Odelie returned to her room and stared at the ring for a long time, her face clouded with unease.
It was the very ring he had worn without fail every single day.
She had been so sure it was a token of love, shared with some secret lover.
‘Why in the world is my name engraved on it?’
There was no reason for it—absolutely none.
“I didn’t care who it was.”
“You simply fit the requirements the best.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
He had cast her aside so cruelly, without leaving room for even the smallest attachment.
If there hadn’t been another woman, then why had he come looking for Odelie Kardel?
Her mind was filled entirely with him.
That cold gaze that had looked down on her.
The back of him leaving the underground prison.
The kiss at the wedding.
And his final words—spoken as if they would never meet again.
Emotions tumbled and tangled inside her, and before she realized it, Odelie was brushing the ring with her fingertip.
And in that moment—
A flash of light flared in the dim room.
She glanced down to see the ring emitting a blue radiance.
More precisely, the blue gemstone set into the band was glowing.
She had thought it was just an ordinary sapphire.
‘So… it wasn’t an ordinary gem after all?’
If that was the case…
Hesitating for a moment, she slipped the ring onto her finger with trembling hands.
It was far too large, barely clinging to her thumb.
The instant it settled—
His memories surged into her.
***
Her vision blurred as though white mist were rising before her eyes.
When the haze gradually cleared, an unfamiliar landscape unfolded—
No, not entirely unfamiliar.
‘This is …’
Odelie froze in place, her breath caught, every muscle tense.
It was none other than the underground laboratory connected to the Kardel estate.
The place where she had spent her entire life confined to the Secret Room.
Then, the faint rattle of chains caught her ear.
She turned—and found a boy in a horrific state.
Slumped in a chair, bound in restraints.
His skin, tainted with dark energy, had turned black and cracked in places.
His golden hair was soaked in red, its original color barely recognizable.
And between those strands, beast-like purple eyes glimmered faintly.
‘… Ludvil?’
Odelie’s eyes widened.
‘Why is he …’
She stared at the boy who looked to be in his mid-teens, confusion written across her face.
It wasn’t as though she had been the only one locked in this underground laboratory.
The Kardel family regularly brought in slaves as test subjects.
Clinical trials were necessary to ensure that the Purification Process of implanting “corrupted substances” into her body could proceed safely.
‘But if he spent his childhood here, I would have known.’
She had first met Ludvil six years ago, on the Day of Protection.
Before that, she had only heard his infamous title whispered across the Empire: The Iron-Blooded Grand Duke.
As she struggled to comprehend, the researchers’ voices reached her ears.
“The body cannot withstand the corruption. Prepare the next subject.”
A cold voice echoed through the chamber.
They referred to Ludvil as RU-39.
The thirty-ninth subject, scheduled for collapse.
The boy said nothing.
He didn’t scream, didn’t beg for his life.
He only opened and closed his eyes in silence.
Then—
“And the curse of House Rowendil? Still spreading?”
“It worsens by the day. If treatment is delayed, House Rowendil will begin to question the ancient barrier.”
“We’ll have to use the purifier before it’s too late.”
Odelie followed their gaze and turned her head.
There, a small, frail girl sat curled up on the floor.
It was her.
Her past self.
‘The curse of Rowendil … I remember.’
She had always been used as a purifier to erase corruption.
The “corruption” came in many forms—
Curses, diseases, dark energy, madness, the seeds of disaster.
Everything harmful to the world.
At this point in time, she had been injected with that curse directly into her body.
Her role was to purify it from the inside.
The curse of House Rowendil had been particularly excruciating, leaving an indelible memory.
Every time the burning heat consumed her body, she would awaken to a different place—
Laboratory, Secret Room. Laboratory, Secret Room.
Her experiment gown was always drenched in cold sweat.
Even moving a single finger had been a struggle.
But then—
‘Why do I only remember Ludvil?’
At some point, the two of them had been confined to separate rooms, divided by a single wall.
She had no memory of this.
And yet, aside from that, the events unfolded exactly as she had once endured—
The curses she was made to bear.
The illnesses forced into her body.
The dark energy, the endless experiments…
‘Was Ludvil really here as a child …?’
For now, she could only watch the two of them.
Through the wall, Ludvil and Odelie sensed each other’s presence.
They listened to each other’s breathing.
Some days were quiet.
Others, harsh and ragged.
On the days when one of them breathed heavily, they both knew the experiments had been horrific.
Then one day—
Tap-
Curled on the floor, Odelie reached out and tapped the wall with her fingertip.
It was a meaningless gesture, a sound that should have ended there.
Tap-
A reply came from the other side.
She froze for a moment, then pressed her ear to the wall and tapped again—
A little louder this time.
Ludvil, leaning against the wall, returned the sound in kind.
Tap- , tap-
Before long, that quiet conversation became their daily proof of life.
The slave would tap.
The sacrifice would answer.
No words, no exchanged glances.
They didn’t even know each other’s names, yet every day, they felt one another through the wall.
The only connection they were allowed.
The only way to say, I’m alive.
One day, when the researchers were away—
A new sound followed the quiet knocks.
“… Don’t die.”
It wasn’t a plea to live.
Not a vow to survive together.
Just … Don’t die.
The first words Ludvil had ever spoken to her.
Leaning against the wall, panting for breath, Odelie gave a small, bitter laugh.
“You’ll die before I do.”
“…”
“You’re just an experiment for my sake. They dragged you here to extend my life as much as possible … You didn’t know that, did you?”
Her voice, muttering in self-mockery, sounded almost like a confession.
Silence followed.
“Then … that’s a relief.”
She froze.
“… What do you mean, relief?”
“It means you can live longer than me.”
She retorted with disbelief.
“What’s the point of living long in a place like this?”
“I don’t know … But you should live long anyway.”
His answer carried no emotion at all.
As if a lowly slave’s life had neither reason nor value to protect.
Days like that continued.
Sometimes, Ludvil laughed out loud.
Sometimes, he cried quietly where Odelie couldn’t hear.
After they began their wall-bound conversations, his expressions of emotion grew more varied with each passing day.
Breaths and faint words exchanged through a wall—
That was all they had.
Ten years passed this way.
At twenty-five, Odelie instinctively knew her time was running out.
One night, after enduring yet another round of experiments—
A night when the researchers’ vigilance was unusually lax—
She opened the door to Ludvil’s chamber.
“…Odelie?”
For the first time, they truly faced each other.
But her face was already so bloodied that her features were barely recognizable.
“Odelie!”
She staggered and collapsed, and Ludvil instinctively caught her in his arms.
Her damaged lungs forced her to cough blood with every breath, her breathing growing weaker by the second.
Yet Odelie didn’t stop.
“Just … stay still for a moment.”
Resting her forehead against his chest, she placed her fingertips over his heart.
Golden light of purification flickered.
The poison in his veins.
The marks of the experiments carved into his tissues.
The fractures in his mana, the damage to his nerves.
All the pain that had accompanied every breath he took—
Vanished in an instant, purified.
Ludvil stood frozen, staring down at her in shock.
