Chapter 121 · Farewell (4)

I remember that day vividly. It was the day I parted ways with Beatrice and Anastasia.

Paeon and Beatrice had committed an unforgivable sin, so they could no longer stay in Santra. But Beatrice never lost her smile. She was always like that. Even in hopeless situations, she was a woman who found hope.

“Everything will be all right.”

Beatrice patted Paeon’s dark, worried face.

“There must be a way for the three of us to be happy.”

They decided to leave Santra for a while. Beatrice would leave first with the child, and Paeon would follow a few weeks later. It was a very dangerous plan because they had to use illegal routes.

To send away a child barely born and Beatrice, whose mana was unstable, to a faraway place. No matter how much she said it would be fine, he could not stop worrying.

“Gah-ha.”

Just then, Anastasia, held in Beatrice’s arms, looked at Paeon and smiled brightly.

Anastasia would cry and then smile whenever she saw Paeon. He was not particularly popular with children, perhaps because of his cold aura, so his own daughter seemed wondrous to him.

“You must take after your father’s good looks, since you smile every time you see him. I think she inherited my eyes. That’s going to be trouble.”

Beatrice laughed playfully and nuzzled Anastasia. Then, after a moment, she took something from her pocket, muttered something, and suddenly spoke to Paeon.

“Please bless your daughter.”

He was taken aback by the sudden request, but he took Anastasia from her.

Holding a baby was more nerve-wracking than fighting monsters. She was so small and light, yet his hands trembled as if he were holding a heavy boulder.

Paeon felt the warmth of that living being and slowly looked at her face. A child who looked exactly like Beatrice.

He was glad she did not resemble him. He loathed his own face. Even when praised as handsome, it brought him no joy. Every time he looked in a mirror, he remembered the mother who had smiled as she sold him as a combat slave, and he shuddered. The only comfort was that Beatrice liked it.

Anastasia’s beautiful emerald eyes scanned his face. Each white eyelash was delicately drawn, and her soft, red cheeks were plump and lovely. Every part of her was so lovable that it seemed it would not hurt to put her in his eyes.

Without realizing it, he slowly brought his lips to the child’s forehead. As he brought his face close to the swaddling clothes, he smelled sweet milk.

“Hehe.”

Anastasia laughed as if ticklish, and the clear sound ringing in his ears tickled his heart. It was a blissful moment he felt he could never forget.

“We’ll be going now. Don’t skip meals or sleep just because we’re not there. We’ll see each other again soon.”

Paeon watched them grow distant endlessly. Until they became a dot and could no longer be seen, he could not move from that spot.

He should never have sent them away like that.

While Beatrice was leaving, war broke out. All routes were blocked and security was strengthened. She and Paeon each received deployment orders to different places.

After that, he never met Beatrice again until she lost her life. Naturally, he could not know what had become of Anastasia.

Throughout the war, his heart burned with anxiety. After losing Beatrice, he wanted to find Anastasia immediately, but as commander of the knight order, he bore a heavy responsibility and could not leave the front lines.

He had to end the war quickly to have any chance of finding her. So he fought with all his might at every moment.

After the grueling three-year war ended, it was only after clearing out Beatrice’s palace that her will was discovered. For some reason, she had written that the child’s father was of Kalisan blood.

Paeon feared Anastasia would suffer because of the false fact, but he could not bring himself to step forward and insist it was not true.

And so he met Anastasia again.

Everything went wrong… and the way for the three of them to be happy became something that could never be found. But he thought he must at least not become a burden to Anastasia. He believed that keeping his distance from her was the only way to protect her.

He realized far too late how wrong that thought had been. Only after he had already inflicted every wound on her…

The image stone in Paeon’s hand had long since lost its light.

Plip.

Tears fell onto the white bed and soaked in. Unaware that he was crying, he stared blankly at the image stone.

‘The princess knew from the very beginning…’

She had known everything, from that cabin. Not because the god Lux told her in a dream, but because she had seen clear evidence.

The events right after he met Anastasia flashed through his mind like lightning.

“No, you’re definitely an angel. A knight punishes bad people for me. And just now, you made all my hurts go away with a zing.”

“Then… I’ll call you Papa.”

Thanking him for helping her, asking to call him Papa—how much must she have hated him?

The reason she had held back her anger and gone that far was probably because she needed someone to protect her.

And he had failed to do even that one thing. Far from protecting her, he had not even known he was cursed and had foolishly been greedy, putting her life in danger.

Anastasia’s judgment had been right. He had neither the ability nor the right to protect her.

“…”

Paeon’s face was a mess with tears.

Without even thinking to wipe his face, he staggered up, opened the door, and went out.

