Your Regrets Are Late - Chapter 45

“It’s really worth it for me to live in hiding like a rat, hiding a breath that might stop at any moment.”

 

After saying that, Iris left Charelize. Charelize struggled to keep her eyes from closing.

 

“Arensis! Don’t you know who Queen Bertez is?”

 

“I will listen to your nagging later, Sister.”

 

“She became the queen due to the king’s favor, but she’s a woman who overcame the bloodline and made her daughter the successor.”

 

“Where… did she go…”

 

“I mean the one who backs her and how she thinks aren’t normal… How could you have committed such rudeness!”

 

Princess Casilla lashed out at Arensis for postponing his meeting with such a key figure.

 

“Your Royal Highness? Is something wrong?”

 

“I have an urgent matter, so I think I have to go first.”

 

“Won’t you regret it?”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“Ha. I need to think a little more about the engagement between you and my daughter.”

 

Arensis, who was with Queen Bertez, stopped their conversation and was looking for Charelize when he came out. He wasn’t listening at all to Princess Casilla, who was following him.

 

“I managed to stop you from saying that you want to postpone the marriage talk with her daughter, but you’ve been looking for someone since a while ago, so I couldn’t understand…”

 

“Charelize!”

 

It was at the time when Princess Casilla, who was deeply angry at Arensis’ attitude, continued to scold him. Suddenly, he called out the name of the little duchess, and Casilla hurried after him.

 

“…little Duchess?”

 

Charelize held against the wall, gasping for breath.

 

“Charelize.”

 

Arensis always used honorifics for everyone. Therefore, Princess Casilla could see how he had lost his mind right now.

 

“Fi-First of all, people…”

 

“No… don’t… call… anyone… please.”

 

Charelize was flustered, so she was about to get up in a hurry. She then grabbed the hem of Princess Casilla’s dress.

 

“…sis.”

 

“…”

 

“Arensis! Get yourself together!”

 

“…Sister?”

 

Not knowing what to do, Arensis was perplexed and heard nothing in his ears. Princess Casilla called his name.

 

“Lize, Lize is….”

 

“For now, let’s move to the break room we were assigned to.”

 

Arensis, who barely came to his senses, checked the condition of Charelize.

 

“Charelize.”

 

“Your… Royal… Highness…”

 

Seeing her still responding to him, Arensis hugged her. Because she sounded so weak, he furrowed his brow. However, he couldn’t waste time anymore.

 

“Sister, please call for Barson.”

 

“…yes.”

 

Arensis quickly entered the break room and told Princess Casilla to call the doctor.

 

“…”

 

“Barson is Sister Casilla’s man, so you don’t have to worry.” Arensis opened his mouth to tell Charelize, who was staring at him, not to worry.

 

“Why… are you… going… this far…”

 

“This time I can’t live alone again without you.”

 

“This…  time?”

 

“So, endure it. No matter what happens… I must not let that happen.”

 

“Your Royal Highness, let me take a look at her for a moment.”

 

“She has an allergy to grapes. Could it be because of that?”

 

“It’s not. She must have been poisoned.”

 

“Poisoned?”

 

“Yes. It wasn’t known to the public, but it seems like someone made the poison themselves.”

 

“What about the cure?”

 

“…I apologize, Your Royal Highness. If we treat her in a situation where we don’t even know what poison it is, she could get worse…”

 

“Are you telling me to just watch her dying like this?”

 

After that, Charelize’s eyes were closed. What Charelize remembered was that Arensis knew she has allergic to grapes.

 

* * *

 

“Scram. What is happening today should never be talked about.”

 

“Yes, yes, Your Royal Highness.”

 

Barson left, and Arensis took Charelize’s hand.

 

“I thought it was strange that you suddenly became quiet. However, your temper doesn’t seem to be getting better day by day.”

 

Princess Casilla, who came in after seeing the restless Barson outside, clicked her tongue and said that.

 

“…My purpose is to protect Lize, and nothing is more important.”

 

“If you were simply the youngest prince, that would have been okay.”

 

“…”

 

“With that kind of attitude, can you kill Your Majesty Father and take the throne?”

 

“…”

 

“You. What did you do with the little Duchess…?”

 

At that moment, Charelize’s body, touched by Arensis’s hand, began to glow brightly.

 

“Didn’t I tell you not to use that power for the time being?”

 

Before long, Charelize’s face gradually turned normal. Her breathing was also changing steadily.

 

“Sister… Can you do it?”

 

“What?”

 

“Sister told me that it’s okay to live. The breath I take is not a sin…”

 

“…”

 

“However, not loving the person… who was first in every moment of me.”

 

“…”

 

“I can’t do that.”

 

“…”

 

“No, I don’t want to do that.”

 

* * *

 

7 years ago. That day was one day from his 10th birthday.

 

Accused of being a witch by the people of the empire, his mother was imprisoned.  She was accused of causing the deaths of Empress Sione and Prince Edenberg by using wicked magic.

 

That way, he ran straight to the emperor, wept, and said that his mother couldn’t be a witch. He cried and hung on to him, asking only for her life to be spared, even if the price was that he wouldn’t be acknowledged as a prince or driven out of the imperial palace.

 

The emperor said it was just an act taken for a short time to deceive people. As usual, his father’s hand stroking his hair was warm.

