Chapter 20
“Nothing could be heard, as if I had lost my mind in response to the unexpected answer.’’
I never expected to hear someone who was considering killing me express a desire to keep me alive.
It’s a lie, It’s a lie.
There’s no way someone would want to keep me alive.
“You don’t believe me.”
“…No, was just surprised.”
“You thought that because a lady from the same guardian family had fallen ill, you wanted to try and keep her alive.”
Laches slowly brushed his thumb over the inside of my wrist that he held.
“You didn’t, did you? You didn’t think of trying to save Reperentia Nirel?”
“…I did it countless times.”
I’ve constantly tried and still am trying, I’ve always tried my best and made efforts to save myself.
Even if the end wasn’t sweet.
“Yeah, So I asked various nobles and young ladies about Reprentia Nirel… I should’ve been more careful about letting it spread like this.”
I’ve spent a lot of time in the North already, I couldn’t read Laches’s memories, but I had enough confirmation that he might be a murderer who might kill me.
I didn’t come to the North to escape or hide.
“…But Your Grace, you were considering killing Lady Repe rentia, weren’t you?”
“I don’t recall ever saying such a thing.”
I must prevent him from killing me, or rather, ensure he cannot kill me. If Lachess is truly a murderer intent on killing me.
“I heard it.”
It’s not Reperentia who’s here anyway, but the maid Leah.
Curious and arrogant maid Leah.
I watched Laches’s reaction without averting my gaze.
“What did you hear?”
His fingers holding onto my hand hesitated for a moment, Lachess lowered his head and then raised his eyes.
“You were regretting whether you should have killed Lady Reperentia under the window of the previous residence.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“You heard it directly back then, Did you forget that I called the Duke from upstairs?”
“You heard it from inside the room? I remember the window being closed.”
“I did mention how cold the wind was blowing into my room, didn’t I? The Duke’s words were carried by the wind.”
Laches frowned as if irritated.
“Even if it wasn’t me who heard it, there’s no one else who could have told me.”
“I didn’t doubt your words.”
“You were pondering whether you should have killed or spared Reprentia back then, Unless I heard it directly, there’s no way I could know this accurately. There were only you and me there at the time.”
In truth, Ronan, the guard I secretly entrusted, was also there, but there was no need to pretend to know that.
Lachess ruffled his hair lightly and then took a deep breath, He seemed to believe that what I said was true.
He turned his head away from me, avoiding my gaze.
It was an unfamiliar angle.
It was the first time I had seen his profile up close like this.
The sharp curve of his nose was the first thing that caught my eye.
His quite angular jawline added a touch of elegance to his appearance.
And then I realized.
“When he was this close, he always looked at me.’’
He never turned his head.
So, this angle of looking sideways was very strange and unfamiliar.
Realizing that fact anew, I felt itchy like burying my bare feet in smooth soil. I put strength into my toes and pressed hard, but the itchiness didn’t go away.
“Is my dilemma and decision causing a big problem? Anyway, Reperentia Nirel isn’t here now.”
The candle flickered, Depending on the angle of the light, the position of the shadows on laches’s face changed constantly.
“That’s right, Miss Reparentia Nirel is already gone.”
Playfulness disguised as indifference and deceit within it.
Today, I was doing the deceit that laches often did.
“I was just curious about the Duke’s choice, Should he have killed her or saved her? If one of those choices were possible, I wondered what the Duke would have done.”
“Why are you curious about that?”
“You saved the hunting dog, You said that useless things are not needed in this castle, but eventually, you made it necessary here. If the Duke could have chosen Miss Reperentia’s life too, I wondered what would have happened.”
“Then, if I had chosen to kill Reperentia Nirel, what would you have done?”
laches pulled my hand he was holding, The already close distance narrowed at once.
“Would you run away to the north to escape?”
While holding my wrist tightly, he talked about running away.
His black pupils, holding me tightly, made it feel like I couldn’t move.
When was it? There had definitely been a time when he held me like this, It was as if he would break my ankles if he saw any signs of me trying to escape.
