Chapter 11
“Come now, so. Can you save my face? The stage seems to have been empty for too long.”
The emperor soon asked again, as if nothing had happened.
This was not a suggestion.
Agnes intuitively realized at the same time. That the proposal she had kept in her bosom was not a card she could use.
From the beginning, the emperor was a person who had no concept of compromise itself.
No matter what it was. If she defied the emperor’s words, she might die.
Not only herself, but even Lionel’s safety could not be guaranteed.
Barely holding onto her trembling legs, Agnes slowly moved her steps toward the stage.
One step, another step.
Her breath was blocked, but she could not stop.
One of the Black Iron Knights who discovered such Agnes pointed to the stage.
“Huh? Commander. Look over there.”
At those words, Lionel turned his gaze toward the stage.
The moment he discovered Agnes climbing onto the stage, relying on a single crutch, unable to even properly maintain her balance.
Blue veins bulged on the back of Lionel’s hand holding the champagne.
“……She’s going on stage in that state?”
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On the stage where the lights turned on.
On the stage where all gazes were focused, Agnes slowly put down her crutch.
At that moment. The doctor’s words came to mind.
The doctor said that although it would take time, if she underwent rehabilitation well, she would be able to dance as before.
But, to put aside thoughts of going on stage for the time being.
If she tried to handle the stage with her current leg condition, she might never stand up again, even with crutches.
He had urged that she would end up sitting for life.
Instinct warns her.
To stop right now. Saying it’s not too late even now.
However, Agnes had no path to retreat.
Her body swayed every time she lifted her foot.
She stretched out both arms to grasp her balance, but her knees, trembling feebly, did not follow as intended.
Exhaling rapid breaths and barely straightening her posture, Agnes began to move cautiously.
Though precarious, the dance continued dangerously.
But there was no reversal.
As the score gradually approached the climax. At the moment when her right foot tried to push off the ground with full force for the last time.
Snap.
Because a sensation of something breaking spread from her toes.
“……Ah!”
Her ankle folded helplessly.
Sharp pain rising from the twisted ankle spread as if stabbing her brain.
The pain spreading to the leg that had no sensation was intensely eerie.
As if declaring that this was the last sensation she would feel in her life.
“Ah……, ah. No……”
Without even being able to scream.
Agnes’s lips, filled with pain, trembled faintly.
“!”
Lionel’s upper body leaned forward as if he would spring out at any moment.
For a moment, it felt like his heart sank.
It was not simply a sensation of surprise.
As Agnes, who had been precariously staggering, finally collapsed, all the nerves in his body reacted.
As if he would run to lift Agnes up.
However, that was merely instinct.
The moment Lionel noticed his own movement, he put strength into his fingertips.
So that his body would not move on its own.
“……Hng.”
A groan, as if vomited out, flowing from the stage brushed past his ears.
It was a sound so small that it could not be heard unless one concentrated.
However, the moment he finally
caught and heard that noise, his lungs tightened oppressively.
Don’t be mistaken.
That woman is not the Agnes from childhood.
She, who knows no end to desire and climbed on stage even with crutches, ultimately disgraced herself.
She is merely a foolish being who fell into her own scheme.
She is different from that transparent girl who sparkled talking about dreams in the ruins behind the trading company where only stray cats came.
His mind was shouting that, but it was useless.
“Damn it.”
In the end, Lionel, who spat out a curse, casually placed the champagne glass on the table. Then took steps toward the stage.
No matter how much he hated Agnes, he could not let her become the object of others’ ridicule.
That was when it happened.
The emperor approached beside Lionel and flashed a suspicious smile.
“Oh dear, don’t you need to go check on her? She is still the person who will become the duke’s wife.”
The emperor’s hand gripped Lionel’s shoulder.
Then, secretly whispered so that others could not hear.
“What do you think. It’s a stage I specially prepared for you. Do you like it?”
The emperor shook his head pityingly while looking at Agnes on the stage.
“As rumored, she is a child who cannot distinguish heaven and earth. Because she harbors greed that does not suit her station, she ends up disgraced like that.”
