The Tyrant’s Beloved Doll - Chapter 69

Immediately after, there was a flurry of unfamiliar noises. The clanging of metal, something crashing to the ground, and the indistinguishable wails of many voices.

Setz instinctively looked at the Emperor. His violent coughing had suddenly stopped.

Gripping Setz’s arm tightly, he looked at her with a resolute expression.

“…Hide, Lilien.”

“W-What…?”

The Emperor pointed to the area behind the bed.

“Hurry…”

“Y-Your Majesty…”

“Behind there… I’ve prepared something…”

As the Emperor struggled to speak, another scream erupted from outside the door.

Setz stood up.

She moved behind the bed, hiding herself behind the curtains.

And then… the door creaked open.

Setz froze as she saw who the unexpected intruder was.

Drip. Drip. Drip…

The sound of blood droplets falling from the tip of a sword broke the silence.

Setz’s eyes filled with shock as she looked at Raytan, drenched in blood.

“Good evening, Your Majesty,” Raytan said, staring at the Emperor with a blank expression.

“…A very fine evening, indeed.”

Setz pressed her trembling hand over her mouth.

It felt like she was trapped in a nightmare.

A nightmare she never wanted to experience again.

“Ray…tan.”

A faint groan escaped the frail Emperor’s lips.

It was strange. Despite having mistaken Setz for Lilien moments ago, he recognized Raytan instantly.

And Setz quickly realized why.

“I always knew… you’d end up doing something like this.”

Even with his mind clouded by the heavy drugs, the Emperor recognized Raytan…

“Just like the legend…”

Because he had feared this. All his life.

“And yet Lize hasn’t been gone for long…”

“Don’t you dare speak my mother’s name with that filthy mouth.”

Raytan’s voice was as cold as ice. Everything about him was cold—the crimson eyes glaring at the Emperor, his rigid face.

Raytan stepped forward slowly.

And then he pointed his sword at the Emperor’s neck.

The blood dripping from the tip of the blade stained the Emperor’s clothes. Hidden behind the curtains, Setz watched in horror, her hand covering her mouth.

“It’s over, Carta Rowain. There’s no one left to save you.”

As Raytan’s voice echoed through the room, the sounds of screams rang out in the distance. His words were true. There was no one left in the palace who could help the Emperor.

Because, at that very moment, they were all dying.

“Raytan…”

The Emperor seemed to understand this. His weathered face, etched with deep wrinkles, reflected the weight of defeat as he spoke his son’s name.

“My son… What became of him?”

Wasn’t the man before him his son? It was as though the Emperor was denying Raytan’s very existence.

“Curious,” Raytan sneered. “Is that really what you care about in this moment?”

Raytan offered a bitter smile.

“I’ll give you a choice, Carta.”

He then spoke slowly, his lips barely moving.

“Shall I cut off your head and show it to Bern? Or should I cut off Bern’s head and show it to you?”

“…”

“I don’t particularly care either way.”

The Emperor, his face blank, stared at Raytan, then suddenly let out a strange, broken laugh. It was more of a sigh than a laugh.

“Everyone… said the same thing…”

The Emperor’s voice cracked, hollow and broken.

“They all said you should be… killed.”

“…”

“That was the only way… to stop something terrible from happening…”

Why was he saying this now, right before his own death? These were words that could get him killed in an instant. Setz’s hands trembled violently.

“Your mother…”

Raytan’s brow furrowed deeply.

“If Lize hadn’t intervened… I would have ended it long ago…”

The Emperor’s words trailed off, cut short by Raytan’s sudden lunge.

Setz flinched as Raytan, gripping his father’s collar, wore the same cold, merciless expression he had when he once threatened to cut her throat without hesitation.

“What are you saying?”

“Urgh…”

“I asked you, what are you saying!”

Raytan shoved the Emperor roughly, causing him to gasp for breath.

“You tied stones to me and threw me in the river, abandoned me in a forest full of lions. Who stopped you then?”

Setz had heard the story before. Everyone whispered about how the Emperor had treated Raytan that way when he was barely old enough to open his eyes.

But the Emperor shook his head.

“She… stopped me.”

“…What?”

“She held you in her arms and begged me…”

[Your Majesty, this is my child. My son.]

“She swore that if you died, she would follow you to the grave…”

[If you must, then do it. Kill us both.]

