It’s nighttime. When he closes his eyes, it’s a night where Peon is overwhelmed by the hunger Kaela felt, her desperate craving for food, and the pain from organs that began to break down when food was suddenly cut off.
Even so, he dare not claim to fully understand the humiliation, degradation, and misery Kaela must have felt. He hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep. Even when he did sleep, in his dreams he was always looking down at Kaela’s corpse.
She was beyond thin, reduced to a pitiful state of just skin and bones. Her once beautiful face was completely ruined, and her luxuriant platinum blonde hair had all fallen out. Her frostbitten hands and feet were unbearable to look at.
Kaela, who should always have been most noble, wore only tattered everyday clothes as her shroud, along with his blood-soaked cloak. Her helpless husband could only look down powerlessly at her corpse each day, unable to even give her a proper burial in the frozen ground.
‘Having seen this much, shouldn’t I be used to it by now?’
He had seen countless corpses die and be mutilated in all sorts of ways.
He had been through numerous brutal battles, and in the end, he too was brutally murdered. He was familiar with death, and as humans are creatures of adaptation, he should have become numb to scenes he’d witnessed multiple times.
But Kaela’s death, her horrific corpse, he just couldn’t get used to it. Far from becoming familiar, each encounter struck him with intense shock, and grief and guilt swept through his entire body.
He begged to stop seeing it, tried desperately to wake up. He couldn’t bear how her lifeless blue eyes seemed to keep staring at him.
No, when he tried to face her, thinking it would be good if she at least looked at him that way, she was suddenly collapsed on the floor, only staring at the door.
Every day he saw his dead wife who couldn’t even have a proper funeral, every day he saw his living wife who only stared at death.
“Do you want me?”
Among the deaths he couldn’t get used to, the only clear thing was that she was beautiful.
“Why?”
A normal person like Kaela would never understand him throughout her life.
Because his desire, which kept growing even when suppressed, had already crossed the bounds of normalcy. It must be creepily disgusting. Since she had already noticed and asked the question despite his attempts to hide it, he had nothing to say.
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Peon smiled as he watched Kaela point this out clearly in her small voice.
“You’re right, it’s not an answer. You always clearly say when something isn’t right, even when you’re scared.”
After saying this, like an old habit, he worried if he had made a mistake – how did he know she was scared? Kaela flinched, clutching tightly at her blanket.
“That’s one of the many reasons why I want you.”
Many reasons?
“You’re surprised. Though it shouldn’t be that surprising.”
How did he know she was surprised? Kaela blinked. She was indifferent, just as he had been for four years.
It was so natural that Peon didn’t dare feel hurt by it. He only wondered if this was how Kaela had felt, and felt sorry.
“I know what I’m saying sounds absurd. It’s not even worth understanding to you.”
Because she wasn’t curious, and therefore still wouldn’t ask. Because she would continue to stay silent, ignore, and dismiss it. Just as Peon had done.
“That night when you came to me while I was sick, I didn’t mistake you for Beatrice.”
Even as he spoke, Peon dropped his head, disgusted with himself.
“At that time, for various reasons, my vision was clear and my judgment was accurate. Though it was only then, I knew who you were.”
His voice was completely hoarse, scraping the floor.
“I thought it was a dream. Because there was no way you would come to me.”
“But you called me Beatrice.”
Kaela whispered in a tiny voice, frozen still while clutching tightly at the bed sheets.
“Because you were a woman, I was checking since I thought she was the only woman who would come to me. But it was you.”
[Ah, it’s you.]
That’s why he smiled.
“I was happy it was you.”
Because he was happy in that moment, Peon was truly a shameless person. Kaela was confused by these unimaginable words.
“I… I don’t understand why…”
“It’s because I’m in this state. I’m sorry.”
The incompetent have no right to speak of love. So, since saying more would just be making excuses, Peon closed his mouth.
“Did you think it was a dream?”
When she first brought this up, Peon had asked ‘wasn’t that a dream?’ He nodded readily.
“Or maybe a hallucination. Since I’d taken a lot of medicine. It was too vivid to be a dream, so I figured it was more likely a hallucination, and I tried to forget it.”
