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Chapter 47
I’ll Become the Person You Want
It was all because of that violet crystal orb.
Because of the visions it had shown her, the walls of distrust she had built came crashing down.
Lorentia suddenly wanted to trust Teyshar—wanted to rely on him.
Even as she told herself she shouldn’t, a strange sense of relief spread through her chest.
Relieved yet overwhelmed by sorrow, Lorentia began to cry, gasping for breath in Teyshar’s arms. Her tears soaked through his clothes. In both the present and the future she had believed lost, Teyshar had saved her.
“Don’t be kind to me.”
Lorentia lifted her head. Teyshar brushed aside the tear-damp strands of her hair. Seeing her reddened eyes, raw from weeping, made his heart ache unbearably. He cupped her chin with the same hand that had been gently patting her back.
“Then what should I do? I’ll act however you wish, Lady Lorentia.”
He stared intently into her face, voice soft but unyielding.
“I’ll become the person you want me to be…”
“Why are you being so kind to me? I’m not anyone special.”
“I just want you to be all right, Lady Lorentia.”
He tenderly caressed her pale cheek.
“If that anxious, painful heart of yours can be eased, you can hate me all you want. You can hit me. If you wish to take revenge on Prince Luance, you can use me for it. You can even take everything I have—it’s fine.”
Even as his large hand moved across her cheek uninvited, Lorentia didn’t flinch. She only gazed into his crimson eyes.
“So please… be all right now.”
When Teyshar spoke with a gentle smile, tears welled again in Lorentia’s eyes. He pulled her close with affection.
“To tell the truth,” he murmured, “I treat you kindly because I’m also afraid.”
Lorentia looked up again, surprised.
“Even if you one day leave my side, I want to remain in your memories. I want you to think, ‘I’m glad I met a good person.’ I want you to know that even though there are cruel people in this world, there are kind ones too…”
“Can I really leave?”
“If you desire freedom, you may go.”
“Really? Truly?”
“Of course. Just—don’t disappear without a word. And please, send me letters sometimes. Let me know how you’re doing.”
His quiet whisper trembled with the effort of holding back tears.
Silence filled the still room.
Teyshar lowered his gaze and smiled faintly. His large hand stroked Lorentia’s hair carefully, slowly.
“I really will leave.”
“Yes. As you wish, Lady Lorentia.”
He knew that her thorned words were her way of pushing him away. He understood—and he also knew that wasn’t her true heart.
Even when she tried to show she wanted to be alone, her violet eyes seemed to plead hold me, and each time he saw them, a fragile unease grew inside him.
Through the terrace window, the faint red glow of sunset seeped in, soon swallowed by the darkness of night.
Magus paced anxiously in the room. But Teyshar showed no sign of returning.
“Why is that boy taking so long!”
“He’s staying with Lady Lorentia,” came the reply.
“What?”
“Well, more precisely, he’s attending to her.”
“Then it can’t be helped. But I must tell Teyshar this news quickly.”
“You’ll have to wait. Lord Teyshar tends to her meals and snacks first…”
“And then?”
“Then he reads to her until she falls asleep.”
Amelin smiled brightly.
“Teyshar’s doing quite well, isn’t he?”
“You don’t say, Lord Magus. You wouldn’t believe how devotedly he looks after the lady. You’d be shocked if you saw.”
Magus sighed and sat down on the sofa after pacing the reception room. Evan’s gaze fell upon the black jewel box on the table—one of Magus’s most treasured possessions. He had never seen what lay inside, but he had often caught Magus looking at it with a face filled with grief and longing.
“I need to show him quickly…” Magus muttered.
He had brought the fragments of amethyst deliberately, hoping that when reunited with Lorentia, the pieces might reform into their original crystal orb.
“Whew…”
Just as rich soil nourishes a tree, the crystal orb was a medium to help the child of the Goddess Ella grow and awaken.
Without it, such a child could not control their immense power—their body would gradually weaken, collapse, or suffer terrible pain. Musila had told him so.
