My heart was beating too fast. So fast that I thought it might burst before my body hit the ground.
My body, after briefly spinning in midair, soon turned with my head pointing downward and began to fall. The fierce wind forced its way between my hair strands and pressed against my eardrums. There was naturally no time to appreciate the sensation of an experience I had never had before in my life.
Thinking I might die like this, curses welled up from within me.
‘Because of this psycho……’
All sorts of thoughts crossed my mind. The first thought was that I absolutely couldn’t die like this.
I hadn’t become the family head yet, hadn’t seen Her Highness the Crown Princess dressed up, and leaving like this would mean failing in my duty as a child to my father.
And…
‘Assel.’
The thoughts that began with worldly concerns ended with one man. I don’t know why I thought of him. If someone asked, I’d say that man just happened to be there.
Thinking of him made my heart ache as if being squeezed. Tears welled up, and a surge of emotion rose within me. Despite my body falling rapidly, only one man’s face appeared in my mind—not my father’s, not Sherry’s.
Words left unsaid became a sticky regret that tightened around my throat.
What was it that I wanted to say? Words I wanted to convey to him but couldn’t…
But the question faded away before finding its answer. My heart constricted. My vision blurred, and cold liquid ran down my cheeks.
“Actually, I liked you. Assel……”
With the last of my strength, I forced those words out as my consciousness began to fade. Darkness swallowed me whole.
Thud.
That was how I lost consciousness.
❀❀❀
“……vedi.”
“Le……di.”
In the haze between sleep and awareness, a faint buzzing circled my head without form. Someone was calling out a name in a desperate voice. The sound was too faint and indistinct to tell whose it was, yet the urgency rang painfully clear.
Had I become a ghost, forced to attend my own funeral?
The fleeting thought dissolved as my consciousness sank back into darkness.
How long had I been buried in darkness after that?
The sensation of intense sunlight penetrating between my eyelids. My expression involuntarily grimaced at the blinding light that enveloped me. Opening my eyes groggily, what entered my gradually widening field of vision was a white ceiling.
A ceiling with patterns both strange yet familiar.
Wait, but this ceiling is definitely…
‘Duke Esteban’s residence?’
The ceiling of Duke Esteban’s residence, which I had visited several times at Assel’s invitation before our marriage, looked exactly like this.
Me, at Duke Esteban’s residence?
But the surprise at that was momentary. Soon, I had to widen my eyes at an even more surprising fact.
‘What.’
I’m… alive…?
The memory before death, or rather before falling, was vivid. Some madman tried to kidnap me, and Assel intervened to stop him, but the relief was brief. I had plummeted vertically from that high place.
It would be normal to die from that, so why am I alive?
I hope I’m not completely paralyzed or something.
Due to the anxiety that suddenly arose, I lifted my arm and tried moving my fingers. Wiggle wiggle. Fortunately, my fingers moved normally in front of my eyes.
My arm also bent well, so it seemed like nothing was wrong…
‘How did this happen?’
Various thoughts were mixing in my head when,
“Madam.”
“……!”
Suddenly, a solemn and worried voice penetrated my ear. All my attention turned to that voice.
“……Are you conscious?”
The owner of the voice was a middle-aged woman wearing a toned-down blue dress. The woman with black hair and blue eyes was quite familiar to me.
‘The head maid of House Esteban.’
I think her name was Jane… something like that.
But why is she here? Am I really at the Esteban residence?
Reflexively, I was about to ask why I was alive, but realizing that would be an awkward way to phrase it, I changed my words.
“Where… is this place?”
“This is Duke Esteban’s residence.”
“Wasn’t I at a travel destination?”
At my question, she nodded.
“You were.”
Past tense. That means my memory isn’t wrong… I definitely fell, didn’t I? But how could I be alive and well like this?
“How did I end up here?”
“You lost consciousness.”
“I see.”
Is my memory not wrong? But soon, I had to tilt my head at the words that flowed from Jane’s lips.
“It seems you lost strength while swimming. You sank, and perhaps because you drank a lot of water, you couldn’t wake up for a long time.”
“……?”
Wait, this is different from my memory. Just as I was about to express my doubt,
“Then rest.”
Jane, whose eyes met mine, suddenly announced the end of the conversation.
“But I……”
“If you need anything, please call. I’ll inform His Grace that you’ve awakened.”
I tried to stop her, but strangely, my mouth wouldn’t open. Was she deliberately avoiding the conversation?
Or is something wrong with my body after waking up?
Or… both?
As soon as the door closed and Jane disappeared, I got up from my seat.
There were too many strange things.
‘I need to meet Assel.’
