Published at 21st of November 2020 06:13:35 PM
Chapter 44: 44
Fabian and Black Hawk Knights decided to stay at the noble mansion on their way to the Empire for a day .
Since he pushed his body to the limit, Fabian must have been tired, but it was amazing that he didn’t show such a sign at all .
“Your Majesty, the horses and the knights are exhausted . ”
“That’s why we’re staying overnight . ”
Serus was very lucky . If it were him alone, Fabian would have stayed all night running alone . And above all else, he must obey Fabian’s words .
“Would it be possible to rest in one day?” Serus asked carefully .
Hearing that, Fabian kicked his tongue, “Is this the level of the Black Hawk Knights, my bodyguard?”
“Your Majesty is too strong . ”
In fact, Fabian himself was stronger than the Knights in the Black Hawk, and he was excellent in martial arts as well .
His natural body, and limitless mind, made him the strongest man in the continent . So the Knights couldn’t surpass the fabian, no matter how skilled they were .
“The black Knights are excellent . If it were another group of knights we wouldn’t have been able to do this . ”
“But it’s still weak . ”
“That’s too much, Your Majesty…”
Fabian glared at him . His eyes made Serus speechless, “We will do our best to return as soon as possible to the Imperial Palace . ”
“Ah… No, there’s a place I need to stop by before that . ”
Serus looked up with a puzzled face at Fabian . He thought Fabian would run to the Imperial Palace to fulfill the overdue duties, but where else would he go?
“Where are you going… . ?”
” Where else…stupid…” Fabian frowned, looking at him, and then Serus remembered what he had forgotten .
“Oh, are you going to visit Duke of Perth?” asked Serus .
“Yeah, ckck… . . you’re really a bad son . ”
“Well,, it’s a little bit… . . to hear that from Your Majesty . ” But Serus, who knew his status, quickly shut his mouth . He heard the rebuke, but strangely he didn’t feel bad .
It was the Duchess of Perth, the person Fabian wanted to meet and spend his precious time with . She was Serus’s mother, as well as Fabian’s caretaker .
“It can’t be helped . My mother is the daughter of Metis, not the Empress of the Empire . ” Fabian’s voice was very bitter .
“Honestly, I doubt that she’s really my mother who gave birth to me . ”
“Your Majesty, you shouldn’t say that . ”
“I know . And there’s no doubt . There’s a couple of witnesses . ”
One way of maintaining high-ranking aristocratic titles in the imperial family was by producing heirs . This was a way to show legitimacy, and the rules to enforce loyalty, Fabian’s birth was arranged in such a way so that he became an Empress’s son .
“But that’s all . ”
Fabian was obviously a child that was born from Empress . But he never drank her breast-milk, and most of the princes were born like that . And The Empress gave up parenting him after showing her son, that she gave birth proudly in front of the others .
“It was the Duchess who raised me in the first place, not my mother . ”
A mother of two, who had been chosen carefully in advance . The one who breastfed him when he was a baby and was responsible for caring and raising him was the Duchess of Perth .
He was an important child who would become the Imperial successor . It was common for aristocrats not to be raised by their biological parents for reasons of love, as it would spoil them .
“I hope the Duchess gets better . ”
Fabian was rarely concerned with anyone, so people called him a cold-blooded perfectionist, but Serus knew he wasn’t .
Like most of the Imperial Man, Fabian expressed his feelings in a clumsy way .
“My mother would be more reluctant to make Your Majesty worried . ”
“I know . She’s so strict with manners . ”
“Yes, she’s very strong . Your Majesty, I, and my brother, we’ve been hit so many times by her whip . ”
Recalling that moment, Fabian laughed faintly and nodded . She dared to hit the crown prince because Duchess Perth really raised him with the same heart as her own child .
Thanks to this, some in the Empire even said that Fabian treated Duchess Perth more like a mother than his own biological mother, the Empress Dowager .
“Well, do you feel a little better now?” Serus asked .
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“When did I get angry?”
Showing personal feelings It was an act that wasn’t like the emperor .
“Yeah . That’s how it was after you left Felice Kingdom . Anyone else might not, but I know . ”
Fabian didn’t deny it . It was difficult to hide anything from Serus .
“Serus, did you know that the noble ladies despise the Empress?”
“I didn’t know, because I was taught not to interfere with women’s affairs . ”
Fabian also was taught like that . A woman’s business is her own business . What’s going on inside the palace shouldn’t be allowed to come out . He must not find out, not even interfere .
