🔊 TTS Settings
chapter 04…………………………………….
Thud.
Something struck near her feet. Alice recognized what it was at a glance.
It was a wooden stick, soaked in blood.
‘Don’t tell me… this is what she used on that child?’
Dizziness washed over her. The hand holding the lamp trembled violently. Alice stepped closer to Edwin. If he had been beaten with something like this, the injuries would surely be severe.
She had anticipated some level of harm and asked Evan in advance for an ointment for wounds—but she had never imagined violence inflicted with such a brutal weapon.
“…Khgh.”
The closer she got, the stronger the stench became. Now she understood where the smell she’d noticed outside the door was coming from.
But before long, she no longer had the luxury of worrying about the smell. Cold sweat ran down her spine as she felt a gaze sharp enough to look like it might devour her whole.
In other novels, the male lead usually opens his heart at first sight and gradually grows close to the heroine…
‘That look alone could kill someone.’
Fiction was fiction, after all.
The red eyes staring at her were vicious.
Judging by Edwin’s gaze, this wasn’t the kind of situation where one could grow close—instead, it felt like she ought to drop to her knees and beg for her life.
When Alice stepped closer and shone the lamp on him, she sucked in a sharp breath. Her heart slammed violently in her chest.
‘I-is he really alive?’
The body slumped against the cold wall was so emaciated his bones nearly protruded. Wounds that hadn’t regenerated due to the curse were partially rotting.
Those red eyes never left her for even a second. Their fierce gleam suggested he was still breathing, but his appearance was horrific.
She spoke cautiously.
“Uh… are you okay?”
Of course he wasn’t. It was astonishing he wasn’t already dead. She should take him out of the tower immediately and have Evan treat him.
But in the current situation, exposing Edwin to Karina was even more dangerous. That was why she had prepared the new lock in the first place.
“……”
Yet once she stood face-to-face with Edwin, she couldn’t erase the urgency of treatment from her mind.
She knew from the original story that he wouldn’t die right away, but she still felt pressed for time. Alice hurriedly took out the ointment.
‘I pulled this out with such confidence, but…’
She couldn’t bring herself to approach him easily. Though he made no movement, Edwin’s eyes looked as though he might tear the person in front of him to pieces at any moment.
“C-can I touch you?”
The wording sounded strange even to her, but she couldn’t avoid touching him if she wanted to treat his wounds.
Still, as she drew closer, those threatening red eyes glared more fiercely, and Alice froze mid-motion.
She had completely lost her nerve—over a child who was only seven years old.
“I—I won’t touch you.”
Stepping back hesitantly, Alice placed the ointment near his feet. Beside it, she neatly laid out the bread and water she had saved from dinner.
It wouldn’t put flesh on his bones overnight, but she hoped his skeletal body would start to recover soon.
“Put this on your wounds—it should help a little. And eat this if you’re hungry.”
As she left the room, she whispered softly,
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Edwin.”
After returning from the imperial palace’s tea party, Karina headed straight for the tower.
Her steps were familiar.
The maid trailing behind her had cheeks swollen red enough to be pitiful. On the way back, Karina—humiliated publicly at the tea party—had failed to contain her rage and struck the maid beside her.
Upon reaching the top of the tower, Karina stared irritably at the unfamiliar lock.
“What is this?”
It wasn’t the rusty lock she was used to. She yanked roughly at the newly installed one, but it didn’t budge.
It looked solid and sturdy—unlikely to break through brute force.
“Who did this?!”
Enraged that someone had dared interfere with her affairs, Karina snapped, demanding to know who had installed it.
The maid hurriedly shook her head, insisting she knew nothing.
Unable to vent her anger on Edwin, Karina turned her fury on the maid instead.
After repeated slaps, the maid collapsed to her knees in tears, sobbing loudly.
“H-hic… I—I really don’t know… hic…”
But in the end, she confessed everything. Her lips were split, blood trickling down.
“M-my lady… it was the young lady! She said Miss Alice put the lock on it! Hic!”
Thud. Karina’s violence stopped.
“…Alice?”
Her eyebrows shot upward. Karina recalled the rumors circulating around the ducal household lately.
‘Even the younger miss is looking for Edwin.’
Letting out a scoffing laugh, Karina soon furrowed her brow in irritation.
She slowly made her way to Alice’s room.
Alice, who had been rolling around on her bed, startled when the door flew open without so much as a knock.
