Episode 71: What Was Burned in the Fire

The morning when Alec joyfully lifted her up and spun her around upon learning of her pregnancy from her morning sickness. The noon when he personally cut down a tree behind their cabin.

Alec, proudly showing Brother Dallas the design, saying he would craft a crib for the baby. Lara, blushing beside him with a gentle smile. It all felt like a midsummer night’s dream.

A time so hazy and fleeting, as if it had never existed. A time that was warm yet unreal. Their love, which once seemed complete…

Was it when he was just about to hammer the nails into the crib? That was when his father passed away. Alec left for Travis, leaving the crib unfinished. It was completed seven months later. The first thing Elec did after becoming emperor was to finish Klaus’s crib.

At dawn, after completing the work, Alec woke her up and showed her the baby’s crib. Lara was amazed that he had remembered. She worried she might have burdened him, made him tired when he was already overwhelmed with state affairs. She gently stroked his hand.

“We’ll lay our son here.”

Alec smiled warmly and kissed her round, swollen belly. It felt just like the days of their honeymoon, living cozily in their small cabin in Laurant. She loved that. Maybe, she loved him more than the baby inside her at the time. But now…

“He was your child.”

Valerie had left nothing of Klaus’s belongings. If Lara hadn’t set this pair of shoes aside, they too would have been burned long ago.

---

Seeing the empty storage room, Lara went directly to the incinerator. The servant in charge of it seemed startled by the empress’s unexpected arrival. He hurriedly told her to return to the Empress’s Palace, promising he would search for whatever she sought and send it to her.

Lara ignored him. Even as Madame Rossyen tried to stop her, she searched through the ashes. And then, she found a half-burned piece of cloth.

“Your Majesty!”

The risk of lingering embers was real. Madame Rossyen, alarmed, tried to stop her. Lara numbly traced the charred remains of an infant’s garment.

Had it been torn apart before burning? The fastenings and sleeves lay in separate pieces. Her legs gave out.

“Your Majesty, please stand up. Your hands will get hurt…”

“They tore it.”

Lara murmured blankly. Her lifeless voice made Madame Rossyen bite her lip. She tried desperately to help Lara up.

But Lara pushed her away and walked to the back of the incinerator. Klaus’s crib had been hacked apart, unrecognizable, and thrown into the flames. She picked up a fragment of the splintered wood.

“How… How could they be this cruel?”

Beside her, Madame Rossyen covered her mouth in horror. It was easy to dismiss it all as nothing—an item never even used, not expensive enough to be of worth.

It was not crafted by a renowned artisan from rare, costly materials. So why should its destruction matter? But still…

“Klaus…”

It had belonged to her deceased child. Though never used, to Lara, it was his keepsake. It was the memory of their love, the proof of the days when they were happy—when their time together was not just a fleeting dream.

Lara clutched the remaining wood pieces close to her chest. What had happened? Why was this broken and discarded? Even seeing it, she could not believe it.

It was too cruel, like surviving a disaster. Her lips trembled as she slowly collapsed. It felt as if she were cradling the torn remains of a child. As if Klaus had died once more—this time at that woman’s hands. But she could not cry. She should have cried, but her emotions felt numb. She felt strangely frozen.

They say when someone is beaten too much, they grow numb to pain. The ache in her throat was suffocating. She stared at the shattered, scattered wood—just like her love, broken and abandoned.

The relics of her child, destroyed and burned by Valerie, looked no different from her love and marriage. The one who shattered that time, who ended it so cruelly, was none other than Valerie and her family.

“Let’s go, let’s go, Your Majesty.”

Rossyen, sobbing, embraced her. Lara staggered as she left the incinerator.

---

“What?”

Alec’s eyes widened at her words. Lara repeated them with an unreadable expression.

“He was your child.”

Alec, glaring at her as if wanting to wash out his ears, asked again. Seeing her faint smile, his face twisted as if he were about to cry.

“Do you even realize what you’re saying?”

“I do.”

“You’re calling that woman’s bastard my child.”

“Even if you hate it, he is your son. He has nothing to do with me, but he is made of your blood.”

“Rose.”

“You wanted him, didn’t you?”

Lara spoke resolutely. Her smile faded, her face hardening. Alec reached for her desperately. She avoided his hand. His face, once flushed with anger, now looked as though he would fall to his knees and beg.

“Even if he’s not my son, he is yours.”

“Don’t do this.”

“You and Valerie are married. That child was born without any stain. He is your son.”

“……”

“You saw it yourself. He resembles you. Even more than Loras does.”

“That child is not mine.”

Lara shook her head. Elec grabbed her shoulders and spoke again.

“Loras is my only son. Understand?”

“No. Loras is my son.”

Why would Loras be yours? Lara swallowed back the words. The carriage stopped. She brushed off his grip and stood.

Tears fell from Alec’s wild, glistening eyes. Lara pretended not to see as she stepped out.

---

“Lara.”

“It would have been better if you had loved Valerie.”

His weight, heavy above her, stilled. Lara looked up at him like a still-life painting.

‘A life that never came to be’—the future he once spoke of was always a source of pain for her. If it had been suffering for him, for her, it had been nothing but a pit filled with failure.

“…Don’t say that.”

“You suffered too. You were in pain too. Losing a child, of course, you would hurt. Seeing Loras so broken must have been difficult for you. I know it must have been hard, being married to those women and raising a child with them. Your wives…”

“Don’t. Don’t tie them to me with your name. Don’t lump them together with you!”

Alec shouted. Lara, unfazed, sat up. His presence slipped out of her. A warm wetness trickled down her thighs.

She reached for a towel on the dresser, but Alec was faster. He wiped her first. They cleaned themselves in silence. Usually, they would exchange soft kisses during moments like these, but Lara did not touch him.

As time passed, she no longer wanted to be near him. The path mirrored that of her past life.

Back then, too, it became harder and harder to be near him. His fingers, lips, gaze—she avoided all intentional contact, but accidental brushes were inevitable.

So she left the palace. She wanted to disappear from his sight, to live somewhere he would never see her again, raising only Loras.

“Let Lorens go.”

“Only if you promise not to get involved with him.”

Lara lifted her gaze. Alec did not back down.

“What was he to you?”

“I was seven. There was nothing between us.”

“But you remembered him. Even though you were only seven. You parted at seven, yet you still remember.”

“Just like with you. We only spoke a few words and shared some food.”

“Like me?”

Alec’s voice turned low with anger. Lara didn’t care. She would not hesitate to hurt him—he had never hesitated to break her.

“Yes. You and him are the same to me. I only pitied him, nothing more.”

Alec’s face hardened. Lara, staring at his darkening expression, turned away.

“Then you won’t mind if I take his life.”

She froze.