“Why?”
Peon smiled, his face twisting.
“Because it was decided that I shouldn’t be like that.”
Over Peon’s incomprehensible words, Beatrice’s words about being enveloped in approaching death naturally overlapped:
[The innocent Kaela de Chasser had to die for the noble and righteous Grand Duke of Lusenford to become a sinner. He’s been my servant since he was young. That’s how I brainwashed him. So he could never escape.]
Ah. Kaela squeezed her eyes shut. Once again, she had unwillingly learned something she didn’t want to know.
“You’re talking about that black thing clouding your eyes, right?”
Peon silently nodded.
“Is it a spell?”
“A kind of.”
“Are you still under it?”
“Does it look like it?”
Instead of answering, Peon stared at her as he asked back. His eyes in the blue moonlight were beyond clear, so piercingly bright that they seemed to have lost focus, as if deviating from their normal orbit.
“No. But it seems more dangerous now.”
“You have good instincts.”
He smiled. Even that smile was chilling, like that of a predator. But strangely, it wasn’t frightening.
Perhaps because they were of the same kind, both nursing similar wounds alone. Of course, he was a predator, and Kaela was probably less than a herbivore that should run away at the sight of him.
“Is it bad that I have good instincts?”
“No, of course not.”
She was so intelligent that she could grasp the big picture from just a few clues, especially regarding Peon’s matters, which was why she had kept her mouth shut and covered her eyes, trying not to know even the clues. Though now she had learned them unavoidably.
“You’re perfect just as you are.”
Looking at such a Kaela with his pure gaze, feeling her presence, Peon was furiously frustrated at wasting four years without even attempting to speak to her once – she was perfect.
“I’m sorry. This must be unpleasant.”
But since this was the only conclusion left for him, he just had to turn away.
His feelings were too hideous and creepy to show before Her Highness the Princess who had barely survived. Even though he was crazy, he could at least distinguish that much.
“It’s not unpleasant.”
He only moved his eyes to look back at her muttering quietly to herself, hearing every word.
“Not anymore…strangely.”
“Really?”
At his gentle question, Kaela, who had been curled up hugging her knees, lifted her head with a shudder. The man, his head tilted back, was looking at her languidly. Though the distance was the same, somehow she felt as if he had already caught her.
“Then, are you scared?”
The man looking at her now, no, targeting her, was clearly not human. It was just his instinct seizing an opportunity and showing a bit of its force, but even that was enough to give off a dangerous aura beyond human.
“I’m not scared.”
Kaela shot back, putting strength in her eyes.
“Don’t provoke me, Kaela. Because right now I want to beg you to buy my body.”
Did he not understand why the lady who had always been silent was deliberately saying she wasn’t uncomfortable in this situation?
Peon, who knew Kaela too well, deliberately relaxed all his muscles even more. His nerves were instantly grated by her clumsy provocation, making his mouth go dry.
“I don’t want to appear any more pathetic to you. Please just tell me to get lost.”
Ah, dangerous. His dragon’s brain was already rolling toward dangerous territory, rationalizing that perhaps she too might have developed even a little desire, no, even just curiosity.
Peon, unable to move without Kaela’s permission, rubbed his face with his hands, hoping for an order to leave. He couldn’t hold back any longer.
“How much? I have lots of money this time.”
She shouldn’t say such things in a voice so calm it seemed tinged with sorrow.
Peon covered his mouth, steadied his breath, then turned and instantly closed the distance that had been far. Reaching her smoothly as if sliding, he bent down politely and tenderly.
“The first night, pay as much as you’re satisfied with, and the next night is free. I’m cheap, you see.”
Her thin arms, hesitating and faltering, finally reached out to wrap around his neck. Peon willingly fell downward.
****
A long illness wears people down. Of course, in the Empress’s case, the patient never complained or spoke of pain, but for the Emperor who had only ever walked on red carpets, it was exhausting enough.
When she first collapsed, he was so tender and worried that he stayed by her side constantly, but now the Emperor gradually reduced his visits to the Empress’s bedroom where she slept.
