EVHE 54

Chapter 54

‘Did my conversation with Lake leak out?’

But Reshell’s gaze wasn’t suspicious. Nor did he look as though he was trying to scold me. He was the same as ever.

Which meant… this could very well have been Lilith’s true wish.

‘Lilith wanted to leave the Empire?’

The Lilith I knew was a woman who lived and died for love alone. The thought that such a Lilith would long to escape simply didn’t make sense.

And yet, if Reshell’s words were true, then I was wishing for the same thing as she had.

I was dying to just nod my head, feign ignorance, and accept Reshell’s help to flee this place.

But… there was still the possibility that this was all a ploy to test me.

“What answer do you want?”

When I responded evasively, Reshell let out a quiet laugh.

He knelt down on one knee before the bench and gently took my right hand into his own.

“Lili.”

His cool forehead touched my knuckles, sunlight glinting off his golden hair.

“If it’s what you want, I’ll make anything come true.”

His eyes, filled with a pure radiance, fixed unwaveringly on mine.

“So don’t think of me—just do what you want.”

His words were exactly the same as when we first met, when I told him I didn’t want to trouble him and tried to keep my distance.

“…Right. Whatever happens to me doesn’t matter.”

A fleeting bitterness crossed Reshell’s lips before he forced it away with a gentle smile.

“Until the day my life ends.”

His lips, which had only ever pretended but never truly touched, brushed lightly against the tips of my fingers before withdrawing.

“For you, and you alone.”

Reshell whispered in a soft, honeyed voice.

It was a vow of utter devotion.

If the one he was swearing to had truly been me, perhaps I might have fallen for him.

But I couldn’t. Because I knew that the person he was speaking to wasn’t me at all—it was the original Lilith.

I was nothing more than a possessor, wearing her shell, doubting and taking advantage of his sincerity.

“…Reshell.”

That was why I felt so sorry. Sorry that I couldn’t truly return his feelings.

Reshell looked at my stiff expression and gave a faint, hazy smile.

“If you’re busy, do you want to head back first?”

I nodded at his offer, and he took the lead, walking as if to guide the way.

A cool breeze swept past us. Without conversation, the silence around us felt desolate.

I didn’t follow right away but simply watched his fluttering cloak and golden hair sway in the wind.

As I recalled the smile and vow he had given me today, suddenly the memory of his fate in the original story surfaced.

*‘…When the villainess Lilith fled to escape pursuit, he, who was never chosen by her to the very end, ultimately chose to end his own life.

Thus, the story of the tyrant who nearly arose in the Empire vanished quietly into the annals of history.’*

It was true—Lilith had grown softer than before. But that was all.

The way she looked at her own suffering as though it were someone else’s problem hadn’t changed a bit.

‘Nothing’s changed.’

The only difference was that she had grown complacent.

From the beginning, Lilith’s one desire had always been freedom. And she had regarded Reshell as nothing more than a tool to achieve it.

He had known this from the start. Yet it didn’t matter to him. What he wished for was Lilith’s happiness—not her heart.

“So all I have to do is walk my own path.”

When Reshell was a boy, he swore he would one day grant Lilith that wish.

That vow was now close to being fulfilled. The Emperor was stricken with a fatal illness. The Empress Dowager had grown feeble. And though there was still the obstacle of his half-brother, it was no true problem.

And so he had to suppress his own feelings all the more. She was someone he must never keep, even if he wanted her. Someone he must let go of if she wished it.

Jealousy was poison, and desire was destruction. He couldn’t allow himself to be blinded by either.

That was why he had chosen this place. Why he had dragged Lilith here and sat her down, even though she couldn’t remember. All so that he could reaffirm his vow.

Reshell gazed quietly up at the walls. Nothing had changed from the time he had lived there.

Beneath a night sky blanketed with stars, he sank deep into memories from long ago.

…There had been two empresses, but only one woman the Emperor had loved. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Reshell’s mother.

When the First Empress died less than a year after her marriage, the Dowager’s influence brought in a Second Empress.

But when the Emperor learned that she had borne him a son, he immediately cast her aside.