❀❀❀
Wearing only a thin nightgown, I draped an appropriate shawl over my body and slipped my feet into slippers.
Looking in the mirror, I looked haggard, but not unbearably so.
It felt a bit awkward to appear before him and the servants in such a disheveled state, but given the situation, there was no time to worry about appearances.
I left the room and headed toward Assel’s office. At the same time, a question suddenly occurred to me.
‘How am I alive?’
No, even if I’m alive, there was an unresolved question.
Jane just said I lost consciousness while swimming.
I remember falling from a building, but is my memory really wrong?
That can’t be. I remember it so clearly.
‘Did Jane hear it wrong?’
I could simply think that, but there were too many suspicious aspects to just let it go.
It’s hard to mishear something so specifically, and earlier, words definitely wouldn’t come out. As if I was under some strange spell.
‘Wait, spell?’
A thought suddenly struck me. Come to think of it, didn’t Assel know how to use magic?
He said the difference between when he first saw me and now was due to magic that changed his appearance. Although he had help from a pendant, the fact that he could use magic remained unchanged.
I had forgotten about it because I was busy and not particularly interested in that area…
‘Did Assel magically silence me?’
But why?
Just as new questions arose, my footsteps had already reached the front of Assel’s office.
As I approached, the knights and servants guarding the door all looked at me with surprised eyes. I sensed the puzzlement in their eyes but didn’t have the luxury to explain everything to them right now.
Avoiding their gaze, I spoke in a somewhat stiff tone to one of the maids.
“Is the Duke inside?”
The young maid was momentarily flustered but then nodded.
“Yes, he’s attending to his duties. Shall I relay a message?”
“Yes.”
“Just a moment!”
The young maid opened the door and scurried in, and not long after, she returned and stood before me.
“He says to come in!”
At the same time, the door opened in front of me, and I could face a man sitting at his desk, immersed in paperwork.
“Assel.”
The man, so absorbed that he didn’t even notice my arrival, looked up at my call.
“……!”
Then our gazes met in midair.
For a moment, confusion was glimpsed in his red pupils. But only briefly. Soon, like a skilled businessman, he masked his expression as if nothing was wrong.
“You’re awake already.”
I flinched at his words. Saying I was awake already—isn’t it common sense to first ask if someone is okay when they wake up? Moreover, someone with his usually caring personality would have done so without a second thought.
Indeed, there’s something about this incident.
What could it be? I moved toward him.
As the distance between us narrowed, I nodded.
“You speak as if you knew I would wake up.”
The corners of his mouth curved upward.
“As expected, someone as perceptive as you would know.”
My wariness eased at the nuance that there was nothing particularly to hide.
“What exactly happened?”
I might as well ask directly at this point.
He seemed to ponder for a moment before rising from his seat. His breath touched my nape as he approached me closely, and I unconsciously put strength into my toes.
“Levedi.”
His lips softly released my name. I turned my head, feeling uneasy at his smooth voice without any hitches, and found his gaze fixed on me.
Those red eyes gleamed as if to captivate me, but soon he continued with a faint smile:
“Didn’t I tell you? I know how to use magic.”
“So it was you.”
“Indeed, my wife is perceptive.”
His hand, looking down at me, almost touched the back of my head before dropping down. Distracted by that hand, I couldn’t see what expression he made, but there was no difficulty in reading his desire.
But ignoring that, I continued my question.
“What exactly did you do? The maids remember that I fell into the water.”
“I erased their memories.”
His tone was as fresh and casual as if saying the dessert he had for lunch was pudding.
“You know how to do that too?”
“Why, do I seem like a monster to you?”
“No, I’m just surprised.”
“You really have no prejudice.”
A strange sense of relief was embedded in Assel’s voice. As if even he had worried about this moment coming.
I realized then. Up until just now, Assel had been testing me, and when he thought I had noticed, he reluctantly told me.
But why? As I made a puzzled expression, he chuckled and passed by me, sitting on the sofa in the center of the office and offering me a seat as well.
“Let’s sit and talk.”
I nodded and sat on the sofa opposite him. The distance between us was neither too far nor too close. Just right for negotiation. I was newly reminded that he was a businessman like me.
“Why did you test me?”
At the question I threw as soon as I sat down, his pupils dilated.
“You’re direct. That’s what captivated me.”
He delayed his answer. Somehow, I felt it was related to the word ‘prejudice’ he mentioned earlier.
Honestly, since I knew it was magic, I could just accept it, so I added:
“……But if you’re uncomfortable explaining, you don’t have to.”
“Are you being considerate of me?”
“I suppose so……?”
