One Day My Sister Died - chapter 38

Chapter 38: The Disrespectful Brat

That day was the second day of the annual hunting festival hosted by Emperor Alexei, Claude’s father.

The week-long monster hunting festival was held in the winter to capture the monsters and wild beasts that periodically invaded from the north. It was a grand event of national importance, attended by the emperor and empress, with major nobles gathering to prove their loyalty.

Participants would showcase the number of monsters or beasts they captured in the dangerous forests and ravines that threatened the people, and they would be rewarded handsomely. Depending on the results, they could win not only gold but also fertile imperial lands, so the festival’s intensity grew every year.

“Father!”

Emperor Alexei, pierced by a vicious monster-hunting arrow, was brought to the palace, unable to even remove the arrow. Claude watched his father groan and sweat in pain amidst the crowd of doctors from across the country.

“Your Highness.”

The Marquis of Reve tightly gripped his nephew’s shoulder, swallowing his emotions.

“Her Majesty…”

Claude stared at the Marquis of Reve, who bowed his head and wept like a child.

“Empress Eleonore has passed away.”

If the emperor oversaw the hunting festival, it was the empress who waited for participants and entertained guests at the entrance banquet. His mother, who was sharing tea with the attending ladies, was poisoned and died en route to the palace.

“Your uncle, Grand Duke Igor, will handle state affairs for the time being. Don’t worry and try to get some rest.”

After hearing of his mother’s death, Claude stayed by his father’s side, sleepless.

Affairs of state meant nothing to a 14-year-old boy; someone else could take care of that. But staying by his father’s side was different.

“How can I sleep now?”

He couldn’t send his father away like his mother, who had passed without even leaving final words for him or Apollini.

Claude remained by his father, who hovered between life and death, groaning. Whenever he dozed off from exhaustion, he dreamt of his father dying, jolting awake in terror.

Each time, he pressed his ear against his father’s chest, listening to his tired breathing, crying in relief when he realized he was still alive.

“Don’t worry, Claude. Your uncle is here.”

It wasn’t until a week later that his uncle appeared and spoke those words. Claude only nodded, too emotionally drained to reply.

“…Disrespectful brat.”

Claude looked up in surprise at the cold tone, so different from his uncle’s usual warm and hearty demeanor.

That night, in the emperor’s bedroom surrounded by palace doctors and physicians from across the land, the once-great Emperor Alexei Yufrees passed away, his life cut short.

—

“The hunting festival is over, right? But why haven’t Mother and Father returned?”

“Just go to sleep, Apollini. I’ll sing you a lullaby if you want.”

“They won’t even let me go outside. It’s so frustrating, brother.”

“…Tomorrow, I’ll show you the garden.”

Claude kept the emperor and empress’ deaths a secret from 10-year-old Apollini. He left her in the princess’s palace while he and his uncle, whose demeanor had shifted, conducted the funeral.

Grand Duke Igor suggested Claude take a break, as if offering him a vacation, and rest at the red-brick mansion of Loxenhardt.

After putting the oblivious Apollini to bed at the mansion, and smiling softly to the concerned nanny, Margaret, young Claude finally returned to his own room and collapsed in sorrow.

He clutched the rocking chair his father had made and his mother had polished, sobbing bitterly.

It was less than a week before Claude Yufrees, the beloved treasure of the empire, was set to ascend the throne at the tender age of 14.

The snow, which had fallen heavily since the burial, had piled up in the garden, and a fierce blizzard battered the windows, chilling the empty hole left in Claude’s heart.

Just then, a wave of rebels, marching under the banner of revolution, descended upon the capital, Cielo, and stormed the imperial palace.

That wave also reached the red-brick mansion where Claude was grieving.

The warmth faded from the face of Nanny Margaret, who had just prepared a cup of cocoa for him.

“Your Highness, Your Highness, hurry!”

Claude, his eyes swollen from crying himself to the brink of exhaustion, vaguely saw Margaret’s face through his blurred vision.

Despair. The moment he recognized that emotion on the face of Margaret, the woman who was like a second mother to him, fear struck him.

“Nanny—”

Quickly donning a cloak, Margaret hoisted Claude onto her back.

Though his weight was too much for a middle-aged woman, Margaret carried Claude with near-superhuman strength, rushing out of the mansion in hopes that the Marquis of Reve would come for them.

The flames, which had started in the eastern wing of the estate, were rapidly engulfing the main building. The snow did nothing to quell the blaze, and the blizzard only seemed to feed its cursed fury.

“Brother—! Take me with you!”

Claude squirmed in Margaret’s arms at the faint voice calling out to him.

From a distance, he could hear Apollini’s voice calling from the brightly lit window of the western wing.

