5 - Valentina's Paradise
He slowly raised his hand and wiped away the tears streaming from the corners of his eyes.
…I must have fainted in the training grounds.
His body, beaten by the knights, belatedly screamed. The pain was familiar, but enduring it didn't get any easier.
He had come to the place he had so longed to see, met the woman he had so longed to meet, and was now facing his first morning in her castle. It was as agonizing as it was exciting, as bleak as it was dazzling.
“To find out that the fiancée I loved is the lover of my uncle, who is trying to kill me…”
No, in fact, it was probably more than just lovers. They were in a relationship where they used a secret code to order assassinations, and they even mentioned that the marriage had been finalized.
The meaning of the letter, which had been ambiguous from the beginning, was fully unraveled the moment he saw the letters VFEN engraved on her ring.
Valentina, Florida, Edgar, Nebulosa.
So, the 'Nobleman of Nebulosa' who was said to have been in talks for marriage with her four years ago was not him, but his uncle.
That's why his uncle, under the guise of protecting him, kept him confined to the detached palace but allowed him to go to Florida. Because Grand Duchess Valentina would listen to his orders.
And he had personally delivered his uncle's letter ordering his death to the assassin.
Oh, my God. What a mess. How could the world be so pathetic!
Edeled chuckled and muttered to the empty air. Even in this situation, it was strange that he felt more shame than frustration or fear.
“By the way, did the righteous and benevolent Grand Duke of Florida even notice my uncle's assassination order?”
He covered his eyes with his palms. The brightly pouring sunlight felt shameless.
“I just wish the world had ended last night so that the sun wouldn't rise again. …I really wish my eyes would never open again.”
Suddenly, he realized that he was wearing a clean chemise. He jumped up from his seat. He touched his waist and looked around. His head was spinning.
“…Ah, could it be?”
The pouch containing the portrait was gone.
Valentina couldn't sleep all night. The contents of Edgar's letter and the faded portrait seemed to float around in her head. She tried to fathom Edeled's heart, which had cherished her face for so long while imprisoned, but she gasped briefly. She felt an unpleasant and heavy weight pressing down on her chest.
She called Pepe early in the morning to confirm it.
“You burned that portrait right away as I ordered, didn't you?”
“Not yet, Dominella.”
She took out a crumpled and dirty piece of parchment from her bosom. Valentina coldly rebuked.
“I clearly told you to burn it, didn't I? Are you disobeying my orders as you please?”
Pepe jumped up and said.
“Oh, my! How could I disobey Your Highness's orders? I would never do such a thing, even if it meant my death. But now is definitely not the time!”
“Why?”
“If you harm the portrait, a curse of death will befall the person in the portrait. So, for a week, you have to draw a pentagram every midnight, place the picture in the middle of it, and chant a spell before burning it! That way, the demons won't be able to find the target of the curse.”
Oh, dear.
Suddenly, a bitter smile appeared, and her energy drained away.
It was well known that Pepe, a clown from the Romani troupe of dancers, pretended to believe in God but worshiped all sorts of superstitions. Still, Valentina was very tolerant of the quick-witted and comfortable clown's meddling and chatter. She said in a softened voice.
“Pepe, that picture is already so faded that the curse won't even be able to find its target. And more than anything, if it's an obsession that's been worn away to that extent, shouldn't we get rid of it? If you can't do it, I will.”
Valentina, who had snatched the portrait, lit a candle. At that moment, the head maid Rosina came running like a rolling ball and shouted.
“Your Highness! Grand Duchess! The nobleman of Petronia is causing a ruckus! He says an important item is missing and that he will cut off all the servants' wrists…!”
“……!”
Valentina crumpled what she was holding in her hand and ran to the detached palace.
By the time Valentina arrived at the detached palace, the situation was already over. He had been enraged and shouting, but he soon collapsed from exhaustion and lost consciousness again. He had been starving in the forest and hadn't eaten anything since arriving at the castle yesterday, so he probably didn't have the energy to cause a riot.
“When I told him that all his belongings, dirty clothes, and shoes had been collected and burned, he was so enraged, asking why we touched his things without permission, that I thought all the servants' wrists would be cut off on the spot…”
Rosina reported the situation, trembling.
It was clearly wrong to have his things burned without permission. She was depicted in the painting, but it wasn't her possession. If she had burned it earlier, she would have had no justification for protecting the servants even if Gongzi had cut off their wrists. Valentina glanced at the clown standing next to her. Had she expected this to happen? The clown grinned. Valentina sighed and nodded.
“I understand. I'll return it myself and apologize.”
