Chapter 43: The Reason He Was Abandoned

“What’s this girl doing here?!”

The man, gripping the neck of a child barely tall enough to reach his chest, glared menacingly down at Lara. What kind of courage it was, what kind of thoughts prompted her actions—truthfully, there were no thoughts at all. Her mind was blank.

“Stop it! Ugh! It hurts, I said! She hasn’t healed completely yet!”

Lara cried out, her voice trembling. The murmurs of the crowd surrounding them grew louder. Dallas, the investigator, rushed over belatedly. But instead of running back to her foster father, Lara struck the man’s thigh with her small fist.

“It’s not her fault she doesn’t have parents! It’s not like she wanted to become an orphan!”

She sobbed as she shouted. She was gasping for air as though someone were strangling her, furious and blocking the man with all her might. Realizing that Lara was the investigator’s daughter, the man faltered. In that moment, Alec, his nose bleeding, wiped it clean and swung his fist directly into the man’s face.

With a crack, the man fell backward. It was strength no one expected from such a scrawny child. As the man hit the ground with a thud, he shivered, wiping the blood dripping from his nose.

Enraged, his eyes bloodshot, he shoved Lara aside and charged forward. Dallas stepped in firmly to block him.

“Stop this.”

“Let me go, you damned investigator!”

“The one you’re facing is a child not even fifteen years old.”

“So what? Are you saying I have to let some worm like that beat me?!”

“An adult using violence against a child—”

Before Dallas could finish, the man shoved him to the ground. Lara cried out in alarm, “Dad!” and ran toward Dallas. The boy, however, stared coldly at the man, his gaze unwavering even as a fist was raised against him again.

It was at that moment a familiar voice rang out.

“Jack!”

Lara, still sniffling, turned her head toward the one who had stopped the man. It was the elder. He shook his head at the man called Jack, his expression tense and disapproving. Jack, upon seeing the elder’s irritated face, spat on the ground in frustration.

With the elder’s arrival, the murmuring crowd began to disperse. Lara sniffled as she helped her foster father to his feet. As always, the boy silently began to walk away, as though he had no connection to them. Not even a word of thanks.

Lara hated him again. He was pitiable yet infuriating, heartbreaking yet somehow captivating. He was strange. She wished she could just stop noticing him altogether. Then, perhaps, she could forget him. But he always lingered around her, just as she once lingered around him.

“Fine! Go! Don’t show your face around us again, you jerk!”

Lara shouted at him. He didn’t turn back. She collapsed into her father’s arms, sobbing uncontrollably. Dallas picked up a few silver coins that the boy had dropped. Those coins were the ones Dallas had given him before he left the church.

Dallas had told him to buy proper food—bread and milk from the village—rather than eating wild mushrooms or berries from the forest, given his still-healing body. But….

“What on earth happened here?”

Once Jack had disappeared and the crowd had mostly scattered, Dallas asked the bakery owner, still panting with frustration.

“Oh, well, that orphan boy tried to buy bread with stolen money, that’s what.”

“Stolen money?”

“Yes, stolen money.”

“And how exactly do you know the money he had was stolen?”

“Do you really need to dig into that? Just a few months ago, that boy was begging on the streets because he didn’t have a single coin. And now he suddenly has silver coins? Isn’t that strange? Nobody in this village would have hired him for errands!”

The man scowled and snapped, studying the investigator’s reaction before muttering again.

“Lately, things have been disappearing—money, goods—you name it. Everyone suspects that boy.”

“Ha.”

The investigator let out a sigh, his face a mixture of disbelief and exhaustion. The bakery owner, clearly annoyed by his expression, frowned.

“Am I wrong? How could an orphan with no parents, who’s never held an honest job in this village, suddenly come by silver coins? And Jack? Well, he’s furious because all the money he recently won gambling was stolen.”

“It seems some clarification is in order. Though you may find it hard to believe, the silver coins that boy had on him were given to him by me.”

“What?”

“Not long ago, when he stayed at our church, I handed him the coins and told him to buy proper food. I gave them to him—they weren’t stolen.”

“Oh….”

“Well then, I’ll be on my way.”

“Wait, I…”

The bakery owner hesitated, his lips twitching as if there was more he wanted to say. But the investigator had no intention of lingering any longer. He picked up his sobbing daughter and stood to leave, patting her back gently as he sighed.

---

The castle was empty. When he arrived, it was as though the furniture and everything inside had been deliberately discarded.

He hadn’t been alone at first. He never imagined they would abandon him. He had been complacent. Lazy.

He believed he could return. That, when the time was right, he would go back to Travis, to his imperial palace, and live as he had before, commanding his people.

After all, he was a prince. His exile was supposedly for recovery, a kind of banishment in disguise. But his title was never officially stripped from him, nor were the rights of his noble birth.

Unfortunately, his half-brothers lacked the grounds or power to formally deprive him of those rights.

Perhaps it would have been better if he had been officially disowned. If he’d been formally exiled, guards would have been assigned to watch over him, and his situation wouldn’t be as dire as it was now.

“Damn it.”

He muttered a curse, wiping his bloodied nose and trembling with suppressed rage. The humiliation was unbearable.

“That damned girl…”

Disgust. An uncontrollable anger welled up within him, though he was equally angry at himself for feeling this way. How could he, a grown man, be so enraged by a child barely seven or eight years old?

“Get a grip, Alec. She’s just a kid.”

