Chapter 188: The End of Revenge
The Emperor turned his head, his gaze settling on Aracila as she rose and stepped forward. Her blue eyes, sharp with clarity, met his with quiet resolve.
“What is this about?” he asked.
“Though this assembly was convened to uncover the Crown Prince’s treason, we, too, have sinners we wish to accuse,” she replied.
“Hmm,” the Emperor murmured, narrowing his eyes with a peculiar expression. The accusations against Frederick were already a headache; he seemed reluctant to entertain another complication. Sensing his father’s hesitation, Lucas stepped in to lend Aracila his support.
“Your Majesty, the Vandermirs have been instrumental in exposing the Crown Prince’s crimes. As loyal servants who helped apprehend traitors, I ask that you hear them out.”
“…Very well. Speak,” the Emperor relented, nodding magnanimously.
Aracila, who had been standing with her hands clasped respectfully, slowly raised her face and spoke clearly. “I accuse the Duke and Duchess of Vandermir of murder. I request that their titles be stripped and bestowed upon Damian Vandermir, and that they face severe punishment.”
“What nonsense is this?!” the Duke of Vandermir roared, his eyes already fixed nervously on Aracila. The Duchess’s face turned ashen, frozen in shock.
“My apologies, Your Majesty,” the Duke continued, his voice strained with anger. “My son’s wife must have lost her mind. Damian, you fool! Can’t you keep your wife in check?”
He hurled back the same words Frederick had once used against him, his voice thick with indignation. Yet, his trembling eyes betrayed his unease—a tension and anxiety that the truly innocent would not feel.
Damian rose unhurriedly, taking his place beside Aracila. With a hand on his chest, he bowed gracefully. “Your Majesty, I formally request that, as of this moment, I inherit the ducal title. Furthermore, I ask that the former Duke and Duchess be arrested for murder.”
“Who gave you the right to claim the dukedom?!” the Duke bellowed. “Damian, there’s a limit to how far you can disrespect your father. How dare you speak like this before His Majesty—!”
“Who did they kill?” the Emperor interrupted, cutting off the Duke’s tirade. The Duke lowered his eyebrows and turned to face the Emperor.
“Your Majesty, how can you entertain such absurd questions!” he protested.
“Be silent, Duke,” the Emperor said coldly. “You’ve been too loud from the start, making it impossible to hear others properly.”
The Duke clamped his mouth shut, though he fidgeted restlessly, like a dog with its tail on fire. The Duchess clung tightly to her husband’s sleeve, her face pale.
Damian glanced impassively at the shaken couple before addressing the Emperor in a measured tone. “Nineteen years ago, they killed my mother, Monica Vandermir. And we have proof.”
At his signal, Aracila returned to her seat and retrieved Monica’s jewelry box from her bag. As she produced a glass vial from within, the Duchess staggered, her eyes wide with shock.
How could they have that…!
After Monica’s death, they had searched tirelessly for that very item. They had strictly forbidden access to her room, certain it was hidden somewhere inside. They had done everything to prevent Damian from finding it among her belongings, but all their efforts had been for nothing.
“These are the diary and tea leaves left by the late Duchess before her passing,” Damian said, his voice firm as he took the vial from Aracila. “The tea leaves, a gift from the current Duchess, are no ordinary blend. They were cultivated with dark magic, designed to sicken, brainwash, and ultimately kill their target.”
Aracila held out the diary, adding, “The late Duchess Monica’s journal details how cunningly the current Duchess orchestrated her murder.”
As the Emperor reached for the diary, the Duke lunged forward, positioning himself to block the Emperor’s view and glaring at Aracila. His blatantly discourteous action drew a frown from the Emperor, but the Duke, too consumed by panic, didn’t notice.
“How do you know that’s Monica’s diary?” he demanded. “How do we know you didn’t fabricate it?”
“That would be impossible, Your Grace,” Aracila replied, smiling faintly as she tapped the small eagle emblem on the diary’s cover. “This is a special magical diary passed down exclusively in the Lond family.”
Recognizing the Lond family crest, the Duke’s face contorted. This is bad.
A wave of dread washed over him as he scrambled for a way out. He had narrowly escaped the treason charge, but he couldn’t afford to be ensnared now. Steeling himself, he turned to the Emperor with grim determination. “Your Majesty, it seems my second wife, blinded by jealousy, made a grave mistake. I will personally see to her punishment.”
