Chapter 22
Dammit. The mere thought of sitting face-to-face on a bed with a man in a room no larger than a palm made her vision go dim.
As if reading the despair in Lottie’s voice, a low chuckle drifted from beside her.
“A patient must follow the doctor’s orders, shouldn’t they?”
Calyx brushed past Lottie and perched himself on the edge of the bed. He then gestured with his eyes toward the space beside him, as if asking the stiff-as-a-stone Lottie why she was still standing.
Lottie hesitated before gingerly resting just the edge of her hip on the very corner of the mattress. Calyx let out a low laugh.
“Isn’t the distance a bit much, Doctor?”
“D-don’t mind me. I’m comfortable like this.”
Lottie opened the medical kit. The sound of clattering tools went on for quite some time.
She dawdled until she felt she couldn’t stall any longer, then finally turned her body.
She faced the patient, who sat quietly waiting for the doctor’s touch.
Her breath hitched for a moment at the sight of his face, made even more seductive by his split lip.
“…….”
Lottie reached out awkwardly and pressed a disinfecting cotton ball against the corner of Calyx’s mouth. Perhaps because she applied too much pressure, Calyx winced slightly the moment the cotton touched him.
When Lottie flinched and pulled her hand away, Calyx leaned his face closer this time.
“It’s okay. Keep going.”
He brought his lips to her hand, which remained frozen in midair. As if kissing the tips of her fingers, his wound brushed against the damp cotton.
Though it clearly stung and pained him, he offered a smile. As if to say he was fine. As if to tell her not to run away.
“…….”
Though she had become frequently entangled with this man in her second life, the memories of her first life still occupied more of her mind.
A rogue who had kissed her without hesitation right in front of her husband.
A madman who had beaten to death the vassals who served him.
A legendary murderer who had driven her and countless subjects to their deaths.
However, she had seen it clearly.
In the third dream she had while collapsed with fever, the man who shot her undoubtedly possessed brilliant, glowing blue eyes. They were not this warm reddish-brown.
‘I don’t know how the eye color of the same person could change, but….’
She could tell there was a vast chasm between the tyrant who had killed her back then and this man who was now completely entrusting himself to her.
‘It’s not that I trust this man entirely.’
But perhaps she could step a little closer.
It was partly because her curiosity toward him had grown larger than her fear, and above all, it was difficult to treat him while keeping such a distance.
“……!”
Lottie moved a span closer to Calyx. The bed gave a small lurch as she did. It might have been that Calyx’s body had shuddered.
Lottie focused silently on the treatment.
Because she was paying no attention to anything else, she didn’t even realize that one of her hands, supporting her weight on the bed, was lightly touching Calyx’s hand.
He knew. He knew, but he did not pull his hand away.
The promise not to lay a single finger on her was broken in less than ten minutes.
The distance that had been as wide as the bed’s opposite ends had narrowed until their breaths mingled.
Both he and she were so focused that they failed to realize it.
“It must have hurt a lot.”
“……You as well.”
Lottie understood the meaning behind his words that followed her unconscious murmur.
Come to think of it, this was the first time they had met since that sudden proposal at Bates Square.
While she couldn’t blindly blame him for her falling ill with fever, Lottie decided to use this situation to her advantage.
“Then, to celebrate my return from the brink of death, would Your Highness grant me the opportunity to ask one question?”
It was impossible to tell at which part Calyx’s gaze hardened.
Lottie decided to push forward regardless. She had been determined to return with an answer to her question no matter what.
“Your Highness knows, don’t you? The real reason why Padrick… why the Crown Prince is trying to marry me.”
If Padrick’s goal was truly just to inherit the title and estate to stabilize his shaky position in Parliament, there would have been a second or third alternative.
If a marriage to her was truly that necessary and desperate, he could have simply pushed the marriage through using the authority of the Royal Family.
And yet, Padrick had staked his fate on a gamble with an uncertain outcome, such as orchestrating the feather incident.
As if he must not let it be publicly known that he was the one who desired the marriage.
“What exactly is the connection between the madness of the patients in my hometown, Your Highness’s… situation, and the hidden story behind the Crown Prince’s marriage to me? I… no matter how much I think about it, I cannot understand.”
“Usually, in these types of riddles, the answer lies within the question,” Calyx said.
Since it was late at night, his voice sounded like a low whisper.
“Think carefully. Since you are wise, you may already know the answer.”