Once outside the inn, he began to run without a destination. His golden hair, reflected in the moonlight, shone. The early autumn air was chilly, and a hazy fog hung everywhere.

He felt that if he ran, as he had then, as on the day Anastasia disappeared years ago, some signal would come. Some intuition that would tell him she was nearby.

But no matter how much he ran and ran, he felt nothing.

Before he knew it, a deep blue sea spread before his eyes. It was a sea so vast it seemed it could swallow everything.

Paeon plopped down on the ground and contorted his face as he watched the white waves endlessly surging and breaking in the fog. A terrifying thought slowly began to consume him.

She might not be on this land.

He might never find her.

And he might never be able to say it forever. That he had not hated her for even a single moment. That from the moment he first met her until now, he had loved her so… so much.

Tears flowed again down his face, dried white with tears.

“Why…”

Why was he always one step too late?

Suddenly, he felt as if he could hear her voice carried on the wind.

“Don’t skip meals or sleep just because I’m not there. You’ll drop dead, you know?”

The image of Anastasia frowning at his pathetic state was drawn so vividly he could almost grasp it.

“See, I told you you’d be like this. Good grief.”

Anastasia is alive. That much he could know for certain.

She had not returned as a corpse like Beatrice, nor had she been reduced to ashes in a fire like in the dream.

So he had to live too. He could not lie here pathetically like this anymore. He had to do whatever it took to meet her again, wherever in the world she was breathing.

Paeon rose from his spot.

Booo!

Beyond the horizon where the darkness was clearing, a ship was coming in. The ship’s horn cut through the quiet dawn and rang out. It was the sound announcing a new beginning.

◇ ◆ ◇

The carriage carrying Basileo raced forward endlessly, kicking up dust. He sat with a dark face, unusual for someone returning home after four years.

He rested his chin on his hand and stared blankly out the window, occasionally blushing and clutching his hair. Fortunately, he was alone; if anyone had seen him, they would have thought him truly strange.

‘It was definitely lips, right?’

That moment when Anastasia had fallen on top of him. Something had definitely touched his lips. Something very soft and tender.

“Ugh…!”

He felt so embarrassed and ashamed that his face burned.

‘To end up doing something like that…!’

That was something adults did! He had seen his mother and father do it very occasionally—before going to war, for instance—but he had never seen children do it.

No matter that it was an accident, why did he keep having these unintended accidents with Anastasia?

‘She must have been flustered this time too.’

It was the first time he had seen Anastasia’s face turn so red. Her face was so white that the redness showed all too clearly.

‘…That kind of face is cheating.’

He kept thinking of Anastasia. Since no one could rummage through his head anyway, wasn’t thinking about her free? He was glad he knew memory magic. It was vivid now, but in time it would fade.

Then he immediately became gloomy. In the end, he had failed to bring her to Kalisa.

Anastasia seemed to have decided to inherit the Santran throne. Now they had become enemies. Kalisa and Santra had been in conflict for hundreds of years, and the chasm was immeasurably deep. Their relationship might improve slightly, but they could never become allies. Knowing that, Anastasia had chosen that path.

When he first heard it, he had been furious beyond reason. He thought she could make such a choice because she did not care about him at all. He resented her so much.

But as time passed, the anger disappeared and other emotions rose. Regret, sorrow, and… worry.

How many obstacles would lie before a bastard princess on her way to the throne?

No matter how much experience she had from repeating her lives, it was far too dangerous a path.

Yet Anastasia had decided to walk the thorny road and kicked away the comfortable path he had offered. Despite her fragile appearance like a dandelion seed, she was truly valiant.

But he had only criticized Anastasia for making such a difficult decision.

“You’re just trying to use me to the very end.”

He had been so harsh.

‘I shouldn’t have said that…’

Anastasia had looked deeply wounded. Her brow had furrowed, and she had looked ready to cry. His heart tingled with guilt.

Basileo carefully took out the pocket watch she had given him from his jacket pocket. When he clicked open the silver lid, the second hand was ticking.

Anastasia was his second hand. The child who had created the only meaningful time in that hellish place. And he had hurt that child deeply.

‘I should have apologized.’

It was a regret that came far too late.

He wanted to turn back immediately and shout to Anastasia that his words had not been sincere. But the carriage had already reached the border with Kalisa, on the eastern side of Santra.

An apology he might never be able to deliver circled in his mind along with Anastasia’s face.

Several more days passed.

When he was growing weary of the long carriage journey, the carriage door was thrown open at dawn, just as the sun was rising. The knight escorting him spoke flatly.

“Prince Basileo, we are at the border.”