Chapter : 44
Blood flowing from Regis’s body spread over him, raising his body temperature.
Thud. Thud. Thud—
A heart hammered at a rapid pace. At first she thought it was Regis’s heartbeat. It wasn’t. It was her own.
<It is your burden. Make sure the price is paid properly, Clemence!>
The hair-raising transmission scraped across her ears. It was the same voice she’d heard earlier.
<Because of you, Regis Euriel will die. Still, do you truly intend to pass your share onto that man?!>
What on earth was that?
So many things assaulted her at once that Cassielope couldn’t think straight.
“Ugh…”
A terrible headache washed over her. The pain felt like her skull would split, and Cassielope reeled. She held Regis’s unconscious body tightly so she wouldn’t drop him.
“Your Majesty, are you all right?”
Ian lifted Regis, who had collapsed into her arms. Even then, Cassielope just stared blankly into space. The strange transmitted voice had already stopped—but she couldn’t shake it.
She stood frozen, slowly replaying the transmission in her head.
‘Because of me, Regis will die.’
Because she had shifted the burden she was meant to bear onto Regis.
…My burden?
What was the price that had to be paid properly? She thought about it for a few short beats but couldn’t reach a clear conclusion. There was far too little information to understand the meaning.
‘Regis….’
Her gaze fixed on Regis.
“It’s not something he wanted people to see… it’s more like… a habit…”
Regis knew something. And he had tried desperately to hide it from her. And…
‘Ian is the same.’
As soon as he entered the study, Regis had shouted that the Regis she knew wasn’t himself anymore, that seeing blood would make him more frenzied. Ian had handled him as if he understood.
Ian had very skillfully laid him down on the sofa. Watching that scene blankly, Cassielope shot Ian a glance.
“Tell me what you know.”
“…….”
“Everything. Not a single thing omitted.”
While bandaging Regis’s wounds, Ian looked back at Cassielope as if in difficulty. He hesitated, then spoke.
“……I cannot tell you.”
“……You cannot tell me.”
It was an answer Cassielope had never heard from Ian in all the years he’d been at her side. His loyalty to her had been conspicuously steadfast.
“Did the Duke order Regis to say that?”
“……I won’t deny it. But if that were all, I would have told you everything already. The things I cannot tell you are all for Your Majesty’s sake.”
“……Ian.”
“If you punish me for disobeying orders, I will accept it. But even if you do, you will not be able to find out anything from me.”
Silence fell. Ian answered quietly, then continued treating Regis. Though he hadn’t been versed in medicine before, his hands were practiced—as if he had done this many times.
“Then I’ll ask another way.”
“……Ask.”
“Is the reason you can’t tell me because Regis will die in your stead?”
He flinched. Ian’s body stilled as if that were the correct answer. His upward glance asked how she had known. Cassielope just stared, and Ian’s voice resonated calmly.
“I don’t know everything. The Duke had been suffering from his fits even before I knew—his episodes used to be about every ten days, but the cycle shortened dramatically.”
“…….”
“Whether you call it a fit or something else… the Duke himself called it a rampage. Seeing another’s blood makes it worse.”
After wrapping Regis’s shoulder with bandages, Ian rolled up his sleeve. Beneath the collar that had covered it were countless wounds. They hadn’t healed yet, as if recent.
“If he feels physical pain, the rampages subside. So whenever signs appear, he stabs his own body with a blade.”
“……ha.”
A bitter laugh escaped Cassielope’s mouth—not from derision but because his body was covered in so many wounds. To carry on as if nothing were wrong in that state was… absurd.
“How foolish.”
How much had he tried to wound himself? Would he not be satisfied until every part of his body bore a blade wound?
Cassielope ground her teeth.
“……and it seems Your Majesty’s wounds and ailments are all transferring.”
Ian glanced at Cassielope’s hand—a perfectly intact hand without any cuts. But on Regis’s palm, which had never before been cut by a blade, there was a long laceration. It was the hand that had touched Cassielope’s cheek earlier.
‘Then could it be…’
Her face drained of color as if she might collapse. She approached Regis without hesitation and unbuttoned his shirt. After undoing the last button, she squeezed her eyes shut and opened his shirt.
Please—let it not be.
Her eyelids trembled. As if hypnotized, Cassielope reached toward Regis. Her hand began to shake at the sight of the scar located in the same place where she had been wounded.
“This is…”
“It’s a wound you received while on the battlefield. I thought it odd. He hadn’t left the study for three days, yet there was flesh torn away.”
“…….”
“It was just a guess. But on closer inspection something was off. Your insomnia and tinnitus worsened. Those symptoms matched completely—which is hardly coincidence. When I asked the palace physician, he said it coincided with the time Your Majesty was healed.”
Cassielope’s lips trembled as if she wanted to say something, then closed again.
“I couldn’t be certain because I hadn’t seen it firsthand. But my guess seems to be right.” Ian continued calmly as he applied ointment to Regis’s palm.
“I have never heard that the Duke would die in Your Majesty’s stead. I was only told this: that doing so would ensure Your Majesty’s safety.”
“Ha ha…”
Cassielope spat a bitter laugh and brushed her face with her hand. Not only because she was about to contort her expression completely before Ian, but because she had no idea how she herself must look right now.
“Is that even possible…?”
Wounds and ailments transferring—does that make sense? She wanted to deny it, but the revealed truth was too clear.
“I don’t know how it’s done. But one thing is certain: it was all what Duke Euriel wanted.”
“Then why on earth would he want that?”
She knew Ian had no answer, yet the edge in her voice slipped out before she could stop it. Cassielope clenched Regis’s collar so hard her knuckles whitened.
Regis. What exactly are you hiding from me?
Even if she asked, he wouldn’t answer. If he’d been willing to speak, he would have done so long ago.
Crunch—
She bit the inside of her cheek hard and tasted iron. There was no other way to stop the tears that threatened to spill.
“You were going to hide all of this from me until the end, weren’t you?”
“……I regret the Duke, but my liege is Your Majesty. If only one of you can live, I would choose Your Majesty without hesitation.”
“Yes, you would.”
Because she knew that, Regis had given Ian some hint.
‘And I didn’t even realize…’
She had only wanted to hate Regis. How foolish and ignorant.
Cassielope gently moved her hand to brush over Regis’s wounds. That he had tried so desperately to hide everything from her was pitiful beyond words.
What do you want, Regis?
What future are you drawing—what could there possibly be in it?
