In This Life I Will Be The Lord Novel - Episode 24

“You usually don’t carry a bag well… What’s inside?”
“A gift!”
“A gift?”
“Yes! It’s for the Prince!”
The Second Prince is also a prince, so it’s not wrong. The Melkon medicine I had prepared was for the Second Prince, Perez. The Empress had started poisoning his food around the time Perez’s mother fell ill and died. However, I didn’t know exactly what poison she used. In my previous life, when he became Crown Prince and Lombardi was attacked, I sought out an information guild, wondering if there was anything I could do to help. I bought an envelope of information with several months’ worth of savings, but even that didn’t state exactly what poison the Empress had used. Perez himself never found out, only curing the terrible insomnia that remained as a side effect of the poison. But it was clear that she had been using small, undetectable amounts consistently for quite a long time.
The Emperor had little interest in the child conceived from a one-night mistake with a maid, and entrusted him to the Empress. Of course, the Empress promised to take good care of him, then meticulously plotted behind the Emperor’s back. Yet, for some reason, Perez survived the poison, and three years from now, the Emperor will realize the Empress’s deception. Sadly, not much changed in Perez’s life. The Emperor merely used the Empress’s blunder to keep the growing Angenas in check; he still had no affection for the Second Prince. This was also partly because the Emperor had begun to take in consorts from various noble families around that time and had new heirs with them.
Lost in such thoughts about Perez, I heard my father’s weak voice.
“Yes, Tia, you’ve reached that age now, haven’t you?”
But Father’s reaction was a little strange.
“I knew this day would come someday, but…”
“No, it’s not like that…”
He seems very hurt by something. However, I couldn’t tell him the truth. I was planning to get lost later while exploring the Imperial Palace with my father. Of course, my destination was where the Second Prince, Perez, was located. Fortunately, I knew the approximate location of the palace where the Second Prince lived with his mother. The Empress wanted to keep the mother and son where she could keep an eye on them. So she had given them a small detached palace in the forest west of the Empress’s palace, and Perez reportedly lived there until he went to the academy. What would he look like now, at eleven, the same age as the twins?
“What’s going on?”
“That, that is… The Imperial Palace guards are requesting a search, so they’ve asked the carriage to stop…” A search of a Lombardi family carriage?
Before I could even be flustered, the carriage door was opened from the outside, and I saw two imperial knights standing there.
“Is this the Empress’s order?”
It was the first time I heard my father’s voice so cold. The knights couldn’t answer. After a small struggle, Father glanced at me as if to say, ‘Don’t worry,’ and stepped out of the carriage. Actually, I wasn’t worried about the situation; I was surprised by Father’s unfamiliar demeanor. What was happening was obvious. Things that would never happen to a carriage carrying grandfather were happening to us, that’s all. For someone of the Empress’s standing, it was truly cowardly and petty.
As I sighed and casually looked out the window on the opposite side from where my father had exited, I saw something.
“Second Prince?”
Through the distant trees, I saw what looked like the back of a boy with black hair fleetingly pass by.
“The Second Prince, really?”
This must be heaven-sent. I only knew his approximate location, so I was wondering how to find his palace and meet him when I stumbled upon him like this. It was an opportunity I absolutely couldn’t miss. Confirming that my father was still sparring with the knights, I very carefully opened the opposite carriage door. Fortunately, the door opened smoothly without a sound. With my bag clutched tightly in one hand, I immediately ran into the bushes directly in front of me. Looking back, my father and the knights still had no idea what was happening. I felt a little guilty thinking about how surprised my father would be when he realized I was gone, but there was nothing I could do. There was no other way to meet the Second Prince without the Empress knowing. I would give Perez this medicine and return as quickly as possible.
Hiding behind the low bushes, I ran frantically in the direction the Second Prince had disappeared, until I was out of my father’s and the knights’ sight.
“Hup, hup! Oh my!”
I moved frantically, and it seemed I was far enough from Father and the knights, but there was a problem.
“Where am I?”
The Second Prince, who had definitely run this way, was nowhere to be seen, and I had lost my sense of direction in the forest. I tried to pretend to be lost, but now I was truly lost. Should I give up on finding Perez and go back to where Father was?
Just then, I heard a rustling sound. Turning my head, I saw the bushes not far from where I was standing rustling.
Gulp.
I swallowed hard and cautiously approached.
Step, step.
Even though my footsteps must have been audible as I approached, there was no reaction from the bushes. I made my steps even quieter. And finally, a small figure began to appear. The first thing I noticed was his black hair, grown long enough to slightly cover his neck. There was no name tag, but I was certain. It was the Second Prince, Perez. It was him.
