Chapter 31
It was a marriage where she had everything she could possibly want. The only problem was that none of it truly belonged to the bride.
The engagement ring the bride had received, the wedding ring, the tiara on her head, the heirloom jewels—in fact, even the groom was the same. And truthfully, she didn’t even have the right to stand in the bride’s place. She was merely filling in temporarily for someone else.
“Here.”
Since leaving Kline, Kaella hadn’t worn the engagement ring even once. Now she returned it.
“Why… this…?”
Pheon’s breath caught in his throat, and he barely managed to squeeze out the words. The sentence didn’t even form completely. He had given it to her, declaring it was unequivocally hers—why was she giving it back?
“I’ve already received one…”
Or rather, one was enough. She looked at him as if she couldn’t comprehend his confusion, but then she suddenly started gauging his reaction, and Pheon couldn’t even let out a sigh recklessly.
She must think she’d done something wrong right now, the way her shoulders immediately hunched up. He couldn’t dare make her even more frightened.
Ever since collapsing, Kaella no longer treated him as the older brother she’d known from childhood. She addressed him solely as the Duke of Lüsenford. And after waking from her prolonged illness, she had become even more rigidly polite.
She drew a clear line like that, never showing any emotion. And the rare glimpses of emotion she did show were just these frightened glances checking his mood—Pheon felt a profound disgust with himself.
“N-No, Kaella.”
He shook his head.
“No. It’s all yours. I told you there’s no need to return it.”
To the woman who had been imprisoned in the North Tower and starved nearly to death, Lüsenford was a barren land where she had to pretend to survive. Every year, she had to endure the nobles’ glares and rudeness disguised as Tourberry offerings.
If she didn’t, she would suffocate and die from a single fruit that swelled terrifyingly in her body. Or she would be swept away by the barrage of unreasonable demands and coercion.
How frightening it must have been. Among the Lüsenford people, who were all large in stature and loud of voice, Kaella would have had to put up with their rudeness and threats.
At the last banquet, she must have been so scared that she forced herself to eat the Tourberry she didn’t want. She must have been swept up into it. There was no way she had eaten it of her own volition.
“Keep this one too, as it is.”
He took the engagement ring, which had been neatly placed in its box, and slipped it back onto Kaella’s finger. She had lost so much weight that it hung loose now.
“The new one is just a gift from husband to wife.”
A brilliant diamond was added to her other bony hand. Holding it, he saw there were no veins visible, no warmth at all—it was just like the hand Kaella would have had if she had died. Pheon unconsciously furrowed his brow.
“Wear it often. If you lose it, it’s fine. I’ll buy you another.”
He remembered her crying, her face red and puffy, rummaging through her eyes with bare hands in search of the lost ring. That was why he said it in advance. He should have searched with her—he had left her alone and casually found it later to give back, making himself an accomplice. He should have searched right there together.
“With the rings increasing, how could…”
The words nearly burst from his tongue—What kind of lunatic would take away an engagement ring given as his mother’s item?—but Pheon barely held them back.
The word “lunatic” was too vulgar to say in front of Kaella. At the same time, he knew exactly why she was acting this way.
“…I’m sorry that I’m so lacking and full of flaws compared to you.”
He was constantly reminding himself that he was a flawed man who had officially been lovers with another woman.
“No, it’s not like that.”
Kaella reflexively denied it out of habit.
“No, it is. Don’t deny what everyone with eyes can plainly see. You know it too.”
She shut her mouth again.
“With a husband as flawed as me, don’t I have to give you even more of these to make up for it?”
His large, strong hand still held her bony one. To Kaella, it was a very strange and bizarre sight.
“They suit you well.”
Compared to Beatrice’s long, slender hands, hers were pathetically small.
The social flower, Lady Lavalle, whose hands were beautiful and whose every feature was flawless—Kaella, who had lived overshadowed by her reputation, watched the large diamond ring added to those ugly hands and thought,
‘They must have shone even brighter on Lady Lavalle’s hand.’
The duke gripped tightly the hand of the ugly duchess, who was inferior to her in every way, and said once more, clearly,
“It’s entirely yours.”
