The Abandoned Prince’s Ghost Bride - Chapter 14

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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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The Forsaken Crown Prince’s Ghost Bride — Episode 14

‘Ah, that’s right. I do have those.’
“What is it?”
‘Wait a moment. I’ll be right back.’
Leaving Lucian behind, she returned to the Manor. She made her way directly to the second floor, searching for the stairs that led to the Attic.
The place Lia entered was an eccentric painter’s Studio.
‘Of course there was something left.’
She gathered up the Parchment, Pencil, and Paint that the painter had mainly used.
She had once suggested drawing together with Lucian, but she’d never found the time to actually do it.
Perhaps if she started as a hobby now, she could eventually learn it properly.
Looking at him, the boy’s mind was sharp, and aside from his initial lack of stamina, he was actually quite skilled at physical tasks.
‘If he turns out to be good at drawing too……!’
Without realizing it, Lia descended into the Garden, her heart light with anticipation.
“Where did you go? Oh, what’s all this?”
Lia placed the items on the Mat and explained each one.
‘You just lay the Parchment on this Board and draw whatever you want.’
To demonstrate, she began sketching a cluster of foxes huddled together in sleep.
Drawing for the first time, her hand proved surprisingly skilled.
“Wow, it looks just like the foxes!”
Lucian’s eyes widened in wonder, his admiration flowing freely.
Though sketched roughly and lacking polish, the forms were recognizable enough.
‘You don’t have to draw from life. Draw whatever you imagined or wanted to draw, freely. What do you say? Want to try?’
“Yes!”
Lucian immediately lay down on the grass, kicking his legs toward the sky as he pondered what to draw.
As he looked around at this and that, he suddenly stopped and stared at Lia.
‘Why?’
“I want to draw Lia.”
‘Me?’
“Just stay still there. I’ll draw you beautifully.”
Lucian buried his nose in the Parchment and set his pencil to work.
He cycled through looking at the Parchment, then at Lia, tilting his head down and up again.
It seemed it would take a while to finish.
Thinking why not, Lia picked up a Pencil to sketch Lucian herself.
After about ten minutes, the rough sketch was complete. She naturally prepared the Paint and began working without hesitation.
Verdant greens became fluttering leaves and grass blades, warm sky-blue danced overhead, and colors of every hue gradually filled in the delicate form of the child.
It seemed as though Lucian might burst forth at any moment, calling out her name in delight.
‘Lucian, look at this — I drew it quite well……’
But as she lifted the drawing to show him, she discovered Lucian curled up asleep, still clutching his Pencil.
Using Magic, Lia carefully lifted the sleeping boy and arranged the Mat and scattered Supplies.
Then her eyes caught on the Parchment he’d been using.
She froze.
‘Surely this isn’t……me?’
Even trying to view it charitably for his age, she couldn’t manage it.
There were no nose — only two bulbous eyes — and a mouth stretched in what might have been meant as a smile, but the lines were scrawled and messy, making it look eerie.
‘He said he’d draw me beautifully, and instead he drew some sort of malevolent spirit?’
Whether from a dull pencil tip or from smudging as he drew, the entire Parchment was smeared and darkened, making the figure look all the more sinister and ghastly.
‘Pff, hehehehe……! Ahem! So it wasn’t just that he couldn’t hold a pencil properly after all.’
When Lucian had been going through his picky phase about broccoli, she’d seen him add something to the side of one of her drawings.
She’d thought it was a flower at first, but when she asked later, he said he’d drawn the sun.
Simply put, Lucian had no talent for drawing. She felt embarrassed having briefly wondered if he might be a prodigy.
‘……But did he really draw this seriously?’
At first it was merely ridiculous, but the thought that the spirit in the Parchment was Lucian’s honest depiction of her gave her pause.
He sang her praises so constantly. Was his aesthetic sense actually faulty?
Because of his constant words, she’d thought her face was at least reasonably pretty, but now doubt crept in.
‘Good grief, and he sleeps soundly after drawing such a thing.’
She carefully cradled Lucian and carried him back into the Manor along with the other items.
Lia slipped both her own drawing and Lucian’s mysterious spirit(?) drawing into a shelf in the bookcase.
Without her knowing it, traces of Lucian were accumulating, piece by piece.

