“Everything will be decided by the outcome of our conversation, my son.”

Still calling him ‘my son’ despite being deposed, she watched as Andrea made no effort to hide his contempt and revulsion.

“What do you want. The family’s reinstatement? The return of your estates? I’ll give you whatever it is, so right now……”

He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, as though pulling his self-control together, and continued.

“Bring Riley to me. No, tell me where she is. Tell me the location.”

Killing intent flickered in Andrea’s cold, sunken voice, but Fabienne’s grievance was no less formidable.

She read in his eyes the raw hatred, and beneath it the anxiety and fear he could not conceal. A brief taste of victory washed over her, and she smiled broadly.

Her instinct had been right.

He truly cared for that insolent creature.

Ha! This arrogant, insufferable man! Andrea Leon de Aurelion!

It seemed even he had found something precious to him.

The certainty that she had aimed at the right target made Fabienne a little bolder, and she shot back.

“Our Crown Prince needs to understand what kind of pain my heart has endured all this time. My husband took up with a woman young enough to be his daughter and had me deposed, and my one and only son was trampled by his half-brother and made a laughingstock throughout the kingdom. Street commoners mock my son as a hopeless wastrel, and you never once stopped to think about how I ground my teeth over that?”

Andrea met Fabienne’s hatred-filled glare with an unmoved gaze.

“Remarkable. Have you forgotten that you were the one who stole my mother’s place first? And not content with that, you slowly killed her and attempted to harm His Majesty the King as well. What exactly do you have to feel so wronged about?”

“Hmph, where is your proof of any of that? What I gave His Majesty was simply a fertility suppressant. It’s all circumstantial, isn’t it? You couldn’t even convince the chief justice with the testimony of one maid alone, which is why you couldn’t have me executed.”

Fabienne had briefly lost her composure at Andrea’s precise accusation, and she fired back with a trembling voice.

But seeing the dark, dangerous look in his eyes that said he was about to act, she grew anxious quickly and laid out her terms.

“Fine. I’ll return that creature called Riley to you in one piece, so in exchange, promise Henry a grand ducal title. Swear in writing that you’ll give the boy a respectable title and estates and let him live outside the palace so he doesn’t end up ruined like this, and……”

She had stopped herself when she saw the cold, contemptuous curl forming at the corner of Andrea’s mouth, and barely managed to add.

“……If, if you can’t do that, you won’t be getting Riley back alive.”

For a brief moment, cold sparks flashed and vanished in Andrea’s eyes, and then an unhurried threat came back in return.

“Have you not considered that if a single hair on Riley’s head is harmed, Henry will not come out of this unscathed either?”

Fabienne flinched and clutched her skirts, snapping back with fierce eyes.

“How dare you put the second legitimate heir to the Kingdom of Arvel on the same level as some common creature? Get a hold of yourself! He is your half-brother, of the same blood as Your Highness!”

Andrea turned his face away with a short, incredulous laugh. He brought his gaze slowly back and murmured through his teeth.

“I wonder. Do I look like someone noble enough to leave a person alone simply because of bloodline? Quite a few of the people around Henry must have changed by now.”

The quiet laugh that followed made it clear he was not joking, and the color drained from Fabienne’s face.

She had at least assumed he would not harm someone of the same blood within the palace walls, with the king present. She had believed the worst he could do was use press manipulation to make Henry look like a fool. She had been far too complacent.

Fabienne screamed.

“You can’t! How dare you touch my son! He is legitimate blood of the Aurelion royal house!”

“Exactly. It’s something that shouldn’t be done, and yet I can do it. Whatever harm comes to Riley, I’ll return it to Henry in equal measure. If Riley is torn apart, your precious Henry will be torn apart too, and if Riley were to…… suffer greatly and……”

He paused, as though the thought itself was painful, then his eyes shifted and he ground out the rest.

“……die, I’ll make Henry die after suffering ten times as much, then dress it up as a natural death. Just like you did to my mother.”

At that, Fabienne’s eyes shook violently.

Andrea looked her over slowly and curved his eyes.

