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Chapter : 09
Tearing Apart Like a Beast
“I told you to be careful not to get hit by a blind blade.”
Charlophe poured wine into a glass.
“How’s your shoulder wound?”
“Who told you that?”
“Do I really need to be told? You come back injured every time.”
Even now, Benjamin had a bandage wrapped around one arm.
There were clear bloodstains on the white gauze, and a strong herbal scent lingered.
The bitter smell came from petals extracted from a flower called Ggotjebee, used as an anesthetic.
“The medicine smell’s gotten stronger.”
“And you’re giving alcohol to a patient?”
Benjamin grabbed the wine bottle and leaned against the railing.
He parted his lips slightly and drank straight from the bottle.
“As expected of a Windsor.”
“What do you mean?”
“The first day I came back like this, Aster threw a bottle of wine at me too.”
“That’s expensive, you know. You were the one who recommended Ailia wine to me. You should know its value… and yet you drink it straight from the bottle?”
Benjamin held the mouth of the bottle and brushed it off, saying wine was just wine.
The grape aroma drifted faintly.
“Wine doesn’t suit me.”
Even that mouth sometimes said such nonsense.
Charlophe leaned against the terrace railing and looked up at Benjamin.
The area around his eyes, covered by black hair, looked unusually dark.
His pitch-black pupils were clouded, making him all the more chilling.
“…Why?”
“Just because.”
Benjamin answered. His low, murmured voice was clear, without any knot in it—
yet it scattered weakly, like air losing strength.
He reached out and wrapped his fingers around Charlophe’s red hair.
The curls slipped through his grasp.
Her throat tickled, as if feathers were brushing her windpipe.
Charlophe leaned closer to his cheek and asked,
“Then… what about me?”
“What about you?”
“Do we suit each other?”
We resemble each other. That’s why we were drawn together.
“Will you get engaged to me? We’d have to get my grandfather’s and great-uncle’s permission, though.”
“…”
“Is it not with me?”
Meeting her ex-husband again seemed to have stirred Charlophe up even more.
“Are you going to keep this up?”
Benjamin pulled at her cheek.
“Stop it, Charl.”
He looked a bit more relaxed now.
Charlophe gently removed his hand.
I’ve lived longer than you.
“That’s not a look someone your age would make…”
“I’ve lived a long time. Far too long. I brought someone who should’ve died back here.”
She had lived a life worse than an animal under her birth family, and worse than a human under her in-laws, before dying.
That was how I died.
Then it’s fine if I spite those people this much, isn’t it?
Benjamin looked down at her with his black eyes.
Like a thick-scaled snake flicking its tongue coldly.
“Just ignore it.”
Charlophe said reluctantly.
“I just said it out loud.”
Meeting her ex-husband must have scratched at something inside her.
“Charl.”
Benjamin tidied her hair.
“You should go down now.”
He glanced toward the door of the rooftop room and clicked his tongue.
“Aster’s coming.”
“Great-uncle? Is he downstairs?”
“I feel someone coming up the stairs. It’s Aster.”
The creaking sound of the stairs grew closer.
Charlophe smoothed her wind-tousled hair with her hand.
Benjamin pulled her hair out from under the blanket.
“Go.”
Charlophe left, only handing him the wine.
“Finish it and clean up yourself.”
As she went down from the rooftop, a light shone from below.
Aster was coming up.
“Great-uncle, you’re still awake?”
“You’re coming down from there?”
Aster sighed when he saw her.
“Who were you with?”
“With His Highness the Crown Prince.”
It felt like he already knew.
“Ah… up there? I see. Charl, aren’t you cold dressed like that? Cover up more with a blanket—ah… no, never mind. This is your house. You should be comfortable. Guests should be the careful ones, not the homeowner. Forget it.”
His hurried words spilled out without pause.
Her maternal relatives were especially cautious around Charlophe.
That careful gaze still lingered.
“I was being thoughtless. It’s cold, so dress warmly.”
“Why don’t you ask?”
“Ask what?”
“What we talked about up there.”
“Did you talk about something serious? Have things gotten that serious? I’m not interrogating you—I’m just curious.”
By now he could’ve asked, but he was still being cautious.
That, too, must have come from guilt that began with someone’s death.
“We just exchanged greetings.”
After hesitating, Charlophe held out her arm.
“It’s dark. Please walk me to my room.”
Aster glanced up at the rooftop once, then took her arm.
“You’re all grown up—what’s with acting cute now?”
He grumbled, but walked without hesitation.
