At his wife’s question, Roshan’s eyes slowly widened. He trembled, his hands shaking at his whitening hair. Then, forcing a puzzled expression, he struggled to speak.
“……Yerena. I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“Didn’t you hear the physician? I don’t have much time left. So tell me, Roshan Vistius. Since when?”
It was a desperate attempt from Roshan, but his wife snapped at him coldly. Realizing it was impossible to pretend any longer, he lowered his head and answered.
“……When you stopped saying you loved me.”
“……”
“That’s when I noticed.”
“……I couldn’t even properly maintain the deception you’ve practiced countless times.”
The princess mocked herself at the man’s answer. She exhaled a few hollow breaths before coughing. At the sound that seemed like her breath might stop at any moment, Roshan tried to hold his wife and call for the physician outside.
“Ha, don’t.”
The princess stopped the man even while coughing. And a moment later, when her breath somewhat returned, she immediately pushed him away and clenched her fist. Her hand, the same color as her pale face, instantly turned blue. She finally rejected the man who somehow tried to hold her hand, and coldly declared,
“You deceived and mocked me so perfectly……”
“……”
“And I just kept falling for it. Like a fool.”
“That’s not it!”
Roshan, unable to watch his wife blame herself, raised his head and shouted at her. But he couldn’t say anything more. Whether there was intent to deceive or not, the fact remained that he had pretended not to know his wife’s secret.
“What’s not it? Actually, I shouldn’t blame you. It was my stupidity then and now, so who else can I blame?”
Roshan begged with his eyes for her not to speak like that. Since learning that Yerena had recovered her memories, he had prepared himself every day. He would accept it if she beheaded him or poisoned him. If she tried to take her own life again as before, he thought he would pitifully ask her to think of the children, and if even that didn’t work, he had decided many times that he would join her.
But Yerena only confessed today, facing imminent death, that she had recovered her memories.
Roshan had always thought it right to follow his wife’s lead if she pretended not to know. But looking at her face now, he wondered if that had truly been the right decision. In the end, he had hurt his wife again. He made her feel the same deception she had experienced from him all along.
That was terribly painful. Roshan considered whether stabbing himself in the neck right now would improve his wife’s mood even slightly.
“Don’t think useless thoughts. Your death now wouldn’t improve my mood at all.”
Yerena immediately read the man’s thoughts and rebuked him. The man trembled as his thoughts were laid bare. She looked down coldly at him with his head bowed, then turned her gaze away and spoke.
“……You can remember other things however you want. But listen carefully to what I’m about to say.”
“……”
“I’m dying because of you. Don’t think of blaming the physicians, clerics, or priestesses. I’m dying because of you, Roshan Vistius.”
The man who had been trembling with his hands now shook his entire body at Yerena’s words. Cold sweat ran down his pale face, contrasting with his black hair.
“Look up.”
Yerena turned her head again and commanded the man. At his wife’s order, Roshan showed his face while trembling violently. Yerena smiled a twisted smile as she looked at his thoroughly shattered red eyes. Then she began to pour out the most painful words to the man, words she had been unable to say until now.
“It was disgusting. You don’t know how hard it was to hold back my nausea whenever I saw you.”
“……”
“Later, just being in the same space with you made me feel suffocated to the point of fainting. Yet you babbled so well in my ear. That you loved me.”
“……”
“Every time you said you loved me, I even thought about cutting off my ears. How do you think I feel every time your hands touched me? It was like my skin was rotting. That’s why I washed myself countless times.”
“……”
“Yet you still shamelessly hope.”
“……”
“……That I would tell you I love you.”
The words she had suppressed all this time became daggers that butchered the man’s heart. Roshan gasped for breath but still opened and closed his mouth trying to make excuses.
“No, no. Yerena. How could I dare……”
Roshan knew his place well. He had endlessly told himself that someone like him should never dare hope for her love.
But looking back, he had only said so. In truth, he had hoped and longed for her love while pretending not to. Even knowing the truth had been revealed.
“Lies.”
And Yerena couldn’t possibly not know this. So she snapped briefly at Roshan, who continued to speak only falsehoods. Then, unable to contain her anger, she shouted,
“Lies until the end! After deceiving me all this time, you still speak only lies even at this moment?”
Slap.
