“Do you know why I killed Your Grace’s sister?”
His tone was grotesquely bright for the situation.
As Jace Gould grinned, a burly soldier entered the cell, holding a huge hammer.
“Stand down.”
At Aiden’s raised hand, the soldier retreated to one side of the wall.
Seeing this, Jace Gould’s eyes darted busily as he babbled on.
“Because your father killed my parents.”
It was an obvious provocation—too transparent to be effective. Aiden answered evenly.
“Your parents were traitors. They deserved to die.”
“And so I had to kill Your Grace’s sister.”
“How remarkably logical. As the rumors say, you are quite brilliant, Jace Gould.”
Failing to grasp the sarcasm, Jace burst into laughter.
“Ha, hahaha!”
He laughed so hard he slapped the floor—then abruptly stopped and sprang to his feet.
“If Your Grace kills me, my daughter—Beth—will kill your child. I swear it.”
His whisper carried a chilling weight.
“I will kill your daughter first.”
“Will you now? Is that truly possible—when you place my daughter in your bed every night?”
Aiden’s neatly shaped brows drew sharply together.
His voice, low and edged with fury, shook the prison walls.
“Where is the real Beth Gould?”
“Oh dear. I’ve been found out.”
Jace exaggeratedly drooped the corners of his eyes.
Aiden scoffed coldly, repulsed by the man’s crude simplicity and his refusal to hide it.
“You could cut my wrists instead of my ankles and still not learn anything, Your Grace.’ I truly don’t know. You should be grateful for that.”
“……”
“If I knew where my daughter, Beth, was, I wouldn’t be rotting in this place.”
“You used her without hesitation, yet you claim your daughter is precious to you?”
“Isn’t that only natural?”
Jace’s laughter spilled out like a devil’s.
“She can’t be compared to that filthy slave brat.”
“……”
It was absurd.
When Aiden came face-to-face with the man who had killed his sister, her pale, dawn-moon-like face was the only image that came to mind.
He wanted to see her.
He missed her desperately.
As Jace droned on with his vile ramblings, it was not Aiden’s own fury that stirred within him, but her sorrow.
How did she endure it? With such a fragile body, how did she survive a life so merciless?
Then, suddenly, he remembered the testimony he had heard only hours earlier from a runaway slave.
“There was a personal slave assigned to Beth Gould.”
She was perhaps around fifty years old.
Aiden looked down at the woman lying prostrate at his feet.
The nape of her neck, barely visible, was covered in grotesque scars. The backs of her hands, pressed against the floor, were no different. It was easy to imagine what her life as a slave had been like.
“Do you remember the slave’s name?”
“A name, Your Grace? Slaves do not have names. But that child asked to be called Sveta.”
“She followed Beth Gould like a shadow. Wore the clothes Beth Gould discarded. Ate the food she spat out…”
“…What?”
“I know it sounds unbelievable, but it’s true. Beth Gould looked as innocent as an angel, but what she did was beyond words. One day, she deliberately brought in a foal that was already half-dead…”
In the woman’s horrifying testimony, Aiden recognized his beloved.
She was blindly — almost foolishly — kind to anyone who showed her the slightest bit of warmth. She was as quiet as still water. She was a woman who rarely allowed herself to cry.
Yet she was also stubborn enough to lie without hesitation and endure hardship.
My beloved Sveta.
A wildfire flared to life in his chest.
‘Was it you, my love, who set this fire alight—or was it the hatred that carried the name Jace Gould?’
Aiden swallowed, his dry throat tightening as his Adam’s apple rose and fell.
Jace — whose eyes darted sideways like a crab’s — muttered again.
“Now that I think about it, it’s almost laughable. Our exalted Duke bedding a slave not even worthy of being compared to a dog. Had I known, I would have treated our Sveta far more sweetly.”
He must have known there was no escape. The intent to provoke was unmistakable.
“Do you know something? The remnants of Zloyan we captured all behaved in much the same way.”
“Hmm? What are you—”
“It means your words aren’t nearly provocative enough to rattle me.”
Perhaps because of what they had done, they feared t*rture more than death.
Rather than endure it, they resorted to petty provocation, hoping for a swift end.
As the anniversary of his sister’s death approached, they began to crumble mentally. Their language became increasingly vulgar.
To Aiden, Jace’s ramblings amounted to nothing more than childish prattle.
“Go on. Keep talking. I’ll break a bone for every word you utter.”
“……”
Jace’s chapped lips trembled, momentarily stunned.
Aiden gave his command.
“Break his ankle. Then treat it immediately. The moment it heals, chain it again.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“You will die next summer—on the anniversary of my sister’s death. You know the date well enough.”
After Aiden had finished speaking and taken a step back, the soldier holding the enormous iron hammer moved towards Jace.
