WHPR 05

Chapter : 05

“What…?”

Jenaida asked back in surprise, but Kaiden remained firm.

“You can’t receive treatment on a floor full of corpses.”

He wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t even a battlefield—there was no reason to linger in a blood-soaked place.

“You are His Majesty’s person. You’ll receive proper treatment. I’ll call someone.”

As Kaiden turned to summon a servant, Jenaida hurriedly grabbed him. He looked down at her with the same cold eyes he’d had when they first met.

She had been seeing that gaze ever since her regression, but it still made her heart ache. In a crushed voice, Jenaida murmured,

“I want to stay with Your Highness.”

“I refuse.”

The second refusal. But Jenaida didn’t back down. He had nearly been killed by assassins just moments ago—how could she leave him alone? It was better to stay by his side spouting nonsense than to leave him unattended.

“Do you think this was the Emperor’s doing?”

At her question, he didn’t answer. The one-sided conversation continued.

“If you believe it was His Majesty, then it’s all the more reason for me to stay by your side.”

Her lips trembled as she forced out the next words.

“Because I am His Majesty’s person.”

She didn’t want to admit it, but she was the Emperor’s.

At least, that was how it looked to Kaiden.

The thought disgusted her—but viewed another way, it could be a weapon to protect him. To the Emperor, she was still a useful sword.

The Emperor cherished things that had value. At the very least, if she stayed right beside Kaiden, he wouldn’t dare kill him.

Because she might die as well.

“Shouldn’t we preserve our lives?”

It was persuasion bordering on a threat, but it was the best she could do.

Even so, the answer she received was unyielding.

“I’d rather die than be with you.”

Her heart slammed as if struck by a massive hammer.

“You claim to be the Emperor’s person—do you not know how much I despise the Emperor?”

At his cold counterquestion, Jenaida quietly bit her lower lip.

Her mind filled with tangled thoughts. The resolve to stay by his side and the resignation to give up mixed chaotically, numbing her reason.

In contrast, her heartbeat grew wildly loud.

Each thud—thump—cracked her heart like glass.

Every time her lips parted, shards fell away, until at last it shattered completely, scattering in all directions.

With a final crash, she burst out,

“I’m afraid you’ll get hurt.”

Having spoken the truth she’d buried deep within herself, Jenaida froze, her pupils trembling.

This wasn’t planned.

She shouldn’t have said it. She had no right to.

What if he gets angrier?

What if it spiraled into the worst possible outcome?

She squeezed her eyes shut to chase away the thought—but it was useless.

Several seconds passed, stretching into eternity.

At last, Kaiden spoke.

“…Please wait a moment.”

His voice was gentle—nothing like the cold tone from before.

Jenaida blinked, releasing the breath she’d been holding.

All she could see was his back.

She stood rooted in place while Kaiden summoned the servants and ordered the room to be cleaned.

“We’ll tidy this up immediately.”
“Bring a physician to treat Lady Jenaida as well.”
“Yes.”

The butler vanished swiftly.

Kaiden returned to Jenaida and examined her right arm. A short sigh escaped him.

The injury had swollen considerably in a short time.

As if resigned, he retrieved a splint and bandages from the desk drawer. With practiced hands, he set her arm and wrapped it carefully.

He muttered gruffly,

“Don’t overestimate yourself.”

With nothing to say in her injured state, Jenaida pressed her lips together. Despite his sharp tone, he tied the bandage knots with meticulous care.

Kaiden extended his hand to her.

“We’ll wait together in your room until the physician arrives.”

Though puzzled by the sudden change from before, the corners of her lips lifted slightly.

Jenaida only received full treatment once morning came.

“My deepest apologies,”

the physician said repeatedly, bowing low, forcing Jenaida to reassure him again and again that it was fine.

“Still, the emergency treatment was done very well. It made things much easier.”

At that remark, Jenaida unconsciously bit her lip—because a smile kept creeping onto her face.

Treating her injuries, staying with her—none of it was more than kindness.

“Please refrain from overexerting yourself, and suspend training for the time being.”
“I understand.”

After the treatment ended, Jenaida was left alone in the room. Kaiden had waited until the physician arrived, then disappeared once treatment began.

He must not have slept.

She hadn’t seen clearly through her drowsiness, but he had been sitting in a chair.

Even if he slept at all, it must have been only a light doze.

