I Faked a Pregnancy, but My Husband Returned - Chapter 105

In any case, learning news from the Empire was important.

Even if the Emperor was alive, it didn’t seem likely he would investigate the assistant of a foreign doctor too closely.

‘Physically, it’s impossible for me to get to that kingdom.’

The kingdom was extremely far from here, and there were barbarians along the way. No one would believe a woman traveled alone and arrived there in such a short time.

<I want to go.>

Judith spoke with a sparkle in her eyes.

<Wouldn’t it put your mind more at ease to take me along, Castin, rather than leaving me behind?>

<I’m worried it might be dangerous…>

Castin lowered her gaze and placed a hand on Judith’s belly. She sighed deeply and murmured,

<The problem is, I’ve got a good instinct.>

<Instinct?>

<Yeah. Something’s… telling me I have to go. With you.>

If it was Castin’s instinct, it couldn’t be ignored. After all, she was a member of the Oilte tribe, even if from a collateral branch.

And Judith agreed right away.

<Honestly, I feel the same way.>

Judith, who was often said to carry the atmosphere of the Oilte tribe, grinned as she spoke.

<For some reason, I feel like I must go. It’s a bit strange, but still.>

It was an impulse she couldn’t explain with logic. Much like when she had gone to the Shrine of the Last Priestess without any real plan.

She hadn’t felt this way before, but perhaps due to the pregnancy, she found herself driven by impulses that couldn’t be explained rationally.

<Well, if both of our instincts say so…>

Castin smiled gently.

<Then I’ll send word through Setan! I’ll tell them I’m going to Arten with my assistant—my niece.>

Then she began moving busily to gather all the herbs in the house.

Judith, nodding firmly, got up and followed her to help.

Just in case, she planned to cut her hair short and wear the glasses from Castin’s house.

***

Late at night.

Ekian stood in front of the Shrine of the Last Priestess, gasping for breath.

The shrine remained in the same ruins as when he last visited it with Judith. No one had dared to touch the place.

Of course, Judith was not there.

At the same time, the fear he had felt when the shrine had roared to life washed over him once more.

“…Did you protect Judith?”

He murmured in a cracked voice.

His face was haggard from days of sleeplessness, and only his eyes shone with an eerie glow.

“To think I couldn’t understand your warning… I was a fool.”

The hallucinations and voices he had casually dismissed. He had thought they were nothing more than delusions stemming from his obsession and anxiety.

Until now, he had never once called the Last Priestess ‘Mother.’ Not even in his heart.

To him, Isabella was always his mother. The Last Priestess, who had conceived him in misery and given birth to him as if cursed, was someone he had only harbored resentment for.

“Please…”

He muttered in a hoarse voice and staggered toward the center of the shrine.

“Let me see my child and Judith again…”

Ekian could say no more. The thought that he might not be able to see them made his chest tighten and his vision blur.

A wave of anxiety surged over him.

Was all of this a dream? Could he really believe Judith’s words? Or had she been deceived by the Last Priestess? Could it be that his birth mother had cursed him to steal Judith and the child away from him?

As suspicion clouded everything around him, Ekian came to a realization.

Judith must have felt the same.

She too must have been unable to trust anything.

Especially with a child inside her, how anxious must she have been?

And yet, knowing all that, Judith had still come here—so Ekian had no choice but to come here too.

He had arrived at the last place Judith had visited, but now he had no idea where to go next. At that moment, under the moonlight, the portrait of the Last Priestess came into view.

The face etched onto the faded portrait resembled Ekian in an uncanny way. Beautiful, cold, and with eyes that looked somehow hollow.

Unknowingly, Ekian approached the portrait. He knew it was just a painting, but he couldn’t stop his feet from moving as if drawn by a spell.

Even as he stood in front of the portrait of the Last Priestess, nothing happened.

But beneath the image of her face…

In the lower left corner, where one might expect the artist’s signature, a line of text was written.

[Bas Keldis Hgowisle]

It was in the ancient tongue.

Fortunately, Ekian, a noble who had learned the language, could understand its meaning.

Bas means future, Keldis means nest, and Hgowisle is a command—to prepare.

If translated…

“Prepare a nest for the future?”

A strange certainty welled up inside him. He felt this phrase had been left by the Last Priestess for him.

A nest for the future.

The nest Alteion had promised him was Arten—the territory he had turned into a land without a master by destroying the Emperor and the local lord.

“Ha, haha…”

Ekian let out a bitter laugh, clutching his forehead.

It was only after standing before the Shrine of the Last Priestess that it truly sank in—he had brought down his own father.

He had fulfilled the prophecy, killed his father, and was now preparing to begin anew on that land.

Even though he had murdered his own father, he didn’t feel the slightest guilt, which surprised even himself. And now, reading this message, he wondered if perhaps he had simply followed fate.

When the Emperor committed repeated atrocities and defiled the Last Priestess, the curse directed at the Emperor had begun with his conception.

And now, to call that place a nest.

To use such a warm word for the land where he had killed his father—if the Last Priestess had planned even that far ahead and left this message, then her resolve was truly remarkable.

It seemed Ekian’s strong spirit had come from his birth mother.

But if Judith was there in that so-called nest, then it wouldn’t feel like a cruel joke at all. That in itself was astonishing.

If he were preparing that nest, did that mean Judith would come to him?

“Ah…”

A cracked voice escaped his chapped lips.

Judith had always waited for him. She never had a way to contact the master of the Grey Information Guild. All she could do was wait for him to come to her room in the ducal residence each night.

Now it was his turn to wait for her.

“…Mother.”

The word that left his lips—“Mother”—was a plea, a hope that she would look upon him as her son and guide him with love.

Ekian reached out his large hand and gently lifted the portrait.

The portrait that no one had been able to lift from the ruins came away easily in his grasp, as if it were just an ordinary painting.

“I understand.”

He spoke quietly.

His cold, red eyes shimmered under the pale light of the moon.

Though his heart felt aflame, though his chest pounded and he was on the verge of losing his mind from exhaustion, if it was a journey to find her, he couldn’t stop.

***

The next morning.

“Today, I wish to introduce the younger brother I’ve kept hidden.”

At the morning assembly, Alteion dropped a bombshell.

With the Emperor missing, Alteion, the Crown Prince and first in line to the throne, had already seized control.

Some imperialist nobles cried out, asking what he would do if the Emperor returned, but Alteion had shed his usual timid demeanor and taken a firm stance on every issue.

Announcing the existence of a hidden member of the imperial family so suddenly was no exception.

“I personally confirmed under the moonlight that he carries the blood of the imperial family.”

Even as the other nobles recoiled in shock, Alteion showed no signs of stopping.

“The Duke of Mayus, who had adopted him, has also confirmed the truth.”