“…… Then wouldn’t you have already run away without coming to heal the Duke’s wound or not even being a Yavandolu?”
“That’s right.”
“I was just curious about the Duke’s sincerity, Reperentia Nirel…”
I murmured quietly with my eyes downcast.
“Anyway, Miss Reperentia Nirel is dead.”
Hearing my quiet murmuring, laches reached out and tied the end of my hair around his finger.
“If you’re like that, then I’ll tell you the truth too.”
“……”
“I haven’t made a choice yet, It feels like I’ll live if Reperentia lives…… But I feel like I’ll escape from this tedious day if I kill Reperentia. So, I still don’t know what to do.”
laches smiled weakly with a lonely expression on his face.
If someone unfamiliar had heard it, they might have misunderstood that Reprentia and laches were deeply in love with each other.
It was a lonely and painful expression to the extent that I could be deceived by it too.
“So, there’s something I want to hear.”
laches got up from the desk where he had been sitting.
“It might hurt my legs if the conversation gets long, so excuse me for a moment.”
“Oh!”
He grabbed my hand and pulled me, swiftly changing positions. Then, he gently held my waist and before asking what I was doing, he lifted me up and sat me on the desk.
It was the same spot where laches had been sitting just a moment ago.
“Why all of a sudden…”
“I want to hear about the Reperentia Nirel that you know.”
Because of the eye contact, it felt like my heart was dropping downward.
It felt like he was asking me if I was Reperentia, so I couldn’t even breathe.
laches reached out his hand and gripped the sides of the seat where I was sitting. As he bent his upper body, our eye levels matched, and his face came close in an instant.
Swoosh.
The bandage that hadn’t been properly wrapped around his wrist fell down.
It was a story that came out while treating his wounds, so laches had rolled up both sleeves.
“I’m just a servant girl.”
“I know.”
“How could I possibly know Reperentia?”
“I know, Still, I’m curious about the stories you’ve seen with your own eyes and heard with your own ears. Since no one else knows Reperentia.”
“…. Why are you curious about that?”
“Just as you were curious about my choices, I think I need to know so that I can make a choice when the next opportunity arises.”
Laches continued to utter words that I couldn’t quite understand.
‘My story?’
The only thing that came to mind was a painful death that I couldn’t reveal.
Feeling the urge to escape the conversation, I hesitated and stepped back. At that moment, something on the desk caught my finger and fell down.
It was the book Laches had been reading on the desk.
My gaze involuntarily lowered.
A sentence on the unfolded page caught my eye.
‘… Abilities of the four guardians?’
Books related to the Guardian lineage were strictly forbidden.
In preparation for the sacredness of the founding of the Empire being tarnished, all information related to the Guardian lineage was kept extremely secret.
Because if it were written down, there was a high risk of leakage, so it was directly transmitted by the head of the family when the heir reached adulthood.
Of course, my father did not designate me as the heir, and he intended to pass on the family to the adopted heir, so he did not tell me anything.
How much opposition there was even when trying to directly cultivate an heir to pass on the family.
The lineage of the Guardian was crucial, The Guardian lineage had to be inherited by a male. That’s the only way the lineage could continue.
But tragically, my mother passed away, and my grandmother passed away, leaving only my father, who was a son-in-law, in the Nirel family.
In the end, my grandfather passed on the position of heir to the Nirel family to my father, who was the first to have pure lineage.
Instead, with the testament to pass on the succession to me, born between my mother and father.
But my father didn’t seem to wish for that, He insisted that he couldn’t put a non-male like me in the position of heir, and eventually everyone agreed to cultivate an heir.
‘Why is that forbidden book here…?’
I turned my gaze to read what was written, but Laches’ hand was faster than that.
He bowed his head and covered the book with his large hand.
“…Did you see it?”
Reading the forbidden books could lead to the death penalty.
I couldn’t be sentenced to death just for reading a sentence of the forbidden books after coming here to save someone.
I hurriedly nodded.