As her mind filled with worry for him, a knock sounded at the door, followed by a maid’s voice. She let the maid in.

“What is it?”
“His Highness sent flowers.”
“Flowers?”

The maid brought in a bouquet of Lude flowers—pure white petals, blooming only where holy power was intensely concentrated.

They were rare elsewhere, but treated like wildflowers in the Papal State.

Among all flowers, Lude was Jenaida’s favorite.

“These?”
“Yes. Shall I place them by the window?”
“Ah, I’ll—”

As Jenaida reached for them, the maid smiled and added,

“Please speak more casually from now on. You’re to become the Grand Duchess, after all.”

Jenaida, who had been habitually using formal speech, closed her lips.

Grand Duchess.

Right—there would be a wedding soon.

She already knew, yet it felt strangely new.

She fell briefly into thought.

“He said you like these?”

Lude flowers weren’t only Jenaida’s favorite.

Kaiden liked them too.

Before her regression, he had once given them to her.

“Yes. He said he didn’t know what to give you, so he chose what he liked best.”

Not knowing what to give, so choosing what he liked best.

The memory of him shyly offering the flowers surfaced, and Jenaida let out a small laugh. For a fleeting moment, it felt like she’d returned to a time of happiness.

But soon her expression hardened.

She realized she had made a grave mistake.

Imperial Calendar, Year 543 — October 12

I told my wife that I liked her for the first time.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t the first time—but would she remember? That this was the second time I confessed my feelings to her?

He loves me.

Because his words were always so cold, I had forgotten.

What a fool I was.

After killing him in my past life, how dare I hope for love.

Jenaida turned her gaze away from the flowers. Swallowing a deep breath, she ordered the maid,

“Send them all back.”
“Pardon?”
“I don’t need them. Send them all back.”

“…She said to return them.”

Kaiden stared silently at the returned flowers before dismissing everyone—not only the maid, but the butler as well.

Once the room fell quiet, he leaned back and closed his eyes.

In the deep darkness, he sank into thought. Many ideas tangled together, but only one remained.

Jenaida’s words, delivered by the maid.

She said she didn’t need them.

Slowly, he opened his eyes.

Light scattered from the crystal chandelier, dazzling.

It had been like that when he died, too.

He died gazing at Jenaida after hearing “I love you” for the first and last time.

It was a radiant death.

Kaiden slowly raised his right hand. A rough bandage was wrapped around it.

He deliberately unwound it, examining the wound beneath—the mark left from grabbing a blade barehanded.

A trace of the living.

Something no dead man possessed.

He had truly returned.

To just before marrying her.

From the training grounds to the dining hall, Jenaida’s responses and reactions had been different—but he hadn’t dared to ask.

Even aside from being thought insane, it didn’t change the fact that she still regarded him with hostility.

Eventually, Kaiden accepted the truth of his regression.

“I am His Majesty’s person.”

And he admitted it.

That her declaration of love at the moment she killed him had been a lie.

Even so—

He wanted her to live.

Yet he had given her flowers.

He had dared to try to grow closer to her—someone who deserved to die for her sake.

“If you hadn’t said you were afraid I’d get hurt…”

If he hadn’t heard that—

He wouldn’t have done something so foolish.

Kaiden slammed his fist into the desk. He loathed himself for wavering, even for an instant.

Suppressing the feelings rising from deep within, he resolved again:

He would sacrifice this body for her.

No matter how broken he became.

If what she wanted was to remain loyal at the Emperor’s side, he would help her achieve it.

Even if the end was hell.

For that, they had to marry.

Only then could Jenaida use his death as proof of loyalty to the Emperor and the Pope.

At that moment, a breeze slipped through the window, stirring the flowers. His gaze drifted toward them.

“A gift.”

In his previous life, Kaiden had given Jenaida Lude flowers.

Unable to find a proper reason, he’d added the ridiculous excuse that they were his favorite.

“I truly like them.”

He didn’t like flowers.

They always reminded him of his mother’s sorrowful sobbing.

But with a single word from Jenaida, those painful memories scattered like dust.

“Thank you.”

With just one smile of hers.

From that day on, flowers no longer reminded him of his mother’s grief—but of Jenaida’s smile.

Until he died and returned to the past.

Now, to Kaiden, flowers were nothing more than a cursed object—something that reminded him of happiness he could never regain.

Now…

Even so, he had given her Lude flowers.

I must not make another mistake.