Is poison medicine? Of course, for Kaela it was medicine.
“It’s medicine for me. Give it to me.”
Speaking blankly with a lifeless face, she weakly extended her hand. Peon took her hand, kissed it, and held it.
“It’s not medicine, it’s poison, Kaela. It’s not good for your body. You need to get healthy.”
“What does that matter? It’s mine.”
“I threw it away.”
“Why? It’s mine. Give it to me!”
The woman who had been listless all along raised her voice for the first time. She huffed despite not having the strength to do so. In the end, the only thing she put emotion into was matters related to death. That’s why Peon tried not to furrow his brow.
“It’s gone. Even if I had it, I wouldn’t give it to you. I can’t.”
Exhaling a faint breath tremblingly, Kaela glared at him with intense eyes, even with a gaunt face. Her fine eyebrows contorted as if about to cry.
“Why? Why, why are you doing this? Just say I died from illness. No one will blame anyone. Or you can lie and say I’m alive even if I’m dead.”
“No, Kaela. You dying is unacceptable in itself.”
He spoke the words that appeared in her eyes.
“Yes. My circumstances are none of your business. I know. That’s why I told you, Kaela. Live resenting me for the rest of your life.”
He never spoke empty words to Kaela. He said this after fully understanding and preparing for the weight of his words.
“Then at least cut off my consciousness. It’s enough if I’m just breathing, right? Like Her Majesty the Empress, you can make me like that, can’t you?”
She clung to the Empress’s son, who was gradually hardening, and chose only words that would hurt him. She wanted to scratch that clean face of his all by herself.
She wanted to hurt this selfish man who made her want to die, yet forbade her from dying as she pleased.
To Kaela, he was once love, a fate that came without the ability to resist. But to Peon, she was just a strategic marriage partner with use value.
“Then there would still be use value, right? Wouldn’t it be easier to just lie there without speaking?”
The feelings too overwhelming to bear alone eventually gave birth to hatred. Peon had no obligation to reciprocate Kaela’s feelings just because she liked him. She knew that. That wasn’t why she resented him.
It was because of his selfishness in not treating her like a person when she was thrown in as a Grand Duchess with no title or inheritance, yet shamelessly marrying her and keeping her alive to fully utilize the value of the wealthy Princess of Ostein after saving her father.
So she wanted to hurt him badly. As she had been hurt, she wanted to make him shed tears of blood while clutching his torn heart. Kaela thought she wouldn’t have been this angry if Peon had just given her the poison.
“You don’t like seeing me interfere here and there like before I regressed, right? Just lay me down so I can’t do anything. It’s convenient for both of us, isn’t it?”
She threw words that a man who saw her merely as a strategic marriage partner and chess piece would nod and agree to, hoping such a man would be deeply hurt. And ignoring her own contradictions, she glared at him.
“I envy Her Majesty the Empress so much. How comfortable she must be, sleeping without knowing anything. I’m so envious. I wish I could be like that too.”
This was all their relationship amounted to anyway. Peon was too big an existence for her.
He was one of the axes that held and shook her entire life and fate. To Peon, Kaela must be an annoying and troublesome consumable that now even dares to trample on the forbidden realm of his precious mother.
“You’re a dragon, aren’t you? If dying isn’t allowed, can’t you at least do that much? It’s simple.”
That was the maximum malice Kaela could muster. Her chest heaved greatly just from raising her voice a little.
“Kaela.”
Her husband, who wouldn’t give her poison and wouldn’t let her hang herself or harm herself with a knife, didn’t get angry.
“I can do anything for you except let you be sick or die. Please stop thinking about hurting yourself, and think about breaking me instead. Order me to live my whole life enduring torture you can’t even imagine. Tell me to live as the most wretched dog, suffering humiliation. Come on.”
The crazy dragon could do anything. But Kaela, with her eyes wide open, still didn’t say a word. Her silence was a dagger.
“I can feel pain too, and I know what shame is. So please, tell me anything but to kill you. Anything but that.”
More than physical torture, Kaela asking to be killed without even anger towards him was the greatest torture and tearing pain for Peon.
It stung and hurt so much that he wanted to tear his body apart and break his bones to forget this pain. He had actually tried it, but still couldn’t find anything more painful than Kaela asking to be killed.
