Surprisingly, Liam’s blue eyes that met his were peaceful. As if he had forgotten all the pain in this world.

Even for Baptiste, it was a chilling moment.

“What on earth… made you like this, Duke?”

Baptiste found himself muttering. No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t find an answer. For Duke Blumir to suddenly go mad and commit such an atrocity.

If he thought about the cause, there was only one.

“Was Lord Gwenael’s return such a shock? What difference would it make even if that ruffian pretended to mature?”

“……”

“Whatever happened… His Majesty the Emperor will be greatly disappointed. You’ll make Her Majesty the Empress cry. It’s unfortunate, Duke.”

Baptiste’s face showed no sign of sympathy at all. He looked no different than when he first stepped into this place.

But perhaps he had realized something. Liam muttered like a groan.

“Lily…”

Poor… Amaryllis.

Of course, if Amaryllis had ended up like Liam, he would have shown mourning for her too. But whether Amaryllis wailed or fainted from endless tears, it was no longer Liam’s concern.

Their connection had already been severed. From the moment Amaryllis coveted Liam’s Blumir.

“By His Majesty’s order.”

As if it were a troublesome matter, Baptiste slightly furrowed his brow. Even if it were Baptiste, his rightful right-hand man, here instead of Liam, Cassian would have given the same order.

“Arrest Liam Cheval who has committed this terrible atrocity.”

There was also an order permitting him to be shot if he resisted or posed a risk of casualties. However, Baptiste chose to swallow those words, letting them linger unspoken.

‘Liam Cheval’. And ‘arrest’.

From those two words, Cassian’s intention was clear. Cassian Pendragon had abandoned Liam de le Blumir, his meritorious subject who had served him for so long.

Receiving the inevitable order, Liam quietly closed his eyes.

‘…It’s only natural.’

The massacre Liam committed cannot be forgiven. At least not under the foundation of the Pendragon dynasty, which usurped the throne with the justification of protecting Sehera from a tyrannical despot.

* * *

Head Chamberlain Baptiste de L’Isle-Adam captured Liam Cheval in Blumir.

They say he committed a horrible tragedy in Blumir just like in Gabrienne. They say the blood of the dead formed rivers.

Everyone swallowed their groans at the rumors that spread dizzyingly in such a short time. It must be true since both the Emperor and Empress kept their mouths shut.

If he had just killed a few commoners, it might have been quietly overlooked. But the victims were vassals equivalent to baronets. For Liam, who disregarded hundreds of lives without reason, there was only one sentence waiting.

And soon the order came down: Execute Liam Cheval.

“Your Majesty…”

Amaryllis, who couldn’t quietly accept everything, immediately ran to Cassian. Both because of her guilt for causing this situation, and because she couldn’t lose the one and only person she could open her heart to.

“Please, please spare him.”

She pressed her knees to the floor and prostrated herself. Her face was full of tears.

Even at this fragile sight, this heartless man’s attitude remained unchanged as always.

“Does the Empress think that would be appropriate?”

“……”

Amaryllis wondered. If the one kneeling and crying before him now was that dead woman, would he have maintained such an attitude? Would he have whispered forgiveness for everything, swayed by that cherished face?

She clenched her fists. Thinking about that woman only made her more miserable.

Amaryllis stammered.

“Liam is… a meritorious subject. He made great contributions to putting Your Majesty in this position. Shouldn’t he deserve some indulgence?”

“Count Glastia was also a meritorious subject. The precedent of being exiled from the capital merely for disobedience happened just a few months ago. Yet you ask for indulgence for someone who massacred hundreds?”

Her words were suddenly blocked. In fact, Matthias de la Glastia wasn’t just a meritorious subject. He was the blood relative of the former Empress. He was of much higher status than Liam, who was merely a noble.

Her lips, unable to refute, could only tremble endlessly. Cassian let out a deep sigh and added.

“Consider it the price of the Empress’s unnecessary greed.”

“Unnecessary greed?”

“Why did you covet Blumir?”

It was as if he had been watching everything. Amaryllis’s world seemed to collapse at his calm questioning.

Amaryllis cherished and loved Sienne, her roots. The same must have been true for Liam. No, Blumir must have meant even more to him.