When she entered the bedroom, he was lying limply on the bed with his eyes closed. He had no color in his face, and sweat was dripping from his forehead and neck. He seemed to have regained consciousness, but he showed no reaction.
“Nobleman Edeled, I didn't know you would be so sensitive about this painting. Here, I've brought back what you were looking for.”
Valentina said calmly, placing the faintly worn portrait at his feet.
“The shape was so blurred that it took me some time to figure out what this painting was.”
“…….”
“It's not mine but yours, and it seems like you've cherished it for a long time, so I'll return it. I also apologize for touching it without permission. But the painting is so old and worn that my appearance has become too ugly, so I hope you'll incinerate it. It doesn't make me feel good to see it either.”
There was still no reaction from the man lying down. It didn't matter. Whether he was conscious or not, she had said what she had to say with courtesy. If he was really unconscious now, the servants would accurately convey what she had said.
She stood at the foot of the bed for a moment and looked down at him.
He was quite thin. Not as much as a famine-stricken serf, but he looked like he had been starving for a long time. There was no one from such a noble family as this young man in the northern part of the continent, and she couldn't understand how he had ended up in this state. Especially since his mother and the knight suspected to be his biological father were both known to be very large in stature.
“Pepe, go to the kitchen and have them prepare a meal for the nobleman of Petronia. Something that will whet his appetite, with special care.”
“Yes, Dominella.”
“And when Edeled regains consciousness, tell him not to get so excited or angry, and to take care of his body first. Tell him that once he recovers, I'd like to have a meal with him.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Valentina waited a little longer for him to show any reaction before turning away. Was he really unconscious? She thought he was awake.
Valentina was really not good at that kind of sensitive psychological warfare.
“Nobleman Edeled…?”
Pepe, who had rushed to the room upon hearing that Edeled had regained consciousness, stopped abruptly.
He was sitting propped up against the head of the bed, quietly looking at the old painting. As if he had no emotions, he was just staring at the painting, whose shape could not even be properly recognized.
He didn't even turn to look at the old clown woman at the door and said quietly.
“Were you called Pepe? It's very dark. Could you light a candle?”
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
Pepe felt a suffocating feeling and lit a fire with a flint. As she placed the candlestick on the table next to the bed, Edeled brought the painting he was holding to the candlelight.
“Gasp!”
Pepe reflexively covered her mouth and stepped back.
The portrait was on fire. The small flame danced and grew larger. He stared at it with a blank face. Until the flame came close to his fingers, until the old parchment completely turned to ashes and crumbled and scattered on the table, he stared at it intently.
Pepe was frozen, unable to move. What on earth was this young nobleman thinking? She couldn't even guess.
“Pepe. You saw it clearly, didn't you.”
Edeled raised his head. His gaunt and pale face, with thin, red lips that seemed to have blood seeping out, was eerie.
“Now go and tell Dominella. Tell her everything you saw and heard, exactly as it was.”
“Yes, yes.”
“Tell her that the unpleasant painting has completely disappeared from the world, so she can rest assured and rejoice to her heart's content.”
Black eyes gleamed menacingly through his disheveled black hair.
Edeled remained sitting on the bed until it was pitch dark.
Under the flickering candlelight, dirty scattered ashes remained. He stared blankly at them.
The subtle trembling he felt every time he saw her painting, the strange heat that rose from his chest, the quiet joy he felt every time he rolled the sentences she wrote in his mouth, seemed to have suddenly disappeared into ashes.
He carefully gathered the ashes. The portrait, which was already small in size, became very small in quantity after being burned. It barely piled up on his palm, but he couldn't feel any weight at all. The pillar that had supported his life for 10 years was so dirty, insignificant, and light enough to be blown away with a puff.
He lowered his head over the ashes.
“…….”
Edeled held his breath so that the ashes would not fly away and carefully licked and swallowed them. His palm became cleaner and cleaner, but a creeping pain began to surge from somewhere in his stomach. The pain became so extreme that it felt like it would tear his heart apart.
Eating a little parchment ash wouldn't kill him, but the ashes of his first love, and probably his last, tormented him more than any poison he had ever ingested.
He curled up like a snail and lay down. The pain was getting worse and worse. He squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. A groan escaped between his increasingly rough breaths. It hurts. It hurts, Valentina, it hurts so much. I'm tired of being in pain. A lifetime of unceasing pain, oh, it's so tiresome. The beautiful moonlight coming in through the window was dizzying.
Valentina, people sometimes want to fall into a sleep that leads to death, they say.
Actually, I think I've been in such a sleep for a long time. With a very sweet dream.
And the sweet dream is now over. He laughed, panting.
