At the End of the Shattered Remains of Pure Love - Chapter 4

The Peruchica were a nomadic people who wandered around the border area of Peluer, the southern part of the empire. With caramel or dark coffee-colored skin and viridian eyes, they were a foreign race not at all similar to the Wig people, who made up the absolute majority of the empire.

These people, who had made the central plateau their main residence and wandered between the Kingdom of Nasor and the Moor Empire, which had similar races, had for some reason been illegally wandering the empire for decades, causing trouble for the lords by sleeping without permission regardless of the domain, among other repeated offenses.

Knowing these circumstances, Noam immediately shook his head. What the lord was asking about was the plague these people had brought a few years ago.

The plague, suspected to be an endemic disease unique to the Peruchica people, was more peculiar than the existing flu. Children of Riscarlo who had no immunity died in droves, and since it was a disease more fatal to children than adults, the empire suffered from it for a while.

So what the lord was asking about was to prepare for something that might become the starting point of a plague.

“No, that child is not a Peruchica child. Not even mixed blood. The child, like her mother, has brown hair and amethyst-colored eyes. She’s about six years old, and her mother is a kitchen maid working at Lord Braims’ mansion…”

“Say that again.”

The man smoking a cigar opposite the lord asked sharply. Startled, Noam stammered as he looked at him.

Although the lord was also a man of considerable stature and dignity, the man before him exuded an incomparably more intimidating atmosphere. His short blonde hair contrasted with his deep blue eyes, which were elegant and aristocratic.

He certainly didn’t recognize him. If he had seen him even by chance, he would have been unforgettable for his handsomeness…

“What’s wrong, Khalil?”

The lord asked. The man who had been glaring at Noam stood up. Noam instinctively stepped back. He mumbled, “My, my lord.”

“Which village did you say?”

“Pardon?”

“Lead the way.”

Confused, Noam looked at his lord in fear. Sensing something was amiss, his lord silently stood up.

Noam, pale-faced, looked at Jacquard. But he too just shook his head and kept his mouth shut.

***

The apothecary who had promised to bring a doctor before the morning star appeared did not show up even after the sun had risen.

Elaine held her child and cried with a deathly pale face. The child was burning with fever. Around midnight, the child had at least been breathing with a wheezing sound.

But after the apothecary left, even that became faint. Elaine cried out loud. She wanted to run out and shout for anyone to help.

She had never regretted it. No matter how many slaps or spits she received, it was better to live as a woman who had a child as an unmarried woman than to live as Khalil’s concubine.

In fact, since Khalil wasn’t her husband, that wasn’t wrong either. However…

“Jeanne, please. Don’t do this. You can’t do this. Baby, you can’t leave mommy behind…”

She mumbled, crying. She held the small hands and prayed. She would do anything. If she was told to return to Khalil’s side and live as his concubine, she would do it… Please.

‘Clank-‘

Suddenly, there was a sound of a latch, and the door seemed to creak. Elaine turned around with her wet face. It seemed the apothecary had returned. She opened the door, filled with joy. Finally, it seemed God had heard her prayer.

“Elaine.”

It was a voice she hadn’t heard in 6 years. Khalil hadn’t changed. 6 years is not a short time. The child had grown, and she had aged. Worn out and exhausted by a difficult life, nothing was the same as before. Yet the man’s gaze hadn’t changed. His ailing gaze licked her.

“…Where is the child.”

He asked. Frozen, she barely turned her gaze to stare at the apothecary. He had a bewildered face. Who he had brought, what this situation was. He looked clueless.

She closed her dried lips and slammed the door shut. She looked around, holding the feverish child. She couldn’t figure out what to do. Then she remembered the prayer she had made just moments ago.

‘Even if it means being by Khalil’s side…’

She bit her lip. Moisture began to well up in her eyes. God had answered her prayer. He had brought her oppressor before her eyes. And yet… The door opened without a rattle.

“Honey.”

He called his wife in a low voice. Elaine, frozen stiff, turned to flee without even moving her lips as she looked at him. The child, wrapped in a blanket and burning with fever, whimpered softly as if regaining consciousness. Khalil grabbed her.

