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Chapter 11 …
At that moment, Benjamin called to her.
“Helena.”
Helena glared at him with eyes burning with rage.
‘What the hell, you bastard.’
She had never felt such intense hatred in her life.
Benjamin Issuefern.
He was nothing but a flashy freeloader, and the reason he was marrying her was to get his hands on her dowry.
In that case, he should have been living as if she were a queen, grateful for her presence. But he, believing only the baseless rumors circulating in the capital, treated her as a spoiled, utterly rotten woman.
When Benjamin met her gaze, filled with blazing hatred, the twisted smile that she had once thought beautiful appeared on his lips.
“Thank you.”
Then, he slowly raised his hand and touched Helena’s cheek.
“I, too, will love only you for the rest of my life.”
To Helena’s ears, his vow sounded like a declaration of war: ‘We will fight fiercely for our entire lives.’
‘Get a grip, Helena.’
She returned her gaze to the marriage vow.
The wedding was already irreversible.
‘Benjamin Issuefern, you think you can have everything your way right now, don’t you? But there’s one thing you don’t know. I am Helena Winston. Let’s see how this goes.’
There was something he did not know.
She was not an unfortunate woman being forced into marriage, pushed along by scandal and a dowry.
She was an imperial spy, marrying him to uncover the secrets he was hiding.
Until the day Benjamin opened his heart to her completely, she would endure and be patient.
And the moment he truly trusted her, she would expose his secrets, leaving not a speck behind.
She read the marriage vows with ferocity:
“As the head of the Issuefern family, the great administrators of this noble estate, I pledge before God and our honored families that, as wise and prudent husband and wife, and as partners united in body and soul, we shall proceed together.”
As she spoke the words aloud, she swore internally:
‘You’re dead. I will find the secret you’re hiding and drag you down into the abyss. For that, I can endure someone like you. Later, even if you cry and beg for forgiveness, don’t expect me to spare you a thing.’
When her vow ended, the priest spoke:
“By this, I declare before God that these two are now husband and wife.”
3. Burwood
The journey to Burwood was miserable.
‘Ah.’
Helena corrected herself.
‘Not every road was the worst.’
The trip from Hodlin, the Winston family estate, to Duras, where the gate was located, had been a familiar journey for Helena—comfortable and enjoyable.
She left Hodlin riding a carriage prepared by her father, receiving tearful farewells from those who loved her.
The carriage, carefully prepared by the Count for his daughter, moved smoothly over even icy roads, as if gliding.
When beautiful scenery appeared, she enjoyed picnics with the maidservants who accompanied her, and at night, she stayed at the homes of friendly nobles, receiving VIP treatment.
“It’s unbelievable. A distance we could cover in one day on horseback takes three days like this.”
Benjamin Issuefern grumbled as if expecting her to listen, but Helena paid no mind.
‘If only he’d shut up…’
That was all she could think.
The pleasant and leisurely journey lasted only until the northern central city, Duras.
Upon arriving in Duras, she had to dismiss the carriage and her maids. She was about to use the gate, the fastest and safest means of travel from north to south.
From the moment she set foot on the bizarre ruins she had never seen before, Helena’s personal hell began.
Gates were originally a critical transportation method for the empire’s nobility.
But Helena, who had never ventured outside the capital or its neighboring cities, had never used one.
She didn’t know how severe gate sickness could be.
It was a first for her. Her entire body felt like a sugar cube dissolving in water, then being forcefully re-compressed.
It was like a horrible hangover, but three times as intense.
In short: utterly nauseating.
When she arrived at the gate in Laring, a major southern city, Helena emptied the contents of her stomach into the paper bag she held and fainted.
Her suffering did not end there.
Upon awakening, she nearly fainted again, terrified of the rickety coffin-like carriage awaiting her.
Her anger at Count Issuefern’s lack of preparation boiled up, but she swallowed it down.
‘No. I shouldn’t expect anything from that Count.’
Grimacing, she climbed into the carriage, and the Count muttered behind her head:
“It may not please you, but this was the only carriage I could find in a hurry.”
Helena glared at him with a murderous look, then slammed the door so hard it rattled.
The rusty hinge creaked and squealed in protest.
Thus, Helena began her tour of hell, confined in the coffin-like carriage.
According to Aaron, the Count’s aide, the distance from Laring to Burwood took seven days of continuous travel on horseback. With the carriage, it would take an extra day or two.
In the end, her hellish journey lasted ten days. Helena endured pain so intense she wished she were dead.
Inside the rough, bouncing carriage, her body was jostled all day.
Her brain rattled inside her skull, and her jaw trembled with the carriage’s vibrations, teeth chattering against each other.
Already prone to headaches, her sensitive constitution suffered immensely.
Closing her eyes, teeth clashing, a horrible migraine induced by extreme stress and motion sickness overwhelmed her, like rusty claws tearing through her skull.
Wrapped in furs, Helena curled on the carriage seat, enduring the pain and nausea.
Occasionally, when the carriage wheels hit large stones, her fragile body was lifted into the air and slammed against the floor.
Tears of frustration ran down her pale cheeks.
Meanwhile, Count Issuefern, as if wishing her dead, would sneak glances at her multiple times a day.
Helena returned his pitiful attention with eyes full of hatred.
Even swallowing food was difficult—water tasted like metal, food like dirt.
Eventually, she refused to eat altogether. Better to eat nothing than to vomit.
But the Count kept bringing strange dishes, as if trying to kill her with food, throwing them before her like feeding a dog.
She would mess them up and return them, defiant.
Traveling was painful, but stopping didn’t help. The ground felt like quicksand, and the sky spun above her.
She thought she might die.
For ten days, she barely ate or slept—an ordeal worse than anything she had ever experienced.
In this hellish torment, her only solace was imagining herself judging Count Issuefern.
‘When I return to the capital, I’ll ask Her Majesty to send a carriage—and hang the Count behind it, crying his eyes out.’
Imagining the Count dangling and bawling brought her some comfort.
Helena even smiled faintly, though her face was pale.
Ten days later, when Aaron, the Count’s aide, knocked on the carriage window to signal they were near Burwood, Helena almost shed tears of relief.
‘First, a hot bath. Then, bury myself in a soft feather bed and do nothing for at least two days.’
However, as they approached the Count’s castle, her hope turned to dread.
A gray, ominous cloud covered the blood-red sunset sky.
The hill where the Count’s castle stood was overgrown with reeds taller than a person, and blood-red spider lilies thrived around the surrounding moat.
Amidst them stood a ruin, half scorched and half decayed.
‘What… is that…?’
The shock was so great she forgot her nausea and straightened in the carriage.
The carriage slowly passed through the rusty, barely functional gate.
She noticed the grotesque ornamentation on the gate arch and thought, Why such strange decorations?
But the moment she thought that, the ornaments spread their wings and emitted terrifying cries.
The “decorations” were all crows.
Passing through a garden overrun like a jungle, the carriage finally stopped before a charred black castle.
Her expression was gone.
Pale as death, Helena stepped out of the carriage.
‘I… have to live here…?’
Benjamin Issuefern, standing like a ghost, gave his usual crooked smile.
“Madam, welcome to our home.
