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Chapter : 08
When You Show the Back of Your Neck
“Don’t cry. If you cry, Aster will think I made you cry.”
Benjamin walked ahead first. His steps were neat and unhurried.
“Charl, if you don’t come, I’m leaving you behind. What are you doing just standing there spacing out?”
Benjamin looked back at Charlophe, who was standing some distance away, waiting.
“I am waiting for you right now.”
“……”
“Hold my hand, if you’re going to walk like that.”
Benjamin naturally laced his fingers with Charlophe’s hand.
As they walked through the crowd, he opened a path so she wouldn’t bump into anyone.
“Why are you daydreaming all by yourself?”
Benjamin reached out, ruffling his hair.
Charlophe stared blankly up at him.
“See? You’re not paying attention, so you almost bumped into someone.”
When she nearly collided with a passerby, Benjamin yanked her shoulder toward him.
Charlophe hit her head against his firm chest and groaned softly.
“Sorry!” the passerby said hastily as they moved on.
Charlophe inhaled at close range.
She smelled bitter medicinal herbs.
“It smells like herbs.”
“I put some herbs used as anesthetic on the bandages.”
Perhaps because of that, his body carried that distinctive scent.
Bitter, yet cool — like the chill of the night air itself.
“Stay close.”
Benjamin patted Charlophe and continued walking.
“Your Highness—”
Around then, a low voice rang out.
“Benjamin.”
“Yes?”
“Call me by my name.”
Benjamin spoke his name aloud.
“Or is it wrong? If I call you by your name, would Aster be shocked?”
Charlophe looked up at him with a clear, innocent expression.
Feeling her gaze, Benjamin scratched lightly at her palm with his fingertip.
“Why?”
Charlophe pulled her hand away, ticklish.
“Did you know?”
“……”
“If you keep getting swayed like this, Charl, you’ll be in danger.”
Benjamin whispered in a low voice.
A carriage arrived from her maternal family.
Until then, Charlophe had forgotten everything — even being disowned.
“Don’t let your guard down.”
Stay alert.
Only then did Charlophe realize she had been swayed again.
A few days later.
“……”
Charlophe swallowed her breath at one end of the corridor.
She was on her way to Leandro’s office. Just as she reached for the door, it opened and someone came out.
“On your way to see your father?”
Cesar asked, loosening the tightly knotted cravat around his neck.
He was her great-uncle who had helped with the adoption process.
“Yes. Are you going to see Grandfather, Uncle?”
“Yes. I just came from confirming that the legal procedures are finalized.”
Several days had passed since Cesar arrived. She had met him while going through the adoption process.
“That’s a relief.”
Cesar rubbed his chin while looking down at his grandniece.
“At least today your complexion looks better than yesterday. Until a few days ago, you were pale like watery rice porridge — not a good look at all.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“I meant you look good today.”
He gestured toward the office, telling her to go in.
“Your father is waiting. Go on in.”
Charlophe knocked and entered.
The office reflected Leandro’s personality perfectly.
A neatly organized desk with documents stacked in orderly piles.
Charlophe glanced at the window, then fixed her gaze on Leandro. He spoke smoothly.
“Your father has relinquished custody.”
At Tuteoga, her biological father had given up parental rights.
That meant Charlophe was now a stranger to the Tuteoga family.
“Charlophe Windsor. From now on, I am your legal guardian.”
“The adoption process ended quickly.”
“Cesar came and completed all the final steps.”
With her great-uncle handling the legal matters, everything had gone smoothly.
It seemed to have dragged on a bit, but today it was finally resolved.
She was now out of Tuteoga.
Charlophe had been entered into the Windsor family, and her maternal grandfather became her legal guardian.
“Did my father cooperate without trouble?”
“In any case, it was a relationship that would’ve ended in a year. Your biological father knew that too, so he calculated what benefited him most.”
Her father never showed his face in the end.
It meant they were truly strangers now.
She didn’t feel disappointed.
If it was such an easily severed tie, why hadn’t he let her go sooner?
Why had she been trapped in that house for decades?
“If there’s anything uncomfortable, tell the butler.”
She pushed thoughts of her father out of her mind.
Charlophe smoothed her hair and tucked it behind her ear. Long red strands curled around her fingers.
She had escaped their grasp.
Did they know?
You should never have let me go.
Pyotr took off his coat as he looked around the empty mansion.
Tuteoga was quiet.
He rather liked this long-awaited silence.
“Welcome back, sir.”
The aged butler hurriedly took his coat.
“Anything unusual at home?”
“It’s been quiet.”
“Has the disownment process ended?”
“Yes. Everything is finished.”
Pyotr frowned deeply. The wrinkles between his brows made him look especially fierce.
“So eager to follow my dead mother, yet you still can’t escape her shadow. The Windsors adopted that child?”
“Yes. The Windsor family has taken the young lady in.”
“It would’ve been quite profitable to put her on the marriage market… but for that old man to buy her with money — he must be senile.”
