“Can your eyes be healed?”

“My eyes don’t matter!”

“Have you tried to heal them?”

Eva, who had never avoided answering any question Divlik had asked, this time couldn’t speak a word with her lips closed. Eva’s silence conveyed that she hadn’t even tried.

“Why did your servants leave you like this instead of helping you get treatment? Where was all that affection they displayed before me? How could they leave their empress’s eyes in this state?”

“My eyes became like this when I was alone in the tower. Afterward, Lord Divlik, you entered the castle, and I had to cover my eyes often. Since I can see shapes dimly and there wasn’t much difference in my behavior, no one probably knew I couldn’t see well.”

“The color of your eyes must have changed from before you could see to after.”

“My eyes haven’t shown their proper color since I entered this castle, Lord Divlik.”

The eye color had changed frequently. Unlike the past when they were filled with light from joy, her answer revealed how miserable her life in the castle had been.

Divlik stared at Eva’s eyes, which were clearly looking at him but not seeing him properly, and sighed a sigh that no one would know.

“Mia, was it? You said she was a good herbalist. If you found someone so skilled, you should have fixed your eyes before my neck.”

“Is the reason you’re stopping…… because of my eyes?”

“There may be men with strange tastes who enjoy embracing women who don’t know who they’re being embraced by, but I am not one of them.”

Divlik got out of the tub, put on his robe, then picked up Eva’s discarded robe and held it out to her.

“Put it on.”

“Are you rejecting me for such a trivial reason? Just because my eyes can’t see doesn’t mean I can’t function as a woman! If you leave now……! I…… won’t have succeeded in seducing Lord Divlik!”

Eva clutched the robe and shouted toward where Divlik’s voice came from. She was desperate and even somewhat plaintive. It was exactly the appearance he had longed for, yet Divlik answered with a sigh no one would know.

“Yes. And once again, for whatever reason I didn’t embrace you, I’ll become a worthless human being with no credibility in my words.”

“So……”

“So I’ll say that you successfully seduced me. If I had embraced you completely, if I had moved my hips inside you, it would have been very satisfying. I might have ej*culated several times and still not thought of leaving your insides. So let’s say you succeeded.”

“Then……”

“If we keep our mouths shut, people will think I properly embraced you today.”

Eva finally exhaled a sigh of relief and hid her half-raised body back into the tub.

“First, heal those eyes. I, I need that.”

As Divlik was about to leave the bathroom, ignoring Eva’s gaze directed at him though she couldn’t see, Eva called out to him once more with an urgent voice.

“Lord Divlik!”

At Eva’s desperate call, Divlik paused his steps for a moment.

“If you return to your bedroom alone this early, no one will think that you and I spent a proper night together. Isn’t that right?”

“You……”

Seeing Eva’s face full of urgency, Divlik bit his lip with all his might until it bled. What had been throbbing with hunger for Eva’s insides just moments ago was now limp and drooping.

“Are the lives of your servants that important to you?”

“It was you, Lord Divlik, who knew this and pushed me to this point.”

Yes. You truly did love your servants.

In Divlik’s silent gaze at Eva, there was anger and resentment. And at the end of that anger and resentment, there was undisguisable envy, like seeing a mother who abandoned him lavishing endless love on a new child.

“Finish the rest of your bath. If you wish, I’ll wash your body this time.”

He should have turned away. He should have turned away, but Divlik’s heart, shaken to its roots in an instant, made him sit down right there. Divlik bit his lip tightly. He clenched his fists with all his might. As always, but never like now, he felt so angry, so angry that he felt like crying out.

The title of empress wasn’t important to Eva? Eva was still a good person? How could that make any sense?

“How did your eyes become like that?”

Divlik, who had entered the tub and entrusted his back to Eva, opened his mouth with difficulty, as if still unable to believe that Eva couldn’t see.

