It was a desperate cry. Drushia shouted at Ashika to run away while fending off the incoming assassins.
Ashika barely managed to support herself against the wall. Words she couldn’t bring herself to utter due to fear trembled in her mouth.
How could I leave you behind? Without you, I am nothing.
“Ashika!”
Despite Drushia’s desperate cry, Ashika remained frozen, unable to move. At her feet lay the bodies of assassins fallen to Drushia’s sword.
In a flash, as her vision cleared, more dark figures poured in through the broken door. All to take the life of the man once called the Empire’s Sword.
However, even the Empire’s finest swordsman had his limits in single-handedly blocking the relentlessly advancing assassins. The moment he deflected one sword, another blade mercilessly cut into Drushia’s shoulder.
“Rushia!”
As his body lost balance, the assassins seized the opening. The assassin who followed rushed straight toward Ashika.
“No!”
“Aah!”
Just as the assassin’s sword flew toward Ashika, Drushia turned and embraced her.
Her slender body was enveloped by his warm, large frame. But even Drushia couldn’t serve as a perfect shield.
The moment she felt searing pain in her lower abdomen, agonizing pain struck her shoulder and heart as well.
Blood gushed forth. Her blood, Drushia’s blood.
The merciless swords pierced through their bodies pressed together as one and pinned them to the wall.
A despairing gaze fixed on Ashika’s black eyes. His lips, gurgling blood, trembled with spasms.
“…Sorry….”
For not being able to protect you until the end.
“…h…Rush….”
Even while gasping for breath, Ashika didn’t let go of his gaze. She no longer felt the terrible pain.
Because his blue eyes growing dim were heartbreaking. Because she wanted to hold onto the light of life fading from them, even if just a little.
But no matter how hard she tried to grasp it, she couldn’t catch the breath that was crumbling like smoke.
The strength leaves his arms holding Ashika. The blue eyes that remained fixed on her until the very end gradually fade from her sight.
The darkness closing in was death itself.
****
“…Rain….”
Through the pitch-black darkness, a faint voice caught her.
“…Rai… Igraine….”
She realized the voice was shaking because her body was trembling. And her body was trembling because someone was shaking her.
“Ashika Igraine!”
The politely urging voice finally became a shout. Her eyes opened reflexively at the thunderous voice striking her mind.
“Huk!”
But her vision blurred due to her violent breathing. When she tried to dig her nails into her throat and chest, a strong force grabbed her hands.
“Breathe. Slowly, slowly.”
The fierce voice had softened somewhat.
As her blurry vision cleared, the person before her became more distinct. Ashika discovered blue eyes looking down at her while she gasped for breath.
“…Rush…, Rushia….”
A frown creased the handsome face of the person before her at her trembling voice. However, Ashika didn’t notice her companion’s subtle change.
“Hic….Rushia.”
Ashika hurriedly reached out to touch his face. Though he flinched and tried to avoid it, she didn’t notice that either.
The short, neatly combed blonde hair and distinct features. His face, without a drop of blood, glowed with unprecedented vitality.
“…A dream….”
It had all been a dream. A nightmare. Of course it was, since he was alive and right before her eyes.
“…Rushia. I thought you really….hic.”
Tears flowed, filling her black eyes completely. Her slender arms desperately wrapped around his neck, afraid he might slip away. Though the firm muscles of his neck and shoulders kept twitching under her palms, Ashika paid no mind.
From the moment she raised herself, he had removed his hands from Ashika. But the sobbing woman clung to him as if he were her only lifeline.
While his large hands remained suspended in the air, unable to decide what to do, her tear-wet lips brushed against his neck.
“Ugh. This….”
A flustered voice escaped. But the arms around his neck pulled him closer. Drushia quickly grabbed the sofa’s backrest for support, but couldn’t resist the desperate woman’s strength.
“Lady Ig….”
The lips that had been pressed against his cheek overlapped with his lips. It happened in an instant, without time to avoid it.
While Drushia remained frozen, he felt her tear-wet, humid breath. Her hot, small tongue diving into his mouth happened just as suddenly.
“What… mmph.”
As his tongue flinched and tried to retreat, her small tongue followed and entwined with it. When the two pieces of flesh tangled together, a shiver ran down his spine.
His blue eyes, like the clear sky, widened as much as they could. Though thinking he should push her away, his hands holding Ashika’s shoulders lost their strength.
Thump, thump, his heart began to beat as frantically as hers. As their urgent breaths intertwined, he felt an electrifying sensation running through his entire body.
Drushia’s hands grasped the back of Ashika’s head. He returned the kiss that had been one-sided until now. He caught her weakening lips, seized her small tongue, and delved inside.
“Hm… mmph.”
Ashika’s breath grew heavy. Something had changed, though she didn’t know what, but something was different.
It was unfamiliar. The thick flesh probing every corner of her mouth was strange and rough. At that peculiar gap, her tears dried and an odd heat rose.
The soft sensation against her back and the heavy weight pressing down on her body. She patted his back as the unfamiliar pressure made it hard to breathe.
“Rush…, hmm… uh.”
However, Drushia only pressed his lips harder, devouring her with even greater force.
Her vision grew distant along with the dizzying sensation. When his large hand stroked her side and moved up toward her chest, Ashika snapped back to her senses.
“Ugh!”
Drushia stopped moving at the sharp pain of his tongue being bitten.
Right before him were black eyes as round as a deer’s. Still holding unshed tears.
