Chapter 62

Chapter 62

Fontaine felt a sudden chill creep down his nearly broken spine. It was true that he had been recruiting mercenaries soon after setting his mind to stage the coup, and he also had to admit to himself that Lante’s attitude towards him had taken a noticeably frostier turn around that time. But he still could not fathom how his father could have divined what was brewing deep within his heart.

“But that’s not even the half of it. Shall I lay out for you all the tricks I know you’ve been up to until now? You didn’t really think I’d remain ignorant about all your trivial shenanigans, did you?!”

“B-But, Father, I—”

“You must really think your father a sorry, old sap, huh? Just another buffoon you can ridicule behind closed doors.” Stoked by his own anger, Lante grabbed his son by his bloody collar and lifted him off the crimson-stained porcelain floor. He raised one of his huge mitt-like hands into the air, then whipped it forward to slap Fontaine across the face with such force that the sound reverberated off the walls.

Lante had already been in a foul mood due to Cassis’ sudden appearance at the banquet and was clearly nearing his breaking point. In the face of such wrath, Fontaine was basically a lamb begging to be slaughtered.

“Bring it here.” Although he had directed the order at one of the guards, the head Agrece did not take his eyes off of Fontaine. To his son, his father’s glare pierced through him like cold icepicks.

The guard had not hesitated in fetching what Lante had demanded.

“I’ll be fair and admit that you do indeed have some talent.” Lante’s voice took on a sinister tone as he twirled the dagger the guard had handed him. “Now tell me where you’ve imprisoned all the Agrece soldiers who were loyal to me?”

Fontaine’s mouth suddenly gaped as if his jaw would land on the floor.

“W-What do y— Argh! But what soldiers?!” Fontaine’s shock was so genuine that his attempt at denial was almost believable. “P-Please, Father, I really don’t kn—”

Stab!

Before the next word had fully left his mouth, the dagger Lante had been fondling was standing upright in the middle of Fontaine’s hand.

“Aaagh!”

The Agrece leader simply watched as his son screamed.

“Very good, my son. I would have been disappointed if after all that education and training I gave you, you fessed up too easily.” There was absolutely no warmth or mercy in Lante’s gaze. “I’m curious to see if you’ll still be able to hold out once I start cutting off your limbs though.”

There was no questioning that the master of the Agrece clan’s savagery was beyond the pale. He had never been one to forgive traitors, and his children were no exception. As Lante twisted the knife out of his son’s hand, Fontaine once again shrieked out in pure agony.

Roxana stood quietly off to the side while staring at the accumulating pool of blood that had finally made its way to the tip of Lante’s shoe. Fontaine had been so focused on Lante and Deon that he hadn’t noticed she was in the room as well.

“Father...”

The sound of her voice caused the eldest Agrece child’s head to jerk even in his defeated state.

“I don’t think you should waste any more time on this.”

Lante shifted his gaze to his daughter. She stared at her father calmly before looking at the pathetic mess that was her older half-brother Fontaine. Her beauty was so overwhelming that the mere sight of her loveliness was a valid excuse for forgetting that he was being pummeled in the judgment room and not basking in the beauty of a spring garden.

“Have you found them?”

Rather than answer Lante’s question, Roxana smirked. She had been the one to uncover Fontaine’s plan with the help of her butterflies, then tip off her father. The discovery had led Lante to place his eldest under constant surveillance until all his crimes came to light later. Of course, he loathed the idea of admitting how instrumental Roxana had been to him at every turn.

Instead, he told himself that even if he hadn’t discovered Fontaine’s scheme as soon as he did, there was no chance his son would have succeeded in ousting him. Nevertheless, ordering Deon to keep an eye on Fontaine as Roxana had advised did result in a far more efficient and satisfactory outcome.

“Well done. That was even faster than I had expected. Of course, I would expect nothing less of my daughter.”

But Roxana’s words carried a far different meaning than what Lante was imagining.

“What I’m saying, Father, is that you should stop wasting your energy trying to find out what you will never know.” She spoke as calmly as a still pond, which only threw Lante into a deeper state of confusion. “My butterflies have already eaten every single one of your soldiers. A fitting end I’d say for those men who were trained to obey you like dogs.”

“What?”

The entire room seemed to go still. Lante could not seem to form another word as he gawked at his daughter abysmally unaware of the spectacle about to unfold before him.

