Chapter 13
“It’s been taken care of, Captain. He was released just a while ago, so he should arrive here before sunrise.”
Axel, Dimion’s adjutant and closest aide, gave a concise report. Dimion, sitting in the guestroom with a cigar in his mouth, gave a slight nod.
Freeing a wrongly imprisoned comrade was a simple matter for him—whether as Captain Lokata or Duke Lokata.
No matter how much money that nouveau riche baron—whether his name was Peet or Pest—had thrown around, it couldn’t stand against what Dimion held in his hand.
If Dimion decided to release someone, not even the Emperor could stop him. That was the power of the name Lokata, and also the reward for bearing the weight of that power.
“Hoo…”
A long breath escaped him as cigar smoke spread through the room.
His cool, calm eyes turned to the small piece of paper on the table.
It was a telegram he’d picked up in town before returning to the Count’s estate.
Because it had been labeled urgent, he’d assumed it contained military news. But when he received it, he found it was a report about the family elders.
It said the elders were desperately searching for a woman who resembled Feria, all in order to place her beside Dimion.
It was neither new nor surprising.
But a few details caught his attention this time.
Apparently, they were boasting that they’d finally found someone convincing enough to succeed this time. The woman had been found here, in the Dalupe region where Count Tian’s estate was located. And for some reason, one of the elders had even made contact with that nouveau riche baron—Peet or Pest or whatever.
The telegram, crammed to the edge with words, ended with a warning that the elders’ behavior seemed unusual and called for caution.
As soon as he finished reading it, Arte came to his mind. But he couldn’t be sure. Her hair color and eye color were different. For some unknown reason, Dimion alone saw traces of Feria in her, but objectively, she didn’t resemble Feria at all.
The old men who constantly harassed Dimion with their schemes had always been obsessed with brown hair and light brown eyes, so it was more likely that Arte wouldn’t have caught their attention.
However, the moment he arrived at the Count’s estate and followed Arte, his suspicions turned to certainty.
The fact that Baron Peet had stormed in, and her brother had been dragged away by the military police with his fingers cut off. That she needed money to free her brother and take revenge on the Peet family.
“I will serve as a substitute for Lady Darten.”
In exchange, she offered to act as Feria’s substitute and accompany Dimion.
The more he heard, the more it felt like puzzle pieces were falling into place.
The events of the past few days at the Count’s estate flashed before his eyes like a panorama.
He vividly remembered her face when she had begged for help after being attacked by Baron Peet’s second son. The shameless plea to help her, believing she was Feria, still echoed in his ears.
At the time, he had lost his reason at the mention of Feria’s name and hadn’t seen clearly, but thinking back now, it was entirely possible that she and the young Baron Peet had planned it all together.
One could argue that it was too much of a stretch to think she had sacrificed her brother’s fingers just to follow Dimion—but Dimion knew all too well how far human desire could go when it came to achieving a goal.
The elders were unrivaled when it came to dangling irresistible rewards, and they could easily sway someone like Arte.
And if one of the elders had approached Baron Peet, then the rest made sense. Those arrogant old men would never reach out to a rural parvenu without a purpose.
“…Nathan.”
Moreover, the fact that Marquis Rapsus was involved in the entire scheme solidified his certainty.
Nathan was one of the few people who had seen Feria’s face clearly.
Feria usually wore a large hat pulled low to cover her face. She only took it off when she was with Dimion.
Nathan, being Dimion’s closest friend, had seen her face up close a few times.
If Nathan had described Feria’s features and demeanor in detail—and had even insisted this was what it would take to lure Dimion—it was no wonder the rigid elders had abandoned their obsession with hair and eye color and chosen Arte instead.
Bringing Dimion to the Tian estate had been Nathan’s doing as well.
Dimion hadn’t planned on coming here in the first place. According to his original plan, he should have died at the ducal estate a few days ago.
He had planned to die. He had clung to life only because he’d remembered Feria’s tearful plea not to escape through death. But now, he was at his limit.
He had endured five years. That should’ve been enough.
He thought Feria would acknowledge his efforts, and he was ready to let go of life without regrets.
But Nathan had suddenly latched onto him.
Maybe it was the instinct of a comrade or the intuition of a longtime friend—he must have smelled death on Dimion.
Nathan had insisted on going with Dimion to the Tian estate, making up excuses.
He said an old friend from their academy days was struggling to sell his family’s land, and that having Duke Lokata visit would attract interest from other nobles, making the estate easier to sell. That way, their friend and fellow comrade wouldn’t end up on the streets—and Dimion had a moral duty to help.
Nathan had clung to him day after day, saying he had to come along, and Dimion eventually gave in.
It was uncharacteristically persistent behavior for Nathan, and Dimion had already found it suspicious. Assuming Nathan was complicit in the whole scheme made everything add up.
Nathan had long tried to persuade Dimion to let Feria go. He had begged him to forget and meet someone new, to start fresh.
And now that Nathan had caught wind of Dimion’s plans to put a bullet through his head, he must have done everything he could to keep Dimion in this world. Teaming up with the elders was all too plausible.
“Ha…”
As he pieced it all together, a bitter laugh escaped him. Realizing he’d been made into a pawn on a chessboard made him feel filthy.
“A portrait or photo that stays frozen in time can’t fill the void of longing, but a living doll is different. I can speak, move, and even be touched by you, Your Grace.”
Dimion remembered Arte placing his hand on her own face. Though her clear eyes radiated resolve, her delicate hand trembled like a leaf.
Had he met her without any prior information, he might have mistaken it for ordinary desperation. He might have even been fooled into thinking she was sincere.
That’s how much Arte reminded him of Feria.
He vividly remembered the moment he first saw Arte upon arriving.
He thought he was seeing a ghost. Standing before him was a much more mature Feria—it couldn’t possibly be real.
He thought the grief he had been unable to let go of had finally driven him mad. He believed it was a cruel mirage, for a dead lover could never return.
But the illusion didn’t fade. She looked at him with wide, round eyes, staring deeply into his soul.
“Feria?”
He had no choice but to call out, as if possessed. His heart raced at the thought that perhaps his desperate wish had created a miracle.
It was an absurd thought. The old Dimion would never have entertained such delusions.
But when it came to Feria, there was no limit to the foolish thoughts he could entertain.
Feria was that kind of person. The one who had cracked Dimion’s perfectly solid world.
She was the only one who could ever place Dimion—who reigned above all power—beneath her feet.
“Dimion.”
The ballooning anticipation shattered at the sound of Nathan’s quiet voice.
And then he finally saw.
It wasn’t straight brown hair—it was wavy silver hair. Not hazel eyes—but golden ones. Her hand bore no crest of House Darten—just bare skin.
“…”
An overwhelming sense of emptiness swept over him, but that was all.
The futile hope had crumbled. Realizing Feria was truly gone hurt—but it was a pain he’d long become accustomed to.
The real problem came afterward.
She wasn’t Feria, and he should have had no reason to give her a second glance. But Arte continued to shake Dimion in ways he hadn’t expected.
She claimed she had been seeing Dimion in her dreams for years, and that he had called her Feria—so she must be Feria.
Even after learning the truth, she continued to insist that she was Feria and begged for his help.
He didn’t want to admit it, but he had to.
Over the past few days, Arte had gotten under his skin.
