To My First Love, With Regret - 86

As expected, Ethan seemed completely deceived. Thinking Eve was smiling simply because she liked the painting, he smiled with her and offered to show her another.

—Then how about getting an early start on collecting a work by a future master?

The piece he brought out to brag about, claiming it was the latest work of a painter destined for greatness, was an animal painting.

A courtyard bathed in spring sunlight so warm it was dazzling, almost enough to bring tears to one’s eyes. On a field where wild flowers were in full bloom, a single hen sat brooding over her eggs with a boastful air.

It was peaceful, yet precarious. One egg jutted out from beneath the hen so precariously it looked as though it might roll away at any moment.

That scene, seemingly overflowing with life, was framed by rotten planks of wood. For this painting was composed from the perspective of one watching while trapped inside a dark chicken coop.

The true protagonist of the painting never appears.

The reason she knew this was because Eve was the painter.

—Eve hates me. She hates me because I’m the son of a woman she hates.

Those were the emotions she had poured onto the canvas on the day she was told her efforts were pathetic—the day she had traded her freedom for duty.

It didn’t feel particularly good to face a painting she never wanted to see again, and at this moment of all times. She had already suspected Ethan would be the one to buy it. Looking up askance at the cold-blooded collector who viewed another’s naked soul as a mere investment for the future, Eve asked in a provocative tone:

—What do you think this painting means?

—Who knows?

Ethan shrugged and looked down at the painting with emotionless eyes.

—I don’t think the painter is that chicken… it feels like someone watching from inside the coop….

That was as far as his correct interpretation went.

—A woman who can’t have children, envying another woman who has them?

Eve had to bite her lip hard to stifle a sneer.

—How would I know anything about maternal love?

Fool, that isn’t a painting about maternal love.

—I can’t really relate to it, but it’s her first new work in a while, so I couldn’t pass it up. Besides, the technique is unique this time. If you look closely, the wire mesh of the coop is done piece by piece in a mosaic style….

Yes, only the technique would catch your eye. There’s no way you could ever emphasize.

The man, who prattled on about technicalities rather than the emotions that drove the artist to create this piece, suddenly asked Eve:

—What does this painting mean in your eyes?

A abominable lament of a woman who lost everything precious because she was foolish.

She lost her child because of a foolish love. She lost her family because of a foolish faith. And in the end, she surrendered her own freedom, bound by a foolish sense of duty. Eve wanted to believe she was shrewd, but she was a woman not quite cunning enough to abandon her obligations.

From self-loathing and regret to resentment toward others, and finally, jealousy. That painting was an emotional sewer where Eve had poured every ugly feeling she possessed in beautiful colors.

It was a shameful lament she never wanted to face again. Yet, suddenly, a realization so cold it froze her very shame washed over her.

There must be a reason this painting reappeared before her now, of all moments, through Ethan’s hands.

This is a warning.

Do not repeat foolish mistakes.

Do not be seduced by Ethan Fairchild again. Love is ruin, and faith is deception. The moment you fall into that trap, everything you own will be snatched away once more, and you will never be able to fly out of this cage.

As Eve brooded over the metallic, blood-like taste of that warning, Ethan turned away, saying he would show her another painting. In that instant, the look in Eve’s eyes transformed. An animosity clearer than ever before pierced through him without mercy.

Now, Ethan Fairchild was an unmistakable enemy.

Eve sharpened the dagger in her heart to face the approaching foe.

The naive nineteen-year-old Evelyn Sherwood was already dead. She died on the day Ethan Fairchild abandoned her in this cage and flew away alone.

All that remained now was the obsession to never let anything be taken from her ever again.

⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘∙•⋅⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅

The train, which had departed from Cliffhaven before the dawn sea fog could even lift, finally slid into the central station of Richmond—the royal capital—around noon, let out a harsh, metallic screech.

As the train ground to a halt, Eve took her attendant’s hand and stepped out onto the crowded platform. Dense steam dispersed, revealing the skyline of Richmond clearly beneath a leaden sky.

The romantic, postcard-like autumn scenery of the capital was nowhere to be found. Even if that romance had still been alive, Eve lacked the mental leeway to stop for even a moment to take it in.