“Give her to me.”

“Get out of the way!”

“Honey, don’t do this! Please!”

Khalil grabbed her thin shoulders. His pale blue eyes, desperately pleading, shone brightly. Elaine glared at him, gritting her teeth.

She wanted to ask where he left his wife and children to come running here. He said she was his only woman. Even though he said she was his only woman, his only wife… It was him who entered the bridal chamber and embraced another woman. She couldn’t bear the sight and fled the mansion.

Not for the child’s sake, but because she couldn’t endure her miserable life. This was her only way to resist.

Rather than being treated like a pr*stitute wandering here and there like a vagrant, than serving her husband as master and looking up to the new wife he brought in…

Yes. This is better than that. The man who was once mine… She wanted to stop spending sleepless nights waiting desperately for that man to return.

“I’m not going.”

“It’s not for you to decide.”

“She’s my child!”

Elaine shouted as if having a fit. Her whole body trembled like an aspen leaf. Her head felt like it was going to explode with anger.

The daughter he used to whisper he adored so much. He had whispered tenderly in her ear since the child was in her womb. But how could he expect her to watch the child grow up being treated as an illegitimate daughter in his house? How could he let our child be treated like that?

“Well… You’re not my husband anymore. You’re another woman’s husband now. And you’ve become the father of children born to a woman who is not me.”

In fact, isn’t my dear child, my Jeanne, not Khalil’s daughter but Khalil’s property? Yes. So their positions can’t be the same.

Because he has a wife and children now. How could he, who has legitimate sons and daughters, feel the same as Elaine? So he listens to whatever that woman Alisandra, who was once Empress, says.

The master of such a great family… Acting like a mere henchman of that wretched woman. It’s sickening…

But Elaine was different. She had no intention whatsoever of offering her daughter to that terrible woman and the monstrous man she gave birth to.

Isn’t Alisandra the one who adores her son terribly? For whose sake should she meekly offer up the daughter she bore in pain to that woman? She was the woman who had thrown her into the abyss.

Not only did she separate Khalil and her, but she turned the child she had publicly declared she would make her daughter-in-law into a slave.

Long ago, the late former emperor Maximilian, Alisandra’s father-in-law, had publicly declared he would make her daughter the Empress, but Alisandra was different. She said she would take her as the woman to continue her son’s line, but did not promise the position of Empress.

Also, that she could not promise a title as a member of the imperial family.

Although an imperial promise should not be the same as a commoner’s promise… It couldn’t be reversed so easily like flipping one’s palm.

However, Alisandra changed her words, and now that Maximilian, the former emperor, and Emperor Clodas, Alisandra’s husband, have both passed away, her authority as regent was equal to that of the emperor.

So Jeanne will end up like her. No matter how much gold plating, she’ll just be a ‘surrogate’.

The more she ruminated on it, the more it felt like tears of blood. She simply couldn’t overcome her anger. With her chin tucked, she stared at the man who was once her husband. Khalil is just as unforgivable.

“Leave. Please…”

“Let me see the child.”

“Jeanne is my daughter. I gave birth to her. You have no stake in this. So…”

Her wet eyelashes trembled finely. Just as she was swallowing her tears and trying to steady her breathing, the child in her arms began to cry softly.

Khalil’s hand pulled back the blanket and checked on the child. The thought of him touching her daughter with hands that had touched another woman’s br*easts made her want to vomit.

Elaine roughly pushed him away. But this time, he didn’t let it slide.

Khalil swiftly snatched the daughter from her and lightly shoved her. Pushed to the floor, Elaine raised her head and glared at him. Khalil looked at her with resentful eyes, then seemed to swallow his emotions, his lips moving silently a few times.

“Let’s go back.”

He murmured in a dry voice. He had no intention of leaving his wife here.

No matter what anyone says, Elaine is his woman and still his wife now. He knew what kind of misunderstanding Elaine herself was having. He had repeatedly tried to resolve it.

But she was a woman who went astray the more he tried to soothe her. He was now tired and knew that force was necessary for a woman who wouldn’t comply with his wishes.