Don't Keep a Dog in the Garden - Chapter 1

1. The Hunting Dog and the Golden Dawn

The dim candlelight barely pushed back the darkness in the underground interrogation chamber of the Inspection Bureau.

Grand Duke Cassia Hestian Diorent, counted among the most noble of the Fedemillon Empire, had been locked in there for two hours already.

Her night-colored hair fell long, covering half her face, as she sat still, waiting for the next step in this night that had yet to end.

As the dripping wax silently built up unease, at last, sounds of movement came from outside the door.

“You’ve waited long, Your Grace.”

When she saw the man who entered with an easygoing greeting, Cassia let out a hollow laugh.

She had been prepared since being dragged into the Inspection Bureau, but the fact that he had truly come meant the Emperor had already made his decision.

“Sending you must mean His Majesty has finally decided to kill me.”

At Cassia’s self-mocking words, the man smiled with his eyes and sat in the chair placed across from her.

His blood-red eyes, which contrasted with a face so pale it seemed almost white, fixed on her like a beast eyeing its prey.

Perhaps it was because of that gaze.

Though his face was smiling brightly, the chill radiating from him was close to murderous intent.

“Your Grace, as long as I live, no one can kill you.”

At his words, Cassia let out another hollow laugh.

For a very long time, she had been convinced that if anyone were to kill her, it would be this dangerous man laughing before her eyes.

Whisker Mastiff, Duke and head of the Inspection Bureau.

More famous than his name was his moniker: the Emperor’s Hunting Dog.

For the past six years, everyone who fell out of the Emperor’s favor had died by his hand.

Assassination, schemes, slander, manipulation, false charges.

If all of his accomplishments, unrecorded in history, were listed out, the Empire’s history would have to be rewritten.

The one called the dog the Emperor cherished more than his own children added, his eyes seditious, “Even the Emperor himself, if it came to that.”

After uttering such a dangerously reckless remark, Whisker beamed.

Whether sincerity existed in him or not was unclear, but what burned in those red eyes was either passion or treachery.

Cassia sighed as she faced that dangerously beautiful smile.

“So the rumors that His Majesty’s hunting dog has gone mad were true.”

“Perhaps that’s why he doesn’t call on me as often these days.”

Whisker chuckled as if he had heard some amusing joke.

Rumors had long spread that the Emperor’s relationship with Whisker, the illegitimate son who had been granted even the title of duke and showered with favor, was not what it once was.

Lately, talk had even surfaced that the Emperor was planning to discard him once he had outlived his usefulness.

That was always the fate of a used-up piece.

And it was also an open secret that the rift between the Emperor and Whisker was because of Cassia.

Cassia lowered her gaze to avoid those red eyes.

Her black lashes cast long shadows on her pale cheeks, while Whisker’s Adam’s apple rose and fell sharply.

Lifting the corners of his mouth higher, he asked with a smile so innocent it almost seemed childlike, “I may soon become a stray dog. Won’t you pick me up?”

“I have no hobby of keeping beasts.”

When Cassia cut him off coldly, Whisker whined with a hurt expression.

“You wound me. You wouldn’t even take me in when I tried to get a job.”

“Do you think a chef or a gardener suits you?”

“I’m confident I’d do well. I handle blades rather well, you see.”

Even at her incredulous question, Whisker replied shamelessly.

She couldn’t tell if he was joking or serious.

Last year, he had suddenly come saying he wanted to become the Grand Duke’s chef, and earlier this year, he even applied when there was a recruitment for gardeners.

She clearly remembered her butler running to her pale-faced after finding him among the applicants.

“So the head of the Empire’s Inspection Bureau has so much free time?”

Whisker shrugged as he said, “These days, I do. I’ve killed so many that there’s no one left worth killing.”

Indeed, he had killed countless people.

Cassia, who knew better than anyone how effective his work had been, couldn’t even laugh hollowly this time.

Her golden eyes flashed coldly as she glared at him.

“One must still remain, mustn’t there?”

