Chapter 14
It was Kaella. Even in the darkness, Pheon recognized her silhouette at once, hood pulled low over her head as she moved.
It might have been because of the power flowing through his veins. That power he’d only learned of after dying once and coming back to life. Or perhaps it was simply lingering attachment. A lingering attachment no different from a sin.
There had been no honeymoon to speak of, and throughout their entire sham of a marriage, he’d paid no attention to what she did, couldn’t even remember. Yet here he was, recognizing her immediately. Wasn’t it the height of shamelessness?
She kept sticking in his eyes. It was instinctual, to the point where even Pheon felt nauseated by himself. The image of Kaella, eyes wide open in death, refused to leave his mind, and yet the man responsible for that death still couldn’t pull himself together.
‘The night air is cold.’
Just recently, when she—who had collapsed and barely regained her senses—suddenly hired a carriage, Pheon’s vision had gone dizzy.
No one from the townhouse had followed the duke’s daughter out, and Kaella had blended seamlessly into the crowd of maids and gardeners heading home from this affluent district. He’d hurried after her, only to find her now boldly venturing into dangerous streets.
He could tell at a glance. She was running away. Her tiny face smeared with thick soot, she was fleeing.
But she couldn’t walk through back alleys prowled by dangerous criminals. Even in the prosperous capital of the Kranian Empire, Kline, there were places where stepping foot meant instant death. He had no choice but to block her path.
“People die there by the dozens every night, and no one would even know. You can’t.”
Pheon knew exactly why she was here. It was obvious at a glance.
Beneath that worn cloak—clearly a maid’s—and the hood she’d pulled on, she’d no doubt packed jewels and gold coins. For an innocent duke’s daughter to venture out like this was dangerous. Far too dangerous.
Under the pale moonlight, the only sharp thing on her face was her gaze. Kaella recognized him and sharply drew in a breath, then glared even harder.
“Then you can escort me yourself.”
She didn’t ask why he was here, how he’d known to follow. In a way, it was quintessentially efficient Lüsenford style.
He had to tell the duke’s daughter—who held her head high despite her wretched appearance—to go back. But Pheon couldn’t bring himself to say it.
Telling her to go back meant proposing marriage. He knew full well that the duchess who had died before his return and this duke’s daughter now were entirely different people.
They were different people, yet he still couldn’t bring himself to propose to her. Not even with all the political, economic, and diplomatic stakes on the line, not even with Duke Ostein’s life hanging in the balance.
“You can provide an escort anytime, can’t you? Even if I’m not Lady Lavalle.”
To Pheon, no woman except Beatrice was a lady, and especially Kaella—even as Duke Ostein’s daughter—was less than a maid working Lüsenford Castle.
She knew he’d never escort her, yet Kaella gritted her teeth and said it.
It was foolish. This man was facing her outburst without knowing why. He hadn’t done anything. Not yet.
Kaella, who had never mocked or sneered at anyone, barely managed to halt her anger before it poured out onto Pheon.
If she went any further, some deep-seated emotion or lingering attachment inside her would show. She couldn’t allow that. She turned sharply and started walking into the dangerous streets.
“Ka…!”
Not ‘Kaella’ in these night streets. ‘Duke’s daughter’ was even worse.
Pheon, always cautious of listening ears, swept a hand over his mouth and hurried after her. His strides were much wider than her hurried little steps; one of his steps was enough to catch up.
But what could he say? His tongue, which turned smoothly even before Beatrice or the emperor, went rigid before Kaella. How on earth was he supposed to dissuade this woman who hated marrying him so much she’d resort to this?
And above all, Pheon understood her completely. A delicately raised young lady from the warm southern Ostein had no place with a flawed man like him, nor with the harsh, clannish north.
That was why he couldn’t stop her, no matter how much she flustered him or acted unpredictably. He had no right to.
A hulking man in plain clothes with a long sword at his side, and a woman shrouded in a hood. Dangerous glances stuck to this mismatched pair that didn’t belong in the night streets.
“It’s too dangerous.”
“Have you tried proposing again?”
Kaella jerked her head up.
“You were rejected, weren’t you? Yes, I knew it.”
Nodding to herself as if she’d known all along, she walked even faster. For someone who had collapsed and barely risen to come this far was too much. She was trying her best, putting strength into each step, but her gait was already unsteady.
