Chapter 65
Tap, tap—a couple of gentle pats on his cheek suddenly vanished without a trace.
Only then did Dominic realize he had awakened from the dream.
Damn it, a dream like this.
Swallowing a curse, Dominic let out a gasp, his breath coming in ragged bursts. It felt as though he’d just run a marathon. A burning thirst scorched his throat. Fumbling for the glass of water on the nightstand, he gulped it down greedily.
Then, he raked both hands through his hair. The thirst had subsided somewhat, but for some reason, his neck throbbed with pain. Rising from the bed, he massaged the aching spot as he made his way toward the mirror.
The sun’s light had yet to filter in; it was still an early dawn. The dim room allowed only the barest outlines of objects to be discerned. Yet, how could that mark be so vividly clear?
Dominic clenched his fist and bit his lip.
Handprints lingered on his neck.
It was absurd. What happened in a dream couldn’t be real—why, then…
If this was reality, Dominic would have to accept other things as well. But none of them were things he could accept.
Grace’s survival, Angela’s birth, Dominic’s own mistakes.
Accepting any one of them would leave him shattered. The mere thought was horrifying. It was enough as a dream. In reality…
But whatever compelled him, as soon as the morning sun rose, he summoned a knight.
“Dig up Grace’s grave.”
The command was resolute. The knight, momentarily wearing a startled expression, soon left the room to carry out the order.
“You should come see for yourself.”
The knight’s words upon returning were not what Dominic had hoped to hear. Fuming with displeasure, Dominic strode ahead of the knight toward Grace’s grave.
For the sake of appearances, the coffin from the funeral had been buried in the Bilton family cemetery, but Grace’s actual body lay in the most sunless corner of the manor’s rear garden. It was Dominic’s pitiful revenge.
But…
The body that should have been there was nowhere to be found. It had only been six years. The idea that the bones had rotted away in just six years made no sense.
They turned over half the garden. The manor’s staff, unaware of the circumstances, must have thought Dominic had gone mad. Yet, even enduring such misunderstandings, they couldn’t find Grace.
Dominic stared blankly at the garden, its green grass stripped away to reveal red soil, and let out a low, chuckling laugh. At this point, maybe it wasn’t a misunderstanding—maybe he really was mad.
Grace, that damned woman. Thinking of her, who tormented him to the very end, Dominic collapsed unconscious.
When he opened his eyes again, his neck—strangled by Grace—was swollen, making speech nearly impossible. At least his hands weren’t ruined. Dominic immediately sent a personal letter to Kalian.
While awaiting a reply, Dominic gradually came to accept reality. The turning point was when he summoned the maid Rita once more to hear her account in detail.
“I’d like to hear the story you told back then in greater detail.”
The maid’s eyes sparkled as she opened her mouth, as if she’d been waiting for this moment. And then Dominic knew.
Angela truly was his daughter.
He had never properly loved her because she resembled Grace, but even so, he hadn’t wanted to be the kind of father who handed poison to his child and told her to die.
Yet he had always been in Grace’s grasp. A puppet moving as she willed. In the end, he’d been fooled again like this.
What must it have felt like for her to eat the poisoned food right in front of him? What must she have felt watching him observe it so indifferently?
What must she have felt upon learning that such a man was her father? What thoughts raced through her mind as she swallowed the poison in one gulp?
Dominic confronted his own cruelty anew. The image of Angela smiling brightly at him in the dream surfaced. It was an expression the child had never worn, yet it felt so vivid.
As if wishing that such a past existed somewhere, Dominic rummaged through his memories with Angela.
* * *
“If I’d known you were my daughter, I never would have done such things… Never, never…”
Dominic’s voice sounded strained—probably from Grace strangling him.
Angela didn’t entertain any other thoughts beyond that. Watching Dominic repeat that he absolutely wouldn’t have done it stirred a pang of pity, so she barely managed to look away.
The hand reaching out to grasp hers was something she’d longed for so desperately, and being called “my daughter” was the stuff of dreams. Yet even as all of it came true right now, Angela felt no joy.
It was because they’d come such a long, winding way. If there had been even one good memory, perhaps it would be different. But with Dominic, there wasn’t even that.
Even so, seeing herself unable to shake off the hand that held hers, Angela realized anew just how much she’d yearned for this.
“The body disappearing means Grace is definitely alive.”
Angela had come here because she couldn’t ask Kalian to wage war, and now she drew a clear line, as if the only thing she wanted to discuss with Dominic was matters related to Grace.
Dominic must have understood that. Yet he neither released Angela’s hand nor averted his gaze. It was like a plea for her to look back at him just once. Faced with this unfamiliar side of him, Angela stood there, at a loss for what to do.
She wanted to brush him off coldly, yet she didn’t. She wanted to rage at him, asking why he’d treated her that way, yet she didn’t. She wanted to scream that this moment wouldn’t exist if her being his daughter hadn’t been revealed, yet she didn’t.
Her emotions surged wildly. Like waves. Rising high in an instant, crashing down the next. Swept along helplessly by the wind, without will.
“Angela.”
It was Kalian who steadied that turmoil.
“It seems you need time to sort things out. For today, I’ll take Angela and head back.”
Kalian anchored her firmly, grasping the swaying Angela with strength. Only then could Angela overcome the waves and stand straight.
