Chapter 8: The Final Fragment of Truth (4)

Warm sunlight tickled the corner of her eyes.

Her deeply sunken consciousness gradually began to awaken. The beam of light tapping against her eyelids felt a bit cruel. Unconsciously, she furrowed her brows slightly.

Then, a gentle darkness suddenly settled over her.

The warmth on her face was replaced with a cool sensation. Unfortunately, it only made her wake faster.

“……”

In the end, Larie shook off sleep and opened her eyes. Through her blurry vision, she saw a large hand.

Through its fingers, soft sunlight like a strip of fabric faintly poured in.

“……”

To her, hands had always symbolized pain.

Hands that reached toward her always brought nothing but suffering.

So normally, she would have jolted up in fear—but strangely, she wasn’t afraid.

Perhaps it was because of the cozy sunlight.

Whose hand could it be?

Her dazed mind wouldn’t work properly.

She couldn’t even remember the last time she had fallen into such a deep sleep.

It was while she was slowly trying to recover her lost memories that—

“…You’re awake.”

A deep voice, sounding hesitant, came from directly behind her.

“…!”

Her instincts moved before her thoughts could weave a proper net.

Startled, Larie hurriedly tried to rise. It was only then that she realized the firm arm wrapped around her waist.

“Ugh…!”

She was n*ked under the blanket.

As soon as she gasped in a shallow breath, the situation dawned on her.

She had once again made a grave mistake with him.

As always, Larie tried to make herself as small as possible and slip out of bed.

She had to apologize to him quickly and disappear from his sight.

“I- I’m sorry…”

But at the words that followed, her body froze.

“Don’t go.”

“…!”

Instead, he tightened the arm holding her.

Larie, helplessly pulled back, realized that Terian, too, wasn’t wearing a single thread.

“…Please, don’t go.”

In an instant, their bodies were pressed together again. A swarm of heat rushed to her ears like a hive of bees with nowhere to go.

“Is your body all right?”

“M-My body…”

It was too early for such confusion to set in. As she stretched and fully woke, Larie recalled the night before.

The memories returned in fragments. She had been curled up in pain in the bedroom, and then, somehow, she was in a forested place.

She had come to the woods again without realizing it. But he had been there.

“…Hoo. …Does it hurt?”

The vivid sensation of her cold, pain-numbed body warming up returned. She had once again sought him out in the midst of her suffering.

Sadly, it all made sense now.

“Does it still hurt?”

What didn’t make sense was why he was acting this way.

Usually, Larie would wake up first and slip away like she was running. On days she couldn’t, she would open her eyes to find him already gone.

So this kind of “morning” conversation was a first.

The sudden swell of shy emotions made it hard to breathe.

“Larie.”

But the breath that felt like it would burst slowly calmed.

His soft voice whispering at her ear held something that felt just like the sunlight shining through his fingers.

“If it doesn’t hurt anymore… please tell me.”

So Larie nodded without thinking.

The ticklish sensation of her long hair swaying over both their bodies was almost unbearable.

“…I’m sorry… Please, go back…”

As Larie moved to slip away, remembering the unfamiliar situation in bed, Terian quickly followed her words with a question.

“Did I make a mistake?”

It was Larie who had made the mistake, yet his words felt strangely layered.

As Larie hesitated for a moment, this time it was Terian who moved.

She thought he might be leaving the room, so she watched—but suddenly, her vision flipped.

Before she knew it, Larie was lying flat on her back, looking up at the ceiling. Beneath Terian, who had caged her with both arms.

“Though you seemed out of sorts last night… for some reason, I felt your pain eased when we touched.”

As he spoke, Terian slowly moved one of his hands.

That large hand naturally slid down her wrist, which had been resting beside her pillow.

‘…Terian…’

Even in her hazy state, she remembered the warmth that had washed over her. Behind him now, the rising sunlight streamed in softly.

His tousled hair, fresh from sleep, was something she had never seen before.

Even in this moment, he looked unreal—like a fragment of a god, flawless in every way.

“If I’ve made a terrible mistake…”

Terian glanced downward slightly as he spoke, his expression extremely cautious.

There was no reason for him to act like this toward her—and yet, he did. That contradiction gently unraveled her composure.

Her mind grew dangerously hazy.

This defenseless position broke down even the walls of her heart.

“Do… I not displease you?”

The question slipped out as if drawn by the weight of all her lingering doubts.

Larie felt a storm of questions within her over the current situation.

He, who should find even facing her unpleasant, was acting far too comfortably.

Moreover, the idea that he had spent the night with her simply because he was worried about her pain—was undeniably strange.

“Why would I find you displeasing?”

“……”

He furrowed his brow in confusion.

His baffled reaction left Larie flustered.

Even though she knew so well the feel of his hands, always clad in gloves.

“Tell me. Why?”

Pressed by his gentle insistence, Larie instantly regretted bringing it up.

He didn’t look like he would let it go until she answered, so she reluctantly opened her mouth.

