What Became of the Tyrant After the Pregnant Empress Left - Chapter 156
“Then wouldn’t it be better to live without knowing?”
That’s why Kazhan had decided to erase everything and start anew when Ysaris lost her memory. What could be more foolish than throwing away the chance to start fresh on a clean slate?
If Ysaris found out the truth and refused to forgive him, it would all be over. He might never have another chance to be with her like before.
Kazhan was desperate. Even as the emperor, he knew he couldn’t keep secrets forever, so he bought time by shielding Ysaris’s eyes and ears. He hoped that under the guise of being a married couple, she would accept him, grow accustomed to him, and love him again.
Over time, he hoped that even if she discovered the truth, she wouldn’t leave him. The unhappiness of the past, heard only through words, would have less impact than the happiness of the present.
…But this was nothing more than his wishful thinking.
“You’re telling me to live with my eyes and ears deliberately shut.”
Ysaris responded in a cold, steady voice. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then looked straight at Kazhan.
“I’ve been pretending not to know until now. Even when I noticed strange things, I didn’t dig deeper. I wanted a peaceful family, and I didn’t think you, who loved me so much, could have done something so terrible.”
Time and again, she had ignored the déjà vu she felt around Kazhan. She had told herself to think of Mikael, over and over.
As someone without memories, she had wanted to believe in Kazhan, who poured unconditional love on her. In her incomplete world, missing large pieces, the idea of having someone wholly on her side was too tempting to reject over petty suspicions.
“But it seems you really did do something like that. Something irreparably wrong.”
“Ysaris.”
“Kazhan Tennilath.”
The full name, spoken calmly, made his red eyes flicker. Ysaris cut him off before he could speak.
“Did you kill Bariteon Kelloden?”
The letter she had received from Mikelun Kelloden didn’t directly mention this. In fact, it was mostly filled with mundane chatter.
Mikelun’s reason for contacting Ysaris was trivial. He complained about not receiving a reply and boasted about how precocious his son had been at his first birthday party. From the tone, it seemed he had sent her an invitation out of courtesy and was annoyed at not getting a response.
Yes, the content of the letter itself wasn’t problematic. But the casually revealed information scattered throughout caught Ysaris’s attention.
She wasn’t entirely surprised to learn that Kazhan had been blocking all her communications. She had half-expected it. The news that Mikelun had been married for over a year and had a child, or that Serenus Chernian was now referred to as “His Majesty,” were things she had vaguely considered possible.
But…
[It seems you’re living happily with His Majesty the Emperor now. Well, Bariteon might be resentful in his grave, but what can you do? The living must live.]
This casually written paragraph struck her like a bolt. There was no explanation of why Bariteon had died or why he would feel resentful, but it was enough to form a hypothesis.
Kazhan was involved in Bariteon’s death. Directly or indirectly.
“At first, I wasn’t sure, but seeing your reaction, I know now. You really did kill Bariteon.”
Ysaris muttered in disbelief as she faced the frozen Kazhan. Even as she spoke, it didn’t feel real. It was as if she were hearing distant sounds through layers of water.
Her husband had killed her childhood friend. The sheer absurdity of it hit her first.
In fact, she hadn’t even fully processed Bariteon’s death. At first, she thought Mikelun might be joking.
Without the memory of witnessing it firsthand, death was too heavy a topic to be conveyed through a few lines of text.
But Kazhan’s reaction, which was as good as a confession, slowly brought the reality home. She had been sharing a home and a bed with the man who had killed her friend.
It was a cruel truth to face in the midst of what had seemed like an endlessly peaceful life.
