Chapter 12 (Part 1)

It was a day when thunderstorms had been pouring since early evening.

“It seemed quiet for a while, but it looks like the whirlwind is continuing to come.”

Edarson said, carefully drawing the thick blackout curtains. Even through the gaps, the residual light of the lightning seeped in.

Clearly, his wife seemed quite distressed.

Did she bite her tongue? Did a wrongly swallowed pill get stuck in her throat? 

With her brows furrowed all day as if something unpleasant was right in front of her, she couldn’t fall asleep easily.

As usual, he made her drink herbal tea and gave her a piece of nougat, watching her for a while, but her pale face showed signs of anxiety, as if she might throw everything up.

Nevertheless, after taking care of her bedtime as usual and watching her pale face fall asleep, Edarson quietly lay down beside her.

It should be fine. It has been fine for a while.

‘Could it be that her symptoms were because no one was by her side?’

Feeling somewhat guilty for not visiting the bridal chamber for the past few weeks after receiving the royal command, Edarson gently stroked his wife’s face as he lay on his side watching her.

There was a slight movement on Ellenia’s peacefully sleeping face. Just when he thought he might have seen it wrong.

Flash, the outside of the castle blinked white with lightning, casting deep shadows over Ellenia’s delicate features. Her furrowed brow looked more pained than usual.

Married into a desolate castle with no relatives, facing an unremarkable and older husband, she must have felt lonely. Thinking that her condition might be due to that, Edarson quietly bent down and kissed her forehead.

During this rainy season, I will make sure that doesn’t happen.

Edarson awoke to a jostling feeling just as he was about to fall into a light sleep. It was still the time when the deep night covered the entire castle in silence.

Rumble, rumble… The sound of the sky crying echoed ominously.

“Uh, uh…”

Ellenia was tossing and turning, writhing. The neatly covered blanket he had arranged was now crumpled between them.

“Madam, are you okay?”

“Uh, sob…”

A sobbing sound escaped from her throat through her clenched teeth.

Flash, with the lightning striking from afar, her blue eyes glimmered weakly between her slightly opened eyelids. Just like when he encountered her wandering the hallway.

“Madam? Madam, what’s wrong? Madam?”

He tried to meet her eyes by tapping her cheek, but Ellenia’s eyes were fixed on something else, not moving at all. It was clear that it wasn’t the ceiling.

Edarson immediately knew it was the condition the maids had mentioned.

Flash, flash, the surroundings blinked, and soon the thunder rumbled throughout the room. It was the first rough storm he had encountered since he started sleeping in this room.

With her face deeply clouded, Ellenia began to tear at her hair and tremble.

“No, no, I, I, I did wrong, I did wrong…”

Her eyes, filled with tears, blinked a few times before she suddenly fell to the floor while struggling and shaking her head.

It happened in an instant. Edarson couldn’t even react, never imagining it would happen.

‘She seems to bump into things. She has many bruises on her body.’

‘Her nails. Sometimes her nails are badly worn down.’

Recalling the symptoms Leni and Greta had stammered out, he hurriedly got off the bed.

There was no visible bleeding, but judging by her trembling position on the floor, she had definitely hurt her shoulder. As she twisted her body, she began to mutter and hit her head.

“Lowly, filthy, filthy me dare…”

Edarson quickly picked her up and laid her back on the bed, wrapped in the blanket. He restrained her from self-harming by wrapping his body around her. Being naturally frail and weakened from not eating properly lately, she was helplessly trapped by his thick arms and legs.

Even then, Ellenia’s muttering didn’t stop. 

Worthless wench, should never have been born, a seed of sin, cursed by a witch, deserving of divine punishment…

And feeling guilty for daring to be happy.

Feeling her fists constantly trying to punch under the blanket, Edarson hurriedly unwrapped the blanket he had wrapped her in and got under it.

He restrained her flailing fists and body, which seemed to be trying to escape somewhere. He pressed her head firmly against his chest as if to stop her from hitting it against anything.

The trembling in his arms was pitiful and heart-wrenching.

Just that seemed to make the furious sound of the storm outside fade away. After a while, his embrace became calm as if her strength had drained away. A soft, sobbing sound echoed.

