I Will Protect My Brother - Chapter 131

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 131
“What did you mean by that just now? What exactly did we do together?”
“It seems I’m no longer of much concern to you, so remember it yourself. Princess.”
The young man’s voice and tone were laden with resentment. As I thrashed about and threw off the blanket, Karga had already turned toward the door.
“Are you going to sleep?”
“Yes.”
“What about this? We found a blanket.”
“You use it. Since I’m wronged, I’ll huddle in the Cold Valley without even a blanket to make you feel guilty. I’ll stay up all night.”
“Why won’t you sleep!”
“There’s no need to.”
Karga glanced at me deliberately.
But soon he leaned toward me. He gently extended his hand and caressed my still-warm cheek.
It was a careful, tender touch—the way one handles something precious.
“Still….”
Even as he pouted for a moment, the hand and gaze that reached me were filled with affection. He offered a soft nighttime greeting with a faint smile.
“Still, sleep well for both of us, Rozentia.”
With those words, Karga entered his room and closed the door.
I stared at the closed door for a long time. I shuffled back to my room and collapsed onto the bed, remaining dazed for a while longer.
“…This is strange, really.”
The memory that had surfaced moments ago was vivid.
In that memory, I was alone on a small wooden boat floating in the middle of the open sea.
I was kissing someone.
Very hot, soft, and sweet. Feeling the other’s trembling hands as they fumbled helplessly.
As those sensations came alive once more, my lips grew parched.
“Why are you like this to me, really.”
“Patients are supposed to follow their doctor’s orders. Don’t complain.”
Perhaps my past self had been a little mad. I muttered in bewilderment.
“How is that treatment?”
No matter how I looked at it, that was just an excuse. Perhaps my past self had been nothing but desire incarnate.
It was just this dawn that I had thought about drawing closer to Karga. But now, facing him in reality and tracing through the fragmented memories that surfaced, an unexpected sense of crisis washed over me.
My heart trembled like a ferry swept away by the current. What was the name of this emotion? Excitement?
No, it was something heavier and more bittersweet than that.
Tenderness? No, it wasn’t sad enough for that.
Then was it fear?
‘That’s even less likely. I’m not afraid….’
It didn’t seem so displeasing either.
This was closer to tension. A weak sizzle deep in my belly was excitement that elevated my entire being.
Joy, excitement, longing, obsession. It was not easy to define something precise amid such a jumble of emotions.
Perhaps it was because I had received a gift.
I quickly slipped the ring from my finger. I placed it on the bookshelf and only after backing away did my heartbeat slowly return to its normal rhythm.
‘When he asked what we’ve done so far, he must have been referring to kissing.’
Surely nothing more than that.
Then when did the act of pressing our lips together and mingling breath become so familiar?
I found myself suddenly curious. The Karga from the newly surfaced memory possessed a perfect physique just like now. In fact, there seemed to be no real difference between then and now.
Had I, in that dream, ultimately crossed the boundary barred by iron gates and entered within?
I still couldn’t know. The only clue remained that dream.
I locked the door firmly, crawled into bed, pulled the blanket over myself, and lay down.
I would dream it again—that dream. This time, I wouldn’t wake up. I’d see it through to the very end.
With that resolve, I closed my eyes. After tossing about for a long while, a thin veil of sleep gradually enveloped my consciousness.
The dream began, as always, without my noticing when I’d slipped into it.
* * *
“No thoughts of marriage? What nonsense is this, Rozentia!”
The Emperor was thoroughly displeased again today. It was because I had continued to reject every marriage proposal that came my way.
Because of this, there wasn’t a single day lately when I wasn’t dragged to my father’s office. I composed my expression and concealed my weariness.
“I’ve only just come of age. Besides, Abuye is hardly a nation so weak that it needs to forge marriage alliances. Is there truly any reason I must marry into a foreign Transcendent Family?”
“It’s been only just over thirty years since the Age of the Blind Stars ended. Of the nations that properly survived in Rahnar, there are merely four. Among them, Heiron and Delpiam have already formed an alliance, I hear. Only Abuye stands alone.”