As if the sight were beneath him, Aiden turned away.
The moment the duke left the prison, a horrific scream tore through the freezing air.
***
Aiden went straight to the bedchamber.
It felt as though every drop of blood had drained from his body.
Whenever he thought of her, he felt as though he was holding something unbearably sweet in his chest, like the sugar cube he had once slipped into her teacup.
Yes, his pale heart felt as though it were made of sugar. Whenever he thought of her, it began to crumble at the edges, dissolving without a trace.
His breathing turned ragged.
Only then did Aiden realize that he was running.
He shoved the bedroom door open with force.
It was only after drawing in the sweet air of the room in which she was staying that he could taste a hint of sweetness on his tongue.
Only then did he feel alive.
“Sveta.”
He called her name in an emotional voice.
She was asleep, leaning against the large wingback chair by the window.
Perhaps she had dragged the chair there herself; the carpet was scarred with long marks where it had been pulled across.
He stepped forward, following the dark trail she had left behind.
“…Sveta.”
His chest tightened once more, as though it were catching fire.
His heart burned to ash and scattered into nothingness.
The spark that had flashed through his mind seemed to have consumed every word, leaving him unable to form a coherent sentence.
And yet, from that blackened heap of ash, Aiden salvaged two things.
Pity.
And love.
He did not want this woman to suffer.
He wanted to hear her laugh freely.
He just wanted her to be happy.
For the first time, Aiden knew exactly what he had to do.
He slowly lowered himself to his knees.
Breathing in the faint scent clinging to her like the air before dawn, he buried his face in her lap.
“Sveta. Wake up.”
“…Your Grace?”
Startled awake, she spoke in a higher-than-usual voice.
Aiden took her small hand and brought it to his lips. He pressed a kiss to her palm and whispered.
“I know that you are not Beth Gould.”
Her body jolted.
“How…?”
“I will not ask why you deceived me. I already know.”
Releasing her hand, which writhed in an attempt to pull free, Aiden gently stroked her slender ankle.
He kissed it — a strong ankle that had stubbornly walked through these halls while bearing chains.
“Your Grace, why are you suddenly doing this?”
She shrank deeper into the chair, forgetting that the fixed backrest meant she had nowhere to go. Trapped within the narrow seat, she continued trying to flee.
He no longer disliked the sight of it.
How could he hate anything she did?
Even her attempts to push him away stirred something painfully tender within him.
When he reached out to brush her tangled black hair behind her ear, she tilted her head slightly to avoid his touch.
Undeterred, Aiden finished smoothing her hair aside, slipped his hands beneath her knees and lifted her into his arms.
The lightness of her body made his chest tighten.
Turning his gaze towards the window, he said the first thing that came into his head.
“It’s snowing.”
“…You’re acting like this because it’s snowing?”
“Perhaps.”
Sveta stared up at him, her eyes wide.
Aiden’s gaze was fixed on the doorway.
His expression was unreadable. His sleeves were immaculate, and his shirt was without a single crease. He moved with the effortless elegance of someone born to it.
Everything about him was the same as always.
So why was he acting like this?
“From now on, no one will confine you.”
He spoke again in strange words. It was as though he was admitting that he had imprisoned her in the past.
His incomprehensible behavior continued.
After gently laying her on the bed, he pulled the bell cord and summoned the head maid.
Having received the duke’s instructions, Meriette dressed Sveta in a fur-trimmed gown.
While this was happening, Sveta could faintly hear Aiden outside, giving orders to someone.
When he returned, he draped a cloak over her shoulders himself. A soft smile rested upon his face.
“Are you… taking me somewhere?”
Sveta felt uneasy as she asked the question, but he did not answer.
Passing through the door that had always been firmly shut felt surreal.
They walked down the long corridor until they reached the vast glass conservatory behind the main building.
He carried her along a path lined with pink roses, reminiscent of the garden they had once walked in together.
“When you’ve regained your strength, I will take you wherever you wish.”
“……”
“Do you want to go to Muwieo?”
“Please answer me, Your Grace. Why are you doing this?”
“I wonder.”
He lifted his head and looked at the ceiling. Sveta followed his gaze.
Snow had silently accumulated on the glass roof above them, creating a white canopy.
He seemed lost in thought.
He was a fickle man.
One moment he would tenderly offer her a flower, the next he would turn away.
She must not waver.
No matter how beautiful the flower he offered her was, she must not so much as glance at it.
Clenching the hem of her dress tightly, Sveta steeled herself.
In a cold voice, she said.
“Put me down.”
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bluemoon238
Hmm, timing is everything. If this was done a few chapters ago she would have caved in and forgiven him for everything. Now, she realized the amount of *buse (at least partially) and had someone else open up and show kindness. This would only work for him if he was the first one to comfort and stand for her… he is one of the last.