There was no need to hear his disgust spoken aloud—she already knew it well.

“…I know Your Grace has always had obsessive cleanliness. …And that living with someone like me, a Tromperie, was difficult for you to endure.”

The more she spoke, the more Terian’s expression hardened.

His lake-like eyes, lowered in thought, finally turned to her.

“So you overheard the entire conversation with the daughter of Marquii Enviaji that day.”

“……”

She didn’t deny it. She only averted her gaze slightly.

‘How do you even endure that filth, Your Grace?’

She remembered the scorn clearly etched in the young lady’s eyes.

The hand caught in his tightened a little.

Looking down at it, Terian unexpectedly began to speak.

“The marquess has paid the appropriate price.”

“Price…?”

“For daring to let his household insult the Grand Duchess. I also ensured the marquess’s daughter could no longer approach me privately.”

“……”

In that moment, Larie froze, forgetting even how to breathe.

“It’s true I have that condition. But I’ve never once been displeased by your touch.”

From his broad chest came a scent she’d grown familiar with.

Wrapped in the warmth of the blanket and his body heat, she felt a stirring of emotion she hadn’t experienced in a very long time.

“I made sure to clearly warn her right after I heard those words—but I suppose you didn’t hear that part.”

“……”

Throughout his words, Terian’s face strangely twisted in pain. As though it truly pained him that she had harbored such a misunderstanding.

Larie, who had long made a habit of suppressing expectations, found it especially difficult this time.

She almost heard the illusion of glass shattering—like the invisible wall between them had broken apart.

“…So all this time, you’ve been holding onto that misunderstanding.”

Come to think of it, it had been after that very day that the daughter of Marquess Enviaji began to subtly torment her.

She remembered now that there were times, back at the Grand Duke’s estate, when he didn’t wear gloves.

At the time, it was she who had pulled away, afraid he would be disgusted.

“Your family is my enemy.”

Perhaps sensing her turmoil, Terian continued, his expression stiff.

It was a truth so long accepted that it had callused over. Larie had become indifferent to it—but now, strangely, she felt the urge to run.

“Even so, I wanted to make you my wife.”

His next words were so hard to believe, she couldn’t accept them.

“Even before I knew the full truth… from the very beginning.”

‘Let us go. …My lady.’

He was outright denying everything she had long accepted as reality.

“……”

“I know it’s hard to believe.”

Maybe it was that she simply wanted to escape this confusion. The helpless way her thoughts swayed left Larie overwhelmed, and she tightly shut her eyes.

Terian—the one who said he had always been looking for her.

The one who now told her that conversation had been a misunderstanding.

The one who had never turned her away on those waning nights.

‘So just endure it, and stay by my side.’

‘Didn’t I tell you to stay with me? Why—why won’t you?’

As though he truly needed her.

Not as the daughter of Tromperie—but just as Larie.

“……”

Larie stayed silent for a long time.

She didn’t know what to say.

Terian, watching her just as deeply, moved again.

The hand that had been holding her wrist rose to her ear, gently brushing back her hair.

His gesture was so oddly careful that something deep in her chest stirred unexpectedly.

“You said you were always in pain when the moon waned. Why is that?”

“……”

It was far too much to ask in a moment like this.

Something she would have naturally kept hidden—now, she was questioning whether it was okay to tell him at all.

Would it be all right?

Would he think she was some kind of monster?

The emotions rising within her couldn’t be held back any longer.

Perhaps it was because she had suppressed them for far too long.

Following those surging feelings, Larie met his gaze directly.

Those eyes, blue like a lake, didn’t seem so cold anymore.

“Since I was little… it’s been that way. …I don’t know the reason, either.”

“Since you were a child.”

“Maybe… even when I was around Rui’s age. I’m not sure.”

She had asked her parents before, but they had never given her a clear answer.

Noble children were usually raised by nannies/nursemaid anyway, and her parents had never paid much attention to her.

But she often overheard complaints about how troublesome she had been as a child.

Thinking back on that, she could only guess.

Perhaps—perhaps she had been in pain even before she could speak.

“Even the doctors didn’t know the cause… But when I’m in the forest, it feels like the pain lessens a bit.”

The more she spoke of what she had buried deep in her chest, the more Larie turned her head to the side.

Even to her own ears, her words sounded strange.

But once again, Terian asked calmly,

“Is that why you went to the forest last waning moon?”

Was he truly believing everything she was saying?

Of course, all of it was true.

But in the past, whenever she tried to explain the truth, people never believed her.

“…Even at the Grand Duke’s estate—you’d sometimes sit alone in the woods for that reason, then.”

Recalling the past, Terian spoke with a suddenly stern expression.

Since what he said was true, Larie quietly nodded.

At that, he turned his gaze away, covering his mouth slightly.

Whatever he was thinking, his expression looked as though he’d been stabbed out of nowhere.

Why did he look like that?

After a long moment, he finally met her eyes again and asked,

“From now on… what should I do for you?”