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Chapter 32
“If I’m thrown out of here, I’m as good as dead anyway. Why would I lie? Don’t you think?”
Caspian had a point.
After taking a closer look at his face, Kylen recognized the man. He had seen him a few times before.
Still, he had never imagined that the man in the underground prison of Winterford Castle and Adam, whom he had seen at the Imperial Palace, were the same person. He was in such a wretched state that they barely looked alike.
When Kylen raised a hand, the knight gripping Adam by the hair roughly let go.
Thud.
Adam’s head dropped forward, and he let out a series of mad, raspy chuckles.
Kylen walked over to the empty chair in front of Adam and sat down. Crossing his long legs, the tip of his polished shoe entered Adam’s field of vision.
“Y-Your Highness!”
Adam looked up and struggled against his restraints. The thick iron chains binding his hands and feet scraped loudly against the stone floor.
“P-Please spare me. Please! Please!”
At some point, Adam’s lips had split open, and blood dripped to the floor together with his saliva.
“Why should I?”
Kylen’s chilling voice echoed through the underground prison.
Adam Pobik did not lose heart at Kylen’s cold response.
“I-I have… information that will interest Your Highness.”
Kylen silently watched the desperate-looking Adam.
Unable to read what Kylen was thinking, Adam hurriedly continued when he saw no emotion on his face.
“Your Highness, please—ugh!”
Caspian, standing beside Kylen, jabbed Adam hard in the abdomen with the sheathed sword hanging at his waist.
Since the blade remained inside the scabbard, no blood was drawn, but judging from the way Adam’s face twisted in agony, the blow had been more than painful enough.
“It’s Grand Duke now. If you’re begging for your life, at least use the proper title.”
Cough! Cough!
Adam coughed violently before nodding repeatedly.
After curling up and enduring the pain, he finally raised his head again.
“Grand Duke… if you spare my life, I’ll tell you everything I know.”
It seemed Adam Pobik had been abandoned by the Empress.
The endings of the Empress’s lovers were always similar.
Some died from illness. Others were killed by mysterious attackers. Some simply vanished without a trace.
Adam, who had fallen from the Empress’s favor, should have met the same fate.
Yet here he was, all the way in Winterford, far from the capital, begging not just anyone for his life, but Kylen.
“Very well. Then shall we make a deal?”
Hope blazed in Adam’s blue eyes at Kylen’s words.
“T-The Empress has been searching among noble young ladies lately.”
Adam glanced once at Caspian and the other knights standing nearby before looking back at Kylen. After hesitating for a moment, he continued.
“She’s looking for the Crown Princess.”
Kylen let out a short laugh.
But the amusement quickly vanished, and a frown settled on his face.
Seeing Kylen’s expression, Adam hurriedly leaned forward.
“She’s only pretending to search. I even know who the final candidate for Crown Princess is—”
“Florence Hernia.”
Kylen answered before Adam could finish.
Adam Pobik’s jaw slowly dropped.
“I know what time the Empress wakes up every morning. I know what she eats for breakfast, how many cigarettes she smokes in a day, and even which bastards crawl into her bed.”
Kylen’s low voice spread coldly across the prison floor.
“And you think…”
Uncrossing his legs, Kylen leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“…that someone like me wouldn’t know what woman the Empress is planning to shove at Ferdinand?”
Adam’s frostbitten, battered hands began to tremble.
“B-But… if the Hernia Ducal House joins hands with the Crown Prince… then Your Grace will…”
Adam apparently wasn’t a complete fool.
He understood exactly what Kylen’s position would become if House Hernia allied itself with the Crown Prince.
So he hadn’t merely been wagging his tail beside the Empress like an idiot all this time.
Well, anyone with eyes and ears would know.
Curling one corner of his lips into a crooked smile, Kylen rose from his seat.
“Take him away.”
This had been a waste of time.
Frowning, Kylen began fastening the buttons of the coat he had left open.
Watching the irritation in Kylen’s every movement, Caspian looked toward the knights.
“Dispose of him quietly.”
“Yes, sir!”
The knights’ thunderous response echoed through the dungeon.