Lottie could only blink blankly at the infinite trust he placed in her.
Only then did she realize their distance was excessively close. It was too late to back away.
“……Could it be?”
A deposed prince who became a madman overnight. The first Queen to ascend the throne after the Late King.
A Crown Prince constantly plagued by legitimacy issues compared to his aunt. The Ix estate he was targeting, Dempis.
What Dempis was famous for.
“Are you saying… there is a way to intentionally trigger madness?”
The madmen.
“And that it is related to my homeland, and Padrick tried to marry me to get his hands on that method?”
Calyx only wore a meaningful smile. He gave no verbal answer, but that was already enough.
It was a hypothesis she had dismissed as soon as it crossed her mind, thinking it too absurd. To think there was a way to trigger madness at will.
While there were stories of people going mad because a witch cast a curse, they were merely superstitions from hundreds of years ago.
Above all, if such a method existed, her homeland would have been thrown into a massive upheaval long ago.
Yet, hadn’t Dempis remained as tranquil as an illustration cut from a fairy tale, both ten years ago and now?
If such a method existed, then she, who was born and raised there, would have also long since….
“……!”
Lottie, following her thoughts deeper and deeper, froze at that point.
In her childhood, just before her mother passed away from tuberculosis, hadn’t she seen her screaming and wailing as if she had become a different person?
— Just the day before, the Crown Prince had sworn loyalty to his father, the King, but overnight he became a madman and killed his own father.
Lottie stared blankly at the man before her, recalling his words.
“Charlotte.”
His two eyes flickered in the light, appearing almost brown.
“I loved this kingdom where I was born and raised, the father who sired me, and the fate given to me more than anyone.”
There is no way someone like me would have killed everything I love with my own hands.
The eyes she met seemed to be screaming his innocence with his entire being.
Lottie watched that silent cry with bated breath.
Should she believe him?
Twelve years ago, everyone saw the young Crown Prince holding a sword at the blood-soaked murder scene.
The world still pointed fingers at this man as a parricide who killed his father.
And I… I know exactly what your future holds.
“This is as far as I can answer.”
“…….”
“Then, may I ask a question this time?” Calyx asked softly.
After a moment of hesitation, Lottie nodded slowly.
Her hands were hovering near the medical kit, as if her treatment was already finished.
Calyx swallowed a bitter sense of regret, wishing he could crush the uninjured side of his mouth as well.
“Even after hearing the answer to the riddle… is your heart still unchanged about not marrying me?”
Lottie’s hands, which were tidying the medical kit, came to a dead stop.
Even in the brief moment waiting for her answer, his split lip stung. The tips of his fingers that had lightly touched hers throbbed.
He endured the impulse to reach out further and cover those small hands with his large ones.
“……Yes.”
“Why?”
He tried not to ask back, but he failed in the end.
Though he feared the answer he least wanted to hear might come out at this moment, he still waited for what would follow. His throat felt parched as he stared intently at the lips from which the answer would flow.
In the end, he couldn’t help but slightly cover her hand, which had been lightly touching his.
‘If that bastard’s name comes out of those lips, I….’
“Because I am… an artificial flower.”
Her calm voice broke through Calyx’s dazed consciousness.
“Artificial flowers have no scent. They cannot bloom flowers or bear fruit and seeds. That is how I wish to live. I dream of being an artificial flower that can keep myself as I am for a lifetime, even if it’s a fake, rather than living as if being joined with someone else is the entirety of life.”
Finishing her words, Lottie gave a soft smile.
In her light green eyes, Calyx read a transparent and pure sincerity.
The woman’s words about dreaming of being an artificial flower were the truth, without a single shred of a lie.
Before that stubborn persistence, Calyx felt a wall for the first time.
It was something he hadn’t felt even when facing her as she sent Padrick an indescribable look.
‘So the reason you put on those ridiculous acts in front of your suitors… was this.’
Then what about me?
What should I do, I who decided to remain as your hatred if I couldn’t have even a fragment of your affection?
What about me, who decided I would have you even if there was another man in your heart?
“This is as far as I can answer as well. It is late, so if that was a sufficient answer, I shall take my leave.”
Lottie’s hand, which had been slightly entangled under his fingers, slid out smoothly.
Before he could even catch her, Lottie packed her medical kit and stood up. After a polite bow, she hurried out the door.
Even after Lottie disappeared, Calyx stared at the door for a long time.
The firmly closed door did not open again.
