TLDWAE 58

Chapter 58

It wasn’t like someone committing a crime and receiving punishment. Instead, it was like a knight offering his sword to his lord, like a man devoting his life to his lady—he looked up at her from a lower place.

“I’m not like that man from earlier. I can’t say hollow words like, ‘I’m satisfied just by confessing my feelings.’”

“Ah…”

“I want to be your lover. I desire you. I want us to call each other by name, share dinners together, hold hands, and walk side by side.”

His confession wasn’t grand, nor did he quote some magnificent poem, but the desperate earnestness in his eyes was undeniable. And unlike the earlier confession she had dismissed, Karia looked into his eyes and actually listened.

“You…”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Your desires are always so modest.”

At Noah’s desperate confession, Karia broke into delighted laughter. She had noticed his feelings long ago.

Noah was not someone who hid his emotions. Whatever he was like in front of others, at least to Karia, his straightforward feelings had been clear from the beginning.

So, he was rather confident, but seeing Higon must have rattled him.

Just as she understood his emotions, Noah must have noticed her favor as well. Whether it was confidence born from his looks, or simply his overly positive view of how others perceived him, he had always seemed assured of their relationship. But apparently, his confidence wasn’t as unshakable as expected.

When I saw Guilford, I don’t think I ever found him this… adorable.

Whether this confession came from jealousy or unease, Karia didn’t dislike it. Looking at his face whispering words of love, she felt almost as though she had returned to the past.

“You really mean to call me by name? I hold a title now. If I let a knight treat me too casually, others might try to take liberties as well.”

“Then… is it all right when we’re alone, Karia?”

The man who bore the same face as the one she once loved spoke her name for the first time. It was her own name, yet it had always felt out of place. But somehow, it didn’t feel unpleasant.

It wasn’t like when her family or her husband’s relatives had called her by it. Being called by him made her feel that existing as Karia wasn’t so detestable after all.

It tickled her heart, like a feather brushing lightly against her chest—irritating, but not something she wanted to push away.

“Surprisingly, it’s not bad. I’ll allow it, Noah.”

Karia mischievously returned his name, smiling on purpose. Noah’s face lit up immediately. She had once called Higon a dog to insult him, but Noah too, in another sense, seemed like a large, loyal hound.

In her mind’s eye, she pictured a black-haired hunting dog panting happily, tail wagging only for her, and rose from her seat.

“Then, shall we go have that dinner now?”

“Ah, well…”

By now, the sky’s crimson had deepened into navy, streaked with violet. Seeing the darkness outside the window, Noah snapped to his senses and pulled up the hood of his robe.

“No, let’s leave dinner for another time.”

“I can’t promise there will be a ‘next time.’”

Thinking he was covering his face out of embarrassment, Karia teased him. But after hesitating for a moment, Noah shook his head firmly.

“I should return for today.”

For someone who had just confessed, it was a rather cold response. He bowed slightly and turned to leave. Arms crossed, Karia watched him.

Is he really just going to leave like this? After confessing and after I gave him permission to call my name? The whole thing felt like some long-running joke.

“What keeps you so busy all the time?”

“It’s far too late already.”

“Are you afraid of the dark? You really do have a childish side.”

Noah strode out of the room without looking back, and Karia hurried after him. She tried to make jokes, but he gave her no reply.

Her quick, slightly irritated steps made the heels of her shoes echo loudly along the hallway.

“Are you going to keep following me?”

“Why wear your hood again? You dressed so nicely in your knight’s uniform today.”

“Couldn’t you at least say I look handsome—or dependable, at the very least?”

“I can’t lie, you know. You’re beautiful. In fact, I like you even more for it—ah!”

While Karia kept chattering behind him, they reached the grand stairway at the central hall. Noah hadn’t slowed down, and Karia, with her shorter stride, had to keep hurrying. Then suddenly, her foot slipped.

“Karia!”

Her startled cry and the sound of her misstep made Noah whirl around instinctively. Seeing her body teetering, he didn’t think—his legs just moved.

He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her against him, his other hand cradling her head against his chest.

Together, they toppled and tumbled down the marble steps, rolling several times.

“—Ugh! Karia, are you all right? Honestly, how could you walk so fast down the stairs?”

Fortunately, they had fallen sideways and rolled with his back taking the brunt, so neither was knocked unconscious or badly hurt.

Though it was his shoulder that had slammed against the marble, Noah, dazed, still focused only on her.

Hearing his voice, Karia groaned softly and lifted her head from his arms. But the instant she saw his face, her eyes widened in shock.

“—Your head…”

“My head?! Is your head hurt? Damn it, did you hit it? Hold on, I’ll fetch a physician at once—”

“No… not mine. Yours.”

During their tumble, his hood had been thrown back. And beneath it, his hair gleamed brilliantly silver under the chandelier’s light.

“Ah.”

He reflexively touched his hair, froze, then hastily pulled the hood back on. But it was too late—she had already seen.

Pale, glowing skin, fine silver strands like threads of light, and large, leaf-like ears peeking out between them…

So that’s what he meant, about his hearing sharpening at night.

Karia reached out toward him, almost entranced.

“So this is why you always leave once night falls?”

She had thought he only resembled Guilford, but not to this extent.

Half the day human, half the day elf… there was no doubt. He was a half-elf.

Just like Guilford had been.

“What do you mean, mother? You said you had no family.”

“No. That woman… I’ve never considered her my mother!”

It was not long after Asmoph married Guilford. One day, a woman came to the estate claiming to be Guilford’s biological mother. She was a provincial noble who said she had long been searching for her son who had left home years ago, and by chance had spotted Guilford in the capital.

Both Asmoph and Guilford had grown up as orphans, so impostors claiming kinship were nothing new. But this time, Guilford’s reaction was different.

After meeting the woman, he locked himself in his room for days. At last, having steeled himself, he emerged and revealed to Asmoph the secret he had hidden all his life.

“—Guilford, that form…?”

With a snap of his fingers, a conjured wind swept around him. When it faded, the man who stood there was no longer the husband she knew.

His skin gleamed pale and pearly, his lashes were longer, his features more delicate, exuding decadent beauty. And his ears—tall, pointed—were undeniably elven.

“You should know the truth. I was born the bastard child of that woman and the elf slave she had purchased.”

“…What…?”

“She was pathologically obsessed with my father. After he fled, she shifted that obsession onto me. My childhood was a nightmare. Only by desperately mastering magic was I able to escape. She isn’t family—she’s a monster. Even the half of me that came from her, I loathe.”

By day he bore his elven form and concealed it with magic. By night he despised the human visage he had inherited from his wretched mother. He had never once been able to love himself. And Asmoph, closest to him, had to witness it all.

“You’re not hideous. To my eyes, every part of you is beautiful. I love you.”

Each night, when he sank into self-hatred, Asmoph praised his beauty.

Truthfully, his looks mattered little to her. She had loved Guilford because he had recognized her fragility and loved her for it. Now it was her turn—if he despised himself, she would be the one to keep speaking love at his side.

In time, rumors spread that she had been bewitched by her husband’s looks, unable to think straight. But to her, even that gossip was insignificant before love.

“Don’t look!”

And now, years later, Noah—bearing Guilford’s identical face—was shrinking into himself with the same burden. He pulled his hood over his head, hiding his face in panic. But what had been seen could not be unseen.

“Of all people… I didn’t want to show you this hideous side of me…”