Angela stood by the window. She glanced at the silhouette reflected in the glass and, recognizing who had entered her room without permission, spoke without turning around.
“When you enter someone else’s room, you’re supposed to ask if you may come in first, Mother. Even more so when it’s the room of your grown daughter. There’s a thing called manners, even among family.”
Yvonne let out a hollow laugh, dismissed the maids who had followed her with a wave of her hand, and took a step closer to Angela’s back.
“You, the rudest person in all of Faelon, have the nerve to talk about manners?”
“I’m Angela, after all, Mother.”
The answer was ambiguous. But to Yvonne, it conveyed only one meaning.
Angela believed she had the right to be rude to her.
Yvonne gritted her teeth. Striding over, she grabbed Angela’s arm and forcefully turned her around.
Angela offered no resistance and allowed herself to be turned. She faced Yvonne with a face that was sculpturally beautiful, yet weary with human fatigue.
“Don’t act so arrogantly. You haven’t forgotten that the young maid is still in my hands, have you?”
Yvonne, unaware that Mary had already escaped the estate, threatened her. Angela changed her expression to a look of feigned pity.
“Shall I kneel again, Mother?”
The sudden shift in demeanor felt like a theatrical performance. It probably was. The way she kept calling her “Mother” at the end of every sentence was likely meant to mock her.
To avoid getting hurt by things like that, you just had to hurt first. Yvonne knew a way to make Angela feel even more defeated than forcing her to kneel.
“A messenger from the Florence estate was here just now.”
Yvonne’s tone suddenly became formal, almost as if she had changed personalities.
“I saw him. Down there.”
Angela, familiar with Yvonne’s two-faced nature, responded calmly and gestured toward the window. Yvonne glanced that way, then continued.
“Count Florence has requested to break off the engagement.”
The moment Yvonne stopped speaking, all color drained from Angela’s face.
There it is.
So this was the way, Yvonne sneered inwardly. The expression that had always appeared on Beatrice’s face whenever she cried—now it was plastered like a mask on Angela’s.
“Liar.”
Angela protested. Her voice trembled as she said even that short phrase. But Yvonne felt no guilt. To her, Angela was a demon who deserved to suffer like this.
“I met with Count Florence privately yesterday. I asked him—begged him, really—to break off the engagement and marry our Beatrice instead. I pleaded with him, told him that only he could protect our Beatrice.”
“You think… you think Kalian would break off the engagement with me over that?”
Angela shook her stiff neck with difficulty. Yvonne pressed her attack aggressively.
“Why wouldn’t he? There’s no reason he wouldn’t. He’s probably wanted to break it off a thousand times. He just never had the chance, and now he does. Why would the count cling to someone like you, who only ever torments people? Surely you know that even Count Florence has found you burdensome!”
Angela stared at Yvonne with a pale face, too shocked to respond. She was silently pleading for it all to be a lie. But Yvonne had no intention of granting that wish.
Once Dominic returned, she would push him to persuade Kalian. Even if that didn’t work and Kalian eventually stated he wouldn’t break off the engagement, that would be fine. Just seeing Angela like this now was already a satisfying result.
She wanted to see her fall further. She wanted her to despair more. If not more than what she and her daughter had suffered, then at least the same amount.
“Yvonne…”
“Don’t call me that…!”
Yvonne was no longer Angela’s nanny. That was why she intended to coldly point out how insolent it was for Angela to address her so casually. But in that instant, the words got stuck in her throat. The sentence she meant to snap vanished before it could form.
Her desire to lash out crumbled. She had come here to break Angela down, but instead, it was she who faltered. It was ridiculous, but the expression on Angela’s face made it happen.
Her face, drained as if her soul had escaped, carried a weight of emotion too heavy to simply call “sorrow.” It was the expression of someone who had just lost the one last breath of air they’d been clinging to for survival.
It was understandable—Angela had never been sure of Kalian’s feelings for her.
Until not long ago, he had loathed her. Whenever they clashed, they left wounds on each other’s hearts. Their fleeting moments of kindness had not been enough to form solid trust.
“Did Kalian… really say that?”
A question filled with doubt—it was only natural.
Yvonne wanted to point her finger at Angela, mock her, and laugh.
“I asked you if it’s really true…”
Angela pressed again. Yvonne wanted to shout, “Yes, it’s true. Count Florence hates someone like you. He doesn’t want to marry you.”
But the words wouldn’t come out. Angela’s reaction was more than she had imagined, and there was no joy in witnessing it.
Perhaps because the look on Angela’s face now resembled that of Grace during the days she’d slip in and out of Yvonne’s room.
‘Yvonne!’
‘Yvonne?’
‘Yvonne.’
‘Yvonne…’
As the voice calling her name grew more uncertain, that expression—the one from the day she began to learn what despair really was—appeared right there on Angela’s face.
Yvonne couldn’t say a word in the end. But when she kept her mouth shut, Angela seemed to take it as confirmation.
The sharp sound of her inhalation cut through the air. Her tightly clenched fist pounded weakly against her chest as if in pain.
Yvonne hated that a part of her wanted to embrace Angela. She took a step back. She should be thinking, “Serves her right.” She should laugh, relishing the pain that had settled on Angela’s face.
That was how she would avenge Beatrice for everything she’d endured, and how she would ensure Angela could never point her blade at them again.
She knew this—yet she couldn’t move for a long while.
Suddenly, Angela burst through the door and ran out. The sound of her heels echoed chaotically down the corridor—so frantic it was hard to believe it belonged to the refined Angela who treated composure as a matter of life and death. The sound grew fainter.
