I Faked a Pregnancy, but My Husband Returned - Chapter 32

And Bart revealed a shocking truth.

“Ekian, you are not the biological child of the Mayus couple.”

“…What are you saying?”

At first, he did not believe it. However, because Bart was not someone to utter such baseless claims out of nowhere, Ekian refrained from telling the Duke and Duchess.

“I have always mixed a potion that changes your hair color into the tea I serve you.”

Every morning, Ekian drank the tea Bart prepared for him. Everyone in the Duke’s household drank tea customized to their individual constitutions by Bart.

“Stop drinking that tea. Then you will understand.”

A few days later, Ekian noticed black hair growing at the roots of his hair.

As despair consumed him, Bart handed him a medical journal. It was a record of Isabella’s health maintained by the former family physician.

In that journal, there was a gap of ten months—the year Ekian was born.

“The year you were born, the Duke and Duchess traveled to Barthe Island. It was originally planned to be a short three-night, four-day trip, but the Duchess did not return to the capital until two years later. She came back with a young Ekian, whom she claimed to have given birth to there. However, the ten months of her pregnancy are missing from the records. She claimed they were lost.”

Bart handed over another medical journal. This one recorded Ekian’s health starting from when he was two years old.

“Hm.”

Bart smirked.

“Your development was remarkably fast, wasn’t it?”

Ekian gasped for breath.

Bart, looking coldly at the visibly shaken Ekian, continued, “Madam discovered you as an abandoned baby on Barthe Island and decided to raise you as her own. Blonde hair is rare, so although the dye is expensive, they chose a harmless one and gave it to you constantly.”

“I… I… will ask them directly…”

“Then you’ll never fully uncover the truth, as you’re doing now.”

Bart’s tone was polite but cold.

“Ekian Mayus, you are… not simply an abandoned child picked up by the Duke and Duchess. You are of imperial blood.”

“…What?”

The seventeen-year-old Ekian was hit with an overwhelming shock as Bart continued.

“The imperial family blessed by the moon has a unique trait. When exposed to moonlight and they bleed…”

As if entranced, Ekian unknowingly drew a dagger.

If the moon’s blessing was a gift to the imperial family, he had some knowledge of it but had always thought it irrelevant to him.

Standing in the moonlight at the window, he cut his arm. Despite the deep gash, the wound healed instantly.

“You already knew, didn’t you?”

Ekian cut his arm again, then again, and again, making deeper cuts each time. No matter how deep the wound, it healed in an instant. By the time tears, not blood, began to fall, Bart spoke slowly.

“Please leave the Mayus estate.”

In the room, with just the two of them, Bart slowly knelt.

It was the day the world of seventeen-year-old Ekian crumbled.

“Young Master Karl Mayus is the rightful heir. I cannot allow the Mayus family to be consumed by imperial blood.”

“But I… I…”

“I am the only servant in this household aware of this truth. That’s because I need to make the dye. Understand that my loyalty to the Mayus family compels me to make this request.”

At the time, Ekian was a seventeen-year-old nobleman who had only ever lived within the confines of the estate.

He was terrified and shaken by the truth he had learned. However, he understood one thing: the position of Young Duke was not his. It belonged to Karl, the rightful heir of the Duke’s bloodline. Moreover, Karl, though young, was exceptional in many ways.

There was no reason Karl should not become the next duke.

If he told the Duke and Duchess everything, they would undoubtedly try to hold onto him. It was also obvious that Karl, who greatly adored Ekian, would not take the position of heir.

Thus, he left. He had no desire to go to the Emperor, whom he had always despised.

He simply hoped that five years later, he would be declared missing, and Karl would naturally assume the role of Young Duke. Though it would sadden the Duke and Duchess, he believed it was the right decision.

He wanted to die but found it too difficult, so he chose to live a completely different life.

Afterward, thanks to Judith, he survived. And it was through her that he came to know the full truth from Bart. Hence, on the night Bart was captured, Ekian visited the dungeon again.

“Let me tell you the truth. Because that will hurt you the most, Your Highness the Cursed Prince.”

Bart smiled as if he had been waiting, looking at the now-grown young man with black hair.

“The Emperor forced himself upon the last priestess, and you, Ekian, are the child born from that union.”

Bart had never been loyal to the Duke of Mayus.

“…The last priestess?”

“Yes. And after giving birth to you, she used her life to place a curse.”

There had been rumors about the disappearance of the last priestess, but Ekian had never imagined she was connected to him.

“A curse for the child to destroy its father.”

Ekian swallowed dryly. This was the first time he had heard anything about his birth mother. At seventeen, he had been so shocked to learn he was not a biological child that he had fled immediately. However, he had been curious about his real mother.

“She used her life to place this curse on you as a newborn. The Emperor ordered your death immediately, but the priestess used her last strength to leave a will: ‘Anyone who kills this child will also be cursed.’ In the end, the attendant, reluctant to kill the child, abandoned you at sea. You drifted to Barthe Island, where the Duke and Duchess of Mayus took you in.”

But that mother was already dead and had even cursed him.

“The Duke and Duchess are aware of all of this. However, their affection for you led them to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear. If you visit the shrine of the frozen time, you will see just how powerful the priestess’s spell was. In the end, you will bring about the downfall of your father, Duke Mayus.”

Bart laughed sinisterly.

“In the end, you cannot return.”

That was accurate. Ignoring the curse and living with his family, the Mayus, whom he cherished dearly, was unthinkable.

Though the curse might have been directed at his biological father, the Emperor, Ekian had spent seventeen years believing the Duke was his father. That belief had not changed even now.

If asked who his father was, he would answer without hesitation that it was the Duke of Mayus. Even at this moment.

“The Emperor knows as well. He traced the abandoned child and discovered it had entered the Mayus family.”

Bart smiled faintly and added, “And he pretends not to know. He expects you to bring ruin to the Mayus family, which you regard as your father’s.”

A moment of silence passed. Ekian already knew the Emperor was a despicable man, but realizing he was being used as a weapon made his very existence feel unbearable.

“Then why…”

Knowing the truth made it feel even more impossible to return here, where his beloved family and Judith resided.

“Why did you send me away five years ago? If you weren’t loyal to the Mayus family, wouldn’t it have been better for me to stay here as the Duke’s son and inherit the title?”

This was the question he had been most curious about since discovering Bart’s crimes.

Bart had cited loyalty to the Mayus family as the reason for sending Ekian away. But now that the premise was false, Ekian could not discern Bart’s true intentions.

“That is…”

What Bart said next was something Ekian could never have anticipated.