Chapter 103
“Hurry up!”
“Wait a moment. I feel dizzy.”
Iella urged Nadriel, who was perched on Daniel’s bed, but Nadriel covered his eyes with his palms and tried to catch his breath.
She rummaged through the clothes Daniel had taken off and found some candy. She was irritated, thinking that if Daniel kept eating sweets like this, his teeth would rot—but now was not the time to scold him.
“Here. At least eat this.”
Nadriel put the candy in his mouth and a happy expression spread across his face.
“It tastes good for eating before death.”
“Who’s going to die…! If I can’t get my son back, it’ll be me who dies!”
Nadriel chuckled softly and emitted a pale light from his hand. He placed the glowing orb on Daniel’s forehead and waved toward her.
“What? What do I need to give you?”
“Hold out your hand.”
“Why my hand?”
“The blood of the Duchess…”
“Ah!”
At that moment, with a loud crash, Iella’s bedroom door flew off and hit the table as it fell.
The silhouette of the man standing where the door had been was massive.
“Your Grace!”
Nadriel shouted at Iella.
“What are you doing!”
“Nadriel!”
Iella didn’t even see Caldrix approaching. In the next moment, he appeared in front of her bed and threw Nadriel against the wall.
“Nad… Nadriel?”
Terran grabbed Iella’s arm as she ran toward Nadriel. Caldrix glared at her with a face full of burning anger.
“Let go! I said let go!”
“Iella, I told you it was fine to meet that sly Gayson, but I never said you could take him out of prison.”
“Your Grace, do you even know what you’ve done just now!”
But Caldrix’s eyes blazed like fire.
“I—!”
At the roar that followed, the entire room seemed frozen. Caldrix shouted as if swearing an oath:
“I cannot allow you to be placed in any danger, Iella! You must know this truth.”
“…!”
Iella wanted to speak.
‘Do you even realize what you’re doing to your own son right now?’
But seeing Caldrix, burning so intensely it seemed he might set himself ablaze, she couldn’t open her mouth.
At this moment, Nadriel was just another boar in his path, and there seemed to be no way to stop or reason with him. He only wanted to fiercely protect her.
Iella shouted:
“Sir Terran, call a doctor immediately! If Nadriel dies, I won’t stay calm!”
Caldrix gritted his teeth and commanded:
“Very well, Terran. Make sure the patient survives until tomorrow morning’s execution!”
Caldrix glared at Iella with clenched teeth. The giant man was boiling with rage. Yet when Iella looked into his eyes, she realized something:
He was sad. Helpless, unable to understand her. Despairing that what he wanted could not become what she wanted.
Iella felt distressed, wanting to explain something to him, but in the end, only her lips moved. She didn’t think Caldrix would believe her.
Meanwhile, Caldrix turned and left. The servant went to fetch a doctor, and Terran went to summon someone to fix the door.
Left alone, Iella picked up a sharp shard from the broken table.
By the time the pale light of dawn began to creep in, Iella went to Caldrix’s office.
He didn’t say a word to her, and she didn’t speak, instead standing by the window. Outside, people were setting up the gallows in the castle square.
Two years of marriage, seven years apart. They were facing each other as strangers again after nine years. And only silence could fill that gap.
Iella feared how today would end.
By now, Caldrix had calmed himself and spoke with remarkable composure:
“Do you regret returning to me?”
“….”
Iella, with the dawn behind her, still looked at the man whose face was illuminated by the lamp’s glow.
Familiar yet strange, he was still beautiful. And still felt distant, as if she could never reach him, even if she stretched out her hand. Doubt resurfaced.
‘Can I ever return to how things were?’
Iella slowly shook her head. She was no longer the duchess of the past, and Caldrix was no longer the Duke of Philoche.
They had to start everything from scratch.
Perhaps they could avoid the mistakes of the past, but it was certain they would make new ones they didn’t anticipate, and be hurt and suffer again.
‘Can I endure that again?’
Iella gazed at him, questioning silently. And she realized that Caldrix was pondering the same thing about her.
‘Can he handle the new me?’
Feeling a pure, long-lost fear, she shivered slightly and drew closer to the window, unwilling to show weakness.
By now, the gallows were nearly complete—a place where dozens of heads would fall once the sun fully rose.
Then a heavy cape draped over her shoulders. Caldrix silently stood behind her.
“After the last territory war…”
Iella tried to turn toward him, but he held her shoulders, preventing her from doing so. He didn’t want her to see his expression.
“I thought that if we returned to each other, we could start anew. To stop leaving the castle in every war, killing people in the West, returning angry at my wife, and then leaving again to kill in the West—this life had to end.”
“….”
Iella placed a hand gently on her pounding heart.
“I believed that what I considered right, my wife should also consider right.”
He took a deep breath and continued:
“I could have punished Baron Rohan differently. But I did it, and I did not know the proper way to apologize to you.”
Even though she wasn’t sad, tears fell. Iella slowly turned to see the man, tense, bathed in the now bright morning sunlight.
“Forgive me.”
“Your Grace…”
“I am learning new things, one by one. Today I asked for forgiveness, tomorrow I will learn how to be kind to you, and the day after, I will learn how to reveal my heart to you.”
Iella looked into his clear golden eyes and said:
“Learn. Change like that. But I still hate you. The wounds you caused me in the past will never disappear. I suppose you feel the same—betrayal cannot be forgotten easily.”
“….”
Caldrix couldn’t bring himself to say her name, “Iella.” She continued:
“Do you really believe that we can still manage to do well together after all this?”
He didn’t answer with words; he stepped closer.
“I never doubted it. You just weren’t there to show it to me.”
Iella felt overwhelmed by his firm tone. He was always like this—drawing everything into his gravity, making even someone as fragile as her feel almost nonexistent.
Even this certainty of his was the same. How could he believe they could have a better relationship than before?
Then she realized what she truly needed wasn’t certainty in his heart.
She already knew Caldrix Philoche’s heart—it was steadfast, sharp, impossible to overlook.
The real reason she hesitated was fear of being hurt again.
Without the same absolute certainty he held, she feared being frightened or wounded by a single gesture or word, wanting to run away preemptively.
In the past, she had succumbed to her father’s threats and entered a man’s room. But today, she wanted to choose.
During the past seven years, the mountains and fields had toughened her resolve. Luckily, it had given her the courage to withstand the Northern tyrant, and perhaps, the capacity to love more fully and freshly.
She decided not to reveal all her thoughts and resolutions to him yet. She would love him eventually, but some days, she might even want to tease him.
Hypnotically, Iella reached out and cupped Caldrix’s cheek.
He flinched at her touch and pulled his face away, noticing the bandage wrapped around her hand.
He thought it was an injury from the commotion when she had broken the door.
Iella pressed his cheek gently to force him to meet her gaze. He could not know that this wound was the mark of her completing Nadriel’s magic, yet she gripped his cheek tightly, fearing him.
Her provocative action unsettled him.
She spoke sincerely:
“I wanted to see you. Even without memories, my sealed memories clearly longed for you. Erasing memories cannot hide the soul.”
She felt his rock-solid chest rise and fall with each deep breath.
“Though you were deceived into marrying by your vassals, I was happy to become your wife, even like that. I was a woman without conscience.”
“Iella.”
“But you didn’t hate me entirely either, right?”
Caldrix could only manage a stiff smile at her smile. He could not deny it, having confessed his past impatience from the forest in the South. It felt completely real.
He thought: thankfully, I confessed.
Iella looked into his eyes and said:
“I will forgive you.”
And then she added, dripping with mischief:
“But there’s a condition.”
