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Chapter 47
—Why… why do you hate me so much?
Under the moonlight, a woman, her body ravaged with blood and wounds, let out a pitiful breath.
All that could be seen in that fleeting moment was the hand of a man gripping a sword—and a woman who looked as though she would cry, yet no tears would fall.
Yes, there was a woman.
—As one who protects the order of the Empire, is it really so strange that I hate you for breaking that very order?
I heard myself speaking to her.
No—was that really my voice?
It was mine, and yet not mine: more mature, colder, stripped of emotion. A voice like mine, but not mine.
—I’m a subject of this country too. Couldn’t you at least listen to me once?
Her face flickered at the edge of my sight, never fully in view. The frustration was maddening.
What kind of dream was this supposed to be?
—I didn’t write the forbidden book. From the moment I was born—no, even before then—it was my father, the Duke, who made me this way.
Her voice, bitter with pain, carried infinite sorrow.
She was exhausted.
—And it wasn’t me who killed Mother! She died of illness—
—Silence! I’m not chasing you down to hear excuses like that.
The words sounded like mine—yet they couldn’t possibly be.
I couldn’t believe such merciless cruelty had spilled from my lips.
—I came only to take your life, by my lord’s command.
—Ha… really…
Why did she wear a face that looked ready to cry, yet did not?
She was small, barely reaching my chest, her body hardened with training, crisscrossed with scars.
Her twisted fingers clenched a sword tight.
—So this is what you were all along. What was I expecting?
Her blade met mine.
Her eyes—
—Expectation? To you, that’s nothing but a luxury, isn’t it?
They shone with a stark, shadowed gray, filled with darkness.
—Of all people, you?
Her black hair swayed like a wave in the dark.
Our gazes clashed.
—So give it up, quietly.
Her face, resigned and sorrowful, seemed to hold a desperate resolve.
At that moment, I—no, not I, but something within me—was clearly calling her name.
—Inera Mertiel!
“Haah!”
Pablo jerked upright, drenched in cold sweat.
Shaken, he covered his face with a hand, breath coming ragged.
“W-what was that…?”
Was that… a dream?
A dream?
That was supposed to be a dream?
He looked down at his trembling hands.
The sensation of gripping that sword, so tightly he could barely endure it even with both hands, clung to his sweaty palms.
“What the hell…”
And the woman he had faced in that dream had been none other than Duke Mertiel.
From the very first meeting, she had been unusual—hiding hostility in her carefully measured gaze, standing proud and unyielding before countless knights despite losing both parents overnight.
Why was it… why was it that, though he hated to admit it, his eyes had always strayed back to her?
But he had no time to dwell.
“Young master, an envoy from the Imperial Palace has arrived. You must rise.”
A guest had come.
Pablo forced his trembling body to stillness and rose. His head still throbbed painfully.
“That was… just a dream?”
His mouth tasted bitter. The stench of blood from that vision seemed still to hang in his nose.
But when he followed his servant to the audience chamber and saw who awaited him, Pablo dropped to one knee at once.
“Your Majesty.”
The Emperor himself sat in the marquis’s residence.
He turned leisurely from the paintings on the wall.
“I didn’t expect you to be asleep. It’s not even so late. Did I wake you from a sweet dream?”
“No, Your Majesty. It was merely the fatigue of harsh training today. Please don’t concern yourself.”
The Emperor stepped closer.
“You’ve never relied on talent alone, but always trained with effort. How glad I am that the heir of Marquis Herka is none other than Sir Pablo.”
The praise brought Pablo joy—but it was shattered by another sharp, intrusive memory.
—Even if you were born with immense talent through the forbidden book, the strength you wield now is all the fruit of effort. Do you think I don’t know that? That’s precisely why it disgusts me. But you don’t even realize it, do you?
W-what… was that?
Another strange memory cut through his mind like a blade.
Pablo’s eyes shook violently.
“N-no, Your Majesty.”
The Emperor’s gaze narrowed. He raised Pablo to his feet.
“And what brings Your Majesty here at such an hour?”
Normally, Pablo would never have asked so directly. But right now, he could find no composure.
The Emperor ran a hand across his lips, half-lidded eyes glinting, and smiled.
“I thought it was about time I came to find you.”
“…Your Majesty?”
Closing the distance, the Emperor clapped him on the shoulder as he often did.
In that instant, Pablo’s stomach lurched.
“You are my loyal knight, are you not?”
The Emperor’s eyes gleamed faintly.
“A knight who would do anything for me.”
The weight of an overwhelming presence pressed down on him.
“…Isn’t that so?”
He hesitated—but then bowed his head.
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
The moment he spoke the words, the splitting headache vanished.
All the confusion and turmoil of that dream, everything that had tangled his mind, scattered like dust.
✦ ✦ ✦
The pain gone, she flexed her freed hands and feet lightly.
She looked out the window.
Snow lashed against the mountains, icy winds cutting like blades.
“…Whatever the reason he hasn’t returned, I have to get out of here first.”
Eshduwa had been gone for days.
Had he come while she slept?
No—she would have noticed. She always woke at the faintest trace of presence. Her body was no longer weak; she had nearly recovered. If he had come and gone, she would have known.
“…It’s been so many days I’ve lost count. He’s never been gone this long before.”
Had something happened to him? She told herself she had no reason to worry.
And yet—
The image of him telling her not to fall ill kept stirring in her head.
She moved without thinking.
“I’ll just teleport out.”
Leaving the cabin behind, she walked for a long while through the snow.
“Cough.”
Thud.
A stench hit her nose—familiar, metallic, fishy.
A presence that should not have been here.
That alone was enough for her to know who it was.
“…Eshduwa?”
The air, filled with the sharp scent of snowstorms, carried a sweetness laced with death.
A man lay collapsed in the snow, his body torn by grievous wounds.
At first—at first, she thought to ignore it.
“…Ugh…”
She almost turned her back, ready to walk away as if she had seen nothing.
That man, bleeding into the snow, was nothing but a burden to her now.
Nothing but—!
“Ah, damn it! Stupid Inera Mertiel!”
She spun around and rushed to him, lifting his broken body onto her back.
“….”
Step by step, trudging through the snow that swallowed her feet, she carried him.
“Only to the cabin. Just that far. Then I’ll leave him.”
Only that far. Only there.
One step. Then another.
His warmth pressed against her back, his ragged breath and pounding heartbeat echoing right by her ear.
As she walked the endless snowy path, she lifted her head with effort.
“How did you end up like this?”
Words meant for no ears but her own slipped out.
“You’re the Crown Prince. Why are you alone at a time like this?”
And to be so gravely wounded…
She did not know how long she walked before the cabin came into sight.
At last, she staggered inside, laying him down on the very bed she herself had once been bound to.
She turned to leave—
But then, “Cough—”
He spat blood.
Startled, she quickly wiped it away.
“First… I have to treat the wounds.”
She remembered the box Eshduwa had used when treating her injuries. Searching, she found it.
“Haah…”
She wrapped his wounds with bandages, breath heavy.
And then—
Eshduwa’s eyes fluttered open, faint and trembling.
Through the narrow gap of his lids, his blue irises rolled to focus on her.
She froze.
“…What are you doing right now?”