 

However, the next morning, just like always, what happened to the witch. Her mother’s punishment was decided to be burned at stake.

 

“You must not go, Your Royal Highness!”

 

He tried to ignore the voice of the maid holding him back. Arensis just ran like crazy at the thought of saving his mother. Finally, he got to the place where her mother was.

 

“Mother!”

 

His mother, who was drooping and unconscious, was tied up.

 

“Your Royal Highness, you must not be here.”

 

“Go back to the palace.”

 

It was funny. He was coming to his mother, but why were they blocking him? Why did everyone keep saying for him to go back?

 

“Let me go right now!”

 

No matter how much he screamed, it didn’t work.

 

“Baby.”

 

“M-Mother…”

 

It was then, when he heard his mother’s voice calling for him, he answered, wiping his tears.

 

“I left the cake in the kitchen. Actually, I was going to light a candle at midnight…”

 

“…”

 

“Still, Baby.”

 

“…”

 

“You are my world, my everything. The existence that made this mother, who was abandoned by her family, able to live.”

 

“…Mom.”

 

“My dear baby, happy birthday in advance.”

 

“Let my mother go! T-There must have been some mistake… Hurry up and bring His Majesty Father…”

 

He had a feeling that if it continued like this, he would never see my mother again.

 

“This is what His Majesty ordered.”

 

“…What?”

 

“We are only following the emperor’s command, so please leave.”

 

When he grabbed someone and begged, the knight sighed in embarrassment.

 

It was what the emperor ordered? His whole body lost strength. It can’t be. That can’t be true.

 

“Hurry up… and bring His Royal Highness to the palace.”

 

“Let go of me! If you drag me, I will kill you!”

 

However, he couldn’t defeat the knight with a sturdy physique. The moment he tried to escape somehow, he felt a dull pain at his neck, which caused him to faint.

 

“This is…”

 

When he came to his senses, he was on the bed. Outside, heavy rain was constantly falling. The maid in a black robe lowered her head, unable to look him in the eyes.

 

“…what about my mother?”

 

“I’m sorry, Your Royal Highness…”

 

“What…?”

 

“Madam Arabella… already passed away.”

 

He couldn’t understand what she said about his mother’s death. When he woke up in the morning and went to the kitchen, it was only natural that his mother would be there preparing breakfast for him.

 

“Why?”

 

“Your Royal Highness…”

 

“Isn’t my mother in the kitchen?”

 

“From now on… you have to stay alert…”

 

He passed the maid and entered the kitchen. There was a cake that his mother made with her clumsy skills. It was an ugly cake with an uneven appearance of whipped cream.

 

He cut the cake with a knife and took a bite. Far from being sweet, it tasted salty.

 

“I can’t even eat it.”

 

“…I think I accidentally added something else instead of sugar.”

 

“Something else?”

 

“Yes. It must be salt…”

 

This year, just like last year, it seemed that she made it with salt, not sugar. He turned his head and looked around. In the kitchen, where his mother’s touch was still intact, the lid of a sugar jar was left open. It was written in her mother’s handwriting from the beginning to the end as if she had written down how to make the cake. He knew then. What he ate now wasn’t the cake made by his mother.

 

He felt a longing for not being able to see her anymore and a resentment for leaving him alone. He could no longer cry in his warm embrace like the day he was first born. He didn’t want to admit that it was his tears that shed little by little as his sorrow gathered. Then he complained that it tasted like salt.

 

“Madam Arabella told me to deliver it to His Royal Highness.”

 

“…”

 

“Come on… read it, Your Royal Highness.”

 

「To My beloved son.

 

I can’t believe you’re already 10 years old. Time seems to go by too fast.

 

You know, the first day I met you, it rained. I was happy because it seemed to wash away my worries you would have to worry about someday in your life.

 

Arensis, I hope you don’t become an adult too soon. You can still call me mom, but it seemed that you had grown up to call me mother now. So, please grow as slowly as possible.

 

Mom will always be by your side. Sometimes you can act childish, and you can run around without having to worry about anything. I love you, Baby. I really, really love you. Thank you for being born.

 

-A mother who loves you very much.」

 

She wrote a letter saying that she loved him more than anyone else. He learned that she had the most painful death, her whole body being burned until it became ashes. It was the worst pain a human could ever go through.

 

Even after her death, his mother didn’t leave her name. Marquis Dicelon, who registered his mother as his adoptive daughter and called himself as her father, mercilessly abandoned his mother. Nothing about her was being recorded properly. She was simply a maid belonging to Empress Sione’s palace, and people in the world called his mother like that. Without a name, they insulted his mother every last bit.

 

The children of nobles called him a monster even though they were kind in front of him. They whispered that he had a cursed bloodline left behind by a witch. Once, the parents of a child who had insulted him came to visit. On their knees, they begged him to spare their lives. After his mother, she hated seeing people dying. When the child’s father begged, Arensis sent him back without a word.

 

What he didn’t know at that time, he saw later in the mirror. His Majesty the Father. A mixture of contempt and fear crossed his face as he spoke those words. So, that was what threw him off. He went straight to his father and begged him that it was really a mistake, that he was wrong.

 

“I’m tired of having you on my lap now.”

 

The answer that came back made him feel like he wasn’t the father he knew.

 

The next day, his maid of honor died, and her body was mutilated. It was hard enough to even open his eyes and see that.