“Did you not know it was me who replaced you with a younger, more beautiful woman as ‘stepmother’?”

His smile was unsettling, almost casual, and Fabienne swung her nails at him.

“How dare you, you, I knew it was you!”

Andrea caught her thin wrist without flinching and spoke quietly into Fabienne’s ear.

“Then tell me. Where Riley is.”

Her wrist held in his grip, she spoke with trembling lips.

“I, I proposed a negotiation! Ask His Majesty to grant Henry a grand ducal title and let him go live on an estate, and everything will be resolved. Henry will stop losing his honor and live quietly, and your Riley will come back to you unharmed.”

Her eyes were desperate, as though making a final offer.

But Andrea’s tone left no opening, sharp and seamless.

“Still not understanding, I see. I hold Henry’s life, not merely his title, so why would I accept this deal? Tell me. Where Riley is.”

The grip on her wrist tightened enough to crack the bone, and Fabienne ground her teeth.

Strangely, she was not panicking.

She had thought this far ahead.

No matter how much he cherished that woman, there was no way he would simply guarantee Henry a grand ducal title for the sake of a commoner.

Fabienne’s eyes darkened and deepened, sinking like something falling into an abyss.

So this is all a mother has left to give.

“Tell me. Now.”

Andrea stepped close, and whatever contempt and revulsion filled his gaze, Fabienne smiled to herself like someone who had let everything go.

“Because of you. Riley, who could have lived, is going to die very soon. All because of your foolishness.”

“……What?”

Andrea had assumed that because he held Henry’s life, Fabienne would not act rashly. No one would weigh a hostage against their own child and choose petty revenge.

But her manner had turned strange, and unease gripped him. He barked.

“Where is she!”

The composed mockery that had been on his face was gone entirely, replaced by a cold, seething killing intent.

Fabienne, however, felt no fear now that the end had come.

If anything, she was the one who had grown calm.

She curved her eyes with a mournful expression and spoke softly.

“Then negotiations have broken down. In that case, there is nothing I can do. I have no choice but to die with you.”

The moment she finished speaking, a large, knuckled hand seized her thin throat with brutal force.

“Kgh.”

Blood rushed to her face in an instant, and she struggled, but she kept laughing that witch’s laugh to the very end. The sound was like a venomous snake hissing.

“Ghk…… without you, hk, Henry becomes the sole heir to the royal house…… kgh……”

The moment she finished speaking, Fabienne shot out her hand and pressed something beneath the side table.

Andrea threw the woman from his grip and quickly scanned what she had touched.

His hand found something. He bent down to look, and beneath the side table, running along the wall, was an intricate clockwork mechanism connected to a button.

……!

Before he could examine it fully, a faint tremor began beneath his feet. A deep, grinding roar, like a massive millstone turning somewhere far below. The vibration spread, and the objects in the room began to shake.

Rrrrrr…… BOOM!

The floor tilted with a thunderous explosion, and the pillars in the room snapped.

CRAAAASH!

Another roar, as though rising from somewhere impossibly deep, and the entire castle began to collapse from its foundations. The ground beneath Andrea’s feet lurched violently as he tried to keep his balance.

He registered the ceiling cracking above him, and then his body tilted. Darkness crashed down over his head in an instant.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

“Hng.”

Andrea forced himself upright from beneath a pile of collapsed stone.

His body had been caught in a triangular gap formed between two large boulders, and he had, fortunately, avoided the worst of the impact.

Barely on his feet, he searched the darkness with his eyes, looking for something.

The space had already become a ruin. The wreckage of the building pressed down on everything, and nothing was recognizable.

As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he finally made out a figure lying face down not far away.

Fabienne had been buried beneath the collapsed outer wall.

Andrea limped over, gripped the woman’s chin, and turned her face toward him.

“Get up. Tell me where Riley is. Now.”

His eyes were burning with urgency.

His voice came out rough and shaking with barely contained fury.

“Tell me before you die!”

Fabienne finally opened her eyes, coughed up a rush of blood, and lifted her hazy gaze with great effort.

She saw that Andrea was alive and unharmed, and despair flickered through her eyes.