Michael walked down the corridor with an elegant bearing. The soldiers guarding the door stepped aside as he approached. There was no need to knock. He opened the door himself and walked in without hesitation.

Whoosh!

A pillow came flying the moment the door opened. He had probably wanted to throw something far heavier and more lethal, but since anything that could serve as a weapon had already been cleared away, a pillow was the best he could manage.

Michael snapped his head to the side and dodged. The pillow struck the wall beside the door and fell limply to the floor. Michael watched it land, then turned his head with a mild smile.

“Have you calmed down, Father?”

“You damned wretch, you son of a b*tch!”

The king bellowed. He stepped forward as though to lunge at his son, but was stopped by the soldier standing guard inside the room. The king, unable to contain his fury, struck the soldier hard across the face, and Michael’s brow furrowed.

“Why take it out on someone who has nothing to do with this? The one you really want to tear apart is someone else. But since you can’t touch me, you’re throwing your weight around on a soldier who can’t fight back?”

“Shut up! I’ll kill you. I will kill you without fail!”

“How? Do you have a way? You are old, I am young, and the palace is already under my control and my men’s. The nobles have sworn their loyalty to me as well. Your era is over, Father.”

The emperor, who had fathered a son late in life and a daughter even later, was now approaching sixty.

He had been born with a reasonably hardy constitution and was still fairly vigorous for his age, but he was no match for a young man of twenty-seven in the prime of his life.

“You have worked so hard for so long, Father. You may rest now. Leaving for somewhere with a pleasant view and quietly taking your ease is what is best not only for you but for the country. Leave the troublesome matters to your son, and go somewhere quiet and take your comfort.”

“Shut your mouth! You are not my son.”

“How could that be? Everyone who sees my face is reminded of you. Blood truly does tell, it seems. It’s thanks to that I’ve come this far, isn’t it?”

“Insolent wretch……!”

The king came charging in a rage. This time the soldier failed to stop him in time. The king closed the distance to his son’s face and struck him across the cheek. It happened so suddenly there was no avoiding it.

Crack. Michael’s head snapped to the side. He ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth and tasted the faint iron of blood.

The king raised his hand again and Michael caught his wrist. He had no intention of taking a second blow. The son fixed his father with a cold stare, and the father ground his teeth in fury, unable to wrench free.

“Father, if you care for Cordelia, you cannot carry on like this. Your daughter, my sister, is still alive. I have had her kept safely in her bedchamber without a hair out of place. If she knew her beloved father was losing his composure and raging like this, would she not be deeply heartbroken?”

The quietly murmured threat, delivered without a trace of warmth, had an immediate effect. The king’s face, twisted with the ferocity of a man who wanted to tear his son apart on the spot, went pale and rigid. Michael continued in a gentle tone.

“If she behaves herself, I have no intention of harming her. As her brother and new liege, I will extend my mercy as much as she needs. But if she refuses me, and if you continue to be this foolish about it…… I truly cannot say how far my mercy will hold.”

The old king’s hands trembled. His face was now filled more with fear than rage.

Watching his father turn as docile as a lamb the moment his beloved only daughter was mentioned, Michael let a bitter smile touch his lips. The paternal love he had never once received in his own life was all too palpable.

“I have no intention of killing you. Nor do I wish to harm my sister. Please cooperate, Father. So that I may keep to my original plan.”

A king and queen who had gone long without a child. A faithless king who grew weary of his wife in the meantime and sought passion elsewhere.

A dalliance with a beautiful maidservant produced a son, and the king seriously considered passing the throne to him, bastard though he was, as his first child.

But troubled by the boy’s origins, he kept putting off naming him crown prince, and then the queen finally bore a child. A daughter, regrettably, but she was the first legitimate heir he had so long awaited.

The king doted on the daughter he had in his old age. He put his dissolute past entirely behind him and devoted himself solely to his wife and daughter. The bastard son faded from his thoughts, and the king resolved to pass the throne to his only daughter.

However, since it was contrary to tradition for a woman to rule a country alone, the consensus settled on having the princess rule jointly with her husband once she married. The princess, who was twenty years old that year, had in fact been betrothed to a man since childhood.

But all of that was meaningless now. Power had passed into Michael’s hands, and from here on the princess’s half-brother would rule this country.

“A wise decision, Father.”

When the king only clenched his jaw and went pale rather than shouting or struggling any further, Michael spoke again with his manner restored to its usual gentleness. The king, glaring at his son with bloodshot eyes, spat out his words viciously.

“You should never have been born. You are the greatest stain on my life.”

“What a shame. You should have kept better control of yourself back then.”

Michael shot back with indifference. The old king’s face flushed and darkened at the insolence, but with his only daughter held hostage, there was nothing he could do.

Michael watched his father with an impassive gaze. Once it was clear there would be no more blows to the face for the time being, he slowly released his father’s wrist.

The king staggered back the moment his son’s hand let go. Michael watched his father scrub at his own wrist as though something filthy had touched it, and felt nothing. He had come too far for that.

“……Is Cora, is she truly alive?”

The king asked in a voice gone hoarse. Even amid the stain of fury and grief, his voice softened when he spoke his daughter’s nickname, and Michael let a faint cold smile cross his lips.

“I believe I told you not a hair on her head has been harmed. I am hurt that you trust me so little.”

The bitter resignation that had tempered the king’s eyes gave way to hard hatred once more. His look said: how dare a creature like you have the gall to speak of being hurt. Michael pressed on with deliberate pleasantness.

“It seems you will not believe it until you see for yourself. I will arrange a meeting soon. You ought to see your daughter’s face at least once before she is married off, don’t you think?”

“Married off, what do you mean by that?”

“Exactly what you heard. She is twenty this year, well past the age for marriage. I intend to find her a decent man and make a match. It will surely be a joyous occasion.”

Michael smiled and explained in a soft, measured tone. The king’s complexion, already white, turned ashen. He gasped for breath.

“You, this…… what are you planning to do to your sister!”

“There is nothing to worry about, Father. I am not sending her off to just any man. I am her brother, after all, and I must show some sincerity.”

“You damned wretch, you’ll get what’s coming to you! Don’t you touch Cordelia!”