“I mistakenly drank a decoction containing poisonous herbs. I failed to notice that herbs with similar appearances had been mixed in, and after drinking it, my eyes became like this.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Pardon?”

“That’s a lie. Didn’t you say you came from Florin? The people there know everything about herbs. They can miraculously identify herbs even when multiple scents are mixed together. Isn’t that right?”

Eva didn’t say whether it was true or not. A faint sigh that seemed to crumble in the moonlight suggested that such things weren’t important.

“And if it was a mistake, you would have sought treatment the moment you realized your mistake. Isn’t that right? …… You truly…… wanted to die.”

How could she say it wasn’t important? Eyes that were famously beautiful, said to be worth buying the entire empire for, had lost their color and even their ability to see light.

“Were you pleased when I threatened to kill you if you didn’t serve me at night?”

After a long silence, Eva, seemingly deciding she could no longer hide anything, answered in a voice neither light nor heavy, but calm.

“I was.”

“Even before I came…… did you want to die?”

“…… I did.”

“Why? You said you believe in God. So how could you have such thoughts? Was the position of empress not as good as you thought? Was the emperor’s torment too unbearable?”

The incompetent emperor Fabian was so obsessed with Eva that he couldn’t bear someone looking at her for too long, yet he tormented his empress to the point where she wanted to die? Was he so terribly stupid not only in ruling the empire but even in love?

“I missed…… I couldn’t bear it, so that’s why.”

Eva carefully folded her hands in front of her chest as if holding something precious. Her words about missing something sounded so heartfelt that even the listener felt tears welling up.

“What did you miss so much? Perhaps the lover you mentioned died before?”

Eva gave no answer, but her whole body seemed to say yes.

Still missing him so much that she couldn’t live…… As Divlik paused his questioning, wanting to ask what circumstances had led to this, Eva slowly opened her mouth.

“More than anything, I missed my homeland…… that’s why.”

Eva’s unfocused eyes, gazing vaguely into space, seemed to be looking at her homeland Florin, where endless green meadows stretched out and flowers of all colors bloomed profusely in her memories.

So what she missed, what she missed enough to die, was her homeland.

Splash.

In an instant, Divlik rose from the water that warmly enveloped his body and surrendered himself to the cold air surrounding him. Though Divlik had been looking at Eva with heartbreaking pity, he couldn’t just listen quietly to her answer about missing her homeland.

“People have been so curious about where I came from. Are you also curious about my homeland?”

“If I say I’m curious, will you tell me?”

“I’ll gladly tell you. My homeland was Florin, bordering Floropel.”

With an ice-cold voice, Divlik revealed his homeland that he had never disclosed to anyone. The fact that Eva had lived a life that made her wish for death couldn’t subdue Divlik’s anger that arose in this moment.

“Since my homeland is there, I know well what I’m saying, but you’d better keep that longing just as longing.”

“Why is that?”

Divlik took a few steps to face Eva’s eyes that couldn’t properly see anything. Then, with a voice endlessly cracking with anger, he spat out words as if vomiting them.

“I have no intention of letting you go so that you can freely go somewhere. And even if I were to let you go, there would be no place left for you to return to.”

“No place left?”

Nothing remained in Florin. The fields full of flowers had long disappeared as if they had never bloomed there, and the sweet scent of peach blossoms that once announced spring had long vanished.

“Why do you think I speak of my homeland as ‘was Florin’ in the past tense?”

Something seemed to dawn on Eva as the life gradually drained from her face. Divlik turned his body, completely leaving the tub, and put on his robe.

“What…… is it……”

Eva’s voice, demanding a precise answer, trembled finely like someone who already knew the answer she was about to hear. Divlik gave her no time to prepare herself mentally.

“Florin has already become a complete ruin.”

“Ruin……? What…… what do you mean, Lord Divlik?”

Without answering, Divlik left the tub and headed straight for the door. Behind the slowly closing door came Eva’s scream, losing her composure for the first time.

“Lord Divlik!!!!”