Yet the more it was so, the more Kaella gritted her teeth and pressed on. Her resolve came through so clearly that Pheon couldn’t bring himself to stop her. He had no right.
It felt like being dragged to hell with limbs bound and head forced back. Kaella must have felt even worse when she suddenly stopped and looked up at him.
“Why did you love so weakly?”
Kaella—who had endured every humiliation, unbroken by her husband’s coldness, fulfilling her role as duchess to the end—couldn’t understand.
“Why did you make such a fuss, picking every possible extravagance so all of Crania would know, when your love amounted to so little?”
If she had to make a huge fuss to show how much she loved, Kaella was confident she could do better than anyone.
Was it because he was too immature? It was a love that hadn’t fully turned away even after hearing she’d contributed to her father’s death. She had given everything to love Pheon. A heart she’d guarded to the very end.
And for such a cowardly love, that strong heart was being ignored. Kaella felt deeply wronged and furious.
“…I’m sorry.”
The question, one he’d never heard before, brimmed with layers of meaning. He had no face to show for answering with such a pathetic response, but Kaella seemed to interpret it as ‘We have to get married.’ She walked even faster.
Pheon sank into thought. Should he tell her to leave?
But unless it was in a way befitting Duke Ostein’s daughter, a way the entire empire could accept, House Ostein would disintegrate for embarrassing the emperor. Kaella would surely be caught before then.
Even if the current emperor were in his right mind, he wouldn’t worry like this. Pheon wanted her to marry Prince Elcanan of Keruzhan and leave. She had to leave Crania no matter what. Whether by marriage or running away, she had to go somehow.
“Do you have a plan once you’re out? An escort?”
Pheon finally asked after walking some distance, having warded off street thugs with unseen intimidation. Now, the Kline castle gate was coming into view in the distance.
“Even if I do, I won’t tell Your Highness.”
Of course. Only a fool would tell someone who obviously intended to grab her. Who shares their escape plan with their pursuer?
Pheon had already given up on stopping Kaella. As long as her safety was secured, he wanted to let her do as she wished.
He was worried about Duke Ostein’s well-being, but he could protect that with his life. Whichever way it went, it was his responsibility. This new life and the previous duchess had no connection, yet he still carried the guilt.
“You have to get out safely.”
He cursed his lack of eloquence. His heart overflowed, but it wouldn’t convert to words and pour out. So Kaella stared ahead, wide-eyed, ignoring him.
“Ah…!”
Even with her face completely blackened by ash, she was beautiful. Those eyes, clear as a winter sky without a hint of shadow, weren’t on Pheon—they were on the gate.
The door to death lay ahead. A merciless gate where, by imperial decree, no one without verified identity could pass.
Better to break a taboo and die than die helplessly—her face lit up with that thought. At the same time, Pheon, with his sharper eyesight, blocked her immediately.
“You can’t.”
“Let go.”
“Not now. Please. The emperor’s magistrate is there, Kaella.”
He didn’t know why that magistrate was at the gate now, but that man and the scribes he dragged around all knew Kaella’s and Pheon’s faces.
And not just the scribes. The escort troops they brought had made the already strict gate security even tighter.
“If not now…!”
If not now, the gates would close soon. And the duke’s townhouse would realize the duke’s daughter was missing and raise hell, so if not now, there’d be no chance.
Kaella shoved his arm and ran forward. But Pheon gritted his teeth and blocked her. The magistrate was the emperor’s hand. Getting caught here meant the end. The emperor would be furious.
“Kaella, please!”
“Please, Your Highness. Please, just let me go. Please.”
In the dim, foul-smelling alley shadows, the two struggled. Kaella hit and flailed against him, but Pheon held her tight and wouldn’t let go.
“Not now. Please. If you go now, House Ostein ends tomorrow morning.”
It was the absolute end. He whispered low, gripping the writhing Kaella. She glanced at the magistrate, then at the gate captain conversing with him.
The young knight nodded to the magistrate. Wasn’t that Knight Isidore Dakiten, the gate captain? Pheon’s cousin, no less. Running into that man here would be disastrous.
“You said there’s a way…!”
But that way was one Pheon mustn’t know, one only she could know, so Kaella said no more. Calling him ‘brother Isidore’ in front of Pheon would drag the gate captain Knight Isidore Dakiten into it too.