Those who had returned alive and those heading into the jaws of death brushed past each other, both wearing the same military uniforms. Through the gaps in the shifting crowd, a newspaper headline at a stand caught her eye.

Mysterious Massive Explosion in the Connaught River!

Richmond Suburbs Plunged into Chaos by Explosion of Unexploded Ordnance Dropped by Constanz Forces…

This was a land groaning under the weight of war. Eve, too, was in the midst of preparing for a decisive battle against an enemy slowly approaching to invade her own territory.

As the nights spent sleeping with the enemy increased day by day, his invasion became an unavoidable reality.

While Ethan would go into heat like a dog once their bodies actually overlapped, he showed signs of being reluctant to initiate the act in the first place. Despite claiming to want Eve’s body, he refused to touch her anywhere that wasn’t the path to her womb.

The only moment the man—who acted as if he were being forced to couple with her—seemed willing was when he ejaculated inside her. Only when he was aiming for his target.

Disgusting marauder.

To treat me as a mere tool for breeding. It was the ultimate destruction of one’s personhood.

He even tried to plant his child however he pleased without seeking consent. Was that not a violation of basic courtesy toward a former lover—no, toward a human being in general? It was no different from violence.

Today, Eve had been reduced to a broodmare meant to birth a stallion.

How did things ever come to this?

The most direct cause was that Ethan Fairchild was the scum of the earth.

Meanwhile, there was a separate, more fundamental cause: Eve’s status as the heiress with the right of succession.

The fact that Ethan Fairchild was scum was a problem Eve could not solve. But the right of succession was different.

Cornered, the Princess finally arrived at a desperate resolution.

I humbly beseech Your Gracious Majesty, braving this act of irreverence.

Please, strip me of the right of succession to the Dukedom of Kentrell.

Though extreme, it was the most fundamental and clear-cut solution.

Eve followed her attendant out of the packed platform. However, she did not head toward the city center where the royal palace was located, but instead climbed onto a different platform.

The Princess of Kentrell was now in a position where she could not be granted an audience with Her Majesty the Queen. She was no longer the friend of the Queen’s only daughter, but an unchaste woman trailed by fatal scandals.

Yet Eve did not give up. She sent a letter to Her Majesty, conveying her earnest plea through a close aide of the Queen with whom she still had a connection. But there was no answer. The one who delivered the letter said that Her Majesty had been displeased.

Because Eve had the audacity to reject what was considered an unprecedented privilege.

A privilege?

It was staggering sophistry.

What benefit, exactly, had she ever seen from this right of succession?

Was it not merely a title she could not truly possess, only pass on to another? Eve was nothing more than a sentry guarding a crown she could never wear.

Once, she believed that even that was power. The power to gift her family name to the man she wanted. It was a pathetic pretension for a sentry who had to block the threats of those seeking to usurp the crown with her bare body.

If only the person wearing that crown right now weren’t my child, I would have abandoned this godforsaken position without a second thought and left.

From her father to her lover, and finally to her son—Evelyn Sherwood’s life had never escaped being a tool for men.

A King is a being who sees and hears everything in this country. Therefore, Her Majesty must have seen right through the predicament Eve was in, understanding why she would risk such rudeness to personally surrender that precious right of succession. Because the Queen knew, Eve couldn’t shake the feeling that the refusal was cold and deliberate.

In the end, like mother, like daughter.

The late Crown Princess’s nasty temperament had been a mirror image of the Queen’s. Knowing that, Eve only now truly realized the truth.

She didn’t give me the right of succession because she favored me; she gave it to me because she despised me. To throw a spark of internal strife into Kentrell and send us all plummeting off the cliff.

Harry was murdered, her father lived a life worse than death, and Eve herself lives on, enduring countless violations and insults all for the sake of a single title.

The demon upon the throne must have smiled behind a fan while watching Kentrell fall.

I have been truly naive until now. I was so ignorant that I didn’t even know how ignorant I was.

As a price, Eve was now unable to avoid an all-out war with a gang leader whose infamy echoed across the nation. A demon who reigned above the law, commanding a massive criminal organization that stopped at nothing from theft to murder, was now intent on plundering her.

He was a fundamentally different opponent from a two-faced lawyer or a nurse. The mere thought of the future brought an overwhelming pressure that made it hard for Eve to breathe.

What should I do now?