“Darling!” the Duchess gasped, clutching his arm in shock at his betrayal.
In truth, the Duke hadn’t directly participated in Monica’s murder. But he had known Sophie planned to kill her and had done nothing to stop it, even willingly covering the cost of the poisoned tea leaves. He was far from innocent.
“Be quiet!” he hissed under his breath. “If I survive, I can save you!”
The Duchess, teary-eyed, seemed to calm slightly. Seizing the moment, the Duke pressed his case to the Emperor. “But to strip me of my title because of my wife’s crime is unjust! It’s unfair!”
“No, Father,” came a low voice from behind.
The Duke turned, startled, and froze. Damian had drawn closer, his icy gaze bearing down with an almost palpable weight. Even when Damian had grown taller than him, the Duke hadn’t found him intimidating—but now, an indescribable aura of authority emanated from his son.
“I will rightfully inherit the dukedom,” Damian declared, a faint smirk tugging at his lips as he reached into his jacket. “Through Grandfather’s will.”
From his pocket, Damian produced the long-lost will of the previous Duke. The Duke’s eyes widened in disbelief. “You—how did you…?!”
Damian and Aracila exchanged a calm smile. After Damian had finished reading Monica’s diary, they had focused on a particular detail: the previous Duke had left an inheritance for Sian Mondor.
“If he left an inheritance, it wouldn’t hurt to make use of it,” Aracila had said. “Investigations like these often require a lot of money.”
While searching for the inheritance, Damian uncovered a shocking truth. The previous Duke hadn’t left gold or jewels in Sian Mondor’s name at the temple—it was the will that the entire Vandermir family had been desperately searching for.
So this was Grandfather’s atonement.
For raising a son who ruined his daughter-in-law and grandson’s lives, the previous Duke had secretly entrusted the family’s future to Damian. With this unexpected discovery, Damian began preparing to inherit the dukedom from his father. Even if the Vandermir family were implicated in treason, he planned to ascend as the new Duke, expelling his father and stepmother to clear his name.
Striding past his father, Damian presented the will to the Emperor with confidence. “Your Majesty, I believe you know what this is. My grandfather stipulated that the dukedom be passed to the grandson married to the granddaughter of the Hugo Marquisate.”
“Indeed, I recall,” the Emperor said, nodding with a surprised expression. “I vouched for that will myself.”
The Duke, feeling his heart constrict, shouted desperately, “Marriage only grants eligibility for succession, not immediate inheritance!”
“You seem unaware, Father,” Damian said, turning slightly to regard him with a sardonic tilt of his lips. “Grandfather’s will states that if Duke Alex Vandermir is implicated in a serious crime, the title is to be immediately revoked and passed to the next generation.”
“What…?” the Duke stammered.
“It’s written here in detail,” Damian said, helpfully pointing to the relevant passage. “Duke Alex Vandermir agreed to these conditions when he inherited the title.”
The Duke’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly, a memory surfacing too late. Pressured by his first wife, he had hastily inherited the title from his father, who had imposed a condition: if he ever violated the law, the title would be forfeit. At the time, the Duke hadn’t thought much of it, too eager to claim the dukedom and live grandly.
Aracila, observing the Duke who stood frozen as if paralyzed by a spell, asked in a voice tinged with suspicion.
“Are you truly uninvolved in the murder of the former Duchess? You didn’t participate directly, but were you not an accomplice who acquiesced?”
“…O-Of course not! I had no idea! It was all her doing, that woman scheming to take the Duchess’s place!”
The Duke, snapping out of his daze, scrambled to defend himself. But he faltered, unable to respond to Aracila’s next words.
“Then drink the truth serum.”
“….”
“If your claims remain the same after taking it, I’ll believe you.”
Aracila courteously opened the vial and held it out. The Duke stood petrified, staring blankly.
As the Emperor, Lucas, and everyone else fixed their gazes on him, a shrill, trembling voice rang out.
“Yes, I killed her!”
It was the Duchess.
Her bloodshot eyes swept over the crowd as she let out a sharp, bitter laugh. A stunned silence fell over the shocked onlookers.
Pushing past her husband, she drew every eye in the room and whipped her head toward Damian.
“I despised Monica from the start. She was hypocritical, deceitful!”
