32.
And then, Bart revealed the shocking truth.
“Ekian, you are not the biological son of the Mayous Ducal House.”
“……What are you saying?”
At first, he refused to believe it. However, Bart was not the type of person to spin such absurd tales without cause. A cold dread settled in his chest, making it impossible to bring the matter before the Duke and Duchess.
“I have been mixing a drug into your tea every morning—a concoction that alters the color of your hair.”
Every day, Ekian drank the tea Bart prepared. Everyone in the mansion consumed tea crafted by the physician, tailored specifically to their physical constitutions.
“Stop drinking the tea. Then you will see for yourself.”
A few days later, the truth emerged: coarse, black hair began to sprout from his roots.
To the despairing Ekian, Bart handed over a medical log. It was the ledger where the former physician had recorded Isabella Mayous’s health.
Ten months were missing. They were the very months surrounding Ekian’s birth.
“When you were born, the Duke and Duchess left for a trip to Barte Island. It was supposed to be a short four-day, three-night excursion, but the Duchess did not return to the capital for two years. She arrived home with the infant Ekian, claiming he was her own. Yet, there is no record of those ten months of pregnancy. They claim the files were lost.”
Bart handed over another volume. It was Ekian’s medical history, beginning when he was two.
“Hmm.” Bart smirked. “Development is quite fast, isn’t it?”
Ekian gasped, his chest tightening.
Looking down at the trembling, wheezing young man with cold, detached eyes, Bart continued.
“The Madam found you abandoned on Barte Island and decided to raise you as her own. Because blonde hair is such a rarity, she had you ingest an expensive but harmless dye all these years to keep up the charade.”
“I—I will ask. I will ask my parents myself……”
“Then you would never learn the full truth. Just as you have failed to until now.”
Bart’s voice was polite, yet it cut like a blade.
“Ekian Mayous, you are not merely some orphan the Duke and Duchess stumbled upon. You are no ordinary child. You carry the blood of the Emperor.”
“……What?”
Seventeen-year-old Ekian stood frozen in shock. Bart’s words continued, relentless.
“The Imperial Family members who have received the moon’s blessing possess a distinct trait. If they bleed under the light of the moon……”
Without realizing it, Ekian felt drawn to the window. He pulled out a dagger, entranced.
He knew of this legend—the blessing the moon bestowed upon the Imperial line. He had always assumed it was a fairy tale, something that had nothing to do with him.
He sliced his arm open while bathed in the moonlight streaming through the window. Despite the depth of the cut, the wound knit itself shut in an instant.
“You see for yourself.”
Ekian sliced his arm again. Even after cutting deep and long—twice, three times, four times—the skin fused back together as if it had never been breached.
When tears of frustration, not blood, finally welled in his eyes, Bart spoke slowly.
“Please, leave the Mayous Ducal Mansion.”
In the room where only the two of them stood, Bart slowly knelt.
It was the day the world of seventeen-year-old Ekian collapsed.
“Young Duke Karl Mayous is the rightful heir. I cannot allow the Mayous house to be consumed by the blood of the Imperial Family.”
“Th-that, I, I am…….”
“I am the only servant in this mansion who knows the truth, simply because I am the one who brews your dye. Please understand—I make this request out of loyalty to the Mayous Ducal House.”
At that time, Ekian was just a seventeen-year-old boy who had only ever known the sheltered halls of the mansion.
He was terrified, paralyzed by the truth he had unearthed. He saw only one reality: the position of the Young Duke was not his to claim.
It belonged to Karl. The rightful heir. Even at his young age, Karl was outstanding in every regard; there was no reason he shouldn’t be the Young Duke.
If he told the Duke and Duchess, they would surely cling to him. And Karl, who followed him with such devotion, would certainly refuse to take his title.
So, he left. He never once considered approaching the Emperor, a man he detested to his core.
He hoped that after five years, he would be declared dead, and Karl would naturally ascend to his rightful place. The Duke and Duchess would be saddened, yes, but he believed it was the only honorable path.
He had wanted to die, but since death was difficult, he had instead carved out an entirely different life.
Eventually, he saved his life because of Judith, and through her, he learned the truth about Bart.
He learned that Bart held no true loyalty to the Duke.
So, on the night Bart was captured, he returned to the underground prison.
“I will tell you the truth. That will be what torments you most, Cursed Imperial Prince.”
As if he had been waiting, Bart smiled at the man who had grown into a black-haired adult.
“You, Ekian, are the child born after His Majesty the Emperor forcibly took the last priestess.”
“……The last priestess?”
“Yes. And after giving birth to you, the last priestess spent the remainder of her life weaving a curse.”
He had heard rumors of the vanished priestess, but he had never imagined a connection to his own origin.
“A curse designed so that you, her own child, would bring about the downfall of your father.”
Ekian gulped. This was the first time he had heard a story about his biological mother. When he was seventeen, he had been too shocked by the revelation of his illegitimacy to wonder about her identity.
“That is the content of the curse she laid with her final breath. His Majesty the Emperor ordered your death immediately, but the priestess used her last ounce of strength to cast a dying wish: ‘Whoever kills this child shall also be cursed.’ The attendant, terrified of the threat, could not bring himself to do it and threw you into the sea instead. That is how you drifted to Barte Island and were taken in by the Mayous Ducal House.”
His mother was dead, and she had cursed him before he even drew his first breath.
“The Duke and Duchess know all of this, too. They simply chose to close their eyes and cover their ears, blinded by the affection they felt for you. But look at the Shrine of the Last Priestess, where time has stood still—you can see how potent her sorcery truly is. You will ultimately be the architect of Duke Mayous’s ruin.”
Bart let out a jagged, mocking laugh.
“In the end, you will never be able to return.”
That, at least, was accurate. His family—the Mayous Ducal House—was far too precious to him to risk their destruction by his presence.
The curse might have been intended for his biological father, the Emperor, but that changed nothing. He had spent seventeen years regarding Duke Mayous as his father. That truth remained anchored in his heart, unshaken.
If anyone asked who his father was, he would answer without a heartbeat of hesitation: Duke Mayous. Even now.
“His Majesty the Emperor also knows everything. He watched you enter the Mayous household while he was still tracking that abandoned child.”
Bart said with a sly, knowing smile.
“And he is pretending not to know. He expects that you will eventually ruin the Mayous Ducal House—the very house you considered your home, the home you grew up in.”
A suffocating silence lingered. He knew the Emperor was a treacherous man, but to realize he was merely a weapon being wielded was horrifying. His own existence felt suddenly, violently repulsive.
“Then.”
Once he knew the truth, he felt he could never return. Not to this place, not to his family, and not to Judith.
“Why did you send me away five years ago? If you had no loyalty to the Mayous Ducal House, wouldn’t it have been better for your plans if I had stayed, played the part of the son, and inherited the dukedom?”
It was the question that had gnawed at him since discovering Bart’s true nature.
Bart had sent him away citing loyalty to the House. But now that the premise was proven a lie, he couldn’t fathom the man’s true intent.
“That is……”
However, what came out of Bart’s mouth next was something he had not anticipated at all.