“That’s right. She said the child who would save this world would be born from you, didn’t she?”

Watching Isabel’s blue pupils widen, Kailhart tilted his head.

“How…?”

“You must survive, no matter what, Sister.”

Her sister’s dying wish echoed in Isabel’s ears again, making it suddenly hard to breathe. As she gasped for air, Kailhart lowered his hand and brushed it over her face, now twisted in agony.

“How… How do you know about that, Your Majesty?”

“Of course I heard it. I was there before she died, I heard it from her myself.”

Ah, Isaya.

“Are you curious about what that wretch looked like at the end?”

Isabel raised a trembling hand to cover her mouth, but Kailhart’s grip was quicker, snatching her wrist away.

The sun was now low on the horizon, casting long shadows. She looked up at him, meeting his cruel gaze. Her eyes stung.

Don’t.

“She begged me for her life.”

Please… don’t do this.

“Tears of blood streaming down her face.”

Don’t you dare disgrace Isaya like that.

“It was pathetic, watching her plead for mercy.”

My sister Isaya… She would never—

“You’ve probably never seen her look like that, have you?”

His low voice was like the devil singing of death.

Every time he whispered like this, Isabel felt her mind slipping away.

Whenever she looked into her eyes, said to never have wavered even on the battlefield, she felt herself being pulled into a darkness resembling death.

“Don’t you agree?”

Kailhart’s hand touched her cheek again. The contact was relentless, digging straight into her heart. Isabel didn’t react. She shivered, but it didn’t matter.

He had made offhand comments before that suggested he might have witnessed her sister’s death. But she had never imagined that he had killed Isaya with his own hands, or tormented her until her last breath.

That thought alone was almost unbearable.

Isaya. My beloved sister.

When Kailhart spread his palm to cup Isabel’s face, her eyelids began to tremble, brushing against his fingertips. Isabel’s whole body shuddered.

“Now you finally look a little more human.”

His thick fingers pressed against the corners of her eyes, scrutinizing every small reaction with his languid gaze. It felt as if the ground was slipping out from beneath her feet. She felt dizzy.

“So this finally gets a real reaction out of you.”

“……”

“When your people died, when the maid who served you closest was killed, you showed nothing. I thought you were already broken inside.”

Kailhart’s indifferent voice continued, low and cutting.

“At this rate, do you even deserve to be called a princess?”

He whispered, pulling Isabel tightly into his arms.

“Is this all just to amuse yourself, watching me react?”

From the very start, there had never been any escape. She’d known better than to expect mercy from such a heartless ruler, yet just standing on her own two feet felt suffocating.

“That’s right.”

Kailhart’s dark eyes pierced straight through her. She couldn’t turn away.

“I wanted to see this face of yours.”

Would she ever understand?

“Isabel, I wanted to see this expression on you—more than you could ever imagine.”

Kailhart revelled in the turmoil etched on her face. After so much emptiness, he desperately wanted to see even the slightest hint of change. That faint hope began to grow.

“Is that so?”

The expression vanished from Isabel’s face.

It had disappeared so suddenly that he felt foolish for thinking he had grasped even a single thread.

A moment too late, tears spilled from her wet eyes, and he furrowed his brow.

It was always like this. You never tire, do you?

A hot lump rose in his throat. His insides twisted as he pressed his mouth to her damp lips again, breathing heat into the cracks. But Isabel showed no reaction.

That’s right. No matter what he did — whether he forced kisses on her or dragged her to the bath — she never showed a hint of emotion.

She endured it all out of duty. When it was finally over, she simply clammed up, her lips sealed tight no matter how fervently he had tried to open her up.

Her reactions were always the same, yet the fact that it made him anxious now showed just how hopeless he was.

Kailhart let out a quiet, hollow laugh.

He pressed his face into her damp robe, letting her pale, tender skin greet him — soft and lukewarm against his cheek.

Isabel trembled helplessly in his arms. She was barely warm, with hardly any colour in her skin. Yet she was vividly alive, driven by a desperate will to survive. He traced and memorised every detail, even the faint, sweet scent rising from the steady beat of her heart.

Then, suddenly, Isabel clenched both fists tightly.

As his lips traced slow circles along the gentle curve of her body, he felt her heart pounding.

Isabel. You’re alive, right now.

Thank goodness.

No matter how obsessively he checked, it never felt like enough.

His throat burned with words that refused to form.

He was deeply grateful to be holding her alive in his arms. Yet part of him couldn’t help but wish that he could see right into her heart, as though her soul were laid bare before him.

He could hear the faint, broken sound of her breathing in the silence around them.

Suddenly, he felt a heat well up from deep in his chest.

For just an instant, he caught a glimpse of distaste on her face. The change was as stark as a drop of black ink spilling into a clear glass of water and creating a new boundary.

It was unfamiliar and jarring.

‘Of course you must hate me. Of course you resent me. I’m the one who destroyed your homeland and killed your beloved sister.’

And yet, Kailhart liked that side of her, too.

He liked seeing something—anything—drawn across her usually blank, numb mask.

She was the first to paint color in his world.

The girl who, without his permission, had walked barefoot into his empty childhood and made him want to live.

And now, after all that, she could so easily turn her back on him and forget him.

Impulse pounded through him.

This blank canvas of a body, which was so quick to bear marks from even the slightest touch, seemed almost honest in its reactions to being pushed and unravelled.

He slid his other hand down between her trembling legs, and Isabel could barely manage a full protest; her voice caught in her throat and her body shook.

Their bodies pressed together under the water, and Kailhart tightened his jaw, instinctively holding her in place as she tried to escape his grasp.

Isabel endured in silence until, at last, she buried her face in his shoulder.

Her features were soft and childlike, and her expression was far too youthful for her age. The heat rose to her cheeks.

After a moment, he gave her time, and the tension in her body gradually melted away.

He knew her well — he had learned this through countless sleepless nights.

She was so easy to read that it was almost ridiculous. That’s why he never had much trouble keeping track of the time, stopping her from running away at just the right moment and cutting off every retreat.

Even when she looked at the answers he had already written, she hardly seemed to notice what was happening.

His gaze was fixed. He let out a rough, hollow breath.

She rarely reacted like this. This only made him more relentless as he probed deeper, even though he knew every inch of her.

A shiver spread across the surface of the water.

The uninvited guest who had arrived in this suspended paradise took his time. Rather than rushing to his destination, he lingered around the edges.

Isabel shivered again, seemingly unsettled.

The sensation, duller and more persistent than usual, felt strange to her, and she bowed her head with a stifled moan.

Her desperate, trembling movements—like an animal on the verge of being devoured—blurred before his eyes. The muffled, strangled sounds she made scraped at his ears, sending a burning sensation down his neck.

“You…”

Her desperate, trembling movements—like an animal on the verge of being devoured—blurred before his eyes. The muffled, strangled sounds she made scraped at his ears, sending a burning sensation down his neck.

“What are you thinking?”

So she couldn’t possibly read the turmoil, the tremor in his voice.

Burying his face against the nape of her neck, Kailhart let their mismatched heat blend together.

“Just, I—”

“Nothing much.”

She answered, her voice subdued.

A heavy silence fell between them.

That’s right—you don’t know. You find me the hardest to understand, but to me, you’re the greatest mystery of all.

Isabel, you’re the most impossible riddle I’ve ever encountered. Because of you, I’m always on edge, always left exposed before you.

By now, it should have become routine, but every time it feels new—every time, it’s desperate.
No one will ever know what I really feel.

A heated breath slipped between his teeth.