69. While I Was Sleeping
“Duke!!”
Blatt’s voice rang out powerfully as he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted.
Following his lead, voices echoed from all directions, dragging out their cries.
“Duuke!”
“Is this the right place?”
Blatt’s voice, which had been tirelessly calling for the Duke, was now hoarse and cracked. He wasn’t the only one.
Even Elizabeth, who responded, “It’s,” and Raymond, who was irritably running his hands through his hair, had all lost their voices.
It was because they had been screaming nonstop ever since they saw Jillian being swept away by the collapsing fortress.
“Duke!”
They had definitely seen where the Duke was caught in the collapse. They had rushed there as soon as visibility cleared, flying as fast as they could.
So why wasn’t the Duke anywhere in sight?
No, more importantly, why wasn’t he answering when they had been calling him so desperately?
Could they have been mistaken?
No one voiced it aloud, but their expressions darkened as unsettling thoughts weighed them down, pressing in as thickly as the approaching darkness.
“Haa…”
A suffocating sense of dread piled up.
“We have to find him quickly.”
It had already been five hours since the fortress collapsed. Even a healthy person wouldn’t survive in this cold.
“We need more people.”
At Killian’s words, the commanders turned to Creta.
They were the ones who had earned the right to be lords of these fortresses through sheer strength.
But in the emergency situation where Jillian, the rightful lord of the main fortress, was still unaccounted for, the one in command was Creta, the captain of the first fortress.
Creta, whose face was usually pale, now looked sickly and drained.
“This won’t do. Creta, request knights from the main estate.”
‘I’ll be back, so wait for me.’
‘Have I ever broken my word?’
Between the desperate voices of the commanders, Jillian’s voice overlapped—the way he had sounded when he had stepped through the fortress gates.
“Creta?”
“Creta! Snap out of it!”
“Pull yourself together! We don’t have time for this. We need more people. We have to find him, quickly. Send the bird!”
“Creta!”
They needed to call for reinforcements.
Now.
No matter how strong a Baloch was, he was still human, made of flesh and blood. If left in this cold, even he would die.
They all knew that.
And yet…
‘Please, come back safely.’
A face suddenly came to their mind, it was the face of Bianca, the woman Jillian Baloch cherished and would one day make his Duchess.
Creta’s lips wouldn’t move.
“Creta!! What are you doing?!”
He shouldn’t hesitate.
“You didn’t lose the bird, did you?”
In an instant, a powerful grip seized his collar, cutting off his breath.
It was Killian.
His large, thick hands showed no mercy as they yanked Creta up by the collar.
He was the one threatening, and yet his face looked more desperate, as if he were the one being cornered.
Creta blinked slowly as he met Killian’s gaze.
He was afraid.
Terrified to the point of madness.
But his belief that Jillian would return was unshaken, making it hard to make a decision.
The Duke would return. He had to.
“Do we really… have to make My Lady cry?”
“She’ll gladly cry for this.”
With those firm words, Elizabeth thrust her hand into Creta’s armor and snatched the bird.
***
“My Lady! A bird has arrived!”
Bianca, who had been sorting through documents for the first time in a long while, shot up from her seat before she could even register what she was doing.
The ink bottle tipped, spilling black splotches all over the papers, but she didn’t notice any of it.
“A bird arrived?”
She ran to where Julie was, waiting anxiously for what she would say next.
Just the words a bird arrived made her heart pound so hard she could barely think straight.
“What’s the situation…?”
“The Duke is missing.”
“What?”
Bianca blinked.
She heard the words, but her mind refused to process them.
“He’s… missing?”
It wasn’t an unfamiliar phrase, nothing like the complex terminology of military dispatches…so why did it keep circling her ears without sinking in?
“What… I don’t understand…”
“The fortress collapsed, and he was caught in it.”
“Jillian?”
“They’re afraid they’ll lose time searching, so they’ve requested all available personnel be sent from the estate.”
Bianca couldn’t understand a single word of what Julie was saying.
“…”
Her lips parted, but all that came out was a shaky breath.
“They said we should leave only the minimum staff behind and send everyone else for the search…”
“He said he’d come back.”
She didn’t understand anything that was being said.
But she remembered Jillian’s words.
As she mumbled them to herself, her vision suddenly blurred, her cheeks burned, and her eyes stung.
“Don’t cry.”
Bianca blinked dazedly at Julie’s words.
“Don’t cry, My Lady. It’s snowing, so they’re sending people to help the search. There’s no way something happened to the Duke.”
As if to comfort her, Julie rambled,
“He’s an incredible Duke, after all.”
“Do you even know what it means to be inhuman?”
But did Julie not realize?
She had already been crying.
Bianca reached out toward Julie.
Her young maid, oblivious to her own tears, was chattering through chattering teeth, crying so hard her tears fell like a torrential downpour, without even pausing to pool in her eyes.
Seeing her, Bianca felt herself calming down.
“The Duke is incredibly strong. Among all the Dukes in history…”
“I know.”
Bianca squeezed her teary eyes shut, forcing back her tears before wiping Julie’s tear-streaked cheeks.