To think that this had ended up this way largely because of that reason… While it was just a moment’s greed for Amaryllis, just blind avarice, for Liam it was despair.

“That… the Imperial Princess first…”

“Are my sister and the Empress the same?”

He coldly cut off her attempt to say excuses that she had only counterattacked because Lumière had picked the fight first. It was an utterly disappointing statement, but she couldn’t refute it.

Lumière and Amaryllis are not the same. Cannot be the same.

Lumière asking Cassian for Blumir might have meant nothing to Liam. Because that was the kind of relationship Lumière and Liam had. It would have ended with just firmly telling her not to be angry or greedy.

But Amaryllis acting that way was betrayal. It was the end of the relationship they had built up until now.

Isn’t that why she’s asking for his life to be spared now?

“If… that woman you still can’t forget had done something like this, what would Your Majesty have done?”

Finally, words she couldn’t hold back forced their way through her lips. Amaryllis lifted her head high. Tears fell drop by drop from her delicate red eyes.

A dizzying sunset fell behind Cassian. Red, and red, and red again, beautiful to the point of being eerie.

“Would you have coldly abandoned her like this too?”

“The Empress…”

Cassian paused for a moment. The premise itself was wrong. Valentine wasn’t someone who would make such requests.

If someone needed their life spared, especially if that person was essential to her, she would have persuaded him with words that couldn’t be refused. That was the crucial difference between Amaryllis and Valentine.

The husband’s face looking down at his wife was still chillingly kind and gentle as ever.

“Do you think that Belle… didn’t pay the price for what she had to do?”

With the sunset at his back, his gentle face cast in shadow seemed to be angry. Amaryllis blinked once for a moment.

“Belle is dead.”

Thus, she paid the most cruel price of all.

“She was killed.”

A single truth that no one could change fell from Cassian’s lips.

“By Lord Liam himself.”

“Could it be… are you taking revenge now?”

For Amaryllis, nothing else could explain this. Is it so difficult to overlook one mistake from a subject who has served you for so long?

“Because Liam killed Madame Marguerite, that’s why!”

“You speak such superficial words. Don’t assume that what the Empress sees is all there is to the truth.”

If not for Amaryllis, no one else would have thought that. Because they couldn’t know the truth between Madame Marguerite and Cassian.

“Empress.”

That mocking call had never felt so unpleasant as today. She wanted to cover her ears but couldn’t bring herself to do so now.

Cassian’s cold voice continued.

“I ask you to think again about why you and I sit in these positions. Then you too will have no choice but to clearly understand what Lord Liam has done.”

Cassian moved his steps, thump, thump. He passed by Amaryllis, still frozen with her knees on the floor. Creak, the office door closed.

Standing in the corridor, Cassian stared out the window. His sunken eyes took in the spire.

To where Liam is now.

Eventually, Cassian moved his reluctant steps. His figure melted into the darkly setting sun.

Though he had no such thoughts or plans to begin with.

Was it because of Amaryllis, because of the story of Valentine that Amaryllis brought up, or was it because of old feelings that even Cassian himself couldn’t control?

It didn’t take long to leave the palace and head to the spire. According to those guarding the spire, Liam was sitting quietly without saying a word.

It was the same when Cassian stepped into the spire. Liam was sitting quietly on the cold floor. With his eyes tightly closed.

“Duke Blumir.”

At that call, Liam finally opened his eyes. Perhaps thinking it was an unexpected visit, Liam’s eyes widened roundly when he saw Cassian. Red scabs were stuck to his black hair that fell down to his chest.

“I’ve grown used to calling you this for so long. To me, you will be Duke Blumir until the very end.”

Cassian, who had come to see someone he hadn’t planned to meet, added a faint smile. Liam’s gaze now was clearer than ever.

It’s truly regrettable to say, but in the past few months, Liam had never looked at the world with such clean eyes. Recently, Liam didn’t seem to be in his right mind.

Perhaps the tragedy Liam committed was also because his mind was confused for some reason. Cassian’s question followed this speculation.

“Why did you do it?”

He doesn’t particularly want to hear an answer. He’s not curious about the reason either. Yet, the act of asking perhaps stemmed from an inexplicable frustration brewing within Cassian himself.

“…Your Majesty.”

Liam finally opened his mouth. Since his inevitable fate was decided, it was right to just accept it.