Upon seeing the rude visitor’s face, she straightened her posture with an expression that said, So it’s finally come.
She had anticipated this the moment she sent a maid to replace the lock. Fire must be met with fire—right now, this was the only way she could protect Edwin.
If she backed down now, all she’d do was watch her own life expectancy shrink while trembling in anxiety.
More than anything, knowing that a small child had been beaten to that extent and doing nothing about it weighed heavily on her conscience.
And what troubled her even more—
Alice recalled what she’d seen that morning. Those chilling red eyes that didn’t belong to a child his age.
They were eyes that made it easy to imagine how the original Alice had been torn apart in the novel.
Above all else, Alice wanted to live.
“Alice, the maid says you changed the lock.”
Karina spoke while glancing at the maid beside her. Both cheeks were swollen, clearly from being struck. The culprit was obvious.
‘Did she get beaten in Edwin’s place?’
When Alice’s gaze fell on her, the maid shrank back.
But Alice couldn’t look away.
Just because she changed a lock, this woman beat a maid into that state?
“Alice, answer me.”
Karina’s blue eyes fixed on her. Alice knew very well what that gaze implied.
‘She thought I’d throw a tantrum, begging for her attention instead of going to see Edwin.’
A sly, impish smile crept onto Alice’s lips. She intended to shatter Karina’s expectations mercilessly.
“Yes, Mother. I changed the lock.”
Mother? Alice, who always called her Mom, had said Mother?
Annoyed and weary, Karina asked coldly,
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to.”
“What?”
Karina raised one eyebrow. Alice smiled brightly, her tone cheerful and innocent.
“I want Edwin too—but I was afraid you’d break him first, Mother.”
“……”
Silence filled the room.
The servants looked on in silent shock. They couldn’t believe such a statement—treating a person like a toy—had come from the mouth of such a small child.
Once again, they were reminded that Alice was Karina’s daughter.
The perception of Alice as a meek child reverted instantly.
No—perhaps it was even worse than before.
Alice didn’t care much about their stares. Right now, Edwin mattered more than her reputation.
Even Karina looked momentarily taken aback by Alice’s sudden shift in attitude.
Was this really the same daughter who used to throw tantrums and bully the maids just to get attention?
“So don’t touch him.”
Alice wiped the innocent smile from her face and spoke quietly, her expression turning cold. It was enough to send chills down one’s spine.
But Alice knew Karina wouldn’t back down so easily.
As if sharing a secret, she raised a hand to her mouth and whispered,
“You know too, Mother. The truth is… Edwin is Father’s—”
Her biological son.
Alice didn’t say the rest aloud, only forming the words with her lips.
Without this kind of provocation, there was no way to suppress Karina.
In the original story, Karina abused Edwin despite knowing he was the duke’s biological child.
No—she was crueler precisely because he was.
She wanted to solidify her position by bearing the family’s heir.
To her, Edwin was nothing more than an obstacle and a burden.
Yet somehow—
Despite being cursed, locked away in the tower, and given barely enough food, Edwin clung stubbornly to life.
‘The duke doesn’t know Edwin is his son.’
Though the novel never explained it in detail, no sane man would imprison his own child in a tower.
Alice looked at Karina coldly.
The others didn’t understand what had been said, but Karina surely did.
‘N-no way. Does she know that secret?’
Karina’s face drained of color.
When the former duchess was pregnant, Karina had served at her side personally.
She had brewed every cup of tea the duchess drank—and each time, she secretly mixed in Rube.
Rube.
A tea from the far East said to turn a fetus’s hair black if consumed during pregnancy.
In regions where anyone without light hair was deemed heretical, it was traded covertly.
It wasn’t a herb known in the Empire, but upon discovering its existence, Karina had immediately used her savings to purchase it from a back-alley peddler.
One of its side effects was the risk of fatal hemorrhaging during childbirth.
‘If she hadn’t died, she’d have given birth to a black-haired child and been expelled from the duchy for adultery anyway.’
With Karina at her side, the duchess’s fate had been sealed from the start.
Alice clicked her tongue softly at Karina’s malice. Karina’s hand trembled slightly.
‘Does she… really know?’
Impossible. Only she and the peddler had known—and she had already sent an assassin and confirmed his severed head.
“Alice, you must have been feeling lonely. I’ll come visit more often now, so stop this naughty prank and hand over the key.”
A gentle, motherly smile spread across Karina’s lips.
