Chapter 43
Ah, she realized he was saying that while knowing full well why Kalian had done what he did.
Angela felt the ground give way beneath her feet. It was as if there was nothing left to hold her up. Nausea washed over her. Even in the midst of it, she barely managed to gather her wits and retort.
“I was kidnapped and nearly killed. Kalian had no choice but to make that decision because of it.”
“There are no unavoidable circumstances in the face of an imperial decree.”
Dominic was merciless. He rose from his seat as if there was nothing more to hear.
“I’m your daughter.”
Angela spoke again, barely managing to halt his departure.
“Treating the man who saved your own daughter like that is something only a beast would do. No, even beasts recognize gratitude.”
At that, Dominic let out a hollow laugh, his shoulders shaking as if he’d heard something utterly absurd.
“I don’t see how saving you counts as a favor. Even now, just looking at you is unbearable for me.”
Angela’s mouth snapped shut in an instant at the sudden flood of Dominic’s raw honesty. She couldn’t comprehend what she’d just heard.
Then, as the true meaning of the words slowly sank in through her ears, her mouth went dry.
“Are you saying… I should have died?”
Dominic gazed at her steadily. Then, out of nowhere, he asked something completely unrelated to their conversation.
“How old are you?”
“…I’ll be twenty-four after my next birthday.”
Angela answered, scrutinizing every vein on Dominic’s face, not missing a single detail. At that, Dominic smirked.
“That’s a good age.”
The words came out of nowhere, their meaning inscrutable. No matter how she studied his face, she couldn’t figure out why he was saying this. Then Dominic circled back to the topic of Kalian.
“Do you want to save Kalian?”
Of course she did. It was her fault things had turned out this way. If she hadn’t fallen for Yvonne’s lies and chased after Kalian, if she’d just stayed put in the Bilton estate like a statue.
No, if she hadn’t provoked Yvonne in the first place because of that damned dream, Yvonne never would have become the duchess, and she never would have taken Mary in as a maid.
Mary never would have defended her to Kalian, Kalian never would have opened his heart to her, and he never would have fallen out of the emperor’s favor…!
“I want to save him.”
Angela replied with all the sincerity she could muster, her head pounding from the chain of thoughts. She hoped it would reach this barren man somehow.
Then Dominic, who had seemed to be calculating something, spoke as casually as if he were commenting on the weather.
“Then break off your engagement to Kalian.”
“…What?”
Angela blinked, responding in a tone that said it was ridiculous, and Dominic stood up, approaching her. He gripped her shoulders firmly.
“I said, break off the engagement with Kalian. If he becomes unrelated to you, I’ll help.”
Dominic’s face was expressionless, but it looked villainously sly to her. Angela shook her head without realizing it.
“What are you talking about?”
“If it’s impossible, then fine. Kalian will be tortured. I’ll even pull strings to make sure his head rolls.”
As Dominic released her shoulders and turned to leave, Angela grabbed his arm with all her strength. Even so, it was barely half the force he’d used on her.
“What nonsense are you spouting right now? Why should Kalian lose his head over something so trivial?”
“Something so trivial?”
Dominic retorted coldly. In the next moment, he shook off her arm and stated clearly.
“Kalian disobeyed an imperial decree, and because of that, civilian casualties occurred. How can that be trivial? Ah, so because he saved your life, other lives don’t matter? Kalian failed in his duty as the emperor’s aide. What clearer reason could there be for his execution? That’s why he gets called a lowly noble from common mercenary stock.”
“Don’t talk about Kalian like that! Don’t say those things about him.”
“Why not? Isn’t that what you always had on the tip of your tongue?”
He wasn’t wrong. Bringing up his origins was something Angela had always done. She’d resented how he ignored her while doting on Yvonne and Beatrice to death.
She hadn’t said it because she truly thought him lacking… She never imagined it would come back to her like this.
“Ah, come to think of it, I can’t give my precious daughter to some nobody like that.”
She felt like she was dying, yet Dominic tossed the words out so lightly, like it was a joke. Angela glared at him with reddened eyes. But that changed nothing in Dominic’s mind.
“Give me… time to think.”
For now, this was the best Angela could say. But Dominic replied as if he already knew the future.
“Giving you time won’t change anything, but fine. I’ll show that much mercy. But only until tomorrow. Make your decision by then. After that, I’ll show you just how broken a person can become with nothing but cloth and water.”
Dominic’s words forced images into Angela’s mind. A thin cloth draped over a face, water pouring relentlessly over it. Just imagining Kalian writhing in agony made her hands and feet tremble.
What meaning was there in staying Kalian’s fiancée for one more day? It was worthless. Yet Angela clung desperately to that one day as she left the study.
* * *
Back in her room, Angela collapsed onto the bed. Dominic, threatening to behead Kalian—it was unbelievable.
She’d known since childhood, through experience, that Dominic hated her to the point of loathing, but she never understood why he went to such extremes with her.
Why on earth…
Why would Yvonne, who supposedly tidied her bedroom every day in her absence, have petitioned Dominic behind her back to break off their engagement?
Angela covered her eyes with her arm. Her eyelids burned. But she absolutely refused to cry. Kalian didn’t know how to comfort a crying woman. So she wouldn’t cry.
Instead, Angela let out a hot sigh through her lips. The heat bursting forth was unnatural. Whether from overworking her uncooperative legs or her emotions, a fever seemed to be creeping through her body.
“Me…”
She started to call for Mary, but then realized that the Mary who would come running at even her smallest voice was gone, and she just lay there, enduring the rising heat. It was then.
Tap, tap.