* * *

“……And so Dick was able to return safely to the arms of his family.”
‘Wonderful! You finished the whole Fairy Tale Book tonight!’
Bedtime reading time — when she read to him before sleep.
Tonight was a special evening: Lucian had read through the entire Fairy Tale Book from beginning to end.
For a child who’d only been learning to read for two months, finishing such a book was no simple feat.
She showered him with applause and praise, but Lucian showed no reaction.
She expected him to become cocky and puff with pride, but instead he looked downcast.
Lia stopped clapping and regarded him carefully. Lucian’s gaze remained fixed on the Fairy Tale Book.
More specifically, on the illustration of a happy family.
Then she understood what he was thinking.
‘……Do you want to go home?’
Lucian’s shoulders flinched. After a moment of consideration, he shook his head. But longing was written all over his expression.
Lia took the Fairy Tale Book from him. Only then did he look at her.
Lucian had never properly told her his story. She’d waited this long thinking the timing wasn’t right, but now it was.
‘Can you tell me how you came to be here, and why you became a fake Crown Prince and were offered as a Sacrifice Offering?’
She spoke calmly so as not to frighten the child. Lucian blinked his large eyes at her, his gaze piercing.
“……A fake Crown Prince?”
‘Yes. I know everything, so there’s no need to hide anything.’
Even as she patted his back reassuringly, Lucian’s expression remained blank. Then he suddenly stood up and looked down at her.
“I’m not a fake Crown Prince.”
‘Hmm?’
“I’m the real Crown Prince. I’m not an Orphan.”
What was he talking about? Surely when he’d first come here, those men had said…….
As her bewilderment faded, Lia suddenly recalled something the men had said meaningfully.

‘But why would there even be a need to disguise him like that? As though he were Royalty…….’
‘Shh. We just do what we’re told. Don’t go asking unnecessary questions.’

And there was another question that had nagged at her since observing Lucian.
The mark of the Royal Family was the Golden Eyes. Lucian was unmistakably the bearer of clear, luminous Golden Eyes. There was no trace of Magic or drug use — meaning his eyes were naturally that way.
‘……Then he wasn’t disguised as Royalty at all, was he?’
“What was that?”
‘Oh, no. It’s just that when you first came here, I overheard those men say something. At the time, they…….’
As Lia explained, Lucian’s expression darkened and he sat down. He drew his knees up to his chest.
‘……Is there something going on?’
“I don’t know much. But one day, people started calling me an Orphan.”
Though he was only eight years old, his expression carried a darkness unsuited to his age.
“But honestly, I’m not even sure if I’m really the Crown Prince.”
Lucian explained what his life had been like before coming here.
He had lived in a shabby palace before arriving — a small, decrepit place that was a palace only in name, far inferior to this Manor.
There, Lucian had been raised amid neglect that bordered on abuse.
‘Don’t call for me unless you need something, didn’t I say?!’
‘You’re old enough now, so you can handle things yourself, can’t you?’
‘Why do you keep asking me to come and go? Am I your friend?!’
Just hearing the harsh words Lucian had endured made clear what kind of treatment he’d received.
‘Then how did you learn you were a Crown Prince?’
“My father came to visit once.”
‘Your father — you mean the Emperor?’
“Yes. He came on my fourth birthday. That was when I first learned it was my birthday, that I was a Crown Prince, and that I had a family.”
Until then, everyone had called him by his name rather than addressing him as ‘Crown Prince,’ and they’d spoken to him dismissively.
But after the Emperor’s visit, they gradually changed their forms of address, and eventually began using respectful language. Though, of course, their actual behavior didn’t change much.
It was long ago, but Lucian remembered the day he met the Emperor vividly.
The adults he’d feared most suddenly grew flustered at the sight of the Emperor, bowing so deeply their heads touched the floor, unable even to lift their eyes.
He had the same silver hair and Golden Eyes as Lucian.
The moment Lucian saw the Emperor, he instinctively understood that this was his father.
‘……Father.’
Young Lucian hesitantly grasped the hem of the Emperor’s robe and spoke.
The Emperor’s face twisted into a frown as he muttered.
‘……Still alive.’
Hearing Lucian’s words, Lia sat stunned. What kind of thing was that to say? And to his own son meeting him for the first time?
Rage seethed within her.
“I asked my Nursemaid afterward what my father did, and whether I had other family besides my mother.”
‘What did she tell you?’
“She said my mother is well and healthy, and I have an older brother.”
This meant that only Lucian was left abandoned in the Cold Palace while his brother received love and care from many.
None of it made sense. Why was only Lucian treated that way?
‘Is your mother someone else, by any chance?’
“No. The Empress is my mother.”
That made even less sense. Why would a child of the Empress have to live hidden away, denied the treatment befitting a Crown Prince?
“After I saw my father, every night before bed I thought about it. Maybe tomorrow my family will come for me. Someday they’ll take me away……”
But that day never came, not once.
Lucian’s emotions overwhelmed him, and he stopped mid-sentence, beginning to weep. Lia clenched her fists and pulled him into her embrace.
“A week before I came here…… people took me somewhere. It was a much grander, more splendid place than this. I thought my family was finally coming for me. But…… that wasn’t it.”
They cut his untended hair, dressed him in fine clothes, gave him foods he’d never tasted before — but he never saw the Emperor or anyone who claimed to be Royalty.
Instead, the people who had prepared him called him an Orphan plucked from the streets.
“I’m not an Orphan…… I have a mother and father too……”
The resentment he’d never been able to share with anyone came pouring out.
“My Nursemaid said I’m a child who should never have been born. That my birth split the family’s strength…… That’s why I’m not treated as a Crown Prince……”
Lucian fell silent, his words trailing off. Tears gathered at the corners of his eyes.
“Should I…… really not have been born?”
In his contorted expression lay the wound he’d long been suppressing, the hurt he’d tried so hard to hide.
The wound had festered long ago, needed immediate care, but no one had shown him how to heal it. It had simply been left alone.
Sniffle, sniffle.
Lia placed a hand on Lucian’s back and patted it gently.
‘I don’t know why you’ve heard such things, or why people have abandoned you, but I’m truly glad you came here.’
The Golden Eyes glistening with tears looked up at her.
‘You asked me before, didn’t you? Whether I was lonely for three hundred years. I thought I wasn’t, but maybe I was all along.’
Living alongside Lucian, she’d come to understand: she could never return to the time before she met him.
She’d come to viscerally understand how precious it is to live with someone, and how greatly Lucian had blessed her.
‘To others I don’t know, but to me — you’re special. You’re the only human who can see me. So don’t think about whether you should have been born or whether you’re unlucky. I’m here beside you now.’
“……Am I really that special?”
‘Yes. To me, more special than anyone else.’
“Hee, hehe……”
Lucian smiled softly, and tears that had been hanging precariously tumbled down. It looked so sad that she wiped them away.
Though he should feel no body heat, Lucian rubbed his face against her hand wrapped in Mana as though savoring the feeling.
“I was envious of the family in the Fairy Tale Book, but I’m not anymore.”
‘Then what?’
“Because Lia is here with me. Lia is my family.”
Family — a word entirely unsuited to a spirit, yet she didn’t want to break the atmosphere.
‘Yes, I’ll always be by your side.’
So she found herself speaking the impossible. How could she always be by his side when she was bound to this Manor?
When he reached adulthood, he would have to leave. Not cast out, but he couldn’t spend his whole life as a ghost bound to one place.
But if she could one day be free, and could stay by his side……
She wanted to watch over Lucian loving someone, marrying, having children, growing old and passing away happily.
She knew it had no basis in reality, yet it was such a sweet dream that she desperately wanted it to come true.

