19.

“It’s true the child is young, yet his sense for the sword is unusual. A talent inherited from his father, perhaps.”

Thud.

Lost for a moment in memories of the past, Estelle’s heart sank at Kaian’s sudden, sharp remark.

It was a line quietly questioning Aeir’s father.

‘Does he still think the child is his? But before leaving the palace, I even staged my monthly cycle…’

Before fleeing the palace, Estelle had cut her own thigh for several days to match the timing of her menstruation.

If there were no signs of it, people around her would have watched her closely — and that would surely have interfered with planning her escape unnoticed.

Obtaining another animal’s blood would have aroused suspicion from her attendant maids, and they were all the Duke’s people. To keep everything secret, it had been the best choice.

‘So I thought Kaian would drop his suspicion quickly.’

Troublesome.
Estelle forced herself to maintain a neutral expression.

“Mom! I wanna sleep together with the prince today — the three of us!”

“What?”

But Aeir’s sudden declaration made it impossible to keep her composure.

At the shocking statement, every gaze around them turned toward the trio. The curious looks from the other mothers picking up their children and the kindergarten teachers were almost painful.

If this continued, by tomorrow a rumor might spread throughout the town that Aeir had gained a mysterious new father.

“Aeir, first of all, you shouldn’t casually call someone ‘prince.’ And it isn’t polite to invite someone you don’t even know the name of to sleep over like that.”

“Oh! I know his name! It’s… um… the prince’s name is…”

“Ian.”

As Aeir hesitated, Kaian cut in and stated his name.

Ian.
A nickname that, in childhood, had been permitted only to Estelle.

Though after they had become worse than strangers, even an accidental utterance of that name from Estelle would provoke extreme anger from him.

“Ian… uncle!”

After rolling his eyes in thought for a moment, Aeir seemed to settle on an appropriate title and spoke brightly.

The child’s innocent smile—unaware that the man he called uncle was his biological father—made Estelle’s chest ache. And for someone he had met only twice, Aeir treated Kaian with unusual familiarity.

‘If he grows attached carelessly, he’ll only get hurt.’

Steeling her wavering heart, Estelle met her son’s eyes again.

“Aeir, also… when you’re grown up, people of different genders only share a bedroom if they’re married. So this… you can’t do that.”

Unable to bring herself to say the name Ian, Estelle faltered as she gently corrected him.

“Then! You and Uncle Ian can just get married! Marriage!”

“Aeir! That’s even more not allowed!”

“Whyyy?”

The conversation with the child, begun only to quiet the rumors, instead stirred up an uncontrollable uproar.

In the end, Estelle had no choice but to hurriedly take Aeir away before things escalated further.

***

‘…How did this turn out like this?’

Inside the carriage heading home, Estelle looked toward the opposite seat with a troubled mind.

Normally only Estelle and Aeir rode in the carriage, but today Kaian was sitting with them.
Aeir had clung to him, crying and begging not to be separated.

‘To think Kaian would personally come along to calm him… He used to find children nothing but troublesome. Why is he acting like this? Don’t tell me he still hasn’t given up thinking Aeir is his child?’

Unaware of Estelle’s thoughts, Aeir had just fallen asleep with his head resting on Kaian’s lap. His eyes were still puffy from how bitterly he had cried earlier.

‘He’s never thrown a tantrum like this before.’

Though still young, Aeir was naturally calmer than children his age, and when something displeased him, he would clearly express his thoughts rather than simply cry.

But this time was completely different.

Even now, exhausted from crying and asleep, he clutched tightly at Kaian’s clothes with both hands, as if afraid to let go.

‘Of all things, to react like this over Kaian… Don’t tell me he recognized his dad…?’

A sharp ache spread deep in Estelle’s chest.
If Aeir hadn’t liked Kaian, that would be one thing—but seeing him cling so desperately made guilt surge within her, as though she had taken his father away.

“He’s asleep.”

At that moment, Kaian, who had been watching the child, spoke quietly.

“You settled in this town four years ago, didn’t you?”

“……”

“And since then, the child’s father hasn’t been by your side.”

‘So he finished his background investigation after all.’

Just as Estelle expected.

The expression he wore now—far more serious than when Aeir was awake—was exactly the Emperor Kaian she had once known.

‘You always made that face when you were aiming for something. This time… is it the heir?’

Estelle intended to escape somewhere beyond Kaian’s reach with Aeir, no matter what. Even if they returned to the palace, before long both she and Aeir would be abandoned again.

‘So no matter what you say now, I won’t follow you. No mother would submit to a fate she knows will hurt her child.’

Meeting Kaian’s gaze directly, Estelle searched for a way to counter him.

“Was it difficult?”

‘What?’

But Kaian added a completely unexpected question.

“Raising a child alone. It couldn’t have been easy.”

Despite the faint crease between his brows, as if displeased, his tone carried a subtle caution.

It wasn’t gentle—but compared to the cold, sarcastic hostility he had shown her at every moment since the Lake Shavennen incident, the difference in warmth was unmistakable.

‘Why is he asking that? …Or rather, does he still not fully recognize me?’

Having grasped a clue about the current situation, Estelle composed a calm expression and spoke.

“Raising a child is never easy for anyone.”

“I see.”

“But even if I could go back, I would make the same choice. The moment I met my child, I learned a joy and happiness on a completely different level from before.”

Raising a child alone outside the palace had certainly been difficult.

Yet it was nowhere near as miserable as her first life, when she had lost her precious child while trapped between Duke Astria’s pressure, Kaian’s open hatred, and her duties as Empress.

So even if her life now was modest, she did not regret this choice—one that allowed hope to save her child.

“Happiness? You mean you’re happier now than before the child was born?”

“Yes. To a degree that cannot even be compared.”

“What?”

It lasted only an instant, but the cold, impassive look in Kaian’s eyes wavered softly.

“…Or perhaps you don’t remember your previous life?”

Yet soon his gaze sharpened again, thick with suspicion.

“Have you ever been to the Oblia Valley?”

‘Does he really think there’s something wrong with my memory?’

It was exactly what she had intended when she first pretended not to recognize him.

‘If he believed I’d lost my memories or they’d been tampered with, I thought he would simply look away from this ill-fated tie without trying to correct it.’

However, Kaian’s reaction subtly diverged from her expectations.

“I’m asking how you can live so comfortably alone after forgetting all those sins.”

At last, anger and resentment spilled over his cold voice.

“Answer me!”

And Estelle realized it instinctively — he would never willingly let this ill-fated bond go.

***

Meanwhile, Kaian could no longer suppress the storm of emotions surging through him.

“Was it hard?”

Though he did not know the details of what women who carried children went through, he understood at least that it was not something one could endure alone.

For instance — feeling nauseous as if standing upon a storm-tossed ship every single day, limbs tingling, the body growing heavier until even a simple walk in the garden became difficult in the final months.

He faintly remembered nobles at banquets speaking of such things while their wives were pregnant.

“Raising a child alone. It couldn’t have been easy.”

As Kaian watched Estelle’s reaction, guilt unconsciously seeped into his gaze.

Of course, harboring such feelings toward the woman who had killed his mother was itself a grave moral transgression. But this was merely the bare minimum conscience born from leaving a woman — one who might have carried his child — alone.

No… it had to be.