“N-No! Let me go! I-I have more! Let me go! Damn it, let me go! Grand Duke! Just a moment! Please, give me one more chance!”
As the knights seized him, Adam struggled wildly and screamed at the top of his lungs.
Ignoring the commotion behind him, Kylen headed toward the dungeon entrance without the slightest hesitation.
He had just passed through the heavy iron door and started climbing the stairs when Adam shouted,
“T-The Empress seemed to need money!”
Kylen stopped in his tracks.
Caspian, following behind, halted as well and turned around.
“Yes! I’m sure of it!”
The instant Kylen stopped, Adam hurriedly changed his words from seemed to to I’m certain.
Kylen stood silently for a moment, staring into space as though deep in thought.
Then he turned back, walked toward Adam, and sat once more in the chair he had occupied earlier.
“If you’re making this up just to catch my interest…”
His low voice became a blade of ice aimed directly at Adam’s throat.
“…you’d better prepare yourself.”
Adam swallowed hard and nodded vigorously.
Kylen merely stared into his eyes, silently urging him to continue.
Clasping his trembling hands tightly together, Adam began speaking in a panicked, rambling manner.
“It… it was some time ago. I think… a few weeks before Y-Your Highness—ah, no! Before Your Grace got married.”
Adam’s eyes refused to stay fixed in one place.
They darted nervously from one point to another as he stammered on.
“Speak clearly. You’re not making this up as you go, are you?”
Caspian asked irritably, resting a hand on the sword at his waist.
“N-No! I-I’m not! W-Water… please give me some water.”
Startled, Adam shook his head frantically and grabbed at his throat.
The knights snorted in disbelief.
When Kylen, who had folded his arms, gave a slight nod, one of the knights brought over some water.
Half of it spilled down his face while the other half actually made it into his mouth.
After gulping it down and catching his breath, Adam slowly continued.
“One night… someone visited the Empress’s palace.”
“When exactly?”
“I-I don’t remember the exact date…”
Hanging his head, Adam shrank into himself.
“It was a man. I don’t know who he was. During all my time in the Imperial Palace, that was the only time I ever saw him. Even until I was driven out, he never came back.”
Late one autumn night, the man who had visited the Imperial Palace had seemed quite familiar with the Empress.
At first, Adam had worried the Empress had already grown interested in another man besides him.
Filled with anxiety, he had pressed his ear against the narrow crack of the small door leading from the bedroom to the reception room and secretly listened to their conversation.
“The two of them didn’t talk for very long.”
“Get to the point.”
Caspian growled.
Adam quickly continued.
“H-He asked her… to sell him a mine.”
Kylen’s brows furrowed sharply.
“A mine? The Empress?”
“Yes!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. According to our intelligence network, ownership of every mine the Empress possesses remains unchanged.”
“I-I think that’s true. She wasn’t trying to sell ownership of the mine itself. She wanted to sell the exclusive distribution rights to the Torpaz produced there.”
Caspian glanced at Kylen, who remained seated.
Apparently thinking the same thing, Caspian ordered one of the nearby knights to summon Dylan.
“She said they should gradually increase the monopoly over time so that no one would notice by changing the distribution channels little by little—”
“Which mine?”
Kylen interrupted.
Adam pressed his lips together tightly before shaking his head.
“I… didn’t hear that part.”
Was that the important detail?
Adam clenched both hands tightly.
Watching Kylen turn away coldly, the events of that night suddenly resurfaced in his mind.
The memory had come back by chance.
His careless remark had caught Kylen’s attention, forcing Adam to squeeze every last drop from his memory.
But no matter how hard he tried, he could not remember which mine’s Torpaz distribution rights the Empress had intended to sell.
Once he realized the man who had visited that night was not another lover of the Empress, he had felt relieved and gone straight back to bed.
Now he bitterly regretted his past self.
Back then, he simply hadn’t known.
Only much later had he realized just how much money the distribution rights to Torpaz could move.
“It could simply have been a change in distribution channels. Why do you think the Empress needed money?”
At Kylen’s question, Adam abruptly lifted his head, as though he had finally found a glimmer of hope.
