Chapter 114
When I opened my eyes again in the real world, Aziz was already gone.
“He really… just left like that…?”
I swept my gaze around in a daze. But there was no trace of anyone anywhere.
Aziz had truly vanished.
“Ugh…”
At that moment, Suleiman let out a small groan and opened his eyes.
He pushed himself up in bed, pressing a hand to his forehead as if he had a headache.
“You’re awake, Suleiman.”
“Ishtar?”
After noticing me belatedly, Suleiman let out a hollow sigh and muttered,
“What on earth happened? I remember collapsing at the residence… but after that, I can’t remember anything at all.”
“It seems your curse temporarily grew stronger. You don’t have to worry anymore. The curse has lost all its power.”
I answered in a confident tone.
I didn’t know the exact reason, but I understood clearly on an instinctive level.
That Suleiman had finally been completely freed from the curse.
“If that’s true, that’s incredible. No one had ever found a solution to that curse.”
Nodding, I opened my palm and looked down at it.
An unusual energy was overflowing inside my body. It was something I knew well—Aziz’s power.
After he disappeared, it felt as though his strength had been absorbed into me.
“But Ishtar, why are you here alone? Where did Aziz go?”
“He…”
I looked past Suleiman’s slightly irritated face to the spot where Aziz had been.
Then, with a sad smile, I quietly spoke.
“Aziz has left.”
“What? Where to?”
“To a place where both his body and soul can be free.”
Suleiman’s eyes widened. He must have realized what my words meant.
Feeling as though I might burst into tears, I stood up and flung open the curtains.
Brilliant, clear morning sunlight poured into the dark room.
And so, a new day was beginning in the world once more.
Time passed quickly, and several weeks went by.
People found it hard to believe that Aziz had suddenly disappeared.
But under the direction of the High Priest, who had known this would happen, the matter was settled swiftly.
It was arranged as though he had gone on a very long journey, and no funeral or formal procedures were held.
I protested at first, but after hearing the High Priest explain that this was what Aziz himself had wanted, I was finally able to understand.
After Aziz left, great changes also came to Suleiman and me.
I was able to return to being human instead of a cat, and I obtained even greater holy power.
The time I could remain human became much longer as well; unless I was extremely exhausted, I no longer transformed into a cat.
Meanwhile, Suleiman recovered his health quickly.
According to him, the light seizures and bouts of poor condition he used to have had completely disappeared, and he felt far healthier than before.
Even to me, the energy within his body seemed overflowing—beyond what could be called normal.
“Well, he was fine even when he was suffering from a curse most people couldn’t endure.”
Now that he was completely free of it, how energetic must he be?
But Suleiman was pouring all that vitality into bringing forward his coronation as sultan.
As if that were his only goal.
He had always been a workaholic, but lately he was practically glued to his work all week long.
Watching him act like someone who didn’t even know what rest was, I couldn’t help but sigh.
“Honestly, he’s so stubborn.”
He truly had no idea how to take care of himself.
It was as if he had never learned how in the first place.
One morning, having decided I should say something at least once, I spoke to him.
“Suleiman, even if you’re healthy, you should still take care of yourself. If you keep working day and night like this, you’ll collapse.”
“There’s something I really want to do before I become sultan. For that, I need to finish the preparations quickly.”
“Huh? Before you become sultan?”
Normally, wouldn’t people have things they want to do after becoming king?
But no matter how much I pressed him, he absolutely refused to answer.
“Sigh… fine. How would I understand what a future king is thinking anyway?”
Letting out a deep sigh, I shook my head inwardly.
How could someone with such an utterly ordinary mind like mine ever fully understand him?
“Besides, that’s not even the main problem right now.”
In truth, there was something much bigger for me than Suleiman becoming sultan.
It was that I had inherited the work Aziz used to do.
“I heard you’ve been busy lately too. Is the work manageable?”
Letting out a huge sigh, I replied with a gloomy face.
“…It’s driving me crazy. Starting with the palace barrier, there’s so much to manage. If the High Priest weren’t helping me, it would’ve been a disaster.”
Aziz, whom I thought did nothing but laze around every day, had actually had far more responsibilities than I’d imagined.
The most important among them was guarding the barrier stones spread throughout the palace, especially around the Sultan’s Palace.
One of the guardian’s main roles was to infuse these top-secret barrier stones with holy power and maintain them so they wouldn’t be damaged.
And cooperating with such a guardian and taking on the external role—the role of religious leader—was the High Priest.
“Don’t worry about me. Take care of yourself first. You’ve been turning into a cat more often at night lately. You said it happens when you use too much holy power.”
“Ugh, well…”
After absorbing Aziz’s power, I hadn’t been able to properly control the sudden increase in holy energy.
The High Priest said I would get used to it with time, but…
To wield such enormous power freely would probably take a lot of effort.
“I should’ve learned more from Aziz while I had the chance…”
I fiddled with the blue jewel hanging around my neck.
It was the first and last gift Aziz had given me.
I had turned it into a necklace to remember him by, and I wore it from time to time when I thought of him.
Knowing this, Suleiman gently pulled me into his arms and said,
“I’m sorry. I must’ve said something strange.”
“No, it’s fine. I just think of him sometimes. Even saying goodbye to him at the end feels like a dream.”
“Goodbye?”
I then explained in detail what had happened while Suleiman was unconscious—the strange world where I met Aziz before he disappeared, and how Ashtar had appeared and taken his soul.
Until now, things had been too hectic for me to tell him properly.
After hearing everything, Suleiman couldn’t hide his surprise.
“So that really happened… That’s incredible. Then it’s thanks to Aziz that I was able to meet you, Ishtar.”
“I’m surprised. I thought you’d be skeptical about things like that—prophecies, gods, and all that. You don’t really like those.”
“If it’s about you, I can’t help but believe it. The fact that we met like this is already a miracle.”
Suleiman pulled me closer and pressed his lips to my forehead.
Each of his movements was gentle and careful, as though he were handling something sacred, and it made me feel shy for no reason.
And just as he lowered his head to kiss me—
Knock, knock.
There was a knock at the door.
“Someone from the Sultan’s Palace is here. Shall I tell them to wait?”
“…Their timing is unbelievably bad.”
Frowning, he reluctantly let go of me and headed for the door.
He flung it open, as if to find out personally what this was about.
“If you’ve come to call me now, it had better be something important.”
Even from afar, I could see the palace attendants flinch and step back under his pressure.
“Poor things…”
I knew exactly how it felt to be on the receiving end of Suleiman’s intimidating stare.
Just as I expected, the most visibly trembling attendant handed him something that looked like a letter.
“I-I was only ordered by His Majesty to deliver this to Lady Ishtar.”
“His Majesty?”
Receiving the letter, he came back to me and handed it over.
It was short and written in his own hand.
“What does it say, Ishtar?”
“It says, ‘Come see me whenever you have time.’ That’s all.”
Since I happened to be free that day, I decided to go with the person from the Sultan’s Palace.
Suleiman, who already had plenty of grievances against Huirrem, added that I didn’t have to go if I didn’t want to, but meeting her wasn’t much of a burden to me anymore.
“I’ll be back, Suleiman.”
“All right. Let’s do what we couldn’t just now this evening.”
He brushed his lips regretfully against my temple.
The casual intimacy, as though he didn’t care who was watching, made the palace messenger gape in shock.
But the people of the prince’s residence were already long used to Suleiman’s behavior and paid no attention.
Sighing, I lightly jabbed his side with my elbow as if to tell him to behave, then left the room first.
