ICM Chapter 123

Sparse houses stretched between shallow hills where scrub trees grew. Past the small farmhouses surrounded by shabby wooden fences, the wide fields spread out were oat fields after the harvest.

 

As the small fortress city became visible at the edge of the desolate fields, the horse carrying Nile slowed its pace. The closer they got, the slower the horse’s movements became. Just like his heart.

 

In the early dawn, the soldier guarding the city gate dozed off, leaning against the wall.

 

The farmer who came with his cart to deliver milk entered inside the gate without any particular restrictions. People going out of the fortress to work and those entering crossed paths with each other.

 

Once a land that blocked foreign tribes, but a small fortress that became useless as the empire’s territory expanded. It was the peaceful early morning scene of a rural territory that no one paid attention to.

 

Passing through the center that was too small to even call a downtown area, he finally reached the entrance to the inner castle. Since it was such an old fortress, the walls were low and the gate was small.

 

In front of the tightly closed gate, Nile raised his head. A person’s head was visible inside the low rampart above the gate. The soldier guarding the inner castle gate seemed to be dozing too.

 

“Hey.”

 

“Oh my!”

 

The startled soldier got up from his position and stuck his head out. It was only about two stories high, so their faces were clearly visible to each other.

 

“Who, who are you?”

 

The soldier looking down below the gate asked back with a face still drowsy from sleep.

 

“An unfamiliar face? Haven’t been working long, have you?”

 

“It’s been about two months, but who are you to say such things?”

 

Though looking bewildered, the soldier was cautious. It was because the way this person looked at him was not ordinary.

 

“Just open the gate. I’ve come home after a long time, and the gatekeeper doesn’t even recognize my face. Should I just go back out, really.”

 

At the grumpy reproach, the soldier looked at Nile again.

 

The thick leather coat and old traveler’s cloak, boots that were tough and crude like military boots – nothing about him looked noble. Even the sword at his waist wasn’t an expensive item, so if you passed him on the road, you’d think he was a wandering mercenary.

 

However, the short gray hair and blue-gray eyes were not common features in this region. A memory suddenly flashed through his mind. The story of the eccentric eldest son of the Nedrov family who ran away years ago.

 

“Gasp, y-young master?”

 

“Won’t you open the gate?”

 

The startled soldier hurriedly ran somewhere. After hearing people’s voices from inside, the old gate opened with a scraping sound.

 

It was the time when the castle’s servants were just waking up to start their day. The sudden visitor caused a commotion inside the castle.

 

Nile handed his horse to a servant who came running and entered the castle. The small but antique hall was unheated, so cold wind swirled around no different from outside.

 

It was a space that once seemed too large and gloomy. In the interior built with cold stone, now only the smell of old time was distinct.

 

Someone came running hurriedly down the stairs inside the hall.

 

“Brother!”

 

The sound of footsteps echoing on the floor crossed the center of the hall and quickly approached.

 

“You’re too much!”

 

It was a boy who had just turned fifteen, with brown hair and brown eyes. Joy that couldn’t be hidden was felt on his face flushed with excitement.

 

“Too much? I’ve come back like this, isn’t that enough.”

 

“How could you not send even one letter?”

 

“I didn’t have time for that.”

 

“The military service period ended last year. Where have you been to come only now?”

 

“I stopped by briefly last year, didn’t you hear?”

 

Nile smiled as he ruffled Piel’s hair, who was much smaller than him. He didn’t want to return, but that didn’t mean there was no one he wanted to see.

 

Pielid, the second son of Nedrov and the only legitimate heir. Nile looked down at his younger brother with whom he didn’t share a drop of blood. He had once envied him. That ignorant innocence that knew nothing and believed he was real family.

 

Nile was just a cuckoo chick born in someone else’s nest, not real family. No matter how noble blood he was born with, it didn’t matter. An unwanted life. An existence barely clinging to life by depending on someone else’s nest.

 

The servants who came running in surprise greeted him awkwardly.

 

“Have you arrived, young master?”

 

“We’ll clean your room right away. Could you wait in the reception room for a moment?”

 

The head maid stopped Nile who was heading to his room. It was a sudden visit without notice. The room that hadn’t been used for a long time hadn’t been cleaned in quite a while either.

 

Understanding the situation, Nile smiled bitterly.

 

“Just roughly is fine. I won’t be staying long.”

 

“Still, please wait just a moment, young master. What are you doing there? Go quickly and clean first. Change the bedding.”

 

The head maid urged the maids who came to greet him and drove them to the second floor. The bustling servants suddenly stopped. Behind the line of greetings that followed like a tail was Viscountess Benia Nedrov.

 

With a face shape exactly like her son Piel and a somewhat tall stature, the woman transitioning from middle age to old age looked stern.

 

“You’ve come.”

 

“I greet you after a long time. Have you been well?”

 

Despite the long-awaited reunion, it was an awkward greeting. Perhaps feeling self-conscious, the servants poked each other’s sides and left.