Click, clack

The sound of heels walking on the porcelain floor suddenly rang out throughout the room to break the unnerving stillness. Roxana had begun to jauntily make her way toward the oversized seat of judgment at the front of the room. As it was almost throne-like in its appearance, the chair was accepted by every member of the clan to be exclusively reserved for their leader, Lante Agrece.

“Roxana... What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

Without a moment’s hesitation, his daughter sat down on the Agrece throne. “I’ve always wanted to sit here.” She caressed the gem-adorned armrest as she spoke. “I often wondered what it would feel like to look down at everything from this vantage point.”

Her melodic voice sounded so innocent that for a moment Lante forgot he had even felt angry. Fontaine gawked up at her in equal amazement. He was finding it hard to believe that she could do something so borderline insane in such a matter-of-fact way.

Then her scarlet gaze resettled on Lante. “From up here, even you look small, Father.” As she spoke her rose-colored lips slowly raised at the corners to form a sly grin.

Fault lines began to appear on Lante’s face that resembled the cracks on the porcelain floor from various punishments of old. “You... You would dare to mock me?!”

His expression was that of icy turbulence. It was as if frothy waves of hate were crashing behind the crimson eyes of the head Agrece.

Roxana continued to look down at them without an apparent care in the world.

“Now please don’t be so angry, Father.” She appealed to him as if he were simply getting upset over a trivial matter. “Didn’t you suspect anything even once before now?”

The quiet force behind her sweet whisper made her words ring throughout the judgment room.

“Father, all of this is a stage I set especially for you.”

Lante suddenly felt something ominous scratch at his heart. “And just what is that supposed to...?”

The time had finally come for Roxana to draw back the curtain on the hallucination she had cast over the entire room.

Flutter, flutter.

Suddenly a host of butterflies that had gone undetected throughout Fontaine’s beating rose in unison from the puddle of blood encircling him.

Flutter, flutter.

The sight of the little winged beasts bursting forth was akin to seeing a red microburst. In their wake they revealed the huge enchantment circle they had been hiding from Lante with the hallucination they had cast on the room. Upon seeing the circle, Lante finally realized what he was up against. He immediately knew that he needed to get away and fast.

“You have some nerve, Roxana! Argh!”

But before he could take a single step, the magic circle activated. An explosion of pure white light burst up from beneath Lante’s feet. Despite the almost holy appearance of the circle’s rays, the sorcery necessary in order to trigger it was far from saintly. It was the sort of dark sorcery that relied on blood as a medium, and so was only able to reach completion once Fontaine had lost enough blood for it to taint his father’s shoe.

Then the moment Lante attempted to escape the circle its spell activated. Thus, the invisible trap had snared its victim.

Clang!

“Agh! Kegh!” Lante sagged to the floor as if a meteorite had crash-landed onto him with the force of immense gravity.

Just as the judge and arbiter Lante had done before, Roxana now stared arrogantly down at her father.

“Honestly, Father, you should have been more suspicious of me.”

Although he could barely move so much as a finger due to the overwhelming pressure, he still managed to glare up at her with fury gleaming in his eyes.

“After all, you were the one who taught me that even between a father and child things like love and trust are simply delusions.”

It was becoming more and more apparent that Roxana, the real coup leader, had deliberately diverted Lante’s attention to his eldest son. Despite currently being pinned down and having to glare up at his daughter’s smug expression, Lante could hardly bring himself to believe she was the one behind it all. But however painful it was for him to accept, the fact remained.

As his eyes began to turn even redder due to their vessels popping, the Agrece leader’s gaze bore down on the real traitor. If looks could kill, Lante’s would have felled about a hundred Roxanas, but she calmly returned his stare with that slightly amused smile of hers.

“Even you have to admit that my performance as your good, little daughter was near perfection.”

Betrayal was the most apparent emotion on Lante’s face, but not too far below it was a look of pure bewilderment similar to that of someone whose own dog had just bitten them. Although she was in the middle of berating him, Roxana found herself reveling in just how funny her father looked.

“De... on...”

To his credit, Lante Agrece was indeed a beast as he somehow mustered the strength to speak while still being crushed by the pressure of the circle. The feat was not without consequence though as a torrent of blood spewed forth from his mouth.

“Grab... that bi—”

“Come here, Deon.” Roxana’s interjection essentially overrode their father’s appeal to his most-treasured son.

It was apparent that Lante believed his last hope lay with Deon who had been standing on the other side of the room, but it was a depressingly empty hope. Only after issuing the order, it occurred to him that Deon would have already come to his aid if he had indeed been on his father’s side.

Without an ounce of feeling, his favorite son merely stared at his defeated father.