Yvonne followed her only moments later. But in that brief time, Angela had already mounted a horse and fled the estate.
Yvonne sent a servant after her immediately, but he returned soon with an apologetic look, having failed.
Only then did she command the knights to search for Angela, but it was already too late. Angela had vanished without a trace.
Here is the complete and professional English translation of the provided Korean text:
—
How long had she been riding?
Angela couldn’t tell. She had been riding her horse so frantically that she’d lost track of time. It seemed several hours had already passed since she’d recklessly set off toward the western region of Pailon, the direction Kalian was said to be heading.
She had thought that if she didn’t stop, she might be able to catch up with him—but she had been wrong. No matter how skilled a rider she had become under Kalian’s tutelage, it was impossible to catch up with a top-tier knight of the Florence family. Angela hadn’t even caught sight of his trail.
Still, giving up now was unthinkable. Her mind was too chaotic to see the situation clearly. She had to confirm it with Kalian—whether he had truly decided to part ways with her.
She wanted to deny it, to say it was impossible. But deep down, she knew it wasn’t. Kalian had once spoken of breaking off their engagement right to her face.
Even if a brief period of warmth had passed between them, that wasn’t enough to be reassured. Just because Angela’s heart was steadfast didn’t mean their bond would last forever.
They could fall apart at any moment. They could drift apart, just like they had in the past.
“Drink some water and run just a bit more.”
Spotting a small pond, Angela stopped to let her horse drink and spoke to it gently. If her horse gave out now, finding Kalian would become truly impossible.
The bigger concern was the danger of a woman traveling alone again, just like before. But that, to Angela right now, was only a secondary issue.
After drinking and nibbling some grass around the pond, the horse perked up and offered its back once more. Angela patted its neck in silent gratitude and climbed back on.
And again, she began to ride. Toward where Kalian might be. She had a destination—but no certainty that she would reach it.
—
Jack’s Inn, located in a remote area, was mostly visited not by casual travelers but by unsavory characters who lived off illicit deeds. On the first floor tavern, schemes were plotted nearly every day. It wouldn’t be a stretch to call the place a den of criminals.
In such a place, a soft-looking man with pink hair sat drinking alone—naturally drawing attention.
Jack, the innkeeper, had been wary of the clueless customer ever since he limped through the door. In a place like this, sitting around with that vacant look was the perfect way to get robbed.
“Hey, buddy.”
There it was. He’d become a target. A man detached from his group approached.
Tapping someone’s shoulder so casually in this place was an act of clear disrespect. If he’d done that to anyone else here, blades would’ve been drawn immediately.
But the pink-haired man just smiled, seemingly pleased. He looked a bit slow in the head.
“Why are you drinking alone in a place like this with no companions?”
The man asked in a sleazy tone. The scar running across his eye made even his smile look threatening.
“I ran out of money during my travels. This is my final feast, so to speak.”
The table was too modest to be called a feast—cheap booze and the cheapest side dishes the bar had.
The man leaned in, picked up the half-empty bottle, and twirled it as he spoke.
“Want me to buy you a drink?”
There was a strange smile on his lips. It was obvious he was bad news, but the pink-haired man smiled back innocently, completely unaware.
Jack sighed. Things were taking a worse turn. Now that the man knew he was broke, he was probably planning to get him drunk and sell him off somewhere.
But Jack didn’t warn him. Even those involved in human trafficking were called “customers” in this place.
—
Kalian’s group had halted their journey and set up camp just before nightfall.
Unlike the eastern route that required crossing mountains, the west offered more flat terrain, allowing them to cover a lot of ground on the first day. The rougher paths would start tomorrow, but even those were nothing compared to the east. One of the knights who had previously traveled the east boldly declared that he’d be happy if he could always go west.
As laughter and chatter echoed among the knights, Kalian sat silently, gazing at the sky. The unrest that had plagued him since before their departure still hadn’t settled. He had no energy to join in their cheer.
“Kalian, sir.”
Viego, having noticed Kalian’s uneasy mood, approached and offered him a cup of liquor. The gesture was meant to ease his mind.
But Kalian, who never drank while on duty, politely declined with a small wave of his hand.
So Viego casually downed the drink himself and plopped down beside him.
“Is this because of Lady Bilton?”
Viego was certain. If Kalian was this visibly troubled, it had to be related to Angela. Everyone at the Florence estate knew the only thing that could truly disturb Kalian’s composure was something involving her.
Even when faced with the sudden command to depart, Kalian had calmly prepared for battle. But the mere mention of Angela made his emotions surface. His gentle nature, uncharacteristic for a warrior who swept through battlefields, became utterly useless in front of her.
That’s why everyone had already realized it—just how special Angela was to Kalian. The more special she was, the more sensitive he became.
“Are you still uneasy even after placing guards at the Bilton estate?”
“I was just thinking about tomorrow’s schedule.”
Kalian replied in a casual tone, as if it wasn’t a big deal, clearly trying to hide his true thoughts.
It was a poor excuse. The route had already been decided—what was there to think about?
“And it’s not surveillance. It’s protection.”
Viego smirked, just about to tease him, when he suddenly heard the sound of rustling grass.
But Kalian had sensed it first. He already had his sword drawn.
The knights who had been laughing moments before were suddenly on alert. The sound of someone approaching through the grass grew louder.
Then—
“It’s me, Jamie!”
A familiar voice called out. It was Jamie, one of the knights from the Florence family.
He appeared from beyond the darkness, waving both hands as if to say not to attack. And right behind him, someone else appeared.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ✧: *. ꕥ .* :✧ﾟ. ───
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