This pain eventually drove him back to madness. Kaela, who punished him just by existing, kept her mouth shut and then inhaled tremblingly. Peon swallowed his own pain without showing it and hurriedly cupped her cheek.
“Don’t cry. I’m sorry.”
Rubbing her dry cheeks that no longer cried from crying too much before dying, he apologized again.
“I was wrong. I’m sorry. Don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying.”
Let go of this. Kaela tried to grab his wrist with her weak hand and pull it down, but her hand slipped instead.
“I’m sorry.”
I can never give you the medicine. I can’t let you die. I’m sorry for only doing this now. I’m sorry for being a husband who only cared about your use value. I’m sorry for never properly looking back at you and not listening to you. I’m sorry for making you want to die.
“I’m sorry.”
It was cowardly and ugly. For holding on despite being so ugly, for trying to be hurt faithfully to her intention to hurt him as much as possible, but feeling it wasn’t enough in Peon’s way, he was sorry and sorry again.
“So don’t cry.”
“I said I’m not crying.”
Not shedding tears doesn’t mean you’re not crying. Kaela cried without wetting her cheeks. She trembled with tears filling her whole body and exhaled a few wet breaths.
She managed not to let tears fall from her reddened eyes. She just held it in tightly, knowing there was no benefit in crying. He had coincidentally seen her crying without tears like that, crouched in a corner where no one knew.
If a much younger Kaela was crying, he should have comforted her. Peon wanted to beat his past self who had just watched silently and turned away.
He shouldn’t have rationalized his own actions according to the taboo with logic like she had to figure it out on her own even if adapting was difficult.
When such a small, young woman was crying, he should have comforted her even if he had to split his time.
Even a passing orphan would have cared, let alone a younger sister and wife he had known for so long. Damn bastard. Would things have been different if he had comforted her then? Was there no way he could have rebelled against the taboo even once?
He wanted to go back. He wanted to go back and comfort her crying. No, he wanted to make it so she had no reason to cry at all. He had come back with such desperate desire, yet she was still trembling because of him, crying without shedding a single tear.
“I’m sorry.”
So all he could do was apologize. With completely reddened eyes, Kaela insisted that she wasn’t crying. And she whined like a child.
“Give me the medicine. Give me my medicine.”
Because she knew it was the only way to cruelly scratch him. Knowing that it was impossible to die in front of Peon, Kaela was attempting a rebellion she had never tried before.
“I told you I threw it away.”
Peon murmured while stroking her dry cheek. When would she properly pour out and cry the tears that were brimming and overflowing inside her?
“Why?”
She should have practiced rebellion to be good at it. Kaela clung to the man who wouldn’t budge even when pushed and asked like a child.
“Why are you doing this?”
It wasn’t just asking why he wouldn’t give her the medicine. Including all of that, it was a fundamental question of why he was doing things he never used to do. This woman was finally asking that question.
“Why are you doing this to me? I’m nothing, aren’t I?”
The eyelashes and lips of the princess, who casually uttered self-deprecation, trembled. But tears never leaked out.
“Indeed.”
He kissed her pale forehead.
“Why would I be holding onto a woman who’s nothing, not letting her die, sleeping with her every night, carefully watching everything she eats, and even staying awake all the time for her sake, which I’ve never done before in my life?”
The son of the dragon, who was clearly becoming more dangerous and less human every time he faced her since then, muttered.
“Why did I regress?”
He closed her eyes, which were wet but desperately swallowing back tears, and kissed her eyelids too.
“I’m glad you’re at least curious, Kaela.”
Peon smiled beautifully, as if he was truly happy about that.
****
Some people never tell lies that will eventually be exposed, but some choose to tell such lies.
‘It’s fine as long as you don’t get caught.’
Beatrice couldn’t understand why people didn’t do such an easy thing.
As a result of choosing that easy path, she had been able to comfortably utilize her position as the daughter of the Duke of Monde for years – a fresh position with all kinds of possibilities open and no responsibilities yet.
At the same time, she had firmly grasped the social world without an empress with her beauty, so she could subtly avoid the annoying marriage pressures that had been pouring on noble ladies until now. She was everyone’s lover, after all.
“Why don’t you get married?”
So, even when faced with a crisis where her lie might be exposed, she had to endure without batting an eye.
“How dare you tell me what to do? How rude. Haven’t you learned any manners?”