Their entangled tongues separated, leaving a slick sensation in their mouths. As their lips, glistening with each other’s saliva, parted, the completely dazed man and woman faced each other.
What had just happened?
There wasn’t even time to compose their disheveled faces. Before the dazed woman, Drushia’s lips parted.
“…Lady Igraine.”
Lady Igraine. That clear title shot through Ashika’s mind.
“Rushia?”
The man’s eyebrow twitched before settling back in place.
“What’s wrong, Rushia?”
“Rushia? Is that what you’re calling me now?”
“Well, who else is here besides you?”
“Rushia, Drushia…”
Drushia repeated the name in disbelief before finally realizing it was his nickname with an “Ah.”
His attitude was strange, and his attire was even stranger. Ashika stared at Drushia again with a blank face.
“When did you cut your hair?”
“Was there ever a time when I had long hair?”
The conversation continued to go awry.
“And why are you wearing… a tailcoat?”
“Isn’t it natural since I attended the banquet?”
“Banquet? What banquet?”
At Ashika’s question, Drushia’s face changed peculiarly. His expression seemed to say, ‘What kind of crazy woman is this?’
Though there was still undiminished heat in his blue eyes, they remained cold. Those same deep blue eyes that always looked at her coldly.
“Gasp!”
It was like being hit in the head. With the sudden realization, Ashika jumped up from the sofa and distanced herself from him.
“You… you… pervert!”
“Are you talking to me?”
“What did you do to me!”
“What nonsense is this? I’m clearly the one who was taken advantage of.”
“How could that…”
She tried to argue. There’s no way she would have thrown herself at this man unless she had gone mad.
Yet, she had just been clinging to him moments ago.
“Oh my god.”
Ashika could only gape, unable to find words. Her thoughts became disconnected amid confusion, anger, and the inexplicable situation.
‘What have I done?’
No matter how out of her mind she might have been, the other party was ‘that’ Duke Talion.
Even if every man in the world had died and only one remained, if it was Talion, she would never have gone near him – this Drushia Talion.
Instead of interrogating the woman who had suddenly stolen his lips, he narrowed his eyes and examined her.
‘Could this woman have some chronic illness?’
With such searching eyes. If he found a weakness, he would never leave Ashika alone. He would try to use it somehow.
Realizing the obvious reality, she quickly collected herself.
“I… made a mistake.”
“A mistake? You’re saying you mistook who I was?”
It was an impossible excuse. But Ashika stood straight, putting strength into her legs.
Suppressing her wildly beating heart, she arranged her disheveled dress and took out a handkerchief from her pocket to press against her lips. She dabbed at her moist, cool lips and around them with the handkerchief.
Drushia’s face became incredulous.
“There are other things to mistake. How could Lady Igraine’s fiancé and I look anything alike?”
“That’s not it, I was dreaming…”
A sharp pain passed through Ashika’s heart.
Yes, she had dreamed. A terribly vivid and horrible dream.
A dream where a kind man’s smile turned to despair in an instant, and the strong arms that had held her crumbled, covered in blood.
The noble woman’s face contorted again as if about to cry. Drushia, who had been about to criticize her, quietly closed his mouth.
Ashika’s confused gaze wandered aimlessly before suddenly noticing something strange. She pressed her lips together and carefully examined the room again.
“What are you looking for?”
“You know, that frame. The one that was on the decorative shelf.”
“Lady Igraine, this is an empty room. Can’t you see?”
Drushia was right. Though there were tables and sofas like a reception room, they were all covered with white cloth, and fine dust had settled on top.
The decorative shelf she mentioned was nowhere to be seen.
“But it was definitely here. The frame with embedded jewels…”
She remembered touching it because the jewels’ light was strange. Beautiful gems, but they seemed ready to crumble with their spider web-like cracks.
“Lady Igraine, stop talking nonsense. You pounce on me and try to gloss over it with ridiculous claims?”
The black eyes flinched and blinked. The rolling eyes found their place again and became tense.
“Did I do it alone? Who was it that didn’t push me away and rushed in?”
“Ha! Now you’re trying to blame me? That’s a poor excuse for throwing yourself at another man when you have a fiancé!”
“A man of your strength should have pushed me away. Or is Duke Talion so weak he can’t even fend off a woman’s strength?”
“Lady Igraine!”
Drushia raised his voice, unable to contain himself.
Even as Ashika spoke these words, her face was flushing with embarrassment at her own statements.
But she couldn’t show her weakness now. Just imagining how much that man would pressure her if she gave him leverage made her dizzy.
Just be brazen about it. Just like he had always been.
Even with her lips still glistening with moisture, Ashika shouted boldly.
“I didn’t know you were such an easy man. If I had known, I would have been more careful!”
“That’s impossible! Even if every woman in the world were to disappear, it would never be Igraine. Never!”
“Look who’s talking!”
The fierce gazes of the man and woman tangled in mid-air.
Whatever had happened, the situation of these two being entangled was wrong on so many levels.
“Ha.”
The handsome face contorted as Drushia exhaled roughly. It was an extremely unfair situation where he didn’t even know how to argue.
“Damn it, ha.”
An uncharacteristically crude curse escaped his lips. He loosened his tight collar and glared at Ashika with angry eyes.
But that was all. Drushia turned around sharply with a frustrated and incredulous expression.
Watching him stride away, the tension gradually left Ashika’s body, which had been rigid. Though she had put up a sharp front, her pounding heart still hadn’t calmed down.
