I Tamed the Monstrous Prince - Chapter 49
Chapter 49
“How is Cesar?”
Mercedes’s face crumpled at my question. Cesar wasn’t the only one sensitive to the changes in the Emerald Palace. Mercedes, too, seemed deeply unsettled.
‘His Highness won’t come out.’
She had been so overjoyed by Cesar’s recent stability. But this, conversely, meant that his renewed anxiety mirrored itself in her.
‘This is all because of Your Highness’s needless meddling…’
She had snapped at me several times already, her resentment and blame increasingly directed towards me.
“Did you truly not foresee this happening, Your Highness?” she’d pressed, her words sharp and pointed.
“But… for Cesar…” I licked my dry lips.
‘For Cesar, this is necessary.’
The words caught in my throat. Perhaps… perhaps this wasn’t just for him.
“I’ll go in.”
The knights moved to block me. The captain stepped forward.
“It’s dangerous,” he said, his voice a low rumble. They were so perpetually silent, I’d almost forgotten they could speak.
“It’s alright.”
He shook his head firmly. I noticed a bandage on his arm, stained with blood, suggesting a deep wound. I’d heard there had been an altercation with Cesar, but seeing the evidence of it brought the severity home.
“Several of us have already been injured. It’s not safe for you to enter.”
I met their gazes. They couldn’t stop me.
“I’m going in.”
Taking a deep breath, I reached for the doorknob. A sigh escaped someone behind me.
“If anything happens, we’ll come in immediately.”
They urged me to call out if there was trouble. I nodded and turned the handle. The door creaked open slowly.
Despite the bright midday sun, the room was shrouded in darkness, the windows covered by heavy curtains. But the curtains were torn in several places, allowing slivers of sunlight to penetrate the gloom, the light scattering across the room as the occasional breeze stirred the fabric. My eyes gradually adjusted to the dimness. A gasp escaped my lips as I took in the scene.
The room was in ruins. Furniture and wallpaper were torn to shreds. Nothing was intact. Long, gouging scratches, like claw marks, and deep dents marred every surface.
I searched for him, my heart pounding.
‘Where could he be?’
Then, a prickling sensation at the back of my neck made me turn. There he was.
Cesar was huddled between a shattered console table and the bed, curled up so tightly he resembled a lump of clay.
“Cesar?” I called softly.
He lifted his head slightly, his red eyes gleaming with a chilling light. The same guarded, hostile expression he’d worn when we first met was back.
“Are you alright?”
“Rrgh…” he growled. As I moved closer, he flinched back further, pressing himself against the wall as if seeking an escape that wasn’t there. I held out my hands, palms open, in a gesture of peace.
“I won’t come any closer.”
He trembled violently, his eyes fixed on me. Slowly, I lowered myself to the floor, brushing aside fragments of what had once been furniture and smoothing my skirts. He watched my every move with intense focus, poised as if ready to bolt at any moment.
“Grrrr…”
We were back to square one. Back to the feral creature who bared his teeth at the world. The terrified boy who cowered from thunderstorms, more animal than human. I had thought he was improving, but perhaps I had been mistaken. A few more servants, a change in environment, and he’d retreated back into himself. Could he truly handle a formal event like a ball? I was no longer certain.
The ballroom would be ablaze with light, dazzling chandeliers casting a brilliant, disorienting glow. Incense, recently fashionable in the capital, would fill the air with its cloying scent, mingling with the smoke from gentlemen’s cigars and the perfume of the ladies. The noise, the chatter of voices, the inevitable clatter of dropped silverware, the spills, the laughter, the boisterous merriment… could Cesar possibly endure it?
A wave of doubt washed over me. Mercedes’s accusing gaze flashed in my mind. What if she was right? What if this was all my doing, driven by my own selfish desires? What if, in my attempt to help him, I was only tormenting him further?
