Chapter 35
The kiss stretched on helplessly.
It was because Amelia, recognizing the identity of the audacious intruder, had wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close. The two bodies intertwined as if dancing, moving as one. Their movement only ceased when Amelia’s legs bumped into the edge of the bed, causing them to tumble onto it.
Their lips finally parted, lingering, and their foreheads pressed together. Amelia stared into his darkened green eyes and reached out a hand. Ivan, who had placed strength into his waist and arms to keep from fully leaning on her, rubbed his cheek against her soft palm without hesitation.
“Ivan,” she whispered his name.
Ivan didn’t respond. But the gaze pouring down on her face whispered silently that he was listening.
“…”
Yet, no words followed. She was confused. Where should she begin? What should she say? There were so many things she had wanted to ask him—so many that they’d all tangled in her throat.
“…I missed you.”
That was all she could manage.
The emotion rising in her chest made her lips tremble involuntarily.
“I know.”
Ivan’s reply was brief, but it didn’t feel like a casual or evasive answer. It carried certainty—clear and solid.
“Why didn’t you come back?”
Amelia’s voice brimmed with unspoken resentment.
“Why did you let me believe you were dead…”
It was the torment of all those moments she had spent mourning him.
He should have disappeared without a trace, bearing everything alone. But he had drawn her in, let her love him, only to vanish and leave her to die with him. If only she had known his heart sooner. If only, before hiding from the inevitable, he had whispered to her—
I like you. I love you.
Since the birth of Ian, she hadn’t been able to say those words to Ivan. Countless times, they had pierced her throat like thorns.
“I thought you were really dead. I thought I’d never, never see you again…”
Tears traced down Amelia’s temple. Her face, not even trying to hide its sorrow, looked heartbreakingly fragile. Just one year—only a year had passed. But the once-young girl was gone. Whether time or suffering had changed her, Ivan could not say.
“After that, it was difficult to return to the temple,” he said quietly.
“…”
“All priests who acted even slightly against custom were stripped of status and expelled. Borrowing anyone’s identity was impossible.”
Ivan laid out his reasoning calmly. There was no flaw in his explanation.
“And the reason I went to the temple in disguise…”
He paused.
Of course Ivan knew. He knew all the questions swirling in Amelia’s heart.
Why had he approached her under false pretenses?
Why had he spent that night with her?
Why had he disappeared afterward?
And why, of all things, had he returned only to take Ian away?
“To expose the temple’s weakness.”
His pale, shining eyes locked onto her dark ones. It seemed he wanted to read her reaction.
“I hate the temple. Especially priestesses.”
“…Why?” Amelia asked, stammering without realizing, her hand grabbing Ivan’s arm beside her head.
“The temple has used the existence of the priestess to fuel conflict with the Imperial family. They claimed an immortal representative of God stood with the high nobility.”
Ivan whispered.
Amelia had never heard any of this before. Like all others, she had simply followed orders—blind, half-formed commands she never understood.
“So that day I first met you, I went there… to kill you.”
Her heart dropped. Amelia’s breath turned shallow, her chest heaving erratically. Was Ivan still thinking of her that way?
“I thought I’d find out if you were truly immortal by driving a blade through your heart.”
His face was expressionless as he said it.
Amelia, for the first time, felt true fear.
“….”
Ivan’s gaze dropped to her small, trembling hand clutching his wrist.
“You can tell just by looking now. I didn’t do it.”
That meant even now, he couldn’t.
His quiet voice seemed to undo a curse—Amelia’s stiffened shoulders and nape loosened all at once.
“Why?” she asked, barely above a breath.
“Because I think… I already knew it’d come to this.”
Ivan replied, his voice tinged with self-mockery. But that alone answered everything for Amelia.
“So that’s why…”
Because of the feelings he held for her.
Nothing else could explain the irrational things they had done.
“That’s why you took Ian—our child—too, isn’t it?”
Tears welled again in her eyes.
In truth, she didn’t need his answer. She already knew it. Even if Ivan had said something else, she would’ve heard it as agreement anyway.
“…Yes,” he replied a beat late.
But for Amelia, that was more than enough.
Ivan rubbed his forehead gently against hers, as if expressing his affection.
She couldn’t hide the relief spreading across her face and smiled faintly.
“I believed in you.”
“…”
“Louis told me the Emperor hated me. That you must hate me too. That you only took Ian to use him somehow. But I didn’t believe it.”
It made her happy.
That her faith in Ivan hadn’t been in vain.
She was just a young girl, too inexperienced to judge people, too naive to separate good from ill. That belief had been her only hope.
“I thought… I should wait for you to tell me. That anything not from your lips couldn’t be true.”
Amelia’s voice trembled. Twice, Aaron had come bearing the news of Ivan’s death, but none of it had been true.
Ivan was alive—alive and right in front of her.
“I’ll get you out of the temple soon. Just pretend not to know anything until I ask for your help. It won’t take long.”
“I’ll do anything. Whatever you want.”
And Amelia finally understood—
Everything Ivan had done, no matter how unclear, had been for her freedom.
“I love you.”
Realizing that again, she couldn’t hold back.
All the affection that had welled up inside her for so long spilled out.
“Ivan, you’re my salvation.”
“…”
“I love you.”
She laid her heart bare, without a shred of deceit.
Ivan smiled softly. It wasn’t rejection, but neither was it quite an answer.
Instead, he lowered his head—before Amelia could even urge him for a reply.
“What are you doing?”
“…”
“Ivan… Wait.”
Amelia let out a soft giggle.
Their kiss, once like a series of tentative pecks, now deepened into something tranquil and full.
She melted into his tender, gentle lips.
Twenty-one.
An age too young to understand that your body could go somewhere your heart wouldn’t follow.
Or maybe not.
Ivan idly wrapped Amelia’s hair around his finger, watching her sleep with her face buried in a cushion. The moonlight glinted on the smooth shoulder exposed beneath her fallen gown, but he felt no particular desire.
He had a brain. He had reason.
And he wasn’t so shameless as to force himself on a woman who had given birth barely three months ago.
“…”
Still, he had no conscience either.
Ivan acknowledged that he was a man shameless enough to use the woman who had borne his child. He blinked slowly, replaying the half-truths and half-lies he had told her.
“After that, it was difficult to return to the temple.”
That had been a lie.
Yes, many rogue priests had been expelled. And yes, it was harder to borrow a pass.
But the temple hadn’t strengthened security for someone they believed dead.
Amelia had sunken into apathy, showing no suspicious behavior.
Ivan hadn’t stayed away because he couldn’t.
He stayed away because he chose not to go.
“Because I had to.”
He knew that the guilt pressing on Amelia’s chest would ripen over time—
The guilt of believing him dead,
The affection for the only person who had ever reached out to her.
Ivan waited for all those despairing emotions to ferment into a bittersweet love. A tragic story she’d cling to.
That way, she wouldn’t question the suspicious events happening around her.
“I thought… I should wait for you to tell me. That anything not from your lips couldn’t be true.”
Recalling her words, Ivan was certain now.
Amelia’s blind heart would never abandon him.
She wouldn’t want to lose him again.
And their child, Ian—she couldn’t possibly turn away from him.
Which meant Ivan now held everything.
He and his son were the sharpest weapons to bend Amelia to his will.