By now, the atmosphere that had been tense had loosened a bit. It also meant that our wariness of each other had eased.
We are a couple bound by a contract marriage. That means we trust the contract, not each other. In other words, even if someone was hiding something, there was no moral issue.
I newly realized that our relationship resembled a precarious tug-of-war. A relationship that would unravel helplessly and fall into the abyss if either side let go.
“It feels strange. Receiving concern from you. Just like two years ago.”
He was still deflecting. Although I said he didn’t have to explain, something bothered me. The fact that he was hiding something from me.
Previously, he had told me everything without hesitation, but most of it was trivial, and important conversations rarely took place.
It was mutual consideration to avoid emotional expenditure, but in other words, it also meant that was the limit of our relationship.
I had never felt even a bit of disappointment about that until now.
‘I feel disappointed.’
This strangely arising disappointment. Does it mean my feelings for him are becoming uncontrollable? It’s not love yet, but it’s definitely dangerous.
Swallowing the fleeting sense of crisis, I replied:
“I didn’t know you would remember that time.”
“……”
“But if it’s uncomfortable, you don’t have to tell me… is it a very sensitive matter?”
Honestly, I was a bit hurt, though I didn’t want to admit it. I was startled after speaking, surprised by my own change.
This relationship had always been him pulling and me pushing away, but it seemed somewhat reversed now. It might just be my feeling, but that subtle sensation bothered me. Excessively so.
Trying hard to ignore such emotions, I waited for his answer. Fortunately, not long after, he opened his mouth.
“It’s not exactly that.”
“……”
“There aren’t many people in the world as open-minded as you.”
He only said one sentence, but I could be certain. That in the past, he had been hurt by something related to this.
I had asked because I didn’t think someone as solid as him would have been hurt, but it occurred to me that a person’s appearance and reality might be different.
Since a conclusion had been reached, there was no need to probe further, so I nodded.
“Is that so?”
He didn’t say anything more either. Silence settled between us for a while. In that awkward silence, I racked my brain for something to say and then opened my mouth.
“By the way, who sent that man back then?”
I realized I hadn’t asked about something important. The man who suddenly intruded and tried to kidnap me.
Before marriage, when I was active in social circles, stalkers occasionally followed me, but there had never been a case of someone following me to a travel destination to attempt kidnapping.
Moreover, isn’t it a hotel owned by House Esteban? And a top-floor suite with tight security at that. How big must his nerve be to break through that security perimeter, not to mention his ability?
It seemed too much to attempt solely out of affection. There might be someone behind it.
At my question, Assel shook his head.
“Regrettably, I couldn’t find out that far.”
“Couldn’t you extract a confession?”
Of course, he could have fallen, but didn’t the Duke rescue me just before I died from falling? Wouldn’t he have saved that man too for a confession?
“Unless he died from the fall before that……”
“That’s not it. Poison was found under his tongue.”
“……!”
“One thing is clear: he was acting on someone’s orders. Usually, assassins carry poison pills under their tongues to conceal their backers if they fail their mission.”
“I see.”
So they captured the assassin, but he committed s*icide, preventing them from uncovering who was behind it.
“Is there anyone you suspect?”
I thought for a moment and then shook my head. My ex-husband Alex came to mind, but surely he wouldn’t do that. He couldn’t be that low.
“It’s strange. Why target you and not me.”
Assel muttered as if he couldn’t understand.
“Didn’t you investigate while I was asleep? Of course, you didn’t have to……”
Assel shook his head.
“I had your surroundings investigated, but nothing came up. So I was waiting for you to wake up, but you don’t know either……”
A troubled expression crossed Assel’s face.
“For now, it would be good to increase the guard. And try not to be apart from me.”
“Yes, that would be……”
“Especially when sleeping.”
I was about to agree with his words but widened my eyes at what came next.
“When sleeping?”
“Because that’s when people are most defenseless.”
“That’s true, but……”
Assel’s words sounded like he was suggesting we share a bedroom, but would that be okay?
I felt somewhat uneasy. Like I was being tricked.
Perhaps my thoughts showed on my face. Assel, facing me, smiled and said,
“Don’t worry. Unless you beg first, I won’t touch a hair on your head.”
“……”
“I can write a pledge if you want.”
“No need. I don’t think I’ll beg……”
I stopped mid-sentence as a past memory flashed through my mind. The marks all over my body when I woke up the morning after our wedding night.
‘I really didn’t pounce on him, did I?’
Somehow, I felt doubtful of myself, but I decided to let it go. Or rather, I was going to, if only Assel hadn’t said this:
“That’s right. You are resolute.”
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bluemoon238
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