Adele broke down in tears.
Gravis’s fists trembled in shock knowing that what his brother had told him was true and that his mother had done nothing to stop it.
“You could not allow the blood of the bastard Lagarea to inherit the throne of this land, but if Gravis’s younger brother were a mixture of Francoure and Fanoren blood, and were to inherit the throne as my son, did you think that would solve everything?”
“No… I did not.”
The queen dowager’s face was pale. But her gaze never wavered from King Joachim.
“His Majesty King George no longer hid his madness in the palace by then… That man did not tamper only with my memory. It was because he knew I would not be able to tell anyone anything anyway.”
“Why… Why, Mother?! Why did you allow such an atrocious thing to continue?!” Gravis reproached his mother, at the same time blaming himself for never noticing any of it.
Finally, Adele screamed through sobs.
“It was because His Majesty told me that you were not needed! That you, the son I birthed, were a hindrance!”
“…What?”
“Why do you think I left you in Stolf’s care and sent you off to school…?! It was His Majesty who wanted to kill you. That’s why I wanted to put as much distance between you and the palace as possible—it was I who instructed them to give you a human shield at the academy.”
His head throbbed with pain.
The pain was so intense that Gravis’s face crumpled.
“I didn’t realize what had happened to Emilia until after she was pregnant. I did not approve of it tacitly or otherwise…!”
“Why…?”
“Why?! His Majesty King George told me: ‘I don’t need two proofs of friendship between Fanoren and Francoure. I have sowed my seed in Brigitte, and now in Emilia’… It was only then that I learned Emilia had been raped by His Majesty…!”
Hearing the queen’s confession, Joachim cocked his head in comprehension.
“I see. Our father thought he had fathered a child with my mother by raping me and impregnating my queen. He truly was a madman.”
But even Joachim, who spoke of his madness so matter-of-factly, already seemed to be losing his footing. His instability concerned Gravis.
“His Majesty doubted Joachim’s birth,” said the queen dowager. “If that is true, then…you are the only legitimate son of His Majesty, Gravis. But that man loathed me, and you, the son I birthed…! But many wanted you to succeed to the throne. So, in order to get you out of his way and to leave his own descendants in power, he set his eyes on Emilia…”
Every single thing, all of it—everything his brother and mother told him about the past bordered on insanity.
“If I had denounced His Majesty’s wrongdoing, that man would have taken my life with no concern for what Francoure might think. I was powerless to stop it. If I were gone, Gravis, there would be no one to protect you, and you were still so young… I only wanted to protect you, no matter the cost.”
A single tear trickled down from Gravis’s eye and fell onto his trembling fist.
Knowing the true anguish of his noble, cold mother, Gravis no longer felt anything but despair.
“Mother… Mother!”
“I suffered, too. I wanted to help Emilia…but what could I have said to her? Tell Emilia the truth, when she remembered nothing, and send her to hell? Tell her she was raped and impregnated by her father-in-law? That the child she held in her arms is the son of iniquity?”
“Don’t call Kyle the son of iniquity!”
“But it is true, Gravis! Both His Majesty and Kyle were born out of wedlock. They are not the rightful heirs to the throne.” Adele raised her voice. “Both Emilia and I are proud Francoure royalty. You want us to reveal that we have been humiliated twice by a Fanoren man? If I could have waged war on this continent, I would have done so long ago!”
“…Mother.”
“But we were sent to this country for the sake of peace on the continent. Then it was our duty to endure, as it was the duty of royalty to bring peace! If the rightful heir does not ascend the throne, then why… What have we been sacrificed to the royal family of this country for?!”
The roar of her soul.
The scream of the heart of a mother who had endured for so long, of a lonely woman who had been thought to be heartless and cruel, was laced through her words. Desperate solitude, and her love for Gravis.
Adele crumpled where she stood.
“…Forgive me. I was only trying to protect your life and your position…by staying silent… Gravis, I tried to protect you at all costs. I also wanted to place you on the throne and correct everything wrong with this country.”
Joachim asked Adele simply, “If I may ask, queen dowager, were you aware of what our father did to me?”
Adele looked at Joachim with her tear-stained face and shook her head. It could have meant anything.
“Emilia told me that you had not come to her bedchamber at all for several years…and I remembered His Majesty’s words, ‘I have sowed my seed in Brigitte, and now in Emilia’…”
Joachim offered a small smile of admiration.
“Oh? Our father’s incomprehensible rambling was enough to lead you to that conclusion. I suppose you have always been the Wise Queen.”
“No! Your Majesty… I—!!”
“Was that why? After the war, when Gravis declared that he would not succeed to the throne, you gave up so easily.”
Adele turned away.
“Was it out of pity for me? No, the country always came first for you; you carried no such pity for me. For even if he is a son of iniquity, Kyle has legitimate Fanoren blood, and the blood of Francoure also made it to this country through him.”
“Your Majesty…”
“Above all, you wanted to keep Gravis alive. You also tacitly approved of what I did to weaken our father in his final years… That way, he would no longer be able to hurt Gravis. So I was your compromise.”
Their father had abruptly grown weak. That was the reason Gravis had hardly been allowed to see him in the final years of his life.
Adele was silent.
Knowing that silence was answer enough, Gravis despaired once more.
Gravis staggered and dug his teeth into his trembling fist. Tears of anguish and regret burned his cheeks.
“…No…”
He couldn’t do this. It was all so much to take in all at once, even breathing hurt.
“Don’t cry, Gravis. I truly loved you once. I thought of you as my real brother.”
Gravis wanted to destroy the blood flowing through his veins, to erase his existence from the world entirely.
“In truth, I couldn’t care less about the throne,” Joachim said. “I always thought the crown should be yours, but I wanted to keep the crown for myself in order to fulfill my late mother’s wish. For that cause, I was willing to…let you die.”
Why did his half brother, who had been so kind to him when he was a child, turn away from him? Why had his half brother never said anything about the assassins?
All of those questions had finally been answered.
“The moment I wished for your death, I broke. I could not forgive the man who had raped my mother, my queen, and myself.”
“Brother…”
“I am not your brother. I am the son of that traitor and the woman whose affections were stolen by the king. I am the usurper of the throne, Gravis.”
“No, you are not!”
Joachim suddenly probed the entrance to the cell with something he had taken out of his sleeve. With a click, the door opened.
“Brother…what are you doing?!”
Joachim approached the old beast, whose mouth was still foaming with blood and screaming. Gravis couldn’t move.
“We don’t look alike. His eye color… Well, they’re gone, you can’t see them anymore. But my mother looked at me before she chose death and said ‘You look a lot like him. I’m glad.’”
“Ughhh… gghhhh…!”
“Every time you stood next to me on political business, I used to think that you would someday recognize me as your son. I always thought you would…but the years came and went, and here we are now.”