In Praise of Your Death

She knew it was irrational.

When something posed a potential threat, the sensible thing was to avoid it as much as possible.

Reducing variables was the only reasonable course of action.

But even knowing all of this full well, Karin had no choice but to make this decision.

To face Feron, who had possessed the eyes of a beast.

‘A beast? Is beast even the right word? Not a monster?’

Karin sighed as she recalled her husband’s strange eyes from two days ago.

The half-day after she had come back from facing him had been a blur of confusion, and in the early hours when she should have been sleeping, fear had kept her awake, and the day after that, she had combed through every book she could find for even the smallest clue.

After another sleepless night spent that way, one sentence finally struck her.

Ah. I’ve truly lost my mind.

It was a thought the old her could never have imagined. Looking for the cause of something outside herself within herself. And in a negative direction, at that.

But Feron had made it possible. Come to think of it, it had been that way since their wedding.

She had been someone who bent everything to her will, but from the moment she became entangled with Feron, nothing went the way she wanted.

Dreams? She had never had anything so trivial to begin with.

Everything else. Things like status, honor, where she lived, what she was called, all the things that had naturally been hers as a matter of course. Thinking through them, they all seemed rather unremarkable, and her interest faded.

In any case, what mattered was that because of Feron, she was having yet another unfamiliar experience.

There was no one she could consult.

Black smoke. A writhing black liquid. Eyes with black whites that belonged to neither beast nor human.

Who could she tell this to, and from whom could she get an answer?

Everyone was saying Feron was real. Zenon, the head butler, the other servants, and even the emperor.

He must have had private exchanges with them as well, not just her, and the fact that all of them affirmed him had to mean he was real, didn’t it?

Then what about the smoke that appeared and vanished. The black liquid she had not been close enough to see clearly. The eyes that flickered without end, like a candle guttering in a strong wind.

Black, white, black, white.

In the end, wasn’t it possible she had simply seen wrong? Because Feron coming back was too far outside the realm of reason. Because his change made no sense either. Because every other person except her had accepted him quickly.

Could it be that she alone had seen some disconnected hallucination? Biting her shoulder was a small thing Feron had occasionally done before. Though back then, it had never drawn blood.

“Lanie. Would you pinch me?”

And so those words came out of her mouth. No matter how she thought about it, the most rational conclusion was that she herself was not in her right mind.

“Yes… yes? What do you mean all of a sudden…… I, I’m sorry, my lady! I’ve committed an unforgivable offense!”

Lanie had never once been treated harshly by her, yet she dropped to her knees with a thud, like a servant who had spent a lifetime being beaten.

“What offense have you committed?”

“Um…… well…… that is to say……”

Karin left Lanie to rack her brain, inventing a crime she had not committed, and looked at the mirror in front of her.

Far too beautiful a face to belong to someone who had lost her mind. Remarkably consistent, as always.

“I suppose I should be grateful I’ve lost my mind gracefully……”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing. Never mind. Would you go ahead and draw a bath for me? I think I’ll be tired when I get back.”

She encouraged Lanie, who reacted to her every word, and rose from the vanity.

It was finally time to face Feron.

‘At least I have one thing to ask him. That’s something.’

Karin felt a quiet pride in the possibility she had arrived at precisely because she was herself, and set aside for now the convenient conclusion that she had gone mad.

She, who was not only dazzlingly beautiful but sharp-minded as well, had found yet another opening even in a situation like this.

Wasn’t it strange? Why had Elwin reacted so strongly upon hearing that Feron was alive? And on top of that, the person Feron had spent the most time with before his death had been Elwin.

So if Elwin had set all of this in motion in order to take her as his mistress, everything lined up perfectly.

Whether through a curse or something else entirely nonsensical, Feron had died and come back.

Hadn’t Feron said as much himself? That he had died, and come back to life.

‘And that body, too. Like an animal shedding its skin…… How could the same body appear like that? And it was too clean for something that had been mauled by a beast……’

The cause and effect were not clear, but a sliver of probability lay there.

That was why Karin had no choice but to confirm it.

If this was the truth, then she was not a person who had lost her mind.

This mattered deeply to Karin, and so, pressing a hand to her still-pounding chest to steady herself, she had arranged a meal with Feron.

The only one who could prove she had not gone mad was Feron.

She even let out a laugh at the attendant’s words that he had arrived at the dining room first and was waiting for her.

In all their years of marriage, Feron had not once been out before her.

“My lady…?”

“Open it. I just thought of something funny.”

Feron’s behavior, so different from before, lent support to her own abnormal reasoning.

See. It’s not that I’m strange, it’s that he’s the one behaving strangely. Like this.

Focusing on that convenience made even the faint fear disappear.

Karin was able to look directly at Feron’s perfectly composed face and take her seat without betraying anything.

And the moment she sat down, she asked.

“Why did you bite me?”

In terms of importance, it was a far lesser question compared to what she intended to discuss, but in a sense it was a matter directly tied to her life, so Karin started there.

Looking back, it had always been her side that ended up physically hurt. Not Feron harming her.

“I’ve been thinking about that night. About what I saw, and why you did what you did.”

Karin raised a hand briefly and caught the head butler’s eye.

The servants who had been standing at their posts all withdrew, and silence settled in.

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

Feron, with a hint of curiosity, picked up his cutlery in a smooth, uncharacteristically graceful motion. He watched her with an expression that asked what conclusion she had reached. His composure, oddly enough, put her at ease, and she pulled one shoulder of her dress down.

“Were you trying to eat me?”

The shoulder he had bitten was a deep, ugly bruise. The tender skin still bearing the full imprint of his teeth looked like it would be slow to heal at a glance. Vivid enough that she could almost feel the pain from that moment all over again.

“Why do you think that?”

Feron tilted his head.

“What else would it be, if not trying to eat me. I thought the flesh was being torn off. And your eyes at the time……”

The moment she recalled the scene, a chill ran straight down her spine.

Karin pressed herself to hold his gaze and continued.

“Your eyes were wrong. Don’t tell me I saw wrong. There was a mirror in front of you.”

Karin set aside entirely the assumption that she had gone mad and spoke to Feron on those terms. That was the only way she could get closer to the truth.

“What you’re saying is partly right.”

“……”

“Wanting to eat you up has always been there.”

But Feron was smiling idly and steering the conversation around the surface again.

“That’s not what I mean. You were really……”

Karin turned the word over in her throat several times, unsure whether she could say it out loud, before she finally readied herself to let it out.

This was a claim she could only make with the certainty that Feron would not kill her.

Whether he was Feron or not.

If he had wanted to kill her, he would have done it many times over by now.

But the man in front of her had not, and so she let out the question she had been holding in.

“Are you really a monster?”

“When was I ever not a monster?”