“She begged me like that…”

[Bind a stone to our feet and throw us into the river, tie us up and leave us in the forest. Let my son die with me.]

Lize had always been like a calm lake. She was serene. No matter what happened, she neither laughed nor cried.

Even when gifted jewels worth more than the common people could ever touch, even when the Emperor forcibly took her… she had always remained that way.

But that same woman had clung to his legs, pleading. She said that if he had to kill the child, he should kill her too.

And if not, she would kill herself first. Lize had held a dagger to her own slender throat.

Raytan was a child that should have been killed.

But losing Lize was out of the question.

“As everyone knows… there was backlash. So I spread the rumor. I let it be known that you survived… that despite being thrown into the river and abandoned in the forest… you did not die.”

“…”

“They believed that killing you after such survival would bring a greater curse upon us all…”

The Emperor had never actually thrown the child into the river, nor left him to die in the forest.

The child had been placed in the shallowest part of the river, where a maid was meant to find him. And knights had been sent to search for him in the forest.

The child had survived.

They had deceived everyone.

“If it hadn’t been for Lize… you would have died. Without a doubt.”

Raytan’s eyes shook violently.

If not for his mother, he would have died?

No. She had abandoned him. Left him. Escaped. She had shoved him into this hell, leaving her son behind to suffer…

“Your mother risked everything to save you, and yet you… dare…”

But Raytan knew the truth. Lize hadn’t risked her life for him out of motherly love or affection.

He knew all too well. The reason she had begged the Emperor, whom she loathed, was simply because…

“Shall I tell you a secret, Carta?”

Raytan’s voice was low, almost a growl.

“My mother risked her life to save me for this moment.”

The Emperor clutched his chest, gasping.

“She always dreamed of this… that the cursed child, that I… would destroy everything, just like the legend said.”

The sharp blade sank into the ground just inches from the Emperor’s chest.

“She gave this to me. On my eighteenth birthday. She said I’d need it someday. Not just this sword. She prepared so many things… for so long.”

“What…?”

“From the day you smashed my father’s head in.”

The Emperor’s eyes, filled with pain, trembled violently.

“Did you never suspect? Not even once?”

Raytan’s cold voice broke the silence.

“No… it can’t be…”

Raytan’s expression twisted as he yanked at his blood-soaked shirt, pulling it open.

Thunk, thunk.

Buttons scattered across the floor. His shoulder, usually hidden beneath layers of bandages, was now exposed. It was a sight Setz had never seen before.

A single mark, shaped like a bird, stood out against Raytan’s bronze skin.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked, pointing to his left shoulder, where that peculiar birthmark had always been hidden.

“It’s the mark of the Kunir tribe.”

Setz’s breath caught as she remembered the conversation they’d once had.

[“Why do you always wear bandages here when you’re not even hurt?”]

At the time, Raytan had brushed it off. But now, the truth was laid bare before her. That mark… the symbol of the Kunir tribe passed down through generations.

He was never meant to live.

When Lize found out she was pregnant with Raytan, she had tried to kill him, convinced that he was the Emperor’s child. It was an understandable suspicion— the Emperor, ever cautious, had made Lize drink a concoction to prevent pregnancy the moment he claimed her.

Yet, despite her attempts to kill the child— crushing her belly with stones, drinking poison— Raytan had clung to life, like a parasite refusing to let go.

In the end, he was born. And when Lize, coming to her senses, reached out to strangle the newborn, she saw it.

That mark on his shoulder—the bird-shaped birthmark that only the descendants of the Kunir tribe carried.

[“But something felt strange,” Lize had once whispered. “Neither Munid nor I have black hair or red eyes.”]

Raytan’s cold smile mirrored the one Lize had worn as he recalled her words.

[“I realized then… You are the opportunity the gods have given me. The chance to ruin everything, like the legends foretold.”]

With that realization, Lize had held the tiny, bloody infant close and laughed— madly, maniacally, like a woman driven insane by joy.

“Look, Munid,” she had murmured. “I did it. I did it!”

Raytan’s voice was laced with venom as he continued, “You’ve been deceived, Carta.”

He could remember being a child, barely seven years old, and asking his mother why she harbored dreams of revenge. The very idea seemed impossible, absurd even. The palace was hostile, a place where Lize had no allies. And her enemy was none other than the Emperor himself.

But she had smiled, calm and unshaken.