Tap tap.
An unidentified sound came from the window. It sounded like knocking at first, but this was the second floor. It had to be a bird pecking playfully.
Tap, tap.
But the sound didn’t stop. Finally, Angela got up and dragged her uncomfortable steps to the window.
Intending to shoo away the persistent bird, Angela nearly fainted. It wasn’t a bird at all—a massive silhouette was standing right there on the balcony by the window.
Angela hurriedly opened the window and yanked the figure inside the room.
“Are you insane!”
Angela slammed the window shut and shouted. The one grinning mischievously was Tristan.
Tristan had been staying at the Florence estate ever since the kidnapping incident. It seemed the claim of them being close wasn’t a lie, as Kalian had naturally designated his own home as Tristan’s place to stay.
Why had he pretended to be someone with mobility issues? Why had he lived among the kidnappers? Why did traces of a knight linger in his behavior?
Angela had glared at him, questioning what on earth Kalian trusted enough to let Tristan into the estate when he wouldn’t properly answer a single one of her questions. But Tristan had silenced her with a simple reply—
“He’s my lifesaver, after all.”
After that, Angela had occasionally run into Tristan lounging around and enjoying himself whenever she was at the Florence estate… but she never imagined she’d encounter him here in this manner.
“How on earth did you think to come through the window!”
Angela bellowed.
“But I brought news about Kalian?”
Yet at Tristan’s words, delivered with a twirl and an air of innocence, Angela snapped her mouth shut.
News about Kalian. It was something she wanted to know so badly she felt like rushing straight to the palace prison right that instant.
But even if she went, there was no guarantee she’d get to see him, and even if she could, as the culprit behind the incident, her visit wouldn’t help matters anyway. So she’d been holding back.
“You’re really pretty, you know.”
Tristan seemed amused by Angela’s reaction, as he gazed at her with his habitual sly grin.
Angela, who couldn’t muster even a forced smile, was about to threaten him to hurry up and spill the news about Kalian.
“He’ll be staying healthy and well.”
But just as she was about to, Tristan tossed out those words without warning. Angela instantly recognized them as Kalian’s message. Her eyes, fixed on Tristan, wavered like a ship caught in a storm.
“He didn’t say much. Just asked me to pass on exactly that.”
What kind of last words was he asking to be delivered? Angela bit her lip in sorrow at the few scant words relayed from Kalian. Tristan then tried to soothe her, asking why she was biting such pretty lips.
But how could this heartache be comforted by anything? The moment she heard Kalian’s words, Angela keenly felt her own predicament—she had no choice but to go along with Dominic’s intentions.
She couldn’t leave Kalian like that. Prison was no place for someone like him. Torture was an act that shouldn’t dare be directed at Kalian.
“Want this?”
It was while Angela remained trapped in her gloom, unable to shake off her somber expression. Tristan suddenly thrust something toward her. It was a pendant.
Angela looked up at Tristan with eyes that silently asked what this was. He flashed a bright smile and answered energetically.
“Kalian’s double.”
Tristan forcefully placed the pendant into Angela’s hand.
“Kalian’s double?”
Angela echoed the question as she looked down at the pendant now in her grasp. It was a silver pendant with a shape that somehow felt familiar, as if she’d seen it somewhere before.
If it was Kalian’s double, had she seen Kalian wearing it? But from Tristan’s following explanation, that didn’t seem to be the case.
“He’s had it since he joined the mercenary group. The answer’s obvious, right? Probably something his parents left him. He said he’d use it to find them, but when he left the mercenaries, he gave it to me. Told me to come find him with it later. We were really, totally close, weren’t we? Got the proof right here.”
Tristan raised his voice brighter than usual, as if trying to make Angela smile. Even as she listened to the story of Kalian and Tristan, Angela kept staring at the pendant. It truly felt so familiar.
“But when I tried to give it back to Kalian, he said he didn’t need it and told me to keep it. Guess he’s given up on finding his parents. So now it’s mine, but I’ll give it to you. Kalian would probably like it better if you had it instead of me.”
With that, Tristan smiled broadly. He cheerfully added that she should look at it and cheer up.
Angela nodded as she stared intently at the pendant. Then, as Tristan seemed about to leave, she grabbed him and made a request.
“If you happen to see Kalian again, tell him I’m doing well. That I’m healthy. Got it?”
Tristan, who had been heading toward the window, turned back and pressed his hand flat against Angela’s forehead. It was burning hot. Anyone who touched it could tell it wasn’t the temperature of a perfectly healthy person.
“Why make me lie?”
Tristan puckered his lips into a pout, his smile fading.
“Still, please.”
When she insisted stubbornly, Tristan scooped Angela up in a flash. Moments later, he tossed her into the bed and bundled her up snugly, pulling the covers up to her nose.
“No more being pretty for today—just sleep right away. And tomorrow, eat well like a good girl. Then I’ll lie to Kalian and say you’re doing fine.”
Tristan laid out his conditions, then hooked his pinky finger in promise. Against her will, Angela extended her own pinky and sealed the deal.
Tristan sat there for a while longer before leaving. Angela breathed evenly in and out, pretending to be asleep. Once she heard the sound of Tristan departing, she sat up in bed.
Regrettably, she wouldn’t be able to keep her promise with Tristan. She felt sorry for the pinky she’d hooked, but for Angela to truly be well, Kalian’s safety was paramount. Yet to protect Kalian’s safety, Angela had to lose him.
Faced with a situation she couldn’t accept no matter what, Angela simply couldn’t find a way to be well.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ✧: *. ꕥ .* :✧ﾟ. ───