That was what puzzled him. Musila had known this perfectly well—so why had she destroyed her unborn child’s crystal orb? It was one of the mysteries still unresolved.
Staring at the jewel box, Magus recalled his last conversation with Baello, head of House de Gloston, before leaving for the Empire of Ishtair.
“I knew there was a child between Sir Cain and Lady Musila,” Baello had said coolly. “But how do you intend to prove she’s my niece?”
“I trust you, Lord Magus, but trust alone isn’t proof. Think about it—should I recognize her as Cain’s daughter just because she resembles him? What I need is visible evidence.”
Anticipating this, Magus had presented the shattered amethyst shards.
“What is this, Lord Magus?”
“Only with a crystal orb can the child of the Goddess Ella use their power.”
“Use their power?”
“A mage needs a staff, a knight needs a sword—likewise, the child of Ella needs the orb to harness their abilities. If she truly is Ella’s child, then she must be Lady Musila’s daughter—and naturally, her father would be Sir Cain.”
Magus had also explained about the “red eyes” of House Spencer and mentioned the amethyst fragments found in Musila’s residence. Baello had nodded in understanding.
“I’ll explain everything to my parents about their granddaughter,” Baello had said. “Just bring my niece back safely. And…”
And now, thinking of meeting Lorentia filled Magus with both nervousness and joy.
“Lord Magus, shall I go check on Lord Teyshar?” Evan asked, seeing him resume pacing restlessly.
Magus let out a long sigh and nodded.
When Lorentia had fallen asleep crying in his arms, Teyshar too had dozed off, lulled by the warmth. If Evan hadn’t come to wake him quietly, he might have slept straight through.
“I must’ve fallen asleep while putting Lady Lorentia to bed,” Teyshar admitted.
“Teyshar, really now. You can’t fall asleep holding an unmarried lady like that. Be careful in the future,” Magus scolded, clearing his throat.
“It’s not the first time I’ve fallen asleep beside her, Father.”
For Teyshar, it had been impossible to resist. Whenever Lorentia laughed or cried in distress, his hands moved on their own—to hold her, to soothe her like a child. And she, for her part, seemed to find comfort leaning against him. Whenever he read to her that way, she would fall asleep peacefully in his arms.
“Don’t do anything you can’t take responsibility for.”
“I want to take responsibility… but Lady Lorentia…”
Even as he smiled and told her she was free to leave, an inexplicable anxiety had been growing inside him. Could he really smile when the time came for her to go? Was there truly no way to keep her by his side? He knew these feelings were possessive—but they were real.
“Why did you stop talking?”
“It’s nothing, Father. What brought you so late to the Ishtair Empire?”
“Changing the subject again… You’ve heard from Evan about Lady Lorentia’s origins, haven’t you?”
“Yes. And I’m already furious that Count Paul Heredian keeps demanding his ‘daughter’ back.”
Remembering how Brandt had once claimed Lorentia as his precious daughter, Teyshar’s once-gentle demeanor turned cold, the air around him darkening.
“The reason I was late,” Magus said, “is because I met with Baello, head of the de Gloston dukedom.”
“De Gloston…?”
That was the name of the ducal house to which Lorentia’s real father, Cain, belonged. Evan approached and placed a framed portrait on the table between them.
“Teyshar, look closely at the man in this painting.”
Inside the frame was a portrait of a man with a calm, clean expression—dark violet hair, deep navy eyes, and soft lips. The face was unfamiliar, yet strangely not.
“No way…”
“Yes,” said Magus. “As you can see, this is Sir Cain—Lorentia’s birth father.”
At those words, Teyshar realized why the face seemed familiar: the man in the portrait resembled Lorentia so much. Thinking back, she hadn’t resembled Brandt at all. Even compared to her half-sister Ilina, her hair, eyes, and features were entirely different—as if they weren’t related at all.
“One could easily believe they were siblings,” Teyshar murmured in awe.
His quiet astonishment filled the reception room, lingering in the heavy silence that followed—until Teyshar finally broke it.