When Beatrice spoke sharply in a low voice and raised her eyes, young ladies couldn’t make a peep, and foolish gentlemen quickly apologized.
But this human who claimed to be the person in charge from an unheard-of company called Insenidraken responded nonchalantly.
“This is being quite polite. I’m using honorifics and even suggesting a solution. Where can you find such a kind creditor?”
“You just spoke informally.”
“‘Sir’.”
The man who smiled and added the missing honorific had an ordinary appearance but somehow looked extremely dangerous.
Unlike the men who had always been flattered by her mere gaze, this man who smirked at her from the start and first asked ‘when will you pay the money’ was clearly not a nobleman.
Beatrice held the belief that all men were the same whether they were nobles, commoners, or back-alley thugs, so she wasn’t afraid of this man. But she was oddly displeased.
“How is that a solution?”
“Then what else is there? Your father, the Duke of Monde, has been ill for 10 years and doesn’t show his face.”
“I am my father’s proxy.”
This company, which had taken over all of Duke Monde’s debts and become the new creditor, wanted to meet Duke Monde. What would they do if they met him? They would just demand repayment of debts like they were doing to Beatrice now.
So Beatrice had no choice but to step in. Her mother, the Duchess of Monde, was in no condition to appear as she had been living with alcoholism lately, and her father, who was in the basement of Monde Castle, obviously couldn’t come out.
“Imperial law isn’t that simple, Miss. The debtor is your father, and even if you bring such a proxy document, the debt still needs to be repaid.”
“I’m paying the interest, aren’t I?”
Beatrice said irritably.
“Even that has been irregular and insincere.”
“It’s surprising to hear someone who just plays with money talk about sincerity.”
She laughed as if it was amusing.
“Such things aren’t important to nobles.”
In fact, there were some who were so honored just by the fact that the daughter of the Duke of Monde owed them money that they didn’t know what to do.
Beatrice acted as if being connected to her in any way was some great privilege. So there were quite a few creditors who completely wrote off the debt and settled it cleanly.
Of course, there were also those who made dirty demands without knowing their place, using that as bait. She made sure such men met appropriate ends.
That too was a decent way of settling debts. But the man in front of her was immune to both approaches. Despite having the air of a back-alley thug, he invoked imperial law.
“For someone like that, you’ve been quite diligent in accruing debt, Miss. I’m diligent in getting money back. If you’ve spent money, you should pay it back. By any means necessary.”
Even after settling small debts incurred under the Duke of Monde’s name, the amount was still enormous. No, honestly, it was impossible to repay.
But what did that matter? She was a noble, and she would become an even more precious existence.
Covering up and settling debts was something for underlings to take care of. They should either cover it up on their own, or gratefully accept whatever she deigned to throw their way and back off. Questioning like this was impudent.
Above all, making her feel ashamed like this crossed a line.
“Why did you buy up all our debts?”
It was convenient to deal with when they were scattered here and there, plugging up one hole when they complained here, and another when they complained there. And since they were spread out little by little, naturally the interest on each was small.
But this company, which had cleaned up and taken control of all the Duke of Monde’s debts while Beatrice was in Lusenford, was impossible to figure out who the owner was.
“What do you want?”
Beatrice hated beating around the bush. She just wanted to quickly give and take what was necessary and be done with it. She didn’t want to waste precious time in such an unpleasant place. She was really busy. A big event was approaching fast.
“What else would a creditor want besides debt?”
The man retorted as if she was asking something obvious.
“83 million Liquette. Pay it back. Including interest.”
It was an absurd number. She wanted to argue how they could play with numbers like this, how it could go up to 83 million Liquette, not even Dinars. But somehow she had an ominous feeling that she might have actually borrowed that much.
“Sell the castle, sell the townhouse, sell the villa. Get married to a good family and bring in some money too. If you sort it out properly, it should work. Don’t you have more than enough paintings and jewels?”
“I need these things to marry into a good family!”
“Then you can sell them after you get married.”
The only sources of money for nobles were business or strategic marriages. This man, despite being vulgar, seemed to know quite a bit about the noble world.
“Let me see Duke Monde. You don’t seem to want to get married, and a daughter’s marriage is her parents’ responsibility. Besides, as a creditor, I can’t neglect to check on the debtor’s health condition.”
They had been going back and forth with the same words for several minutes. To cover up one lie well, Beatrice told another lie.
“I do have someone I could marry.”
