“Ines…!”

Coming to his senses belatedly, Carlos rushed to the bathtub. Ines’s face, submerged in the bloody water, had turned deathly pale. She looked as if she was no longer of this world.

Carlos called Ines’s name countless times, but there was no response. It felt like his heart had plummeted to the floor. With trembling hands, he checked her pulse. Though faint, she was still breathing.

With renewed hope, Carlos lifted her out.

Red-stained water dripped heavily from her limp body in his arms. Blood was continuously pouring from her right wrist. Carlos burst through the bathroom door, shouting.

“Is anyone… is anyone out there? Get a doctor immediately!”

Soon, palace servants began gathering one by one, drawn by Carlos’s shouts.

“What’s the matt… gasp!”

But that didn’t last long. The servants who peered into the chaotic room covered their mouths. The queen lying lifelessly in the king’s arms looked like a dead person.

As soon as a maid appeared, Carlos shouted again.

“Why are you just standing there staring! Get a doctor right now!”

“Y-yes…!”

The maid hurriedly rushed out to call for a doctor. Carlos carefully laid Ines on the bed. Red blood was endlessly flowing from her wrist. Looking around, he grabbed a towel lying nearby and wrapped it around her wrist to stop the bleeding.

“Please…”

However, despite his efforts, the white towel quickly became soaked with blood. How long had she been bleeding? The image of the bathtub filled with bloody water remained burned in his mind like an afterimage. Anxious that Ines might really die at this rate, he shouted again.

“Why isn’t the doctor here yet!”

“Th-they’re coming now. The maid ran to get them, so they’ll be here soon.”

At the maid’s cry, Carlos gritted his teeth as he looked at Ines. Her pale complexion, her lips turned not just blue but purple, made it feel like he was in a dream rather than reality. An endless, terrible nightmare.

He shook his head as if trying to deny this horrific reality.

“No… Ines, please…”

He whispered countless times into her ears though she couldn’t hear anything. And he prayed to the god who had abandoned him long ago. Though his wishes hadn’t been granted in the past, he begged for this one to be heard. He pleaded not to take Ines from his arms.

He bowed his head, continuously praying to god.

If Ines was saved, he would show his faith even if he had to buy it with money. He just begged for her to be saved. But contrary to his desperation, Ines’s hand in his was too cold.

One second felt like a minute, no, ten minutes. The maid who had gone to find the doctor earlier showed no signs of returning. Just as he was about to speak out of frustration, the person they had been waiting for appeared.

“Y-Your Majesty…!”

Having apparently run here, the doctor’s face was covered in cold sweat. She wiped her sweat with a handkerchief and hurriedly approached Ines.

“When I went to the bathroom, Ines was…”

Carlos tried to explain the situation, but strangely, he couldn’t complete his sentences. His mind had gone blank like a sheet of paper, and he didn’t know what to say.

The doctor spoke in a calm voice, as if understanding the situation.

“Let me examine her first.”

The doctor unwrapped the towel Carlos was holding to examine the wound. There were countless knife marks on her wrist, as if she had tried multiple times.

Watching this from the side, Carlos bit his lip.

“Quickly bring the hemostatic agent!”

At the doctor’s words, her assistant moved swiftly. Carlos closed his eyes as he watched them bustling about from a step away.

Just watching this scene was too much for him. His royal dignity felt like it would crumble at the slightest touch. He was afraid the doctor would tell him something terrible, like when his child died last time.

After some time had passed like this, the doctor who had finished emergency treatment let out a short breath. Carlos, who instinctively realized the treatment was over, approached.

“How is Ines…? Is she alright?”

His expression was anxious as he asked about Ines’s condition. The doctor nodded toward the worried-looking Carlos.

“Fortunately, she’s passed the critical point. Her life is not in danger.”

“Haa…”

His shoulders slumped with a sigh of relief. But the next words made his heart sink.

“If you had found her even a little later, it would have been dangerous.”

At those words, Carlos’s face hardened. The hypothetical scenario strongly gripped his heart.

If he hadn’t visited Ines’s room today…

If he had just gone to his own chambers…

What he would have found tomorrow morning would have been Ines’s cold corpse. As his thoughts reached there, Carlos’s hands began to sweat. The doctor continued, lowering her voice.

“What’s important now is that this might happen again.”

“What…?”

“It seems she’s suffering from mental illness due to the shock of losing the baby. There’s no guarantee this won’t happen again.”

‘This might happen again?’

At the doctor’s words, Carlos clenched his fists. Then he shifted his gaze to look at Ines.

Having lost too much blood, Ines’s complexion was sickly. Anyone could see it was the face of someone who had been at death’s door.

‘Why…’

He couldn’t believe Ines had tried to take her own life. But the reality unfolding before his eyes showed that he had been living in a sweet delusion all this time.

Perhaps her seeming fine was just wishful thinking. He had failed to notice Ines’s rotting core while believing what he wanted to believe and seeing what he wanted to see.

‘Of course she couldn’t be fine.’

There was no way she could be normal after losing her child and mother in one day. There was no way she could smile like that after hearing her child had died.

‘Ines…’

There was no way she could forgive him. Perhaps what she had shown him these past few days was just her final act of mercy toward him. As his thoughts reached there, Carlos’s clenched hands trembled.

He felt pathetic for foolishly reminiscing about the past alone and thinking things would get better if he just did better in the future. While Ines had been unable to erase the past and tried to take her own life, he had been cheerfully thinking only of the future by himself.

Biting his lip, Carlos spoke with difficulty.

“I understand, you may go now.”

At his command, the doctor bowed and left the room. Silence suddenly fell in the room that had been bustling with activity.

Carlos quietly approached Ines. His gaze eventually fell on her left wrist wrapped in bandages.

Looking at it, Carlos’s face crumpled. He bit his lip as if suppressing something and wrapped her wrist. He felt suffocated thinking that Ines ending up like this was all his fault.

‘What do I need to do for us to return to how we were before?’

If he could turn back time, he wanted to.

It didn’t have to be a year ago. At least back to when they got married. No, at least back to when their child and Llewellyn were alive…

As he was biting his lip in anguish, Ines’s eyes slowly opened.

She blinked slowly several times and looked around as if trying to assess the situation.

“Ines?”

She raised her head at the presence and met Carlos’s eyes. And at that moment, Ines’s face crumpled. She had realized her plan had failed.

Her eyes, turbid like a lake full of impurities, glared at Carlos. They seemed to contain resentment for having saved her.

Carlos’s heart shattered as he stared at such an Ines. But he managed his expression and spoke with difficulty.

“…Why did you do it?”

“…”

“Why did you… do such a terrible thing?”

His voice cracked as if it was too painful to even speak of. However, Ines gave no answer. She just stared at him with her faded eyes.

Carlos asked again.

“Please say something.”

“…”

“Please, anything…”

Ines turned her head away as if she didn’t want to deal with him. It was the complete opposite of how she had been when they walked together earlier that day.

Carlos, wearing a pained expression, finally fell to his knees before Ines.