At the emperor’s words, veins clearly stood out on Lionel’s forehead.
However, at the same time, disgust surged toward himself for not noticing anything during all this humiliation.
From behind such Lionel, a puff, a sneer burst out.
It was Chloe Bardo.
Chloe covered her lips with the back of her hand, but could not hide her shaking shoulders.
The corners of her mouth, smiling crookedly as she turned her head, were full of delight.
The laughter spread like an epidemic in an instant.
Someone snorted, someone rolled their eyes and clicked their tongue.
Unable to endure it any longer, Lionel tried to shake off the emperor’s hand and advance to the stage.
However, by the time he reached in front of the stage, Agnes was already being supported.
The male dancer who had come on stage with her was cautiously wrapping Agnes’s hand.
“……”
It was the price of a short moment of hesitation.
The emperor, scanning Lionel’s stiff expression, hummed mockingly.
“Oh my, what to do. It seems the duke’s help is not needed after all.”
***
Agnes intuitively knew.
That her leg was completely ruined.
It was as if she had forgotten how to breathe, submerged in despair.
More vivid than the burning pain was the shock of reality that burned her mind white.
Although she had forcibly climbed it, it was the stage she had dreamed of for such a long time.
Yet…… she could not properly perform even one step, no, even a single movement.
She had ruined the stage.
Gazes pierced from all directions like sharp knives.
Like spectators watching an animal in a cage, they giggled with mouths covered.
“They say she tried to enter the imperial dance troupe with that level of skill. So how much bribe must have been needed. It makes sense that weapons were embezzled.”
“The head of the Bardo trading company must have a headache too. How did he end up with something like that as a daughter.”
“Still, the company head has nothing to lose. Thanks to that, he’s about to become the duke’s father-in-law, right? The truly pitiful one is His Grace the Duke. Marrying someone so degrading as a wife. His insides must be in turmoil.”
Harsh ridicule continued.
But no one restrained it.
Her mind rang dully.
Like panic, a alien sensation as if the floor was collapsing rose from her toes.
Nevertheless, Agnes did not let her expression collapse.
Because, she had never once used bribes, and in dancing at least, she was more proud than anyone.
If anyone knew what efforts she had made over the past dozen years to go on stage, no one could speak so easily.
Her toenails had been pulled out dozens of times from countless practices.
The blue bruises on the tops of her feet had never faded.
Agnes never did anything shameful to others for her dream.
But all that time, that effort. Was notified of its end here and now.
Without receiving even a single reward.
Agnes was abandoned just like that under the pin lights, like a marionette with cut strings.
Unable to move, blinking only her eyes as if broken.
It was then that a large hand was extended to such Agnes.
“Are you okay?”
Curly brown hair and green eyes brimming with vitality like new leaves.
The handsome man with a gentle impression, with down-turned eye corners, introduced himself as Kain, a sub-dancer of the imperial dance troupe.
Despite the people’s jeers, Kain knelt down and examined Agnes’s ankle.
“Lean on me.”
He, who was the partner of today’s protagonist, gently extended his hand and showed a gesture to lift and carry Agnes.
What a kind disposition.
To the point of genuinely worrying about someone he met for the first time today.
However, separately from that, Agnes was not the type of person outgoing enough to obediently be held by someone she met for the first time.
Agnes chose her words as much as possible so that Kain would not feel embarrassed.
“I’m okay. But I can’t stand up…… If it’s not rude, may I ask for support?”
Kain looked at Agnes with eyes full of worry, then gently extended his hand.
“Rude, you say. If I can escort a lady, it is rather an honor for me.”
He delicately supported Agnes’s arm and shoulder, as if handling glass craftsmanship.
Then, he stably supported and led her so that Agnes could lean her body and walk.
That attitude was so cautious that Agnes felt an illusion as if she had become a precious being.
Though she quickly returned to reality.
Unable to even look down from the stage, Agnes fixed her gaze on the floor.
An emotion, whether shame or pain, moistly gathered in her eye sockets.
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