Chapter 112
“I’m truly grateful for your mercy. How magnanimous of you. I can’t fathom why the rumors paint you in such a light.”
Earl Matterson ground out the words, his teeth clenched.
Every syllable was laced with sarcasm, tangled as tightly as a spool of thread.
But Angela feigned complete ignorance, folding the corners of her eyes in innocent sweetness.
A simple tilt of her head, then righting it again, served as her reply in place of words.
Not at all.
The silent response from Angela rang clear in Earl Matterson’s ears alone.
It was insolent in tone.
Everything connected to the Bilton family had always grated on him—no exceptions.
Father, daughter, and now the daughter’s fiancée—it was all the same.
Just as Earl Matterson’s face twisted in haughty disdain, a wave of irritation lodged in his gut suddenly eased, as if he’d swallowed an effective digestive aid.
It was because the unexpected accusation of being a molester had jogged a forgotten detail to the surface.
The reason he’d grabbed Angela just moments ago.
“Then, gracious Lady Bilton, I’d appreciate it if you’d now kindly answer my question.”
The thought had struck at just the right moment—how fortunate.
“That ice wall that appeared out of nowhere.”
He’d nearly missed the sight of that smug smile fading from her brazen face.
“How exactly did you do it?”
Earl Matterson asked, his gaze pleasantly devouring Angela’s bare face, exposed without so much as a screen.
His expression was one of cool satisfaction, like a man who had seized the upper hand.
“I didn’t mean to pry before, but the other day, a beast’s fangs sank into your thigh, and yet it healed in an instant as if nothing had happened.
How did you manage that one?”
“……”
“I’m genuinely curious, so forgive my impertinence in asking.”
Earl Matterson pressed his palm solemnly to his chest, as if making an earnest plea.
“I’d be ever so grateful if you’d extend your mercy once more and give me an answer.”
Angela watched his blatantly mocking words and gestures in stoic silence.
Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t out of panic at having her secret exposed, as he so smugly assumed.
The flames that had advanced threateningly toward the Phaelon Empire’s army.
The moment she’d clenched her fist and stared them down, unwittingly erecting an ice wall in the process—she’d figured anyone paying attention would have noticed.
At the very least, the frontline soldiers who’d heard her retreat order would harbor suspicions.
It was unexpected that Earl Matterson had witnessed the scene of the black panther’s attack, but at this point, it hardly mattered.
What did it signify to be suspected by an unspecified multitude of surpassing human limits?
The reason Angela offered no reply to Earl Matterson’s probing was utterly straightforward.
Even she had no way to explain it.
How had she raised that ice wall?
She didn’t know.
She’d simply wished for it desperately.
Wished that whoever awaited those soldiers, driven before that colossal calamity, wouldn’t be met with eternal waiting.
How had her body, exposed to a massive beast’s assault, emerged unscathed?
Angela herself wondered the same.
How could such a thing be possible?
And why her, of all people?
Yet no one could answer Angela’s questions.
And so she remained a being shrouded in riddles, not just to others but to herself—a mystery she couldn’t articulate.
With all expression drained from her face, Angela endured the silence with labored resolve.
At a glance, she might have seemed not to breathe at all.
Were it not for the occasional blink of her eyes, one could mistake her for a wooden doll carved from a tree trunk.
Thanks to this, a triumphant smile curled at the corner of Earl Matterson’s mouth.
He made no effort to hide its sleek arc as he opened his mouth to speak.
He meant to press her on her true nature, to corner her.
“Is this a quarrel among allies, by any chance?”
Crown Prince Ian strode forward and planted himself before them.
“This hardly seems the time for it.”
Regret lingered thickly, but Earl Matterson had no choice but to clamp his mouth shut.
The corners of his lips sagged noticeably.
Gazing at the earl’s face, Ian discreetly pressed down on Kalian’s hand, out of anyone else’s sight.
It was to stop him from drawing his sword.