In the Fedemillon Empire, the person the Emperor most wanted dead was none other than Grand Duke Cassia Diorent.

Third-generation descendant of the great Emperor Slayden, and the sole direct heir of the Golden Dawn.

A legitimate successor whose very existence threatened the throne.

Grand Duke, fourth in line for succession, enjoying overwhelming support from the people of the Empire.

Cassia was a thorn in the Emperor’s side, but he could not touch the blood of the Golden Dawn due to public sentiment, so he had restrained her by other means.

Whisker had spent the last six years eliminating every noble who tried to align themselves with House Diorent, cutting off all her support.

But it seemed the Emperor was no longer satisfied with that alone.

So at last, has my turn come?

In the interrogation chamber beneath the Inspection Bureau, from which no one had ever emerged alive, Cassia swallowed a sigh as she glared at Whisker.

Whisker held her gaze for a long moment, then lifted only the right corner of his mouth into a strange smile.

“One does remain.”

His answer was as strange as his smile.

He looked at her with those red eyes that seemed to pierce straight into the skin, and let out words that sounded half like lament and half like admiration.

“It took ten years. Until we could face each other like this again.”

Was it so?

By the count of years, it had indeed been that long since the two of them had faced each other alone in a space like this.

In a voice unusually wistful for him, Whisker added, “You haven’t changed at all.”

Impossible.

Too many things that should never have happened had swept over Cassia and Whisker during those ten years.

Remembering the red eyes of the boy of sixteen, still burning hot back then, Cassia moved her dry lips and answered, “You have changed a lot.”

Whisker slightly raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes.

Then his lips curved into a beautiful arc.

Bowing his head to hide his expression, Whisker soon looked back at Cassia with an innocent smile, as though he could no longer hold it back.

He looked like a dog who had finally found its long-lost master.

No, that was wrong.

Cassia had never once been his master. She never would be.

Cassia turned away from that face smiling so sincerely, uncharacteristically for him.

Whisker, who had been staring at her profile for a long time, picked up the pen lying on the desk and opened his mouth. “It would be pleasant to spend the night reminiscing, but let us get to the main point.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the smile vanished from his face.

His expression shifted into that of the head of the Inspection Bureau, said to be without blood or tears, as he sharply questioned Cassia.

“Your Grace, did you kill His Highness, Prince Mesus?”

The candlelight flickered in his unreadable red eyes.

Tonight, was the one caught in the trap the murdered Mesus, or was it herself?

Her lips moved a few times, her breathing steadied a few more.

Cassia searched Whisker’s expression and returned the question.

“What if I say I did not kill him?”

“Then we must quickly find the real culprit.”

“And if I did kill him?”

“Then we will create the real culprit.”

Whisker’s red eyes were chillingly serious.

Cassia looked at him with a dumbfounded expression, then narrowed her golden eyes, full of suspicion.

“That’s not the answer His Majesty desires, is it?”

Indeed.

What the Emperor wanted was not some culprit who had killed his son, but Cassia’s head.

A justification to sever it.

Cassia knew it, the dead Mesus knew it, perhaps everyone in the Fedemillon Empire knew it.

But Whisker chose not to know.

He had done enough as a dog. Was it not time to finally throw off the leash?

Whisker hardened his resolve, then suddenly let out a laugh.

As Cassia had said, if he were the Emperor, he would likely have already resolved to catch the hunting dog.

Letting the flowing laughter pass, Whisker shrugged. “He and I desire different things, so it cannot be helped.”

Just as the Emperor’s wishes were firm, so too were Whisker’s.

His languid gaze lingered around Cassia’s pale, slender neck.

The hungry red eyes climbed from her small lips and well-shaped nose to meet her golden eyes.

“So then… must I find the real culprit, or create one?”

His insincere red eyes were demanding the truth.

Cassia closed her eyes to escape Whisker’s persistent gaze.

And she recalled the hours before she had been dragged into the underground interrogation chamber of the Inspection Bureau.