* * *

“Thank you again today!”
“No, it’s my job.”
Three months had passed since Lucian arrived at Ghost Manor. Today was a monthly delivery day for Supplies.
James, who’d bolted on his first day and seemed never to return, had come back on the second month, and was here again today to deliver the Supplies.
‘On days like this I just hand off the goods and my shift is done, plus I get the bonus stipend.’
The rumors had frightened him at first, but once he realized how easy the work was, he couldn’t resist. He’d even made up a half-hearted excuse about coming back reluctantly so someone else wouldn’t snatch this cushy job away.
Not that anyone was actually eager to come to a place like this anyway.
‘And besides, the kid keeps standing out in my mind.’
After finishing his errand on the first day and finding something odd, James had asked the Chief Servant about Lucian.
‘Is there some other child here? Who exactly is he?’
‘I told you to watch your tongue.’
‘Of course I haven’t mentioned it to anyone! It’s just that the boy looks exactly like the Crown Prince……’
The Chief Servant, watching the fidgeting James, responded with resignation.
‘……He’s an Orphan we brought here to serve as a Sacrifice Offering.’
‘An Orphan? But he really looked like Royalty……’
‘Such things happen. Don’t go digging too deep. If you mention the boy to anyone else……!’
The Chief Servant’s expression, as he made a slicing motion across his throat, turned as sharp as a blade.
‘Then both you and I will be finished. Understood?’
What the Chief Servant said was no threat — it was sincere. His face had been quite pale as he’d whispered to him.
Though James took more care with his tongue afterward, he couldn’t suppress his curiosity about Lucian.
In the end, he discreetly investigated information about Ghost Manor, and learned that a Ritual Ceremony had recently been performed to appease the Manor’s spirit.
He’d tried to identify the people who participated in the ceremony, but for some reason they’d all quit their posts, so he couldn’t learn more.
Still, the fact that a Sacrifice Offering had been made suggested that the boy disguised as Royalty was likely that offering.
‘Poor thing.’
Orphan or not, Lucian left alone in the grand Manor tugged at James’s heart.
But he was barely scraping by himself and couldn’t simply spirit the boy away. Besides, the Chief Servant had explicitly ordered that the child was never to leave the Manor.
So he’d decided to at least make sure Lucian received plenty of Supplies……
“He seems to be growing taller than last time?”
Why did Lucian’s color and vitality improve each visit? When James first saw him, the boy had been gaunt and skeletal, looking as though a strong push would topple him.
Now his height seemed greater, his complexion healthier and fuller, his frame sturdy — improvements visible even through his clothes.

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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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