Kalian’s eyes blazed with such ferocity that, left unchecked, he might well have severed Earl Matterson’s head this time.
You madman, get your hand off the sword!
Release me.
The earl does this, and Angela would be thrilled!
Yes, Angela does favor me.
You—damn it—!
The two grappled silently over the sword hilt, their struggle muffled.
Ian couldn’t care less what happened to Kalian, but if something befell him, Angela would be heartbroken—and that, he couldn’t stand idly by for.
Whenever it came to Angela, reason simply flew out the window.
Unaware that the admonition applied to himself as well, Ian inwardly scolded only Kalian while outwardly playing the part of a perfectly composed leader, rebuking all three of them at once.
“Do none of you know who we’re meant to be fighting?
The enemy isn’t here—it’s over there.”
Ian’s fingertip pointed toward the flames still advancing relentlessly upon them.
Only then did Vigo realize his chance to speak had finally arrived, and he jumped in urgently.
“It seems we’ll need to pull the soldiers back further.
We can’t hold back the flames.”
Duke Bilton and Count Conrad were exerting every effort under their command to stem the fire’s advance, but it was futile.
That immense inferno seemed like it could only be quenched by transplanting an entire vast ocean.
Human strength fell woefully short.
“Then we’d best hurry.”
Ian aligned himself with Vigo’s suggestion, as if questioning why they weren’t acting already.
At that.
“No, Ian.”
“It won’t do.”
Angela and Kalian voiced their opposition in unison.
They turned to face each other, exchanging a subtle flicker of their gazes.
In the end, it was Kalian who opened his mouth to explain.
“A little further ahead, and we’ll reach the village.
I urged evacuation, but some couldn’t bear to abandon their homes—they’ll still be there.”
Ian bit his lip.
The presence of ordinary folk changed everything.
They’d have to hold out here somehow, sending messengers to ensure their complete withdrawal.
But how long could they endure?
Even Kalian, who’d broached the subject, seemed at a loss for a sharp solution.
His complexion was as dark as his hair or the hue of his eyes.
A shabby silence flowed between them.
It felt like a sin, leaving the soldiers to await only retreat orders.
The helplessness of having nothing to do gnawed at Ian with shame.
For the first time in his life, he doubted whether he truly possessed the qualifications to rule Phaelon.
It was in that moment, as no one could easily break the hush.
“Your Excellency! Y-Your Excellency! H-His, H-Highness!”
A knight from the Earl Matterson household, sprinting toward his lord, spotted the crown prince and hastily shifted his report, bowing to Ian.
The gesture, ingrained by habit, was impeccably fluid.
Yet the face he raised was ashen.
He looked as if he’d witnessed something ghastly.
“F-Fire… in the flames… there’s something strange…”
“Speak properly, you fool!”
When the knight from his own house showed such pitiful form before the crown prince, Earl Matterson berated him harshly.
Only then did the knight gulp down his ragged breaths and press on.
“…There’s a person in the flames.”
To be precise, it was a slender woman.
And the knight felt as though he’d locked eyes with her.
Eyes sparkling like glass beads, unmistakably…
“Gah!”
The knight suddenly clutched his throat with both hands, where bluish veins bulged starkly.
* * *
Grace walked through the roaring inferno with only Rasil at her side.
All the maids and servants she’d brought from the palace had long since been cast into the flames as fuel to cross the eternal snowfields.
Not a single one had survived.
Countless souls—too many to tally—had burned alive.
Rasil, who had watched it all from start to finish, was far from sane.
The dread that he himself would place the final punctuation on this mass slaughter writhed in his gut.
With even the horses reduced to ashes, Rasil had trudged a considerable distance on foot, his legs long past their limit.
But fearing that this deranged woman might deem him useless and hurl him into the fire as well, he forced himself onward through sheer stubbornness.
Of course, that resolve wouldn’t last much longer.
Unable to bear the searing heat any further as it cooked his flesh, Rasil staggered violently.
