Was she imagining it?
“Ivelina!”
His voice echoed, circling back to her.
The fading edges of her consciousness went sharp all at once.
‘My husband.’
“I — I’m here—”
But her lips had gone stiff as ice. They barely moved. Her whole body had run dry.
“Ivelina!”
His voice again — closer this time.
She gripped the trunk and forced strength back into her body.
“H-here! Kael! I’m up here!”
She pressed from her core and called as loudly as she could.
A rustling below. Movement.
Edwin was on his feet, turning toward the sound with wary eyes.
“Kael! I’m here!”
She didn’t trust what Edwin might do. She kept calling.
“Ivelina!”
A large shape appeared between the dark trees. Too far to see his face clearly.
“Over here — save me — please—”
She was weeping with relief, the way a castaway weeps when the rescue ship appears. Still crying, still calling out, still trying to be heard.
“K-Kael! I’m right—!”
Their eyes met.
He looked at her with an expression like a man finding water after days without it.
His hair was disheveled — not the way she had ever seen it. His clothing was in the same state.
“Sob, I’m so cold — please help me—”
He had been still for a moment, just looking at her. Now he lowered his gaze.
“Crying too hard to see properly…”
She strained to see through the moonlight. Kael was moving toward her with swift, purposeful steps.
“The hell — how did ‘you’ get here?!”
Edwin stumbled backward, cursing, the way a man stumbles back from a wild animal appearing in the dark.
“He kidnapped me—” she managed through the crying— “he’s awful — he threatened to make sure I could never be a duchess again — and—”
“Shut your mouth.”
Kael rolled his neck, cracking it on both sides, like a man with stiffness he’s been carrying for hours. From this distance she couldn’t see his face clearly — but she could feel the quality of it. Something cold. Something that would kill on contact.
“I should have done this much sooner.”
He began to close the distance between himself and Edwin.
“Stay — stay back! Come any closer and I’ll kill you!”
Edwin had apparently taken more of whatever he’d been taking — his body shook like something possessed, but the words kept coming.
“Go ahead.”
“……”
“If you can.”
Kael tilted his head slightly. His red eyes were half-lidded, something unsteady and luminous moving in them.
Edwin, in contrast, had gone completely rigid.
‘Even a drug-haze can’t withstand Kael.’
She was actually impressed despite everything.
“!”
From her vantage point, she had a clear view — Kael from the front, Edwin’s back.
Edwin was hiding something behind him. A blade — roughly the size of her face.
“K-Kael! Watch out! He has a knife!”
Before she finished speaking, Edwin let out a sound somewhere between a scream and a battle cry and threw himself at Kael.
“‘Die!'”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Edwin had been moving with no rationality at all — the attack was pure, mindless desperation.
‘If he was stabbed — what then?’
She couldn’t bring herself to look.
‘If only Kael had just gone to the estate. He’d be safe.’
“‘Aagh! S-save me!'”
She snapped her eyes open. That had unmistakably been Edwin’s scream.
“Should have stayed quiet. Tsk.”
Blood was soaking into the ground around both of them.
Kael had Edwin’s ankle in one hand, lifting it the way someone picks up a piece of debris. Edwin was dangling from that grip, pressing his palms together and begging.
“P-please, let me live! Please!”
Edwin thrashed like a live catch on a hook, clawing at the ground, every part of him fighting to escape.
“What is that? What is happening?”
Kael turned the blade he’d taken over in his hand, and in the same motion drew it across Edwin’s ankle. Without pause.
“‘Gaaah!'”
She recoiled. ‘The blood on the ground was Edwin’s.’
Well. That was a relief.
“K-Kael! Be careful! Don’t — don’t get hurt!”
Edwin’s body went slack. He collapsed face-down, still clawing at the ground.
But Kael drew the blade across the same place again.
“You won’t be walking properly after this.”
“…S-‘damn’. Please stop… just kill me instead…!”
“What a pity.”
‘Crack.’ Kael snapped Edwin’s ankle over. Final. Complete.
Edwin’s body bounced like a pulled string and went flat.
No more sounds. He’d passed out, spread across the ground like something discarded.
Kael let go of the ankle and dropped it as though setting down something he had no further use for.
Edwin’s leg had bent into a shape that was not a shape legs were meant to make.
“Sob…”
With the immediate fear gone, the tears came all at once. A wave of wretchedness crashed through her.
And more than anything — Kael was unhurt. That was all she could think. If he had been seriously hurt because of her, she didn’t know how she would have lived with it.
“Sob… sniff…”
She pressed her face against the tree and cried.
“Ivelina.”
“Sniff…”
“Come down, Ivelina.”
Kael was below her now. His voice, so different from a moment ago, had turned remarkably gentle. He was speaking to her as though calming something small and frightened.
But the problem was that the tears, once started, wouldn’t stop.
“I’ll hold you. Stop crying and come down. Slowly.”
He didn’t look away from her for a single second. His voice — that warm, patient voice — made her want desperately to climb down to him.
Except.
“The thing is—”
“Yes.”
“I climbed up here in a hurry trying to find the strongest tree, and now that I’m up here it’s — I can’t get back down, it’s so high — my stomach is upset and I can barely even look down without getting dizzy — sob, what do I do, I want to come down so badly—”
She rambled on through tears and runny nose.
‘Pfft.’ Even now, he burst out laughing.
“D-don’t laugh… I’m not exaggerating, I genuinely can’t look down, it’s terrifying, I’ll freeze to death up here — sob — what do I do — I just got married—”
“If you fall, I’ll catch you.”
“What if you miss? At this height, minimum broken bones, maximum death — if I actually die — I just got married — sob—”
“I’ll take responsibility.”
“Taking responsibility after I’m dead is useless—… I’m genuinely not being dramatic, I’m so scared—”
“Ivelina, trust me. It’s all right. I won’t let you die.”
She stopped crying. She looked down at him.
Kael nodded, once — ‘you’re fine.’
“I — it’s still really high. I don’t think I can—”
“You’re not coming down?”
“I — I will, but—”
“Then I’m leaving.”
“What?”
She thought she’d misheard.
“You — you’re going to ‘leave me here’? You came all this way? Weren’t you coming to rescue me?”
“That’s true. But you said you won’t come down.”
“……”
She stared at him, utterly baffled.
“Leaving.”
He genuinely turned his back. Genuinely did not look back.
“W-wait! Are you actually going?”
“……”
He was actually going.
“Really? Wait — give me a minute to think! I’ll try! Just five minutes!”
She did not want to die here.
She wanted to live. She was only afraid of the coming down.
At the sound of her desperate plea, he finally turned back.
He walked back to the base of the tree and stood directly beneath her.
“If you’re not down by the time I count to three, I’m actually leaving.”
“……”
He would actually leave.
All right. Breathe. Slowly.
‘It’ll be fine. It’s fine—’
“One, two, three.”
* * *