A lie. That couldn’t be true.
“Take it all. It’s all yours. Never return it.”
The voice repeating it over and over was directed solely at her, and his large hands enveloped both of hers, as if worried she might slip the rings off again.
She knew better than anyone that this was all just a fleeting moment, something futile and meaningless—yet Kaella stared at her own hands for a long while. Her small, insignificant hands, completely engulfed in his, looked quite decent for the first time in ages.
They didn’t seem so ugly, after all.
*
After barely convincing Kaella—no, really just strong-arming her into keeping both rings on her fingers, Pheon wiped his face only after the door closed behind him.
He knew. The woman behind that door wasn’t the Kaella who had desperately tried to settle here and become one of them. She wasn’t the person he had known.
She was the Duchess of Ostein who could leave Lüsenford at any moment and, given the chance, become a stranger to him again. She wasn’t the woman who had cried and searched desperately for a ring she’d lost, not even remembering what he had given her.
The ring was the only thing he had given Kaella. Or it was the sole symbol of their miserable marriage, each for their own reasons.
Kaella had searched frantically for that ring. Either the marriage mattered to her, or the ring itself did—or both.
I’ll return it.
But the current Kaella showed no attachment to the ring whatsoever.
Return it? The ring? Even breaking off an engagement and demanding the ring back was the act of a petty, sleazy bastard—and yet, after treating her husband like that twice, Kaella was utterly serious.
‘Have I been treating Bee poorly?’
Pheon reflected on the past, pondering. He didn’t know much about women. So even if he was trying his best this time not to hurt Kaella, he might have slipped up carelessly.
Of course, he knew that his very existence—and the undeniable past that couldn’t be changed even by turning back time—was an indelible flaw to her. That fact always tormented him.
‘But still…’
Still, it didn’t make sense. The twenty-one-year-old duchess, freshly married and raised delicately, had been polite and shy. She definitely had been. Cursing himself for having few memories of the early days of marriage, Pheon scraped together what he could recall.
He should have observed Kaella more closely. He should have gotten to know what kind of person she was. What great sin was it to learn about another person? He berated himself as he wrung his brain.
Even if Your Highness doesn’t acknowledge me, I am the Duchess. I’ll do what I must.
No matter how vague his memories, he couldn’t forget that small but clear voice and the cold eyes that looked straight at him. Even with tears welling up or on the verge of spilling, she had looked him right in the eye. She had confronted him, who always avoided and turned away.
But this time, had she even looked at him?
Suddenly, a chilling sensation came over Pheon, and he turned to look behind him. But the door he had closed himself remained firmly shut.
He suppressed the urge to open it again and walked down the corridor. Spring would come to Lüsenford soon too, but the wind was still so cold that it made him worry for Kaella’s health as it tugged at the duke’s cloak.
“Your Highness.”
Secretary Lezen approached cautiously and bowed his head. Pheon had sensed him hovering nearby for the past few minutes, waiting for him to emerge, but holding Kaella’s hands and making her promise over and over had made him ignore it.
Pheon shook off the lingering chill as best he could and turned to Lezen.
“May I report after coming closer?”
Pheon gestured without a word. Lezen approached as indicated, glanced around, and whispered in a voice so low it was barely audible.
“It was gold, Your Highness.”
The second mine would spew out gold in abundance. Pheon nodded.
“What should we do?”
“We’ll find some large nuggets as we dig. Bring them. Send just one to Kline.”
He planned to completely hide the far more precious diamonds and send gold—which couldn’t compare to diamonds but was always valued highly—to the emperor to show off.
The emperor no longer knew Lüsenford’s finances and military status well. Reports could be fudged as needed, and as for the emperor’s eyes and ears… well.
“Yes, Your Highness. As you command, but is that alright?”
Lezen was loyal, but separately from that, he couldn’t hide his worry. It was his job to scrutinize every potential risk. If there was danger to his lord, Pheon, it was naturally his duty to address it.
In that sense, he was concerned whether it was wise to keep silent to the emperor about the Kerban Mine, where diamonds were pouring out in massive quantities.