The Prison of Traitors—Oz’s Garden. That was where Reshell spent his childhood.

No one left, and no one came.

Even so, he found solace in the small peace and happiness there. He thought he wouldn’t mind being confined to Oz forever.

But his mother had always wished to leave. And Reshell had always felt guilty that he couldn’t grant her that wish.

Back then, he had been nothing but a child. He had no power, no strength. He longed to tear down the walls of Oz and give her freedom, but he couldn’t.

In the end, his mother only left Oz after she died.

And even then, Reshell remained.

He was left behind, alone, on a remote island of the palace.

Then, one day, he found a young girl sitting crookedly on a bench in the empty yard.

Her hair glimmered pale, almost silver, in the sunlight. Contrasting sharply, her red eyes stared straight at him.

“…How did you get in here?”

It was the most natural question, but the girl immediately scowled.

“Won’t you tell me how you got in?” Reshell tried again, gentle this time.

The girl pointed toward a corner of the wall.

There, so small it was nearly invisible, was a hole. He then noticed that her dress was smeared with dirt and grass.

“I thought it was the way out of the palace, but it just led me in here!”

She shouted brusquely and then went on complaining for quite a while.

There were too many guards in the palace. No opening to escape. On and on she grumbled.

When night fell, she slipped back out through the little hole.

“Will she be all right…?”

Reshell worried, but if she could slip past the guards around Oz, she wasn’t ordinary.

He lifted his gaze to the towering wall. After more than ten years behind it, he should have grown used to it. But it still felt high and suffocating.

‘Not that I have any desire to leave.’

He thought the only way out was death.

After that, the girl came to Oz every day. Each time, she shared new stories of her failed escape attempts.

She stayed long enough that he learned her name, her hobbies, and that her hair wasn’t silver at all but a very pale gold.

“Failed again?”

Reshell greeted Lilith cheerfully as she crawled back in through the hole.

“No, not today.”

She lifted her hand as though to offer him something. When he followed her gesture, his palm filled with strange little candies.

“If we lace these with poison and hand them out to the guards, what do you think?”

With words far too ruthless for her age, Lilith popped one into her mouth.

“Wouldn’t poison be too dangerous if it’s discovered? How about a sleeping draught instead?”

“I tried that already. Most of them didn’t even eat it.”

“Hmm… then how would you get the poison? And there are many guards it wouldn’t work on. They’re imperial knights, after all.”

“Uh…”

At his reasonable logic, Lilith slumped onto the bench with a huff, still chewing her candy.

“Guess I’ll have to find another way.”

Her dejected face made Reshell chuckle. Seeing her sprawled there, he realized she’d probably spend half the day in Oz again.

He looked closely at her sulking figure. She must have been rougher than usual today—scratches marked the skin she’d exposed.

Lilith’s wish was only one.

To escape this place. To have true freedom.

“Do you want me to help you escape?”

He hadn’t meant much by it.

It was just pity for a fragile girl struggling so desperately… and because she reminded him of someone.

“How? I’ve heard from the old folks—you’re trapped here too, aren’t you?”

Her sharp words pierced like a blade.

“Who knows. Maybe I’ll gain great power someday.”

“Then…”

Instead of scoffing at his nonsense, she said something else.

“Keep your word.”

Her ruby eyes gleamed seriously. Though her face looked more exasperated than trusting.

“Right now it seems impossible.”

“Not just impossible. You’d have to die and be reborn to do it faster.”

Lilith sneered. Reshell only laughed lightly at her mockery.

But it didn’t take long before he realized her words weren’t a joke at all.

That she was the daughter of the Crescent family. That she was the subject of an oracle dating back to the founding of the Empire.

And that to shatter that ancient prophecy, one needed imperial authority.

“…That’s going to be difficult.”

He was the son of a traitor. His mother’s crime had been a false charge, but such details meant nothing to the Emperor.

He had no power, no influence. Having spent his life imprisoned, he had built no connections.

There was no way he could leave this place and become Emperor.

And as if to heap misfortune upon misfortune, Lilith stopped coming.

Or more accurately, she couldn’t—because the hole in the wall had been sealed.