 

“The Viscount is away on business. It will take about a week for him to return.”

 

“I probably… won’t be able to see him before I leave.”

 

Benia didn’t seem to think Nile had come back for good. Nile took that for granted too. Piel awkwardly smiled and averted his gaze at Benia’s distant attitude.

 

Nile left Benia, who didn’t hide her discomfort, behind and headed to his bedroom.

 

As the tightly closed door opened, complex and old emotions mixed together. The kind of emotions he had long avoided facing because he didn’t want to know their reality.

 

The old hinges opened with a creaking sound. The space he finally stepped into was as desolate and cold as the old castle. The floor exposed with the carpet removed, bedding frozen in some past season, and when he casually touched the table, white dust came off.

 

The bedroom that had lost its owner for four years had become as useless a space as himself, abandoned and isolated. At the maid’s request to wait just a moment, Nile sat by the dusty window and stared blankly outside.

 

‘This is why I didn’t want to come back.’

 

Nile let out a sigh mixed with complaint.

 

From very long ago when his memories began, his relationship with his parents was distant. Even though he had no memory of being warmly embraced, he thought that was natural when he was young. However, he realized it wasn’t when his younger brother was born.

 

Watching them pour out the affection they never showed him onto his younger brother, he felt it was strange. Thinking, is there something wrong with me, why am I not loved. But even at a young age, he vaguely felt that it would be difficult to bridge the cold relationship with his parents.

 

Nile learned early how to hide his inner feelings. Because of his naturally cheerful disposition, instead of giving up on his parents’ affection, he became close with the servants. But as his mind grew, so did his questions.

 

Because of his mischievous nature, he caused various accidents, but the Viscount and his wife never once scolded him. When his younger brother Piel did wrong, they would teach him by citing proper etiquette, but they kept their distance only from him.

 

There was no embracing affectionately or scolding. He couldn’t understand that strange sense of distance at the time and just felt left out. And the truth came to him unexpectedly at an unforeseen moment.

 

There was a woman who showed her face more often than his always difficult mother. Though she didn’t reveal her name or status, the woman whom his parents treated preciously would secretly visit the Viscount’s castle, wander around here and there, then return. Because she was reluctant to show her face, the servants called her the ‘Shadow Lady’ and were curious about her.

 

In the winter when Nile turned twelve, he went to the hunting grounds following the servants and had an accident. He was rammed by a raging wild boar and suffered severe injuries with his side torn open.

 

During the more than a week he hovered between life and death, it was not his mother Benia who stayed by his side, but that woman. That’s how he came to know. The child instinctively realized the truth that no one had told him.

 

The mother who gave birth to him was not the distant and difficult Benia, but the woman of unknown identity who wept sorrowfully at his bedside. In his dim consciousness, he heard the Viscount and his wife calling the woman ‘Your Majesty.’

 

Only then did he remember. The story the maids proudly told about Benia once being the Empress’s lady-in-waiting. The story that shortly after leaving the capital through marriage, upon hearing news that the Empress had been deposed, Benia cried for a long time.

 

The woman’s name was Clemen Majes. She was the legitimate daughter of the Count Majes family, once the Empress of the Empire but deposed after receiving the Empress Dowager’s hatred. The official reason was infertility, but no one knew the real inside story.

 

Nile wandered. Confused by the truth no one told him, he ran away from home several times and wandered for years. Worried that he might cause bigger accidents, Clemen finally confessed the truth.

 

The truth that Nile and the Viscount couple all knew but kept their mouths shut about. It wasn’t a surprising confession. The Viscount couple had never once been family to Nile. But he couldn’t resent the Viscount couple who never gave him even a thread of affection either.

 

Loyalty and affection for a former master were separate things. Viscount Nedrov’s family had taken the deposed Empress’s child into their arms at the risk of the family’s fate, but they couldn’t love him as parents, as family.

 

The feeling that became increasingly clear as he grew older. The Viscount and his wife found him burdensome. Why wouldn’t they? He was a member of the imperial family born secretly without anyone knowing, avoiding the Empress Dowager’s eyes.

 

His birth must not be discovered, and having descendants would be even more dangerous. As long as the Empress Dowager was alive, Nile and Clemen were only as precarious as candles in the wind.

 

That’s why. Unable to bear living a life of being watched and oppressed any longer, he ran away. At sixteen, Nile left the suffocating Nedrov territory by volunteering for military service.

 

At the awkward dinner table that evening, it was Piel who occasionally lightened the atmosphere. The servants serving the meal watched Benia’s mood, and Nile continued eating silently. The lively and cheerful personality he had as a child was hardly to be found.

 

When he returned to his bedroom after the uncomfortable meal, all the dust that had been piled up was already cleaned away. Still, the chill in the room hadn’t subsided, so Nile didn’t take off his coat.

 

Near midnight, there was a knock. It was a small, careful sound. Nile held his breath and looked at the door.