But I couldn’t call his name or approach him to speak. After several attempts, just mouthing words, I could barely manage to make a sound.
“W-what are you doing…?”
The Second Prince, crouching in front of the bush, was deftly plucking only one type of sharp leaf. And he didn’t stop there. He immediately brought the roughly plucked leaves to his mouth. Even though his small mouth was already full of grass. Again and again. Green juice dribbled from his lips, but he carelessly wiped it away with his sleeve and continued to tear and eat the leaves in front of him. His actions were so mechanical yet desperate that my heart sank as I watched.
I finally managed to move my frozen body and took a couple of steps closer.
“Stop it.”
When I spoke urgently, the Prince’s busy movements finally ceased. The boy, who had only been showing his profile, turned his head and looked at me. Vivid reddish-brown eyes. This boy was definitely the Second Prince.
“What on earth are you doing? Why are you eating that grass?”
I was angry without even realizing it. Young Perez looked at me with what seemed like emotionless eyes. And he replied.
“Because my stomach hurts.”
“What?”
“My stomach has been hurting for no reason lately. The book said this herb would help.”
“Ah…”
I couldn’t continue my sentence. My head felt numb as if I had been hit hard in the back of the head. The reason his stomach kept hurting was obvious. It was a visible symptom of poisoning from the accumulated toxins in his body. His pale complexion finally registered in my eyes. This was how the Second Prince had survived. Like a wild animal, he had wandered through the forest himself, found useful herbs, and endured by eating them.
The Second Prince looked at me for a moment, then turned back around. He was three years older than me, making him eleven this year. The same age as the twins. However, Perez’s build was too small for an eleven-year-old. He looked no older than ten at best. His appearance, too, was too shabby for a prince. The clothes he wore seemed to be made of rather luxurious materials, but they were wrinkled and dirty in many places. He probably had been wearing the same clothes for several days. Surely, he wasn’t without a servant to look after him, was he? A ominous premonition flashed through my mind.
Just then, Perez tried to pick another leaf and eat it, and I gasped, grabbing his hand.
“Don’t eat this. If you’re sick, you should take medicine!”
“But when Mama was sick, the physician wouldn’t come.”
“Th-that…”
“So I looked it up in a book. It looks like a useless weed, but it might work.”
As I crouched down next to him, our eye levels were similar, and the prince’s wrist in my hand was so thin. I was startled and quickly loosened my grip. When the prince’s mother was dying of illness, the Empress prevented any physicians from entering. That’s why, when Perez became Crown Prince and exercised full authority in place of the collapsed Emperor, the very first thing he did was send the First Prince to the battlefield. It was the northern front, famous for being the deadliest and fiercest. And then, he prevented even a single herb, let alone a physician, from entering the Empress’s palace, who had collapsed from the shock. When I heard that story, I briefly thought it was a bit too much, no matter what. I even thought, what a cruel person. But now, I can’t even think that for a moment. This child, not even grown to his age, had endured by chewing on grass like this. He had survived fiercely, all alone.
I brushed the remaining grass from Perez’s hand, opened my bag, and said, “I have medicine. So don’t eat things like this.”
The prince tilted his head and asked, “Who are you?”
He asks quite quickly. I sighed softly and replied, “My name is Florentia. Florentia Lombardi.”
“I’m Perez.”
The Second Prince said, looking wistfully at the leaves scattered on the ground. Then he looked up at me. His deep red eyes, like the color of blood, seemed utterly empty.
The Second Prince asked me, “But why are you crying?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re crying.”
“What nonsense…”
I let out a hollow laugh and brought my hand to my eyes, then flinched. Tears were actually falling from my eyes.
“Oh. Th-this is… I mean.”
Why am I crying? As I stammered, flustered and unable to explain properly, the Prince said, “Do you pity me?”
Oh, damn it. To hear such words come from a child’s mouth. I got even angrier and spoke louder.
“No! It’s not like that!”
“It’s okay. My mom and my nanny said so too. They said I was pitiful, that I was to be pitied.”
In front of this child, I constantly lose my words. But Perez shrugged as if he didn’t quite understand the meaning of “pitiful.”
“Though neither of them are by my side now.”
“Your nanny, too? She’s gone too?”
The prince’s mother had died recently, but I thought someone would have remained by his side. Perez shook his head from side to side.
“She was chased away a while ago. Nanny didn’t want to go, but the soldiers dragged her away.”
Cruel Empress. To leave an eleven-year-old child completely alone. Well, of course, someone who was trying to slowly kill him with poison wouldn’t show any mercy. I gritted my teeth, thinking of the Empress.
Then, the Second Prince said to me, “So, you shouldn’t help me either. You might die too.”