“Yes, you can think of me like that. And what did you say when I asked for your help? You said that you didn’t care if I died or not. You didn’t want to marry me because you didn’t really care…”
As I rambled, Cassion straightened his back.
“I didn’t say anything about dying.”
“Isn’t my story predictable enough? I am fighting for family succession after all.”
I held my breath for a moment. Cassion waited for me to continue.
“You know that my family is not an ordinary family, right?”
I didn’t have to say this with my own mouth. When I snickered, Cassion lowered his head. I guess mentioning my death made him finally realize. He himself did mention how easy it was to die.
“Tell me your point.”
“When I fight for succession, it’s no different from fighting for the throne. We are similar. It is mentioned a lot in history books, right? What do people do to become a King? People fight to the death. Please don’t tell me that you thought that I only have to debate over whether I deserve the position or not.”
“No way.”
Everyone who had studied history even a little bit would know—the end of a desperate fight for a throne.
“Do you know what’s the easiest way for Count Corcos to take over the Irenberg family?”
It was a question, but I didn’t need to hear Cassion’s answer. Cassion closed his mouth.
“He just has to kill me.”
There were many alternative words such as ‘banish me,’ ‘get rid of me,’ and so on, but I told him brusquely because he could relate to it more easily.
“You can just live, can’t you? If you give it up.”
How naive.
“If there was any chance for me to do so, would I have come to Your Highness?”
Count Corcos was going to sell me off to Dyson to take over the family and eventually framed me to death. Cassion’s face got darker and darker. He finally realized the weight of my proposal.
Cassion, who wrapped himself tightly in his blanket, started to hesitate.
I guess he just realized that my situation was more serious than he thought.
“Should I have appealed for sympathy from the beginning? Like If I don’t marry you, I’ll die?’
I shook my head so that Cassion could not see through my thoughts.
If I suddenly told him about my situation as soon as I met him, I wouldn’t get to have a friendly relationship like this with him. Instead, I would get something like ‘I didn’t care if you die’ in return.
“So what will happen?”
Cassion asked.
What were we talking about? Oh! Laughter! I laughed because I was happy that he was worried about me, but he misunderstood me.
“As you know, I don’t have parents.”
…. Uh, I thought I was about to cry.
No matter how adult I was, it was difficult to bring up the story of my late parents.
“So no one really cares about me.”
Aunt Zoe or Janice came to my mind, but they couldn’t fully sympathize with my sadness and pain because the situation and environment they grew up in were clearly different from mine. And they were adults. If I expressed my difficulty, they would try to help me deal with it, but they couldn’t empathize with me.
However, Cassion was different.
His political opponents have oppressed him. I knew the fears when adults with power pointed their blades to attack you.
To a child like me, on top of that.
“Yet Your Highness said he was sincerely worried about me.”