His cracked, peeling lips moved as he whispered to himself. Returning to the bedroom—the only space where a bed and vanity had been left—he lay down. Hunger gnawed at him, a familiar sensation. He clutched his empty stomach and curled into himself.

Ever since meeting that girl, his misery had grown sharper, cutting deeper into his bones. And yet, his mind was filled with nothing but her small face. The far horizon. A pale blue hue. Round eyes, glistening like glass.

It was the pity in those eyes that twisted him.

That was what tormented him most. He thought hearing her cry would satisfy him, but it didn’t. Not entirely. Even in his dreams, her voice echoed, her drawn-out wails ringing in his ears.

Even as he stared at the deathly pale face of his late mother, that sobbing sound echoed in his ears. Even when he inwardly mocked Louvero’s contorted expression, the sound persisted.

Alec’s guts churned every day because of that crying. Anger boiled within him—at the fact that he had been cast aside. Rejected, pushed aside by a mere bastard child born of some nameless concubine whose origins were equally dubious.

It felt as if those piercingly blue eyes were confirming just how ridiculous his situation had become.

“Stop it! Sob… It hurts! I told you, she hasn’t fully recovered yet!”

The quivering voice, laced with sniffles, shattered in his ears. Alec buried his face in the pillow. The bitterness in his mouth mirrored the wretchedness of his feelings. He wanted to silence his stomach, which dared to demand food after only a few days of proper meals.

It was only natural for someone who had fallen to become a laughingstock. He’d spent two years living like a beggar—surely, he should have gotten used to it by now. And yet, Alec couldn’t believe it. Refused to accept it.

Because when he returned, truly returned, it couldn’t be as a beggar. He wouldn’t allow his half-brother to click his tongue in disdain at his state.

“Yes. I’ll go back.”

He would return. Surely, they hadn’t forgotten him. His uncle, Alereza, the others in the imperial palace—there were still many who remembered him. Many who wanted him back.

There were those who considered him easier to manipulate than his outspoken, quarrelsome half-brothers and hoped to elevate him to the throne. So, in his spare moments, he practiced swordsmanship and read books, reminding himself of his worth.

The humiliation, he believed, would end soon enough. Two years had passed. Yet Alec couldn’t understand what had gone so wrong. Was it because he hadn’t foreseen this when his father died?

He had always known that Louvero’s talk of exile as “recovery” was a facade. But he hadn’t expected this. He would rather have died than…

“Why me? Why…?”

Even as he starved, he still couldn’t believe it. Alec squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the hunger. Strangely, the more he brooded over that arrogant, impudent girl, the more the hunger seemed to subside. But before dawn, his eyes snapped open, and the gnawing emptiness in his stomach was unbearable.

It felt as if his insides would tear apart unless he ate something immediately. Rising, he stumbled out of the castle, his steps heavy and aimless.

His stomach was still far from healed, as the priest had warned. His insides burned, bile rose, and he felt as though his body was turning inside out. Half-mad with hunger, he staggered into the woods surrounding the castle, grabbing at gooseberries and redcurrants wherever he could find them. Eventually, his steps brought him to the chapel.

The chapel, where the newly appointed priest lived, was the closest building to the castle that belonged to the village.

Like someone possessed, Alec entered the chapel. The old, red door creaked, its rusted latch giving way after a few kicks. The chapel was eerily quiet in the predawn hours, so still it felt uninhabited.

He wandered through the worn furnishings before heading to the kitchen on the second floor. There, he found some stale bread and devoured it ravenously. He choked, coughing violently as he gulped it down. It was a pitiful sight—one that Louvero would surely have mocked while clutching his sides in laughter.

Alec was a prince. The legitimate son of the emperor and the only child of the empress.

In his later years, when illness confined the emperor to his bed, he had summoned his only legitimate son to his side, despite knowing it would incite the jealousy of Alec’s half-brothers. It wasn’t mere fatherly love that motivated him; it was a declaration of Alec’s unique place as the emperor’s heir.

Everyone knew why he favored Alec. Louvero, in contrast, had always desired the throne. But their father had no intention of passing it to him. Even on his deathbed, the emperor clung to his youngest son, leaving no doubt about his intentions.

Why not simply name Alec crown prince and exile Louvero to some distant border? But the emperor had always been cautious, even paranoid, especially as his health deteriorated and he felt his grip on power slipping.

That paranoia turned into fear. He must have realized that naming a crown prince would irrevocably shift the balance of power, something he could no longer control.

“And now, here I am.”

Among his siblings, Louvero was the strongest contender for the throne. Though illegitimate, he was the eldest and possessed a fiery temper, sharp wit, and a commanding presence. He had risen to power.

Louvero must have wanted Alec dead. Unable to find a legitimate reason to kill him, he had likely hoped for his death—whether from starvation or at the hands of ignorant, brutish commoners.

“Huh, hngh…”

If he had to die, Alec wanted to die as royalty. Louvero had no concept of respect for his rivals. That such a disgrace to the imperial family now sat on the throne as emperor made Alec’s whole body tremble with rage.

As he bit into the stale bread, he gagged, choking on the humiliation. The sight of himself sneaking into someone else’s home to scavenge scraps of bread, like a rat, was almost too much to bear. He wanted to bite his tongue in shame.

“Never forget what makes Your Highness truly royal,” Alereza’s calm, low voice echoed in his mind.