At the same moment, Grace murmured, overcome with emotion.
“Ahh, Phaelon at last.”
Her voice brimmed with tender affection, as if she’d arrived at a long-cherished place.
Rasil, collapsed at her feet, gazed up at her in a daze, as one might behold an untouchable being.
Under normal circumstances, he would have puffed up indignantly, insisting that this land had originally belonged to the Kingdom of Taran.
But now, it didn’t matter what nonsense Grace spouted.
He just wanted to survive.
Perhaps if he pretended to be dead right here, he might stand a chance.
Rasil clamped his lips shut tight and squeezed his eyes closed.
He even held his breath, thrashing in a desperate bid to stay alive.
But what good did it do?
“If only you’d listened a bit better.”
The verdict on Rasil had already been sealed within Grace long ago.
“I might have let our dear king take a little stroll through Phaelon.”
Speaking as if handling a pet dog, Grace stepped away, leaving Rasil sprawled on the ground.
The light patter of her footsteps grew distant as she walked on alone.
Hearing them fade, Rasil let out a deep inner cheer.
At least on some level, it seemed she had no intention of killing him—he heaved a great sigh of relief.
It didn’t take long to realize that was a delusion.
By the time the footsteps had receded into the far distance, beyond earshot, Rasil hauled himself up, desperate to escape this horrific blaze.
Any delay, and it would swallow him whole.
His skin was already ruined in patches.
Even summoning the finest physicians back at the palace, he couldn’t guarantee full recovery.
“Damn… you!”
Spitting curses, Rasil braced his hands against the ground and laboriously lifted his limp torso.
Now for his legs.
But something was wrong.
Neither leg so much as twitched.
“Ugh!”
He dragged them, flailing with all his might, but it was no use.
Rasil’s legs refused to budge, as if shackled by heavy irons.
In the meantime, the flames coiled around him.
“Agh!”
His flesh melted away like candle wax.
The aquamarine eyes that proclaimed his royal bloodline were, in an instant, dyed the crimson of the all-encompassing fire.
Was that why he couldn’t muster any strength?
Rasil, the king before whom all of Taran’s people had bowed and scraped, was reduced to nothing more than a lump of meat.
“Grace! You bitch… Argh!”
The flames, which had danced teasingly around him—brushing close then pulling back—finally accepted him as kindling.
“Get off! Get off me! Aaaah, get off!”
Rasil thrashed his arms wildly, trying to shake free the fire clinging to him.
With every motion, it only spread faster.
“Gaaah, gaaaaah!”
In the end, the raucous echoes of Rasil being devoured and digested by the inferno rang out.
Grace, listening to the screams from behind as if they were music, wore a radiant smile.
Everything was unfolding just as she desired.
No deviations.
If she pressed on this path, those she’d longed for all these years would come rushing out to greet her, their bodies afire with eagerness.
Among them, her most cherished—her own daughter, Angela—Grace would pull into a tight embrace.
She’d stroke her hair, murmuring how well she’d grown without a mother, caress her cheek, then pluck out the still-throbbing heart.
Even her child’s face, pale and cold, would be utterly lovely.
“I can’t wait to see you.”
Grace quickened her buoyant steps.
It wasn’t long before her gaze met that of a Phaelon knight from afar.
To the knight staring at her in stunned disbelief, as if beholding the unbelievable, Grace bestowed a gift he’d never forget for the rest of his life.
Watching him turn tail and flee without even unwrapping it, a newfound bliss settled on Grace’s features.
Her brisk strides continued.
It was so close now.
Soon, she’d restore her other half to wholeness…
“…”
Grace halted her thoughts, brushing her cheek with her thumb.
Blood smeared the tip of her finger.
She turned her head back to eye the vile thing that had wounded her.
An arrow.
By the time she confirmed it and faced forward again, the injury had already healed.
Even so, her ruffled composure wasn’t so easily mended.
Grace fixed her stare in the direction from which the arrow had flown.