The emperor always showed a pathological interest in, obsession with, and meddling in Lüsenford’s affairs.
Before Pheon could even report, imperial messengers would appear knowing exactly what had happened, or Pheon would be summoned to Kline—not just once or twice.
Thus, the people of Lüsenford always lived in simultaneous fear and hatred, believing the emperor watched them.
The ever-surveilling emperor, the fearful presence always watching, gripping Lüsenford’s throat, scorning, despising, and granting not a shred of freedom.
“Nothing will happen.”
Pheon said firmly. He was the only person in the Kranian Empire who no longer feared the emperor’s eyes and ears. What he feared was something else.
“Yes, then we’ll proceed that way. And about the fourth mine…”
Lezen lowered his voice even more. It was almost inaudible.
“Is it really ‘that place’?”
A different level of fear showed on the secretary’s face. He seemed gripped by terror directly tied to his life.
“Truly, Your Highness, if it’s ‘that place,’ development is impossible. There will be enormous loss of life, and above all, it violates imperial law.”
“I haven’t given any orders about the fourth mine yet.”
‘Yet,’ isn’t it? ‘Yet.’ That means you’ll issue the order someday, and the day you do, it’ll already be too late.”
Lezen didn’t hide his expression of looking ten years older, as the duke—who was a head taller than him—pretended not to know.
“You only told me the location of the fourth mine, that’s true, but even that has kept me from sleeping for days.”
Pheon chuckled softly.
“As someone who always cares about his subordinates’ sound sleep, there’s no need for you to lose sleep over it, Lezen.”
“You care about our sleep, so won’t you care about my liver too, Your Highness?”
“Oh dear, should I try fattening it up a bit?”
“Regrettably, this is the max size. Any bigger and it’ll burst.”
As he walked leisurely beside the duke, Lezen expounded on how small and sensitive his liver was. The duke half-listened to the secretary as he descended the stairs toward the stables.
“Prepare my horse.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
One knight moved immediately.
“I’ll draft the report for His Imperial Majesty upon my return, so prepare it, Lezen.”
“Are you going far?”
Pheon glanced down at Lezen.
“I have to consider your small liver. I’ll go scout the Evil Dragon’s Domain.”
It was dangerous, but it was also something Pheon had always done himself, so the secretary didn’t try to dissuade him.
“Please go carefully.”
Since Lüsenford’s supreme commander didn’t shirk even the soldiers’ dirty work and handled perilous scouting personally, morale was naturally sky-high. Pheon mounted his horse nimbly, passing paths muddied by the start of melting snow.
“No escort needed. I’ll be back soon.”
Naturally, entering the Evil Dragon’s Domain required no escort. There must be no witnesses.
Pheon rode through the melted paths to the border still frozen white. From there, the domain itself erased his traces.
No one would find the duke. The horse’s hoofprints stamped in the snow behind him vanished on their own, but Pheon paid it no mind.
The deeper he ventured, the more the anxiety gripping his heart grew. He had hidden it masterfully in front of Lezen, but now he could no longer.
Perhaps, maybe, surely not.
The cold anxiety that had always chilled his heart was gradually taking shape.
He couldn’t play the fool. He couldn’t—but right now, he desperately wanted to. He wanted to pretend not to know. To know nothing, to simply turn away.
The horse finally halted before a straight path where shadows and light twisted grotesquely, refusing to go further. Pheon tethered it at a distance and slowly walked the path where the shadows parted smoothly to let him through.
In the Evil Dragon’s Domain, bone-chilling cold and scorching heat coexisted, unbearable for humans.
It was also a space where deep darkness and warm light mingled. Pheon followed the darkness that was starting to feel familiar. The heat and cold couldn’t torment him.
In the pitch-black darkness, golden flecks of light flickered like fireflies.
When his footsteps alone echoed in the deepest part and finally stopped, a pair of golden eyes—far larger than the flames the duke had unleashed days ago—opened, piercing the deep gloom.
Pheon spoke in a voice laced with self-loathing.
“Father.”