Only after reaching her bedroom did Charlophe find herself alone.
Mom, it feels like my future is changing little by little.
You’re not there, though.
“Is it true you brought up engagement with His Highness?”
Leandro called Charlophe and asked.
He heard about it less than a day after I said it?
“Yes. I brought it up.”
“I know you’ve grown closer to His Highness. I know you’re close in age, and seeing you get along reassured me. But still… that doesn’t mean you’re at a stage to talk about engagement directly.”
Leandro carried a heavy presence.
As the head of the family, it couldn’t be light.
“Give me a reason I can accept.”
He looked at Charlophe quietly.
“I know you’re not a child who does things without reason. Tell me. It can’t be just because you felt like it—I want to hear it from you.”
He had grasped his granddaughter in a short time.
His gaze wasn’t only on what was right in front of him.
You haven’t lived that long—
yet you wear the look of someone beaten by time itself.
Leandro felt a sense of dissonance in her.
There was a strange distance about her that was hard to explain for her age.
Her pale face was soaked in resentment, and her dark, sunken eyes watched them from a measured distance.
“What am I to do with you? I don’t know what to do with you. Cosette ended up like that…!”
What if you break too?
What if your life falls apart?
“I won’t break.”
Charlophe slowly moved her lips.
“Grandfather.”
At her low call, Leandro flinched visibly.
“I want to stand by his side.”
She lifted her gloom-soaked eyes.
“I’ve lost too much. With my own hands I covered my mother’s grave. With my own hands I dug it up. I took out her urn. I dug until my nails were torn, and holding that urn, I came to the Windsor family.”
“What… what did you say?”
She dug up her own mother’s grave and brought the urn.
With what heart did she stand here?
With what heart does she look like that now?
Leandro kicked the table.
“I took care of my mother, endured with everything I had. And what was left to me… was just her urn. In that house…! The only thing left to me was my own mother’s remains!”
People say death can’t be helped?
I watched my father disgrace my mother’s death,
and watched his mistress and bastard trample her grave.
And you ask me what more I’m supposed to endure?
“I have to stand by his side.”
If only to avenge my unjust past death, I must stand there—
and look down on them all.
“From the highest place.”
On their graves—
“I have to step on them and climb up.”
She pressed a hand to her chest and lifted her head.
“Is that a sufficient answer?”
Leandro closed his eyes and steadied his breathing.
“What do you trust about him? What made you throw yourself in like this?”
“He’s a strong man.”
“They say he’ll soon be deposed.”
“That’s fine.”
Not a trace of doubt. He will ascend the throne. And he will draw his sword.
“The tutor family disowned me. I have no parents now.”
“Charl, you—!”
“That’s a relief. My father won’t barge in over my engagement news.”
Even if the enraged father tried to claim his daughter, he no longer had the right.
“Are you… planning to stab your own father?”
Leandro was a veteran who had seen everything.
“You’ve looked far ahead.”
Charlophe smiled faintly.
“My father once told me—he’d done all he could, so I should find my own way to live.”
“That bastard, with that mouth…!”
“Everyone finds their own way. His circumstances are none of my concern.”
Where did this malice begin?
Where?
Ah—was it when that damned father told my mother to die?
No. Not even then.
It was at my own death.
‘So the mother and daughter die like dogs side by side. My condolences.’
Mogens. You said it yourself.
You called that death a dog’s death.
“I won’t make the same mistake twice.”
Charlophe cast her gaze into empty space.
Charlophe walked through the dark corridor.
A shadow fell, and she stopped.
“Were you eavesdropping?”
The presence behind her loomed close.
There was no need to turn—Benjamin was already near.
“I was curious what you’d say.”
“So?”
“It’s true that I might be deposed.”
He repeated it, in case she’d brushed it off.
“I’ve heard that too. If you become a deposed crown prince, I’ll be deposed as well.”
“And if we die then, that would be a dog’s death too.”
Charlophe laughed.
“Then that’s as far as my life goes.”
That didn’t mean she’d give it up easily.
You will climb to the highest place. I lived through that once.
“There’s no road left to run away on, either.”
Benjamin cupped her cheek.
“Will you have no regrets, going on like this?”
“No need to worry about me.”
She smiled softly.
Benjamin wore a clouded smile as well.
The tyrant of a past life.
You will ascend the throne.
Bite and tear everyone apart, seize it yourself, purge enemies and opposition, and swing your sword from the highest place.
“Bite and take it.”
There is only one thing she wants.
‘End it nicely?’
Who would that be nice for?
