I Tamed the Monstrous Prince - Chapter 4
Chapter 4
I had never even held such a weapon before. The thought of whom I could possibly stab with my weak hands and crippled leg filled me with a strange sense of dread.
Musk smoldered in the fireplace, its acrid scent clinging to the silence of the room. A new bride without a groom had little to occupy her time.
“Haah…” I sighed, for the countless time. Today, I, Irenea Flores, the bastard daughter of the Duke of Flores, married Cesar de la Rosa Constantini Fiore, the First Prince of the Empire.
House Flores, one of the three founding families, earned its title when the Archmage Cosimo Flores slew a wyrm. Born a bastard, I lived on the streets until I was seven, then brought into the Flores family, where I endured harsh treatment. My position was always near the bottom, lower than the servants, perhaps even lower than the stable horses or hounds.
Then, on the day I turned eighteen, my stepmother, Celestina, abruptly summoned me to the drawing-room. It was then I finally understood why they had brought me, their thorn in the side, into this house.
Celestina’s saccharine voice was sickening. ‘Flores has a history of producing Empresses. You have been chosen as the bride of the First Prince, Cesar.’
A marriage proposal.
Even if my younger sister, Bernadetta, was still a child, it made no sense for me, the second daughter and a bastard, to receive a proposal when my older sister, Giovinetta, barely older than me, wasn’t even betrothed.
It was absurd. Especially to the Prince, the potential future Emperor. They would never offer such a prestigious position to me, someone they treated with such disdain.
Then it hit me. The reason the Flores family had bothered to pluck me from the streets and legitimize me. It was all for this proposal. I’d been confined to the mansion for years, ignorant of the outside world, but not entirely oblivious.
Prince Cesar, sickly since childhood, rarely appeared in public. He was the son of the late Empress Adelaide, who had lost her mind. Empress Adelaide, who came to this Empire from the Kingdom of Isabria, had, for unknown reasons, descended into madness after giving birth to Cesar and ultimately taken her own life.
Since then, sinister rumors about Prince Cesar had circulated relentlessly. The Monstrous Prince. That was the moniker that followed him. His appearance was said to be so hideous that even his own mother couldn’t bear to love him, driving her to suicide.
They said he was a monster who devoured his mother’s flesh as he was born. The Cursed Prince. Prince Cesar was cursed. With such rumors swirling around him, finding a suitable bride proved difficult. Marriage proposals from foreign royalty were repeatedly rejected.
Unable to secure a fitting match, the Imperial family lowered their sights, seeking a bride from a noble, non-royal family. A marriage proposal from the Imperial family was not something one could easily refuse.
Knowing this, noble families took precautions to protect their cherished daughters. They arranged early marriages to avoid the Prince, and if that failed, they adopted girls or legitimized bastards. That was why the Flores family had found me, a beggar in the streets, and brought me into their fold.
Four highborn ladies, all previously proposed to the Prince, had already lost their lives. No one knew the cause, but everyone whispered that it was the curse upon him.
A marriage proposal to such a prince.
It sounded appealing to the uninformed, but in reality, it meant being a sacrificial lamb. If Cesar were to die suddenly after marrying me, I could face dire consequences. Falsely accused of murdering the prince, I could be imprisoned in a tower and left to rot.
Alarm bells rang in my head. This was a trap. A poisoned chalice coated with honey. One sip, and I would be dead.
