I Faked a Pregnancy, but My Husband Returned - Chapter 98

“Arten?”

Alteion’s eyes widened in surprise.

He could tell that something urgent had happened, especially since someone had come all the way to deliver it in person. Normally, letters addressed to him piled up in the Crown Prince’s palace.

“A letter, you say? Give it here.”

“Yes, Your Highness!”

The attendant, panting heavily, handed over a letter.

It contained a brief message from Ekian: [The mission is complete. I’ll return to the capital immediately.]

“Melanie.”

Alteion spoke, unable to hide the tremble in his eyes, “This really is good news. It’s something I’ve been truly waiting for, but…”

Melanie nodded, sensing Alteion’s conflicted feelings. She swallowed dryly and murmured the rest, “Why… why does this feel so terrifying?”

***

Because he’d borrowed the hands of barbarians, and because justification didn’t matter, Ekian found it surprisingly easier. Perhaps it even suited his talents, which had always developed in secret from a young age.

After the Lord of Arten and his close aides—who hadn’t anticipated Ekian’s presence—were killed, the barbarians easily took the castle. Unfamiliar with the layout, they looted wildly without order, while Ekian hid behind the rear gates of each castle. Through those back gates, the castle’s residents were fleeing in droves.

The people were frightened and surprised, but not in full panic.

That’s because barbarian raids weren’t rare. Usually, in such cases, military forces from nearby territories would come to assist, or the Lord of Arten—out on a distant campaign—would return and retake the castle. People knew to flee to the mountain behind the castle and wait it out for a day or two before returning home.

Losing their belongings to looting was unfortunate, but for those living near barbarian borders, this had become an unavoidable part of life.

It happened often enough that expressions of weariness covered their faces.

Ekian waited in hiding outside the rear gate. Everyone blended in as ordinary refugees.

‘There’s no way they’d think the Lord of Arten died in such a minor raid. They’ll assume he’s gone to attack the enemy base, and that this will all end in a day.’

Indeed, the scale of the raid was small. Not all of the barbarians had been mobilized. Still, all active forces had already left the castle.

So how would the emperor—who had been in the castle—act? The answer was clear. He would disguise himself as one of the refugees, head to the evacuation shelter, and stay in the safest area there. Naturally, Ekian didn’t know which part of the shelter was safest.

Which meant he would have to take him down on the way there.

“What should we do?”

A subordinate beside Ekian whispered.

“The emperor is likely guarded by a significant number of close aides. There are too many people… It’s going to be hard to identify him. And I bet he’s in disguise, maybe a wig or glasses, so we won’t be able to recognize him from afar.”

“Right.”

Ekian muttered under his breath. But that didn’t mean he had no options.

“Tell them to pretend it’s a raid and fire arrows. Just make sure no civilians get hurt, scatter the shots so they land in the trees on the opposite side.”

“Understood.”

About five of his subordinates dispersed after receiving Ekian’s command. Ekian waited calmly, eyes steady. Before long, the arrows began flying, each loosed in a different direction. Chaos erupted immediately.

“Aaaaah!”

“Barbarians!”

“Run! Arrows!”

As the crowd scattered in a panic, Ekian spotted a formation tightly surrounding someone. The pattern wouldn’t be obvious to normal eyes, but from above, with a keen gaze, it was clear that the formation was protecting someone.

‘Just one chance…’

Even so, the movement was large-scale enough that it was difficult to tell exactly whom they were protecting. Everyone’s face was hidden by wide hats, so it wasn’t easy to pick out the emperor. If he killed the wrong person, they’d be instantly overwhelmed due to their inferior numbers.

But if he succeeded in assassinating the emperor in one strike, the guards would fall into disarray with no one left to protect.

With sharp eyes, Ekian studied the emperor’s group, then lowered his body and rushed forward, throwing a dagger at a single target.

‘The one with the cleanest shoes.’

A person of the emperor’s status wouldn’t often walk muddy paths. So the one with the cleanest shoes was almost certainly the emperor.

***

Alteion and Ekian’s plan was as follows.

They decided it would be best not to disclose the exact date of the emperor’s assassination. The plan was to report him missing during the barbarian raid, discover his body much later, and naturally have Alteion ascend to the throne.

At the very least, Alteion thought they should announce the emperor’s death only after Ekian Mayus had returned to the capital. This way, they could weed out any remaining imperial loyalists—and more importantly, it would prevent suspicion that Ekian had killed the emperor. Given that the House of Mayus was a prominent anti-emperor noble family, Ekian’s absence could raise doubts.

And on a more personal level, Alteion didn’t want Ekian Mayus to be labeled an emperor-slayer, nor did he want to reveal too abruptly that Ekian was his younger brother.

The death of the man who had once ruled the empire came suddenly—and just as miserably.

The emperor’s aides were completely thrown off when a masked assailant suddenly attacked.

As soon as the signal flares for the emperor’s attack were fired, the barbarians began swarming from the rear gates, and the escape route descended further into chaos.

In the midst of that chaos, Ekian and his men quickly secured the fallen emperor.

“The emperor is already dead.”

Clad head to toe in a mask and robe, Ekian spoke in a low voice to the aides surrounding the emperor.

“If you scatter now, it’ll be your best chance at surviving.”

The emperor’s aides immediately understood what that meant. Staying to fight would mean risking their lives. Even if they survived, they’d be held responsible for failing to protect the emperor.

But if they scattered now, the story would change. The emperor couldn’t be brought back to life anyway, so fleeing now gave them a shot at saving themselves. Lacking any deep affection for the emperor, the aides scattered among the refugees like rats fleeing a sinking ship.

“See for yourself, Father.”

Ekian whispered quietly.

“No one ever truly followed you.”

There was no response from the emperor, already lifeless.

Ekian dumped the corpse on a remote mountain path—just as his father had ordered twenty years ago, telling others to kill and toss the newborn Ekian into the river.

“So Mother’s prophecy was right after all.”

Ekian spoke blankly, without any change in expression.

“But it was you who pushed things this far, Father.”

Truthfully, he didn’t even want to call him father. But in some way, only after the man’s death could he refer to him as such—fulfilling his birth mother’s curse.

Now, Alteion would announce the emperor’s disappearance in a few days, and only after the corpse was found would he officially declare his death and ascend to the throne. In the meantime, Ekian would reveal his imperial blood and become the Grand Duke of Arten.

He sprinkled anti-decomposition chemicals on the emperor’s corpse to confuse the date of death. The slower the body decayed, the stronger Ekian Mayus’s alibi would become.

Everything was over now. There was no longer anyone who could target Judith as the supposed weak link of the House of Mayus.