“Isn’t it something like a Marquis or a Count saying words and doing evil things to me, Emperor?”
Anger became truth, and truth became confusion again .
“But my mother might know what a woman is like . ”
“No, I’m not really interested . ” Fabian said something that wasn’t in his mind . “She said as if I had left her until she was treated like that . But which husband likes to see his wife being treated like that? What a stupid woman . ”
It was very awkward to see him heating up alone when Serus even didn’t ask about it .
“If you have nothing more to say, I’ll go back . ” Serus said quietly and disappeared .
“Stupid… . ” His rage, which had just subsided, tried to reappear .
“Yeah, you never needed me . ”
The same was true even now . Evelyn never once asked Fabian for help or leaned on him .
“I was nothing . ”
Fabian murmured sadly . Then he took the note out of his hand and threw it into the fireplace . The first thing he wrote about Evelyn Felice was instantly burning and turning to ashes .
“It’s not worth thinking about . ”
He soon turned his hand to a pendant necklace . The pendant, an inherited treasure of the imperial family, could keep a small portrait inside and had a hidden space to store small items .
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In the past, the imperial family’s ancestors always put poison in it to determine their own fate when captured by the enemy .
“Now… . ”
What Fabian put there was a wedding ring . It was the same ring that Evelyn left before the Empress, without any regret .
“A thing like this… . . ”
Fabian held the ring on his palm and raised his fist as if he were throwing it into the fireplace . It was something that Evelyn had thrown away . So what’s the problem if he threw it away too?
No, he should have thrown it away earlier .
“Fuck… . ”
Fabian’s fist that was holding the ring drooped helplessly . The wedding ring was still on the ring finger of his left hand . Evelyn believed that he was wearing the ring without any thought or meaning, but Fabian’s heart was a little different .
“How could you be so cold?”
Sharing a ring was a bond for Fabian, and an oath and ceremony . That meant they were reliant on each other forever .
That’s why Fabian never took out the ring Evelyn wore at the wedding ceremony . Because he believed that a wedding ring should be like that .
[‘There was magic on the wedding ring . When they were pinched on each other’s finger-ring’, the magic would tie the two together ‘]
And it was Evelyn, who whispered it with her blushing cheeks .
[‘So, never take off this ring . ’]
[‘No matter how angry you are at me, or even if you hate me and don’t want to see me…’]
Fabian didn’t believe in superstitions . What he wanted to protect was Evelyn’s request, not the magic of the ring .
[‘As long as we don’t take off this ring, our relationship won’t end . Because the God of Marriage will protect us . ’]
Fabian was sick of it and tired, but the left hand that held the ring gave him strength .
“That’s what you said to me……”
Fabian couldn’t throw the ring in the end . The magic that Evelyn had whispered to him stuck to him like a curse now .
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Took off a wedding ring meant to void the marriage contract that was made in this life . Divorce was a rare thing . And Fabian also believed that there was only one marriage in his life .
“Why . ”
Fabian still didn’t know why .
There wasn’t even a small quarrel between them . But one day, she suddenly said goodbye and disappeared .
He couldn’t understand Evelyn, who had easily forgotten her past promise that only the person who put in the wedding ring could break it .
“It’s so easy . ”
Fabian’s voice rang bitterly . Little by little, the word divorce, which he had hardly forgotten about, began to come to light .
Everything before the Empress was the same . This was because after she left, Evelyn told not to change a single thing . At the time, Fabian felt more relaxed and quickly rejecting truth than accepting the separation as it was .
“Why, it’s so easy just for you?”
But the moment he saw life on Evelyn’s cheeks when he met her again, Fabian’s heart was broken . His heart which he promised himself that he would never look back, and not be shaken, collapsed .
“Why, it’s not easy for me…?”
Evelyn looked happy . She was living in the present without him . Fabian, who denied the breakup and was still trapped in the past, was shining shabbily .
“You’ve already abandoned it . ”
Fabian knew in his head that the imperial divorce was not easy . And he knew well in his head that Evelyn, who had left him so coldly, had no intention of coming back .
“But… . . I can’t even throw it away . ”
Fabian failed to throw the ring and put it back into the pendant . There was no way that he could throw Evelyn’s ring into the fire without removing his own ring from his finger .
“It’s sucks……” He spoke to himself in a low voice .
The memory of Evelyn, leaving without telling him why, was too bitter .
He was also hurt by Evelyn, who looked happier than ever .
But the cruelest thing was his weak heart, which could not accept the end of it all .