‘The Age of the Blind Stars’—it referred to those seventeen years of darkness in Rahnar when the Guardian Star’s protection had vanished. It had occurred more than ten years before my birth.
My father, the King of Abuye, had lived through that ‘Age of the Blind Stars’ firsthand. The darkness began just as he ascended the throne, and he struggled for seventeen long years to protect the kingdom, or so I’d heard.
Yet even after the Stars returned and Rahnar rapidly recovered, my father still conducted himself as though he lived in those times.
He remained gripped by the terror that this world might collapse tomorrow. Chronic anxiety and insomnia were merely side effects.
Though my father kept Wynack as his vassal—a Transcendent Family that rivaled Kirges in military might—he grew anxious at his inability to curry favor with Delpiam or Heiron. He even offered vast treasures annually to the Nemada Kingdom, where Yeljewa dwells, begging for prophecies.
Since I had never directly experienced the Age of the Blind Stars, I could not fully comprehend how cruel and despairing that era had been.
Of course, even now nearly half of Rahnar remained devastated by meteorites fallen from the sky. The Sorcerers of Kirges traveled across the entire Continent, still laboring at reconstruction efforts, so the conditions back then must have been indescribably horrific.
But the past must be swiftly cast aside and overcome. At least, a king must do so.
I could not become like my father, drowning in such extreme terror that I lost all sound judgment.
“Kirges, Whezel, and Railo have already formed alliances and move together. Wynack and Abuye cannot stand apart.”
“So you’ve already sold my cousins to those three families.”
Three of my female cousins had already married into the Delpiam Imperial Family and among the Transcendents. It seemed my father now intended to sell me, the only daughter, as proof of alliance to some Transcendent Family.
“They are of cadet branches. You are the Princess, whom I had hoped to cherish until the end, but circumstances have come to this. This time, you must go.”
“It’s my life! Don’t presume to wield it as you please! Do you even know what manner of person the other party is…!”
“Still, would your father marry you off to some decrepit old man? The Whezel Heir is still young. Think of it as caring for a younger brother, and if you look after him well and raise him to suit your tastes…”
“Enough!”
I cut off my father’s words, unable to bear it any longer.
“I’ve made it perfectly clear that I refuse. If you were so afraid of the Stars in the first place…”
The words rose to the tip of my tongue—if you feared the Stars so much, why did you cast out Karga?—but I swallowed them. There was nothing to gain by escalating this quarrel further.
“If there is nothing more you wish to say, I shall take my leave, Father.”
I steadied my voice with desperate patience.
“Unlike my cousins, I have not the slightest intention of being sold off to marry some stranger. Please abandon this notion. Farewell.”
Uncertain what else my father might say to hold me back, I turned hastily to leave.
It was just as I was about to escape the office when a heavy voice struck the back of my head.
“So you visit Casanos once a month, I hear.”
Casanos.
The name of the port town where the sea route to Riltear Island began.
A chill crawled down my spine.
Had someone been following me? The fact that I frequented that place was something only the Wynack Family Head knew.
‘Could he have run his mouth to Father?’
The Current Family Head had been a disciple under Karga decades ago when Karga served as the Wynack Family Head. Unable to shake his guilt toward his former master, he turned a blind eye to my visits to Riltear.
I’d made sure he kept quiet, but truthfully, the Current Family Head of Wynack was neither the King of Abuye nor someone who needed to fear the Princess’s gaze. I hadn’t even secured leverage over him—I was merely exploiting his guilt for abandoning his master.
So there was nothing strange about the Current Family Head of Wynack mentioning it to someone.
“Watch your actions carefully, Rozentia. It’s only been thirty years since the Stars returned. If you continue to draw the ire of the Transcendent Families in this situation, I cannot protect you. And frankly, I have no desire to.”
“….”
“Conduct yourself properly. As for the matter of your marriage, a decision will be made soon, so wait in silence. If you continue to act recklessly beyond this point, I will issue a confinement order.”
“…If Father hadn’t cast Karga into that abyss, would he have reason to be this anxious?”
What was I saying? By the time I realized it, it was too late. The resentment I’d barely suppressed surged back like bitter bile.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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