“….”
“Raised as the pampered daughter of an earl, she always looked down on me, pitied me. Do you know how much I suffered enduring her smug superiority?”
So she stole Monica’s husband, her family, her everything.
Of course, Monica’s actual demeanor was entirely different, and it was likely the Duchess’s own insecurities that painted her that way. But to the Duchess, that hardly mattered.
Her hollow heart had finally felt full, sated at last.
The life she’d seized by betraying her friend had been sweet—until her son’s death. With no trace of remorse, the Duchess laughed hysterically and shrieked,
“I killed your mother, Damian Vandermir!”
“….”
“If you feel wronged, then kill me! I won’t resist. Come on, stab me with your sword!”
She flung her arms wide, a childish and blatant provocation, but effective in its brazenness. Aracila tensed.
There was nothing to gain from Damian harming her directly. She glanced at her husband, ready to intervene if needed, but…
To her surprise, Damian’s face was calm. He gazed at the Duchess without a flicker of agitation. Sensing his steady stare, she escalated her taunts.
“What, can’t do it? You didn’t really want to avenge your mother that badly, did you? You just used Monica’s death to fuel your ambition to become Duke!”
“….”
“So what’s the difference between you and me?!”
Of course there’s a difference, what nonsense. Aracila’s brow furrowed, about to retort, when—
Damian strode forward with long steps, closing the distance to the Duchess in an instant, and asked in a low voice,
“Do you want to die by my hand?”
“…!”
“Don’t worry, I won’t kill you.”
As the Duchess flinched, unnerved by his proximity, his golden eyes cast a mocking glance her way.
There had been a time when he wanted to kill them—miserably, painfully, in the most horrific way possible. Back then, he’d never considered what his life would be after revenge.
Before meeting Aracila, Damian had been consumed by a self-destructive vendetta, one that would destroy both himself and his enemies, leaving no trace of his bloodline on this earth.
But now, things were different. No matter how his revenge ended, Damian wanted to live like a human afterward. He didn’t want to become a monster like them.
Because Aracila would grieve.
Because he wouldn’t be able to stand proudly before her.
Through his mother’s diary, he had come to a realization. The greatest revenge wasn’t granting them the peace of death.
“It’s because you must live and pay for your sins honestly, to the very end.”
“….”
“Your greedily built family has shattered, while I, victorious, claim everything I desire. You’ll have no choice but to watch, confirming your wretched, empty existence with every passing moment.”
The truest revenge was to live well, forcing her to witness it with her own eyes. Damian smiled and stepped back.
For the Duchess, whose life would now be a living hell, every glimpse of him would inevitably bring her dead son, Oscar, to mind.
“By my mother’s mercy, you live.”
At his curt addition, the Duchess’s face flushed with rage. Seeing Monica in the radiant eyes looking down at her, she could bear it no longer.
She had thought she’d won, but now the bitter sting of defeat sank deep into her bones.
“You… you…! Kill me! Just kill me! I’m begging you to kill me!”
She pounded her chest in a frenzy, consumed by fury. As she lunged at Damian, claws bared, Aracila stepped in.
With a binding spell, she restrained the Duchess tightly. Meanwhile, Damian knelt on one knee before the Emperor and made his request.
“Your Majesty, please grant me the succession of the title and allow their arrest.”
The Duke cast a pleading look at the Emperor, who had been observing the scene with a cool, detached expression. Slowly, he spoke.
“Strip the title from Alex Vandermir and pass it to his son, Damian Vandermir. Imprison the former Duke and Duchess for murder.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Imperial knights seized the couple’s arms with force. They thrashed and screamed, their cries echoing through the hall.
“No… no, this can’t be! No!”
“Let me go! Kill me, Damian Vandermir! Don’t let me live, kill me!”
Damian stood silently, watching them being dragged away. As a child, they had seemed like an insurmountable wall, yet their downfall was so pitifully hollow.
A mix of satisfaction and complex emotions kept his eyes fixed on them, until a gentle warmth brushed his hand.
He glanced down. A round crown, tinged with the hue of lavender. Aracila gripped his hand tightly.
With a soft chuckle, he adjusted his hold and turned with his wife. It was the moment he put an end to years of vengeance and hatred.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ✧: *. ꕥ .* :✧ﾟ. ───
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