Dominic hesitated several times before finally releasing Angela.
“We’ll need to resolve the Grace issue, so I’ll visit again soon.”
At the end of those words, Angela couldn’t add “Father.” It was a term she’d stubbornly attached before, fearing he might forget she was his daughter, but now that things were like this, she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
Swallowing a bitter feeling, Angela left the room. Kalian opened the door for her and closed it behind. She hadn’t exerted any effort herself, yet she felt utterly drained.
She let out a sigh—hah—when it happened.
“Miss, Miss!”
A hallucination seemed to echo from somewhere. Exhaustion must have made her ears play tricks.
“Miiiss!”
But this small body rushing fiercely to embrace her couldn’t be an illusion. Angela looked down at the tiny maid wrapping her arms around her waist.
“Mary?”
“Yes, Miss! It’s me, Mary!”
The bold reply was unmistakably Mary’s. Angela grasped Mary’s shoulders, pulling her from the embrace, and scrutinized her face from every angle to confirm it was truly her maid. No matter how she looked, it was indeed her.
She’d sent her to Anette right after smuggling her out of prison, so why she was back in this manor without her was beyond comprehension.
Fortunately, she looked well. Not confined in a prison, but moving freely on her own two legs. Moreover, Angela knew Yvonne would no longer treat her or her maid harshly. So, Mary being here posed no problem at all.
“Why’s my little maid here instead of listening to her mistress? Did you think I was dead?”
It was meant as a playful remark, but Mary’s face crumpled into tears in an instant.
“Don’t ever, ever die again! I was so, so scared!”
Mary flung herself back into Angela’s arms. With no other choice, Angela gently patted the girl’s curly head. Feeling the tender touch, Mary burrowed even deeper into her embrace.
“Stop it. You know your mistress can’t stand tears.”
Despite the stern, almost harsh words, they didn’t sound that way at all—likely because of how affectionately they clung to each other.
“I’ll stop, but can’t you take me with you? I want to stay by your side.”
Mary clutched Angela’s skirt, rubbing her cheek against it in a playful, pleading way. Angela gazed down at her, then let out a soft chuckle.
“Well, a maid’s supposed to serve her mistress, isn’t she? Were you planning to goof off somewhere else?”
Mary looked up at Angela, shaking her head vigorously. A smile, like a rainbow after a storm, spread across her tear-streaked face. What was she so happy about? Angela, thinking what an incomprehensible child she was, took Mary’s hand firmly and began to walk. With Kalian joining them, they felt almost like a cozy family.
“Did you see that?”
After they vanished from sight, one maid elbowed another beside her. The jabbed maid stood frozen, mouth agape.
“There’s nothing wrong with my eyes, right? That was really her, wasn’t it?”
Another maid nearby was in an equal uproar. She looked more shocked than when she’d first seen Angela return from the dead.
“No way. That’s really Miss Angela?”
Shock rippled across the faces of the Bilton manor’s servants. Only Rita wore a triumphant expression, focusing on her tasks with a hum, a tune escaping her lips.
* * *
“One won’t do. I need more, more.”
Grace glared at the man, her eyes wide with demand. She was asking for materials to invade another’s consciousness.
A human heart, torn from a living body.
“Didn’t I tell you there needs to be a harvest?”
The man’s voice was icy.
Even as Rasil, the first prince of the Taran Kingdom, ripping a heart from a living person’s chest was no easy task. If he were ever caught, his position would be in jeopardy.
“If you can’t get it, I have no power.”
Grace’s demeanor was unyielding.
Rasil recalled the first time he met her. She’d been just as bold then, despite being on the brink of death. It was a miraculous encounter in the eternal snowfields, one of the Taran Kingdom’s prides. Grace had been sitting in the middle of the snow, clad in a flimsy dress.
Drawn to the strange sight, Rasil approached, and her green eyes snapped toward him.
“Who are you? State your name.”
Ignoring his escorts’ protests to stay back, Rasil dismounted and walked toward her.
“So, it’s the kingdom’s little pup.”
No one had ever described him that way. But before he could hear more, she collapsed into the snow, eyes still wide open, as if playing a prank.
When he realized it wasn’t a jest, Rasil thought he’d found something intriguing and brought her to the palace. Back then, he didn’t know what she was.
To think he’d picked up a demon. When Rasil learned Grace’s true nature, he cheered, believing the heavens had finally begun to move in his favor.
They even shared a connection. Grace sought to reclaim her power, and Rasil wanted to borrow that power to crush Phaelon.
It was a plan he’d harbored since the cession to Phaelon. If the chance arose, he’d plant the Taran Kingdom’s flag on that land.
Rasil’s father, the current king, was a weak man. He feared war with Phaelon, especially after the kingdom’s economy began to falter. In the end, he’d resorted to the absurd act of cession.
Having gone that far to plant Taran’s bloodline in Phaelon, there should’ve been some result, but no news came from Anette or the Phaelon emperor. In the end, they’d lost land for nothing.
Rasil repeatedly urged the king to reclaim the ceded territory. But the king shook his head, saying it would only lead to bloodshed. The attitude of a defeated man.
A fight destined to be lost? What war was ever like that? Even when driven to a dead end, war was about finding a way to win, calculating until the very last moment.
And the way Rasil found was Grace.
