asked for the family genealogy was…”

Instead of answering, the superior handed him the Ethel family genealogy he had been holding.

Checking the names written within, Rhys inwardly scolded himself. How could he have failed to notice this?

He was the one who had written the name of the Kaulm Princess in the report. He was also the one who had reviewed Merwen Ethel’s past records alongside Luke and his superior at Raslet Castle.

And yet, until his superior brought it up, he hadn’t even thought to connect the two.

This was all because of his father. Rhys suppressed a rising sigh.

His father, Cheland, had belonged to the Elders’ faction for a very long time. This meant his political stance was the exact opposite of his superior’s.

In the past, the superior had shown leniency simply because Cheland was his father. Every time that happened, Rhys felt a mix of shame and gratitude—wanting to crawl into a hole—and resentment toward a father who had no idea how his son felt.

Recently, all the vassals of the Elders’ faction had been executed. This included even Lupid, who had been arrogant since the time of the previous Duke of Raslet.

The superior had not turned his blade toward Cheland, but Rhys had been staying at his family home for a while, fearing his father’s head might be next. Naturally, his nerves had been focused entirely on that matter until now.

The superior’s words continued.

“Search for any remaining remnants of Kaulm in the area. The whereabouts of the body will likely be related to them, so find out how the Kaulm royalty handles their dead. They might have collected the body to process it according to a specific funeral rite.”

In fact, among long-standing noble families, there were those who handled the remains of their kin only through strictly designated methods.

Just as Rhys was about to belatedly promise that such an oversight wouldn’t happen again, the man gave an order in a voice thick with fatigue.

“Get out.”

After leaving the room as commanded and walking down the hallway of Ethel Castle, Rhys called out to his friend walking ahead.

“Luke.”

Luke turned around and paused for a moment. Catching up to him, Rhys gestured with his chin toward the room they had just left.

“Is he doing well?”

“Yes.”

The superior was doing fine. Raslet Castle was still like a coffin, and the man at its center was like the master of an ancient tomb, but appearances and reality were always slightly different.

Though Luke hadn’t spoken a word to his superior since their last conversation ended in disagreement, he knew the man had no major issues. The superior managed his life like someone who was acutely conscious of the gaze of others.

Smiling slightly with relief, Rhys tapped Luke on the shoulder.

“Look after him. You’re more thoughtful than I am.”

Luke didn’t answer. He didn’t want to make a promise that was impossible to keep.

The silence that settled between them remained unbroken for a while.

Until Rhys muttered:

“It might be because of me.”

“What is?”

“The way things turned out between those two.”

Rhys lowered his eyes.

“I made a slip of the tongue once.”

Luke turned his gaze toward his somber-looking friend. Rhys’s words continued.

“The Madam came to see His Grace once, and at that time, I blocked her path without relaying the message.”

“……”

“It was a clear act of disrespect… but I never apologized for it.”

“An apology wouldn’t have mattered anyway.”

The woman who left hated this land deeply, and the superior had no intention of holding onto her.

For now, nothing major would happen. Even though the woman was gone, the superior still had issues left to handle. The annulment of the marriage was one of them.

Since she was a woman who grieved so much, he would want to become a complete stranger to her rather than a deceased husband; he would wait until the marriage was treated as if it never happened. Under Imperial Law, being widowed leaves a permanent mark on one’s family registry.

Luke was certain that it would not take long for the superior’s marriage to be nullified. It was a marriage that no one—save for one single person—wanted to continue.

As he stepped forward, he asked himself, “What happens after the marriage is over?”

Once all the problems are resolved, what remains?

Or rather, does anything remain at all?

***

Just as Iswen said, I could find nothing at the graveyard.

In the family cemetery, not only was my mother’s headstone missing, but my father’s was gone as well.

‘What you are looking for is not here.’

It was a result that made me understand why Iswen had spoken with such confidence.

By this point, I was beginning to feel a sense of stubborn defiance. It was a resolve to finally take Iswen—who always looked down on me with that arrogant expression—down a peg.

Since long ago, Iswen was someone full of certainty that he was always right. Before I left for Resebel and we never saw each other again, I wanted to prove, just once, that his certainty was completely wrong.

“So you, too, have no need to change.”

…And that remark made me want to refute him just to spite him.

Who gave him the right to tell me to live just as I did in the past?

I was sick and tired of staying stagnant to the point where I couldn’t tell if the past was the present.

If he loved that worn-out way of life so much, Iswen could go ahead and live that way all he wanted. I was going to live differently.

In any case, I didn’t strictly need my mother’s portrait to find out what I needed. Wasn’t it enough just to be able to transcribe the name written beneath it?

The fact that the portrait was in Iswen’s office was a drawback, but… an opportunity soon presented itself.

“His Grace has entered the palace upon receiving an imperial command.”

After getting information about Iswen’s whereabouts from the butler, I slipped into the head of the family’s office while it was empty. Just in case, I didn’t bring Apple with me.

The office was incredibly neat, as if reflecting Iswen’s personality.

I carefully leafed through the books spread out on his desk, making sure it didn’t look like they’d been touched, checking to see if the portrait was tucked between the pages.

The thought occurred to me that if I were caught, I wouldn’t even be able to make an excuse, but I pushed it aside.

If I wouldn’t be able to make an excuse upon being caught, then I simply shouldn’t get caught.

I looked through every book on the desk, but the portrait didn’t appear.

Thinking he might have tucked it away in a drawer, I opened them one by one. It suddenly hit me that I was being too reckless in rummaging through someone else’s belongings, but Iswen had been controlling my private life for a very long time—even going so far as to attach a maid to monitor me.

Compared to that, my current actions were quite polite.

As I rationalized my behavior to myself, I pulled the final drawer, but something got caught inside. The rattling sound of something like glass followed.

Since it didn’t open easily and felt heavy, it seemed to be filled with something.

The moment I carefully opened the drawer, a scent of flowers and sweet sugar wafted out.

The drawer was filled to the brim with small, delicately crafted glass bottles.

Inside the small glass bottles was a snack I recognized immediately.

“Do you remember? In the South, they eat flowers preserved in sugar. It’s similar to that.”

Sugar-preserved flower petals.

Since it was a snack Iswen liked, it wasn’t strange for it to be in his office, yet every single bottle showed no signs of being touched. This was evident because the satin ribbons tied around the lids remained unfastened.

That wasn’t the only odd thing. Some of the bottles containing the preserves looked very old. The confectionery that sells these preserves engraves the production year on the lid, and the dates were all different.

The collection, spanning over ten years at its oldest, had stopped abruptly three years ago. I furrowed my brow, looking down at a glass bottle identical to the one I had received just before leaving to get married.

It didn’t seem likely that Iswen had a hobby of collecting jars of sugar preserves. Even if he did, why would he have stopped three years ago?

It was then that the doorknob of the office turned. The moment I hurriedly slammed the drawer shut and crouched down, I heard a familiar voice.

“Brother, are you back?”