More terrifying than a dream

Ruslan’s funeral took place.

Yuri, standing in front of the altar, briefly kissed his pale son’s forehead in the coffin.

The tears from his cheeks rolled over Ruslan’s face.

When he turned around, he saw his daughter-in-law, who had lost her husband at a young age, sitting in the front row in mourning attire, shedding tears.

Ruslan’s sister-in-law, Klavdia, shocked and unable to control her body due to grief, hugged her older sister tightly and wept.

Yuri was unaware that his daughter-in-law was pregnant.

That’s understandable, as the couple had not yet announced it to anyone except their close relatives, as they were still in the early stages of pregnancy, cautious and secretive.

Yuri now regretted everything.

Why couldn’t he control his anger?

Even if he bitterly regretted it, the fact remained unchanged that he had killed his son, and once someone set foot in the afterlife, there was no returning.

‘My son, the gods have taken you in place of this sinful father….’

He had lived as a good son.

He was a filial son to him, and a reliable eldest brother to his siblings.

Ruslan, who was supposed to become a father soon, left this world on the same day as his son, Yuri’s grandson.

At that moment, when Yuri and the mourners were immersed in grief, the archbishop ascended to the altar.

While the funeral service was being observed with solemnity, Nikolai rushed into the temple.

All eyes turned to him at the sound of his footsteps.

Nikolai, who had stayed up all night, unable to believe the fact that his brother had died and had finally fallen asleep, came to the temple late, as no one had woken him.

Now that Ruslan was gone, there was no one from the palace on his side.

Even Klavdia, who had been close to her brother-in-law before his death, turned away from him completely because of Nikolai, who shouted that Ruslan had died because of him, echoing his father’s resentment and hatred.

Nikolai’s breath caught in his throat as he looked at his sister-in-law and her sister, who were looking at him with a mix of resentment and hatred in their eyes.

As Yuri, who had looked back for the last time, met eyes with his son, he suddenly exploded with anger.

“I never want to see that bastard again, so lock him up in the tower right now!”

Nikolai, without even saying a final goodbye to his dead brother, was led away by the guards.

The memorial service, which had been briefly interrupted by the intrusion of an uninvited guest, resumed.

Mikhail, the youngest, who was sitting beside Oksana, glanced at his brother for a moment, then, after his mother pinched his arm hard, turned back towards the altar, wearing a pained expression.

“Father! Please let me see my brother’s face just once! Please!”

The child cried out pitifully, but the bystanders, who were busy with the worship, merely chuckled.

Among them, Duke Smirnov, who had been the only one to feel sympathy for Nikolai, tried to turn around, but his friend held his arm.

“Are you kidding, don’t let your eyes wander everywhere. If you throw a pitying glance for no reason, it might reach the ears of the Grand Duke, and then there will be no escaping his wrath.”

“But…”

“You should think of your family. You especially need to be more careful. Wasn’t the Duchess unable to attend His Highness Ruslan’s memorial service because she was ill?”

At those words, Pavtiski Smirnov finally closed his trembling eyelids and shifted his body forward again.

When he thought of his sick wife and two daughters, he couldn’t act rashly due to reckless emotions.

“Father…!”

There was one more person who reacted to the child’s cry.

Seeing his friend being taken away, Luka stood up abruptly, but was promptly seated again by his father, Duke Oblonsky.

Pressing hard on his naive son’s shoulders, he whispered lowly.

“Do you still want to remain friends with that scoundrel?”

“That scoundrel, you say? He is the Grand Duke, Father.”

“The Grand Duke?”

The Duke mocked his son’s words.

If the former Grand Duchess were still alive, she might have turned her heart towards trying to reclaim her position as Grand Duchess through the fickleness of the Grand Duke’s lingering affection, but she had already passed away.

Nikolai’s maternal relatives had all been executed, so there was no one left to protect the young Grand Duke.

“Who would consider the son of the conspiring late Grand Duchess as a Grand Duke?”

“Father…”

“Who would consider the son of a deposed grand duchess, who plotted a rebellion, as a grand duke?”

“Father…”

“The Grand Duke, who has lost his son, is too angry to see anything right now. Since he has become the grand duke, his life is spared for now. But you might lose your life in a fit of anger.”

“……”

“Are you really willing to sacrifice your life and the lives of your family and servants for such a petty friendship?”

In the end, a terrified Luka gave up on intervening for his friend, and Nikolai was expelled from the temple alone.

The place the soldiers took him to was the top floor of a deserted tower behind the Grand Duke’s palace.