Still, he visited more than three times a day, but he often avoided looking directly at the Empress. Every time he saw the Empress and looked in the mirror, he felt increasingly self-loathing.
The Empress seemed like glory he could never obtain, making him both miserable and angry. So the Emperor increasingly sought others. The Emperor’s bedroom was messily crowded.
Young women who flattered him, saying he was still young and handsome, came and went. Sometimes delicate men entered too, where he could vent his anger and feel masculine superiority.
“Your Majesty?”
When the Emperor, whose mood was thoroughly ruined from now needing medicine’s help, suddenly stood up staggering, today’s partner, face swollen, carefully called out to him.
Though he feared the Emperor might hit him again, the Emperor just waved his hand dismissively as if saying don’t bother me, and stumbled out.
The door quietly opened, and even when the Emperor appeared in extremely disheveled attire, reeking of alcohol and medicine, the knights and servants guarding the door showed no reaction.
The Emperor dragged his robe, walking with steps so unsteady it made onlookers anxious, toward where the Empress slept.
With a thud, he opened the door and, leaning against the wall, staggered inside and yanked the curtain hiding the bed as if to tear it. The Empress’s face with closed eyes was barely visible.
“You… you vulgar woman…”
The Emperor grabbed the curtain while swaying. There was a ripping sound as the curtain tore slightly.
“How dare you lie there protesting while your husband is wide awake…”
His slurred voice rambled on, repeating the same words he always did.
“What can you do about it? Whenever you get the chance, you only think about chasing other men, leaving your husband behind…”
Making a strange sound that could have been either laughter – “hee, heehee” – or breathlessness, the Emperor mumbled.
“Serves you right. You’ll die here, that’s where you’ll die. How great did you think you were? You’ll end up here no matter what.”
His usually dignified manner of speaking had completely disappeared, and with his half-bare body, he chuckled, his face flushed red.
“Stop lying there so arrogantly and get up right now. Before I strangle your son’s neck. Even that brat crawls flat and licks my feet, so who are you to… Ah, not getting up?”
His voice, hoarse with phlegm, suddenly shouted.
“How dare you keep your head held high and disobey the godlike Emperor for 29 years! This isn’t just anything else, this is treason, treason! You dare to not age alone using wicked magic learned from beasts, you whore who only thinks about defiling your body disgustingly…!”
The Emperor, who had been spewing all sorts of curses and insults with flying spittle, gasped in surprise. The Empress’s bright face, lying quietly regardless of what he said, began to fade dimly. Like a ghost becoming transparent, she started to disappear like flickering light.
“Uh, ugh…!”
It was an impossible sight.
The Emperor bulged his eyes and reached out to touch the Empress’s face, but when his hand passed right through her face without being able to grab it, he was shocked almost to the point of fainting. The Empress continued to flicker like light on the bed, becoming increasingly transparent.
“He-hey! Someone come in! Right now!”
Sweat ran down the Emperor’s forehead as he frantically screamed and groped at the bed. Nothing could be grabbed, and the Empress was no longer visible. The door opened and servants rushed in.
“Your Majesty, did you call?”
“The Em-Empress has disappeared! The Empress has disappeared!”
“Pardon?”
“Call the magicians! Bring Beatrice to the palace! Find the Empress!”
“Your Majesty, Your Majesty, please calm down.”
The Emperor, out of his mind and foaming at the mouth in panic, rolled his bloodshot eyes.
“Calm down? The Empress is missing!”
“Isn’t Her Majesty the Empress lying right there? Please look.”
“That’s what I’m saying, she disappeared from the bed! Can’t you see!”
“Your Majesty is holding Her Majesty the Empress right now.”
At the servant’s respectful words, the Emperor looked again. The Empress was lying there normally as usual. The Emperor felt the Empress’s shoulder. He could touch her. She had somehow returned to his hands.
“Em-Empress, Empress! Evelyn! Evelyn!”
Whether it was drunken rambling or hallucinations from drugs, the Emperor kept calling the Empress’s name repeatedly.