Yerena, who already had little strength due to her illness, struck the man’s cheek sharply. But the man didn’t feel pain; instead, his face contorted with agony. He wanted to feel at least some pain, to sense that she still had vitality, hope for recovery. But he felt nothing. His wife’s slap was too weak.
“To hope for love from someone who couldn’t even properly take revenge…… You’re so greedy, aren’t you?”
Yerena raged while holding her bent wrist. Her chest rose and fell rapidly with her gasping breaths. Roshan stood up. He couldn’t watch any longer. He was too worried about what might happen to his wife right now.
“Yerena. Please…… Don’t get excited. I’ll bring a sword instead. Stab me as you wish, but please don’t shout. Your body…… I’m so afraid your body won’t be able to handle it……”
The stuttering emperor looked like a fool. His frightened appearance made it hard to believe he was the supreme emperor of the Empire.
Seeing his pathetic figure, Yerena calmed her anger. She clutched her stomach and burst into loud laughter. After a while, she wiped the tears that had formed and muttered,
“I’m truly fortunate.”
“……”
“Because I’ve had my fill of seeing your pathetic state before I die.”
Despite her earlier anger, Yerena felt genuinely pleased. The man’s pain and suffering showed plainly on his face. Yet for some reason, tears kept blurring her vision. Unable to understand her own body’s reaction, she roughly wiped away her tears with her hand.
“Roshan Vistius. Let me tell you once more. Don’t dare hope for my love. Until my dying moment, I will never love you.”
Yerena, having contained her emotions, drove the final nail in with an expressionless face. Then, with her body trembling from exhaustion, she lay down and turned away from him, coldly commanding,
“Now get out. And never come back.”
“……”
“I don’t want to see you before I die, or even after death.”
Roshan had no choice. He staggered to his feet after opening and closing his mouth several times toward his wife’s back.
After that, the emperor never visited the empress’s chamber. Naturally, rumors spread criticizing him for turning his back on his dying wife.
But regardless of what was said, the emperor didn’t go to his wife. Instead, he climbed the palace’s tall tower and spent entire days staring at the Ivory Palace without sleeping or eating anything.
* * *
The time approached when the goddess of fate would cut another thread. The empress, having barely comforted her crying children at her side, waited for death and ordered her maid.
To bring the emperor.
Shortly after the maid left, the sound of someone running was heard. But when the door opened, the footsteps disappeared. The empress, with death drawing near, barely extended her hand beyond the bed, gesturing for whoever stood at the doorway to approach.
Someone approached the bedside and knelt down. Yerena, for whom even turning her head had become difficult, exhaled a faint breath and turned her face.
A familiar face appeared, though she hadn’t seen it for some time. Yerena gestured for him to come closer. The man pressed close to her.
Black hair and red eyes. The face of her monstrous enemy was right before her. Yerena closed her eyes once and opened them again very slowly.
Who was captured in those eyes that had closed and reopened? Standing at the crossroads between life and death, Yerena whispered in a small voice.
“I love…… you.”
She saw the man stiffen. Ignoring his reaction, Yerena moved her hand to touch his cheek with her fingers. Then she began to endlessly profess her love.
“I love you.”
“……”
“I love you.”
“……”
“I love you.”
How many times did she say it? After whispering as much as her strength allowed, Yerena coughed lightly and struggled with her rapid breathing. The man tried to rise to call for physicians and clerics. Yerena stopped him with a gesture. Then, wiping the tears that were dropping from the man’s eyes, she moved her cracked lips.
“Don’t…… misunderstand.”
“……”
“It’s not for y-you.”
“……”
“Kian. It’s for him…… gasp“
“Please stop talking. I beg you.”
The man pleaded desperately, shaking his head from side to side. But Yerena ignored his words and said what she needed to say.
“I love Kian…… him.”
She wanted to hurt the man one more time before facing death. She wanted to thoroughly crush him. Though she knew he would never recover from her death, it wasn’t enough.
So she called him here and confessed her love for ‘Kian.’ By declaring her love for ‘Kian’—the guard and false persona she had trusted—she denied any love for ‘Roshan Vistius.’
“My, my love is all for him……”
Translator
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It’s a lot of fun reading the final chapters of random novels I haven’t read yet. There’s chaos, and I have no idea what happened before, but the chaos is great fun.