All traces of the Windsor family were erased from Tuteoga.
That detestable woman was dead, and now even the child’s traces were gone.
Where had this hatred begun?
The woman who clashed with him at every turn was now treated as if she were nothing after her death.
The butler looked at his master with concern. What he had feared since the previous head had begun.
“Master…”
“We’ll talk later. I finally have some peace — I don’t want to break it.”
Pyotr checked the mail the butler handed him.
‘Chloe Lin.’
Seeing the name, he frowned.
“…Shall I prepare a reply right away?”
“I’ll check it later.”
He slipped the letter into his jacket pocket.
“Just bring some infused liquor to my office.”
He dismissed the butler, went to his office, and loosened his clothes.
The office was spotless.
He tossed the mail carelessly onto the desk.
While undoing his cufflinks, he glanced again at the envelope.
Then he threw the unopened letter into the trash and lost interest.
The office grew eerily quiet.
Creak, creak. Perhaps because of that, the sound of the floorboards echoed clearly.
“You said you were disowned, so why do you look like that?”
Charlophe froze with her teacup halfway to her lips. Benjamin brushed his hair back as he stepped over the windowsill.
The gesture, sweeping his black hair aside, looked unbearably languid.
Her gaze was drawn to it.
“I’ve just… lost too much.”
“What did you lose?”
“I lost my mother. I lost my life. I’ve only just gotten it back…”
Charlophe lifted her quietly closed eyes.
“Still, I’ve lost more than I’ve gained.”
She murmured softly.
Benjamin moved closer.
“If you’ve given flesh, you should take bones in return.”
“Charl… breathe slowly. There’s no need to rush.”
Benjamin wrapped an arm around her shoulders as he spoke.
“Hunting is about waiting for the right moment. When you bite into your prey, you don’t go for some scrawny thing.”
He spoke as if explaining a simple law of nature.
Starving prey is easy to hunt, but you grow tired of it quickly.
Instead, wait until it’s well fed.
Until the prey grows plump enough to show you the back of its neck.
“That’s when you hunt.”
When it shows its nape.
When it’s most assured of its victory, most at ease.
That’s when you sink your fangs into its neck and cut off its breath in one strike.
‘So that’s why, when he was deposed, he personally cut their throats?’
When none of them doubted his victory,
Benjamin announced his triumph by cutting their throats.
After ascending the throne, he must have watched every expression of terror on the Empress’s faction.
“You haven’t been around for days.”
“I had some business outside and was away for a bit. Did you greet Cesar?”
“Yes. We met during the adoption process. He looks a lot like Uncle Aster, so I didn’t feel distant at all.”
Charlophe spoke smoothly, then covered her lips and smiled lightly.
He’s unexpectedly considerate.
She lifted her teacup again and rubbed her nose. Was it the herbs? The bitter scent tickled her nose.
“You got hurt again, didn’t you? You’re injured again?”
“I got into trouble while running around outside, feeling stifled.”
“So where did you go?”
“The Koroko River.”
That was a river in the empire that took a day or two to reach.
If he was hurt there…
“Did you take care of the defeated soldiers? The foreign remnants who were robbing and attacking citizens — you went to suppress them, right?”
“Who told you that?”
“I just… know.”
It had happened around this time in her past life too.
“Your Highness! Crown Prince!”
A desperate voice called for Benjamin from somewhere.
The door to the parlor where Charlophe was burst open.
Outside stood a physician, holding bandages and a bag, on the verge of tears.
“For heaven’s sake! You run off in the middle of treatment! Do you want Linton here to die of frustration? The man who wouldn’t even put a single flower on my grave when I die — why do you torment me like this?!”
Only then did Linton notice Charlophe and widen his eyes.
“Why is the young lady here?”
“You noticed me far too late.”
Benjamin waved him off and left the parlor.
“A-ah…! Young lady, please excuse me!”
Linton wailed as he chased after Benjamin.
Why did that look so amusing?
Charlophe looked down at her now-cold teacup. The terrace window was open, and white lace curtains fluttered.
“Who’s comforting whom, really.”
She looked at the spot where Benjamin had been.
“I should get some good wine.”
It was late evening.
A black shadow slipped through the wine cellar.
Charlophe, having stolen a bottle, headed to the attic room.
The stairs creaked as she climbed.
“To think I’d be sneaking around to drink.”
She held the bottle in one hand and went up.
When she opened the attic door, there was only a sofa sitting alone on a red carpet.
She opened the terrace window and stepped outside.
She set two glass cups on the railing and took a corkscrew from the lining of her dress.
“I heard Ailia wine is famous.”
Holding the bottle, she checked the label.
It was wine from the Ailia region. When she popped the cork, a rich aroma spread.
“Look. I stole one from the cellar. You know how they keep only Ailia wines lined up?”
The railing creaked.
Benjamin settled down by it.
“Instead of sitting on the roof, how about a drink?”