“Are you alright?”

Without loosening his embrace, Edarson looked at her face. Tears were constantly streaming from her half-open eyes.

“It’s okay, it’s okay…”

Pressing her small head, which had been banging against the bed, against his chest again, Edarson endlessly stroked the back of her head.

Just like how his mother used to soothe his nightmares, driving away his fears.

Relying on the sensations from those forgotten times, Edarson stroked Ellenia’s head, patted her back, and pressed her crown under his chin, then kissed it.

Her slight trembling subsided in his arms.

Whether it was because of holding onto her body’s warmth or the heavy blanket, he felt a bit hot, so he gently lifted the blanket.

Crash! The sound of the atmosphere collapsing with a lightning strike was heard.

“Aaah!”

Ellenia’s shrill scream erupted. In her convulsive struggle, Edarson tightly restrained her again.

“I, I, I did wrong, I did wrong, Grandfather…”

“Madam, Madam.”

Her hands, pressed against his lower abdomen, twitched as if trying to beg for forgiveness.

“I, I, I will listen. I did all the copying, please, Grandfather, please, spare me…”

Her shoulders twitched as if in a shudder, and tears flowed incessantly from her eyes. The amount of movement against his body made his groin heat up, then cool down repeatedly in urgent worry.

“No. No, Madam. Your grandfather is not here…”

Crash, crash! The sky continued to rumble and flash. Each time, Ellenia trembled as if struck by the lightning herself. The limbs that restrained her were tingling.

“Ahh! Please, please, don’t put me in that room… I’m scared…”

“Calm down, calm down. Would you like some warm milk?”

Knowing it was futile, Edarson stubbornly kept talking into her ear.

Because he had her tightly wrapped up, and because the goose feather blanket made for his frail wife was warm, and because he had never kept his body so tense, sweat soaked his forehead, the parts of him touching her, and the folds of his skin.

But Ellenia, unaware of his weight, kept writhing.

“Alone, alone, I don’t want to be alone… It’s dark, it’s dark, I’m scared…”

The thin woman’s body moved convulsively, burrowing into Edarson’s arms. Her hands kept brushing against awkward places, as if trying to fend off something or beg for forgiveness.

“I am. I am here. I…”

It stimulated the lust of the husband who had decided to leave her as his former fiancée rather than his widow… but no one noticed that in the tension of that night.

For days, thunderstorms raged, torrential rain fell day and night, then thunderstorms raged again… In any case, it rained every day during the rainy season.

Her condition showed no signs of improvement.

At least, with Edarson holding her, she didn’t throw herself somewhere or hurt her feet endlessly walking on the cold stone floor.

After about a week of this, the knights Edarson had sent to Nux returned.

Having witnessed her condition in her room for the first time and guessing it was related to her childhood abuse, he had sent them to investigate.

“They said they didn’t know of such a flaw.”

“Yes, that’s what they said.”

Snap, the quill Edarson was holding easily broke. Ink splattered from the nib onto his fingers.

“They said the marriage vow had reached the Lord, and even unbelievers know the weight of a marriage vow… so I didn’t mention you were going on a campaign as you instructed.”

He wasn’t trying to complain about her situation. He was trying to find out the source of her suffering so that he could at least make her comfortable while she was with him.

To Edarson, she was his only family. A family he had to care for inside and out, a family whose presence they had to support each other with.

‘I thought it would be better for her to return to her family than to be left alone in such a place…’

Though he didn’t exactly know what familial affection was… worrying about her safety in his absence and not being able to sleep properly every night for her sake was a form of familial love.

And Nux. The bishop she cried out to every night, begging for forgiveness…

Gritting his teeth, Edarson’s grinding sound echoed ominously.

“I should have cut his throat.”

“My lord.”

“Wouldn’t it be less painful for her to know that the one who tormented her is no longer in this world?”

Sweat trickled down the knight’s spine.

He had followed the young lord since he was dispatched to the battlefield with the duchy. He knew well how ferocious this lord could become for his purpose, despite his usual bear-like demeanor.

That his ferocity was masked as bravery and earned him the title of a hero, and that no knightly duty mattered to a non-believer… he knew all too well.