Chapter 114
“That tiny child… Yvonne… how cruelly she…!”
Grace’s words trailed off as her body convulsed, limbs twisting in a spasm.
It was because Angela had driven the sword plunged into Grace’s chest all the way to the hilt.
The long blade’s tip carved a sharp furrow into the earth, burrowing endlessly.
Grace’s fingertips quivered in torment.
Even so, Angela didn’t stop.
She behaved like a noble with a vile hobby, pinning the wings of a living butterfly for her collection.
It was a ruthless demeanor, devoid of any mercy.
And that’s what gave her away.
Angela had lost her composure.
“Shut… your mouth.”
The command hurled at Grace was firm in tone, yet it sounded almost like a plea.
Grace, of all people, couldn’t miss it.
Her eyes, contorted in hues of agony, soon glazed over with a satisfied smile.
It was just like her—fattening herself on Angela’s suffering.
Grace was the one stripped of freedom, like an insect pinned in a case, yet her expression suggested the true loss belonged to Angela.
“Angela…”
Grace seized the opportunity right before her.
She pried open the glaring chink in Angela’s armor with all her might, ready to rummage through it wildly.
“Your name… that utterly absurd name for the devil’s daughter… do you know where it came from…?”
Angela stared down at Grace without a word.
She knew the words to follow would wound her, yet she couldn’t bring herself to silence them—she simply watched.
“From the start… it wasn’t a name meant for you… my dear child…”
*Cover your ears.*
The plea echoed ceaselessly in Angela’s mind, but it never reached her head.
Grace’s halting voice stabbed and slashed at her, thrust after merciless thrust.
“Dominic… that heartless man… the name he meant to give… haa, to the child he had with my sister… he gave to you instead.”
“……”
“He discarded a name orphaned of its owner onto you.”
Angela didn’t even register the calm with which Grace formed her sentences.
“A trash name, isn’t it?”
She failed to notice that her grip on the sword had slackened.
Adrift, she let herself be pulled along by Grace’s words.
“From the beginning, nothing was yours.”
“……”
“Stolen power, harbored here.”
Grace raised her index finger and prodded Angela’s chest lightly.
“A false life, lived under a stolen name.”
Not even a gesture that seemed poised to rip out her heart provoked resistance.
“Why not end it a little sooner?”
Grace peered into Angela’s vacant eyes and chuckled softly, *poke-poke*.
The situation unfolding to her whims delighted her, like watching an amusing play.
“Don’t worry—no one will mourn your death.”
Grace pressed her firm nail into Angela’s breastbone, continuing with a tenderness that rang false, as if offering profound comfort.
“Not Yvonne, who knows only her own daughter; not Dominic, who knows only his lost love; not a single soul among the countless who pointed fingers and called you wicked.
No one will grieve.
So go on, without a care.”
Grace licked her lips, a smile playing as she imagined Angela’s heart soon cradled in her palm.
Her tongue slipped between her red lips, gliding smoothly over the upper one.
It was then.
Grace’s eyes flew wide in utter shock.
The hand she’d extended to strike at Angela dropped limply to the ground.
A sudden chill had crashed over her.
“Ugh…!”
The flames Grace had conjured froze solid as glaciers.
It happened in the blink of an eye.
The soldiers, who’d been firing sandbags and waterskins, glanced about in bewilderment, then shivered as an indescribable cold gripped them, hunching their shoulders.
It felt as if the eternal snowfields’ frost had been transplanted here.
The ground where Grace lay grew frosted and pale, swiftly turning to ice.
Grace thrashed and choked, struggling to rise from the frigid surface.
When her gaze met Angela’s, a visceral terror seized her.
Those weren’t eyes Angela would make.
They were emotionless.
The green irises held nothing within their veil.
That gaze chilled Grace more than the frozen air.
How could fragile little Angela…
“Ah… no… no… no…”
She needed to reach the fire.
The warmth.
Only there could she survive.
Staying like this would end it all.
Grace knew it instinctively.
But the sword Angela had thrust into her was frozen to the ground in a tangle.
No matter how she strained and flailed, it wouldn’t budge an inch.
“Aaaah!”
Grace screamed in shrill frustration.
This couldn’t be how her life ended.
She refused to believe it.
She was meant to wield a power no one else possessed, to reign eternally from on high, looking down on all.
She couldn’t lose everything to some wretched crumb she’d carelessly dropped.
“Kill them! Kill them all!”
Grace summoned every last ounce of her strength and cried out like a thunderbolt. In the next instant, all power drained from her body. Her breath came out in ragged, unwitting gasps. Angela was taking in every pitiful detail of her sorry state. That, more than anything, filled Grace with utter wretchedness.
But she couldn’t stay like that forever. The bellow she’d forced out with her dying breath would have consequences, after all.
“Eek!”
“Guh, kuh!”
Sure enough, before long, a pleasing moan that tickled her ears began to weave through the air from all directions. Grace panted, but a satisfied smile curved her lips. At the same moment, an arrow flew toward Angela’s back and lodged there.
Angela’s head, which had snapped back sharply, now lolled forward as if it might tumble to the ground. She barely regained her balance and slowly looked around.