“Your Highness the Princess!”

“Nanny! Hurry and escape! We’ll handle this!”

Margaret bit her lips, raw with blood, and hoisted Claude onto her back as he helplessly began to chant Apollini’s name.

They were after Claude, the one destined for the throne.

“Brother! Take me with you! Don’t leave me behind!”

“We will make sure to escort Your Highness. I’ve sent word to Marquis Reve, and reinforcements will arrive!”

Arrows began to rain down from somewhere.

“Brother! Nanny! Please don’t leave me behind!”

With tears of blood in her heart, Margaret dashed for the back door with the remaining guards’ help.

“Brother! O….”

Claude lost his grip on the little sanity he had left, the last sounds he heard being his nanny’s sobs and Apollini’s faint voice.

—

Claude awoke with a start, as if he had been splashed with cold water, his heart racing as he realized he was falling from a cliff.

He found himself in a dark room.

It was a snowy night.

Everything seemed just as it was before everyone fell asleep. It felt like he had just experienced a horrific nightmare.

Before he could gather his thoughts, he found himself on his knees, his familiar face rolling on the floor in front of him.

“Claude Yufrees.”

In that instant, he couldn’t breathe.

Claude finally looked up after what felt like an eternity of staring at the lifeless face of his nanny.

A great shadow loomed over him—his uncle.

Grand Duke Igor Yufrees, who ruled the North.

…He was smiling.

“I have waited for this day.”

In the cold western wing.

He was in the place where he had grown up, the same western wing where Apollini had cried out, begging him not to abandon her.

Claude felt a chill run down his spine as he surveyed the charred interior.

“Apollini….”

“Your father, Alexei Yufrees, has taken everything I loved.”

Claude’s uncle’s mutterings didn’t reach him at all.

Despair filled his eyes as he frantically searched for any trace of Apollini.

“Everything Alexei Yufrees loved will die.”

Unable to bear looking at the man before him, Claude focused on the lifeless eyes of his nanny, which had surely closed while protecting him.

His entire body shook with rage and terror.

Everything in Apollini’s room had burned down. Apollini was gone.

“Are you looking for Apollini? That girl is dead. She begged me to let her live while she was dying pathetically. I thought about keeping her alive since she was a girl, but I can’t stand the noise.”

Igor’s words filled Claude with intense murderous intent, but he also felt a crushing pressure weighing down on his body and soul.

It felt as if his soul was being torn apart from the inside.

Quickly, he raised his bloodshot eyes to gaze at the dark sword his uncle was holding like a prized possession.

Crimson blood dripped from the blade, soaking into the carpet.

“Now, the only things left that Alexei loved are you and this mansion. The mansion is burning, and you are…”

The last remnants of what the late emperor Alexei loved were this mansion and Claude Yufrees.

The mansion was already ablaze, and the beautiful prince, referred to as Yufrees’s treasure, would soon be torn apart.

The very sword that had killed Apollini was now poised to strike him.

“Yufrees’ treasure. Alexei’s treasure. What about Claude Yufrees? Will you beg for your life? If you beg nicely, maybe I’ll spare you.”

Instead of responding, Claude glared at his uncle with bloodshot eyes.

“…Disrespectful brat.”

He felt utterly powerless to resist.

Claude’s arms were brutally bound by heavily armored knights.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Grand Duke Igor Yufrees beheaded his own nephew.

The sword sliced through the air, dark energy swirling around it as it cleaved the young body in two.

It was a one-sided and brutal murder scene.

—

Yuan wrapped her trembling arms around herself.

“I remember it clearly.”

The younger Henna continued with surprising calmness.

“I saw my master’s face, unwavering, as I hid in the gap in the floorboards.”

Henna squinted, struggling to recall that day.

When they saw the princess meet her death in front of the western wing while trying to escape, Henna’s parents hastily tore up the wooden floor to hide her within it, only to confront Grand Duke Igor and perish.

Yuan unconsciously grasped Henna’s hand tightly, unaware that she was trembling more than she was.

“That sword split His Highness in half.”

Henna remembered that day vividly.

She had seen the moment the long shadow of the sword touched Claude.

“His Highness’s body was not split in half. It was as if the dark energy swirling around that sword was drawn into him…”

“And that’s how he became like this.”

Yuan shut her eyes tightly, picturing a horrific image she didn’t want to envision.

Henna began to recount her memories as if possessed.

“The mad emperor, seeing that sight, looked like his eyes were about to pop out. He held that cursed black sword and stared for a long time, then saw Prince Claude, transformed into a charred shadow, and laughed in an even more twisted way. ‘If this is what life worse than death looks like, then this is it! The treasure of Yufrees has turned into a crow!’ he said.”