Chapter 15 · Unreachable

Only the cold sound of the fountain’s water filled the silence.

Erhan looked down at Isadel, held in his arms.

A faint breath, mixed with the warm scent of wine, touched his chest and scattered.

Fearing she might wake, strength naturally gathered in the arm that held her carefully.

Whenever Isadel’s chest rose faintly, Erhan unconsciously held his breath.

It felt like carrying a handful of ash.

As if a little pressure would make her crumble and vanish without a trace.

A faded fragment of memory suddenly brushed past him.

It was around the time he was barely adjusting to the unfamiliar air of the imperial palace.

The day he had carried her, who had collapsed in the middle of the garden burning with fever, and run like mad.

The Isadel of then had been far smaller and more fragile than now, yet the life filling her had been more intense than anyone’s.

The small chest pressed against his back, and the beat that pounded tirelessly.

The pulse that stubbornly beat as if proving she was alive—those were days when it had traveled vividly up his spine.

Then what was this cold warmth now reaching his back?

Isadel’s body was so cool it made him feel as if he were carrying a corpse.

No, beyond cool—it was chilling.

An ominous premonition brushed past him, as if she might stop breathing at any moment.

Hurrying his steps, he soon reached the western tower, where moonlight had settled.

Erhan slowly climbed the spiral staircase.

With every step, the sound of his heels echoed eerily.

Like a massive beast carrying its prey back to its nest.

* * *

Entering the room, Erhan carefully laid Isadel on the bed.

Fearing that this fragile stillness might break, he held his breath and slowly slid his arm out from beneath her head.

Then he sat at the head of the bed and quietly looked down at Isadel’s sleeping face.

They said she had spent nights awake tormented by nightmares for days, but today, fortunately, the intoxication seemed to have drawn her into a deep sleep.

But the relief did not last long.

Wherever his gaze touched, her gaunt frame stood out beneath her pale skin.

Her cheeks were hollow, and her lips were dried and cracked.

Not only the wrist sticking out from under the blanket, but all along her arms, bluish bruises were mottled here and there.

They were traces of guilt she could not endure without tormenting herself.

“…Foolish.”

Looking down at the deep furrow fixed between Isadel’s brows even in sleep, Erhan was seized by an indescribable discomfort.

He had wanted to break her.

Beneath the feet of the man she had despised most, he had wanted her, with everything taken from her, to look up at him alone.

To be wretchedly trampled, to beg for her life, to plead for his forgiveness.

If only he could remain as a scar that would never be erased from her soul, he had believed that would be the most perfect revenge.

But now that he held her wretchedly ruined in his hands, there was no ecstasy—only guilt.

He had thought trampling and crushing her would cool his insides.

But what remained in his palm was too shabby to be a trophy of victory, and too bitterly sorrowful to be the fruit of revenge—nothing but wreckage.

His hand moved unconsciously.

But the hand that was about to brush back Isadel’s tangled hair stopped just before touching her.

“……”

Withdrawing his flushed hand, Erhan realized once more.

That he had no right now to comfort the woman he himself had driven into hell.

That all he could do was hold his breath and swallow his guilt.

After gazing at Isadel’s face for a long while as if engraving it into his eyes, he finally turned his heavy body.

* * *

The moment he stepped out of the tower, a group carrying lanterns was running quickly from afar.

Sis, the adjutant at the head of the imperial guards, came running first.

“Your Majesty, where on earth have you been!”

Sis, with none of his usual composure, approached gasping for ragged breath.

“Everyone is waiting for Your Majesty’s entrance.

Where in the world…”

As Sis anxiously continued, his eyes suddenly sank.

An unknown bloodstain on his collar, a disheveled uniform collar, and eyes that were trying to smile but had collapsed powerlessly.

It was clear he had gone to see that woman again.

“…That place again, is it.”

Sis’s gaze turned to the tower standing alone behind Erhan.

Erhan replied as if it were nothing.

“I just went out to get some air.

The palace is so noisy, after all.”

“You went all the way to the tower where the criminal is confined to get some air.”

“……”

“And the guest of honor of the accession commemorative banquet, no less.”

Sis’s voice was utterly dry.

But his reproach of his lord was brief; he hurriedly led Erhan.

“Everyone is asking why Your Majesty left his seat.

You must show your face before it is too late.”

Sis urged him, but Erhan did not budge.

Far from moving, he muttered as if talking to himself.

“…Can’t I just not go?”

It was a voice so weak it was hard to believe it had come from the emperor.

At that, Sis’s expression contorted mercilessly.

A frustration that his usual self-control could not possibly contain burst out.

“We cannot end the banquet like this. Just leaving your seat is already enough to earn the ministers’ discontent.”

“……”

“It is a crucial occasion to solidify Your Majesty’s accession. Please go now.”

“I’m tired…”

Unable to resist Sis’s urging, Erhan slowly moved his feet.

But the direction was not toward the central garden overflowing with brilliant lights, but toward the silent main palace where the emperor’s chambers were.

“Your Majesty!”

Sis tried to block his way, but Erhan had already walked past him like a man whose soul had left him.

“I’m sorry, Sis. But today… I just want to rest.”

At the sight of his lord, utterly drained of will, Sis’s reason finally broke.

Watching Erhan’s receding back, he crossed the line as a subject for the first time.

“Erhan!”

“…!”

At the sound of his own name, unheard for so long, his steps faltered, but Erhan did not turn around.

“Do you not know what today is? It is not an ordinary banquet but an accession commemorative ceremony.

There are delegations from every nation, and hundreds of eyes watching you alone!”

Disloyalty in speaking the emperor’s name, and plain disrespect, had spilled out, but Sis did not care.

“Pull yourself together, please.

Don’t ruin the great cause over mere personal feelings!”

The meaning in that thunderous outcry was clear.

Do not make meaningless the loyalty of those who gladly threw away even their lives to put you on the throne, and the blood of hundreds beneath the throne you stand on.

Clenching his fist tight, Sis spat a final warning at Erhan’s back, which gave no answer.

“Don’t forget. What you had to sacrifice to sit in that seat.”

But Erhan, knowing full well it was cowardly evasion, could not bring himself to turn around.

“…I’ll go.”

Until Erhan’s footsteps completely faded, Sis stood there blankly.

Only once left alone did he push up his slipping spectacles and regain his usual cold, expressionless face.

Sis’s colorless eyes swept back and forth between the afterimage of Erhan, vanishing into the darkness as if extinguished, and the tower where Isadel slept.

“…In the end, was it bound to come to this.”

Leaving the low whisper behind, he turned to deal with the banquet hall thrown into chaos by the emperor’s absence.

He had known for a long time.

That the relationship between those two was so terribly entangled that even the word ‘ill fate’ was insufficient.

And that his lord’s one and only, most fatal flaw was none other than that woman.

But as of today, everything had become certain.

As long as she remained at his side, Erhan could never become a whole emperor.

So before it was too late, she had to be cut out.

Even if it meant carving out his lord’s heart.