Then, she wiped her own face.
Her sleeve darkened, damp with moisture.
“I was just… caught off guard.”
“…”
“So… Where’s Hailey?”
At that moment, she thought of one person, Hailey, the captain of the fourth fortress.
Would Jillian have been safe if Hailey had been pushed to go with him?
But Bianca refused to dwell on useless thoughts.
What had happened had already happened.
She had endured disasters before, and she would endure this one too.
She had cried like a fool just now, but that was only because this was completely unexpected.
Jillian was missing.
Nothing was ever solved by crying. Bianca firmly grasped her skirt and left the office.
“Summon Hailey and the butler to the first floor.”
“You called for me?”
“What’s the situation?”
Hailey glanced at Bianca’s reddened eyes before responding.
“The knights are arming themselves, and the stables are preparing the horses.”
“How long until departure?”
“I plan to send them out in groups of ten as soon as they’re ready. It’s too difficult to push through the snow in smaller groups.”
Given the urgency, their response was astonishingly swift. If things continued at this pace, all forces would be able to reach the ice wall within an hour.
Bianca nodded at Hailey’s words before realizing that she was still in her head maid’s attire.
“And you?”
Hailey shook her head. Her back was straight, her gaze calm and lowered, outwardly composed. But the whitened joints of her clasped hands betrayed her.
‘Ah.’
Bianca saw it—Hailey was holding herself back from running into the snowstorm.
“Do you believe staying behind is the right choice?”
“It’s my lord’s command.”
“I have Rappin with me.”
“My lord’s command is absolute. With Creta absent, I cannot leave the castle as well.”
At Hailey’s firm words, Bianca pressed her lips together. She was new to this place and unfamiliar with the Wave. And more than that…
Bianca turned and met a persistent gaze fixed on her.
‘I’ll take you there,’ the man among the gathered people seemed to say without speaking.
There was still an unresolved problem she had to face. Without breaking eye contact, she spoke clearly.
“Very well, Hailey. Stay by my side. Keep everyone focused.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Alec. Once the knights leave, seal the castle.”
“I shall.”
“So that those who have left won’t worry unnecessarily.”
“A wise decision.”
The man suddenly smirked.
***
Everything would be over soon.
Jillian knew this. The collapse of the fortress had been unexpected, even in the final moments of his battle.
Boom.
A deafening roar filled his ears as his body was lifted into the air.
Then, it was darkness all around.
But only for a moment.
A distant echo of a conversation stirred him awake.
‘So even you don’t know everything.’
‘It seems so.’
‘Even you make mistakes.’
‘That’s right.’
The voices, calm and steady, were laced with an unspoken sorrow.
Silence stretched as if waiting for the next words. But none came easily. One of the speakers’ breathing grew faint, the intervals between each breath widening.
‘I’ll wait for you.’
Despite knowing patience was needed, he spoke first, unable to suppress his anxiety.
‘For how long?’
‘Until you return.’
At those words, her blue eyes, losing their light, curved slightly, briefly flickering like a falling star across the sky.
A quiet laugh, softer than the wind, escaped her lips.
‘And if I never return?’
‘That won’t happen. I’ll wait until you do. My waiting has a clear end.’
‘Will you really wait?’
‘I will. I promise.’
Jillian’s eyes shot open.
“I promised.”
Huu.
“If she’s waiting, then I have to return.”
Underneath the fortress’s rubble, the man, frozen white, heaved in a deep breath.
His stiffened body groaned as he willed it to move, weak breaths gathering strength.
“I have to go back.”
Raising his rigid hand, he attempted to push away the debris covering him. But the wreckage, piled in jagged layers above him like a collapsed roof, was beyond human strength to clear.
Clicking his tongue at the sight of his frostbitten hands, Jillian grimaced.
How long had he been buried here?
His aura wouldn’t even circulate properly.
Tsk.
His golden eyes cracked open, sharp as a blade.
The moment they did, warmth surged back into his frozen fingers, and his stiffened body pulsed with life once more.
At that moment, Jillian gathered his energy at his fingertips.
Swish.
With a single stroke, he cut through the rubble as though slicing through pudding, then pushed himself up.
“Haa…”
Just as he took his first breath outside the debris—
“Duke!”
A hoarse voice ripped through the blizzard and struck his eardrums.
“Duke!”
“Are you alright?”
“Duke!”
From their expressions, it was clear they had seen him get swept away.
Their faces were a mess, pale, haggard, and on the verge of tears.
Seeing his approaching captains, Jillian made a firm declaration.
“Calm down. I’m fine.”
His words seemed to embarrass them, as Raymond and Blatt exchanged awkward looks.
“Man, he’s not human. He’s been buried for a week and says he’s fine.”
“What did I tell you? The Duke would be alright.”
Jillian, brushing off the snow that had covered him, suddenly froze mid-motion.
“…A week?”
Not gonna lie to you guys. His dream, illusion, past or whatever it should be called took far too much to get the hang of and even then I am not entirely sure… So if it needs to be edited further in the future I will inform you ❤️