At that time, Nikolai was only ten years old.

***

Katya was awakened by groaning.

She absentmindedly reached out beside her, but the bed was empty.

“Grand Duke? Where did you go?”

She quietly called for her husband and got out of bed.

As she looked around, she immediately found her husband.

Nikolai was lying on a sofa below a moonlit window, hunched over in pain.

Groans were coming from his mouth.

“Grand Duke…?”

He was sweating profusely and clearly in agony.

Katya, without a moment’s hesitation, knelt by his side and took his hand.

He was desperately calling out for something.

“Brother…”

Nikolai’s only brother was the late Grand Duke Ruslan.

Although people hushed it up, it was essentially a publicly known secret how he died.

The official cause was a head injury from an accident, but considering the extensive burns on his body, it was easy to guess that he had been beaten by the former Grand Duke shortly before his death.

People whispered that Nikolai, in his attempt to escape his father’s anger, used his innocent brother Ruslan as a shield, leading to Ruslan’s death.

These rumors were spread by Oksana and her supporters, and the boyanins, who held grudges against Nikolai, believed them without question.

In truth, they wanted Nikolai to be completely excluded from the succession, so they were eager to believe such stories.

Until she met Nikolai, Katya had no interest in politics.

So, she neither fully believed nor disbelieved these rumors.

She simply thought that it didn’t matter who ruled as long as she could live her life.

But her perspective changed when she learned about his hidden suffering behind the scenes.

Nikolai had ventured south, even at the risk of his life, to see and understand the suffering of those people, and to change the country from the ground up.

Yet, despite all that, he had never looked back at his own wounds until now.

“Wounds heal over time.”

“A single bruise on your body hurts me more than the dozens of scars on mine.”

“I’d rather have dozens more scars on me than see you hurt again.”

“I’ve always been a person with many scars. Even if I get more, it won’t be that noticeable. But you were raised by your parents with love and care.”

Nikolai’s scars weren’t just on his body.

How many scars must be in his heart?

Katya didn’t know exactly what had happened for Tatiana to become deposed, nor did she know that Nikolai had been imprisoned in the tower.

But seeing him suffer even in her dreams, tore at her heart as though it would rip apart.

It was a very unfamiliar emotion to her, it was the first time she had felt it since her mother’s death.

Katya quietly, but firmly, held his hand.

Nikolai held onto her hand, never wanting to let go, even in his dreams.

As she wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of her hand, he finally woke up, gasping for breath.

Startled, he looked at Katya, who was right next to him, and for a moment, he was speechless.

“Are you alright, Your Grace?” 

Nikolai washed his face with one hand, thinking about how he must have looked to his wife.

Wouldn’t she be shocked to see me like this?

In front of Katya, he tried to be a bright person, a person who was suited to her, because darkness would not look good with her.

What if she is afraid of the shadow of unhappiness lurking behind the mask?

If she runs away from me…

Thinking like this, it felt like the world that had briefly turned into paradise because of her was descending back into the abyss.

“I’m sorry. Did I wake you up? I’m a terrible sleeper…”

Nikolai said with a playful smile before she could notice.

Katya gently held his hand, avoiding his gaze, and looked into his eyes.

“Did you have a nightmare?”

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry.”

His tone suggests that this was a familiar conversation.

It seemed like it wasn’t something that had only happened once or twice.

Looking at him like that, Katya remembered her childhood.

After her mother’s death, on nights when she had nightmares, she would go to her father’s room and cry, saying she missed her mom.

Her younger sister, awakened by her crying, would come too, and they would all cry together.

At such times, her father would light all the candles on that floor and create a tent in the room, holding the two sisters’ hands and sleeping together inside.

When Laika, with her big size, barged in and threatened to collapse the tent, the children would stop crying and giggle.

In that cramped space, they would fall asleep again, as if the nightmare-chasing fairies had run away.

“Should we sleep together?”

“……What?”

“If two or more people sleep together, there won’t be any room for nightmares to sneak in. Hold my hand and sleep with me, Your Grace.”

What you need right now is a family who will be by your side.

So, for today, I’ll be your real wife.

Katya couldn’t bring herself to say these words out loud, but she smiled, her eyes reddening.

“What’s that…”

“Since we’re already holding hands, let’s go to bed together.”

Under the blue moonlight, tears that had been welling up in Katya’s eyes sparkled.

Had she cried for me?

‘Why?’

Before he could even think of a reason, his eyes inexplicably began to well up with warmth.

Nikolai thought,

You are more dangerous than the nightmares.