“You seem to really enjoy reading.”
“I just happened to open the book before going to bed.”
Laches tossed the book towards the bed.
“Think of it as telling me stories like those fictional ones, Feel free to embellish.”
“….”
“As you know, even though everyone asked around, they still didn’t really know Reperentia.”
“…Yes, You were very reserved.”
He was the first person to be curious about my story, And it was the first time I had told my story to someone as a man.
Suddenly, memories of my childhood came flooding back.
“So, tell me anything. What you liked, or what your personality was like. I’ve never met you while you were alive.”
Laches whispered softly. What I liked, my personality.
The many years I spent at the Nirel Mansion and the miserable days came to mind.
I couldn’t help but smile bitterly.
“Do you not see? Your Lordship.”
“What?”
“You were foolish enough to be betrayed by your trusted fiancé and friend, and you suffered from an incurable illness without anyone to comfort you. Just seeing that shows how you lived your life.”
No matter how many times I revived, nothing changed. There was no one trying to save me, and I always died.
There was no one who treated me sincerely and cherished me, only those who deceived and exploited me.
“I didn’t fit in properly even during the social season, They said I was reserved, but that wasn’t true. I was just afraid of standing alone. But Lord Nirel, who was my only family, didn’t even know that. It shows how distant the two ladies were.”
“That’s not what I wanted to hear.”
“Until now, I had never confided in anyone about my miserable life.’’
Once I brought it up, it poured out like an unstoppable sandbag.
“You asked me earlier if I didn’t plan to save Lady Reperentia, didn’t you? Because she’s from the Guardian Family, and you wanted to save her?”
“…Please, stop it.”
My breath shook, I brought my hand to my chest, where my heart was pounding like mad. But it was futile to calm my stiffened heart with tension.
I took several deep breaths, but my rigid body wouldn’t loosen up.
“No, Your Grace. …There was no one who wished for Lady Reperentia to live. …This is the story of the Reperentia that I know…”
“Leah.”
Laches interrupted my words by calling my name.
He called my name for the first time.
When he called me in a low, deep tone, my mind suddenly cleared.
I am not Reperentia, I am Leah.
As my vision cleared from resentment, Laches’ face finally came into view.
His face was deeply wrinkled, as if he had suffered greatly, as if he had been seriously injured in battle.
“Leah.”
“He called me again, The intense emotions that had surged within me subsided instantly.’’
“The last words were wrong.”
It was a calm murmur, But the gaze upon me was not just warm; it was burning.
“No one wished for Reperentia to live.”
“What?”
Behind a futile question, a voice filled with certainty followed, imbued with strength.
“I did, I wished for Reperentia to live, Sincerely.”
“…Ah.”
“I didn’t know bringing up Reperentia’s story would distress you, Let’s stop this tale now.”
Laches helped me down from the desk and then took my wrist, leading me away.
“It’s late, I’ll handle the rest of the treatment, so let’s go.”
“Where…?”
Go where?
“To the bedroom where you should be.”
He opened the bedroom door and, still dazed, I followed him through the corridors.
Unlike the warmth of Nirel Mansion, a chilly wind swept through Violentus Castle.
I am not Reperentia Nirell.
I am a maid of Violentus Castle, Leah.
Laches stopped walking after a while, We were in front of my bedroom. He gestured lightly as if telling me to enter.
“Uh…”
But I was still in a daze, unable to do anything, just looking at Laches, who reached out his hand.
And he opened my bedroom door, Unbelievably warm air greeted me, unlike the chill of the north.
A roaring fire blazed in the fireplace.
“Well then, good night.”
Laches gently guided me into the bedroom and bid me a light farewell.
“See you tomorrow.”
The door closed with a bang.
I stood in front of the closed door, still standing there blankly.
“I wanted to save Reperentia, Sincerely.”
His words from earlier echoed in my ears.
A lie, He considered killing me.
“Go to the bedroom where you should be.”
Why would you say that to me?
“See you tomorrow.”
Why would someone like you talk to me about tomorrow?