“Ah, ah….”
Her gaping mouth couldn’t form a single word before clamping shut again. Faced with a world turned deathly pale, she had no idea what to say. Not in this situation, where her own actions were so glaringly obvious.
“You’ve done… something worthy of… a foul… creature… like you….”
At the sound of Grace’s voice, Angela lowered her head and first spotted the frozen sword. She yanked her hand away from the hilt she still gripped. With a wary gaze, she examined her own hand.
“I should… haah… give you… a fitting… gift in return… shouldn’t I…?”
As Grace tremblingly lifted the corners of her mouth with great effort, Angela’s head snapped back once more with brutal force. Another arrow had struck right beside the one that had just pierced her, embedding itself there.
Her arched back soon buckled forward, convulsing in shudders. Angela spat the agony filling her mouth straight onto Grace’s face, unfiltered.
Grace swallowed it gladly and opened her mouth.
“Look… behind you…. See who… shot that arrow… at you.”
Her halting words were awkward, but the intent came through crystal clear.
“It’s… your father…. Right now… he wants you dead… he’s mad with bloodlust….”
“Because… of you.”
Angela countered through her chattering jaw. At that, Grace let out a laugh like a cough—kick, kick—and indeed coughed a few times before responding with a question.
“You… you know… don’t you…? That man… has always… wanted you dead….”
She couldn’t listen to any more of this. She wouldn’t let herself be shaken. Her judgment would come on its own terms, unswayed by anything. Not until this woman was gone.
“Because he feels something… that’s why he’s hounding you… so mercilessly…. Just… turn around… once…. Not a hint… of hesitation… as he draws the bow… on his own daughter…. How cruel….”
But even as the whispers kept slithering into her ears, she couldn’t make them stop. That’s when another arrow whistled through the air, missing Angela and slamming into the frozen ground.
“Angela!”
The desperate cry jolted her back to awareness. It was unmistakably Florence—no need to check. No one else could hold Angela so firmly, anchoring her to face reality with such unyielding strength.
“You damned…! The cold! Haah… what can we do…. If you come to your mother… she’ll protect you. Yes…? So no one… can harm you….”
Grace pressed on urgently. She must have realized Florence’s voice had snapped Angela back to her senses.
“The person who’d grieve if I died… he’s right there.”
So I have no intention of dying for the likes of you.
Angela gripped the sword hilt she’d released, clutching it fiercely. Then she thrust it in as deep as it would go, into a place that could admit no further intrusion.
“Aaagh!”
As the blade invaded, the shattered ice began to thicken and refreeze around it.
“No! No! You think it’ll end like this? With something as pathetic as th—aaargh!”
Transparent ice swallowed Grace whole. Her stubborn writhing came to a natural halt. The mouth that had been screaming did the same.
With her eyes twisted in anguish and her mouth agape, Grace was trapped inside the ice. It was a grotesque end, fitting for her. Angela wanted to spit one final farewell onto that undignified face.
* * *
Gazing sorrowfully at the arrow embedded in Angela’s back, Florence barely parried the sword hurtling toward him. It was Dominic’s attack.
“Get a hold of yourself!”
It was the umpteenth time Florence had repeated the plea, but Dominic seemed to have lost all reason.
He couldn’t even distinguish between allies and Angela anymore.
In that case, Florence could no longer hold back.
The moment he’d seen the arrow pierce Angela’s back, he’d wanted nothing more than to cut Dominic down somehow. He’d endured this long only out of consideration for Angela’s feelings.
But no longer…!
Florence swung the sword in his hand with ferocious power.
Dominic slid across the frozen ground.
Florence closed the distance in an instant to the retreating Dominic and brought his blade crashing down from above.
Crack!
The ice split with a bursting sound.
Dominic nimbly dodged Florence’s strike and immediately exploited the opening with a fierce counterattack.
Florence barely blocked the sword that nearly sliced his side, then shoved Dominic back with explosive force.
Once again, Dominic skidded across the ice. Shards flew in a wild spray.
Phaelon’s soldiers, watching the scene, all wore faces etched with anxiety.
Dominic had suddenly turned on an ally, and Florence was striking back at Dominic in turn. It was pandemonium.
In the midst of it all, Florence hit the ground rolling this time.
Dominic’s sword came whistling down toward his head.
Florence raised his blade horizontally to block the blow, then drove his foot up into Dominic’s abdomen with a powerful kick.
Dominic flew backward. The tide turned in a flash, putting Florence on the offensive against Dominic.
But Dominic didn’t go down easily.
Gripping his sword hilt with both hands, he deflected the incoming strike and, with dogged persistence, pushed Florence away.
It was a fight with no end in sight. Neither gained a clear upper hand.
Whenever it seemed Florence had the edge, Dominic would counter; the instant Dominic seized momentum, Florence would wrench it back and claim it for his own.
No one dared exhale loudly, lest it drown out the clash of steel. That’s when it happened.
“!”
An arrow sliced between the two men. Somehow, both Florence and Dominic had sensed the ambush—they wrenched apart their locked blades and leaped back, creating distance.
Every eye turned toward the direction from which the arrow had come.
