What Became of the Tyrant After the Pregnant Empress Left - Chapter 137
Thud.
Kazhan felt the jarring sensation of falling from the clouds back to solid ground. It was akin to plunging into icy water in the dead of winter, the shock piercing and abrupt.
Realistically, there was no way Ysaris could know anything about his dreams. After all, wasn’t she asking because she didn’t know?
And yet…
“Why do you think that?”
He had clearly said they were nightmares—severe ones at that—so dreadful they could disturb anyone who slept beside him.
Kazhan retraced the recent moments, trying to figure out how Ysaris could have connected herself to his dreams. Had he let something slip? He scrutinized his words repeatedly but found no clues.
Feeling lost, he anxiously studied Ysaris, who gave a vague answer.
“Just because.”
“Just because?”
“Yes, it just… seems that way.”
The phrase was frustratingly irresponsible. “Just because”?
Kazhan suppressed a sigh, his heart still pounding from the unnecessary tension. At least this was better than her actually realizing something. Relieved, he let go of the stiffness in his body.
Rationally, there was no reason to be this tense. It was merely his guilty conscience imagining the worst-case scenario.
And then Ysaris’s next words froze his thoughts.
“But I must be right, judging by your reaction.”
“…”
“What kind of dreams are they? Do I die in them or something?”
Kazhan opened his mouth but couldn’t speak. Her innocent face filled his startled eyes, a stark contrast to his turmoil.
“Cain?”
“…Ysaa.”
His voice emerged roughly, squeezed from his throat. The man, reluctant to expose what he considered a deep vulnerability, hesitated before pulling his wife into a tight embrace. Burying his face in her shoulder, he inhaled her scent deeply, as if to confirm her existence.
“If you don’t want to answer, you don’t have to…”
“No. There’s no reason I can’t tell you.”
His low voice was rough, as though scraped from his chest. If she hadn’t already noticed something, he might have kept it hidden. But now that she’d stumbled upon this, he didn’t want to give her more cause for suspicion.
Looking back, Kazhan realized he’d had countless dreams since awakening the power of Tennilath and leaving Pyrein.
At first, the people he’d killed while preparing for rebellion crawled out of the black swamp to clutch at his ankles. When he committed his first murder as a child, he’d felt nothing, and so he dismissed the nightmares at first. But as time went on, they grew more severe.
By the time he was making bloody pacts with nobles to secure the throne, he dreamt of being stabbed and killed repeatedly by those who hated him. During his campaigns to consolidate power in Uzephia and conquer neighboring countries, the dreams shifted to him losing battles and being executed by beheading.
…But as his time away from Ysaris grew longer, the nightmares began to take on a new shape.
“You’re right. You often appear in my dreams. You’ve been in them for a long time.”
Kazhan’s voice was heavy as he recalled the past. The reason Ysaris had appeared in his nightmares even before her engagement ceremony with Bariteon was both simple and complicated.
As the sole princess of the Kingdom of Pyrein, Ysaris Cernian was the embodiment of “noblesse oblige.” She always gave her all for her country, doing everything in her power to fulfill her duties as a princess.
That was the problem.
Ysaris was not the kind of person who would forsake her role as princess to marry Cain Jenut, a fallen noble. She was someone who prioritized her nation over personal happiness.
And so their romance had to be kept a secret. For two years, they whispered their love in private, avoiding the watchful eyes of others.
Even though Ysaris had passed the typical age for marriage, proposals continued to flood in. Occasionally, she would attend matchmaking meetings she couldn’t refuse, and Kazhan could only watch her leave and return, powerless.
It wasn’t long before he decided to become Emperor.
He knew awakening the power of Tennilath would doom him to a curse that would slowly consume him.
But he had no other choice. He embarked on that grueling path because he feared Ysaris might abandon him for the greater good. And the nightmares she appeared in revealed that exact fear, laying his deepest insecurities bare.