And above all, she couldn’t overcome Pheon’s firm grip. The same familiar thing was happening again.
Everything closed, was taken, vanished right before her eyes. Despair and frustration came easily; it had been ages since effort led to desire fulfilled.
There was no reason for the emperor’s eyes and ears—the magistrates and scribes—to come to the gate at this hour. But they had, so her escape was over. It always was.
The light in Kaella’s eyes faded bit by bit. She’d hoped to escape through her long connection with Knight Dakiten there, but the emperor’s direct magistrate outranked the gate captain Knight Dakiten. It was over. It always was. Her life was always like that.
The hands that had fiercely pushed him went limp. Pheon felt the body temperature in his tight embrace rising. She was feverish.
“I’ll… I’ll get you out later. I promise.”
He knew such words were useless. They wouldn’t reach her ears. But Pheon hid her in the filthy alley shadows, shielding her from the emperor’s eyes, and begged.
“You’ll be free. You’ll become someone with no ties to Lüsenford, so please, just endure a little longer.”
Even as he spoke, Pheon felt a stabbing pain in his heart. Yes. Kaella had to be someone with no connection to him. Forcing her slipping, falling body upright, he bit back his teeth hard.
*
“His Imperial Majesty is staking his face on our marriage right now.”
During the time Pheon barely managed to get her back, Kaella didn’t cry. She simply sank deep into silence in the carriage.
Pheon, who had seen countless battlefields, couldn’t hide his unease at how it resembled the demeanor of one facing death.
He wanted to call off this farce of a marriage. He wished for it desperately. But only days after his return, he didn’t yet have enough power.
Especially not now, when the emperor sought to prove they were fulfilling their roles as proper imperial in-laws through this marriage.
Even the pale-faced Kaella in her wedding veil before his return must have hated it this much. Probably the same then as now.
How humiliating a marriage for the noble Duke Ostein’s daughter. He suffered too, having to babble on about reality before her like this.
“If this marriage falls through, it wounds His Majesty’s dignity, and isn’t it obvious where that anger will turn?”
Was she even listening? Kaella—even in her wretched state, dazzlingly beautiful—seemed uninterested in his words. Her ears were closed, her gaze extinguished.
“You have to survive first, Duke’s Daughter. Kaella.”
He never, ever wanted to see her die with eyes wide open again.
“Live, divorce me, inherit Ostein Duchy, and someday you might think it was the right path.”
All the while he spoke, his heart ached, his blood ran cold. He was begging her not to die.
“Three years—just three years with me, is that too much to ask?”
It was an exceedingly tight timeline, but Pheon dared to promise.
“In three years, I’ll divorce you. I won’t covet Ostein at all. We’ll put it all in writing, sign it. Three years. After that….”
After that, he’d have to cut himself completely out of Kaella’s life. He wouldn’t be able to cut Kaella out of his own. His breath caught.
“After that, as a stranger.”
Pheon lowered his gaze. Shameless as he was, hurting even as he said it, he couldn’t look her straight in the eye.
“Return as a stranger.”
But Kaella wasn’t listening to him.
‘I… I’m such an idiot. I can’t do anything right.’
Everything she did—foolish, idiotic—was clumsy.
Just stay put, why step forward and cause headaches for everyone?
Even killing herself with effort, Kaella couldn’t catch the heels of ordinary people.
You just stir up trouble, and we clean it up. You speak so strangely too.
What can a half-wit duchess who couldn’t even play the role properly do?
If you don’t know anything, staying quiet is how you help, Your Grace.
Everything she did was like that. How could a fool like her succeed with one act of defiance? She couldn’t even die right, needed others to help her die.
Bring Her Grace inside.
Since she’s an idiot who can’t do anything, doesn’t even speak properly, she should just stay still. Die quietly this time too.
Even returned, she couldn’t accomplish anything. What could she do, her who had worked sleepless for four years before dying without recognition? She should sit quietly and die obediently.
At some point, Kaella’s lips curved up slightly.
‘What do I think I can do?’
Unable to tell if this was reality or madness.
Pheon’s eyes shook painfully as he watched Kaella smile unnaturally, wandering in the darkness, ignoring his words.
The carriage quietly returned to the Ostein ducal townhouse.
