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I slowly helped Lucius sit up and poured water from the cup on the table. He must have been thirsty; when I handed him the cup he gave a small, grateful smile and drank.
While he drank, I checked his condition again. Fortunately he seemed much calmer now — there was no trembling like before.
His complexion had returned to normal. A wave of belated relief washed over me and I let out a deep breath. When he’d finished the water I took the empty cup from him, stood up, and said,
“Lucius. Your shirt is soaked. It looks like you were sweating from the fever. Stay here for a moment — I’ll go get a change of clothes.”
“…Do you have to go?”
“Excuse me? If you don’t change soon you’ll catch a cold. It won’t take long; I’ll be right back…”
“Later. I won’t catch a cold from this. It’s fine. I can change later, so stay here for now.”
“But…”
“I want to stay with you. I don’t want to be apart.”
“…All right.”
How could I refuse when he said it with that look, that voice? His face and eyes were so pitiful and earnest; I was weak for him. Is there anything I’m not weak about? I doubted it.
Giving in, I let him reach for me and moved closer. He grabbed my hand again, pulled me in, wrapped his arms tightly around my waist, and rested his face against my shoulder.
His actions, the way he burrowed into my collarbone and the back of my neck, somehow made him seem like a child seeking comfort. Usually I’d be the one leaning on him, but today it was him leaning on me.
“It’s warm,” he murmured.
I ran my hand through his hair and he spoke, almost to himself.
“If we stay like this, the shirt will dry quickly.”
“Because my body is warm?”
“Yes. So… can I stay like this?”
“If you change your shirt you’ll feel even warmer—”
“No.”
“…”
He was so resolute in moments like this. I couldn’t force him when he was that stubborn. I sighed, but I had no choice. If I was the source of his warmth, I could only hold him tighter.
“Lucius. Then hold me properly.”
“…Yes?”
“This position won’t be comfortable for long. Let’s move toward the head of the bed.”
He went slightly blank at my words, then I led him up from the center of the bed toward the headboard. I sat first with my back against the headboard and, opening my arms, called to him.
“Come here.”
“Yes…”
He obeyed quietly. I pulled him in and embraced him. He ended up awkwardly draped over me, and flustered, he shifted his weight.
“Ti—Tiana… wait a moment…”
“Shh. Don’t move. It’s okay, relax.”
I patted his back and gently smoothed the black hair visible at the nape of his neck. He seemed unused to this posture; my calming touch slowly eased his restlessness.
We couldn’t have kept the earlier position for long, not for him and not for me. Besides, if we were going to, I wanted us to properly share body heat. This was perfect.
After a short while Lucius relaxed enough to close his eyes comfortably. I watched his gentle breathing for a moment, then cautiously asked,
“Lucius. May I ask what you and His Majesty talked about today?”
“…”
He flinched slightly, but said nothing. I waited, and after a moment he slowly opened his eyes and spoke.
“I had a dream.”
That wasn’t exactly an answer to my question, but I listened closely and replied,
“What kind of dream?”
“I dreamed I… killed you.”
“Excuse me?”
“I stabbed you with my sword.”
“…”
I involuntarily inhaled at that. The words he now spoke sounded like the scenes from the extra chapter I had read.
“I thought it wasn’t me. Just before I stabbed you, I hated you so much.”
“…”
“You looked at me with contempt, blaming everything on me. I hated you for that.”
“…Lucius.”
I stopped stroking his head. Images of the actions Tiana had taken in the extra chapter came to mind — ignoring him, showing contempt, blaming him for everything.
His single word, “hated,” spoke volumes about the state of his heart. Had Lucius in that extra chapter felt the same? My chest ached with pity.
A rising anger pressed at my lips and I bit them to hold it back. At that moment he opened his eyes and said,
“But I was right. When I killed you and died too, I felt happy because I died with you.”
“…”
“That’s something only I could think.”
It was exactly the same final line as his in the extra chapter: “I am happy to die with you.” The emotion conveyed in that line was purely his.
But… there was something strange. In the extra chapter the misunderstanding never broke; the possession hadn’t been fully revealed. The woman who had taken Tiana’s place made things worse and drove Lucius into darkness.
But the Lucius in front of me wasn’t going dark; if anything, his misunderstanding was being peeled away. Could he really have felt and understood his feelings from the extra chapter?
He seems to think it was just a dream, but he must have seen fragments of the past. He hasn’t returned as Reyel did, so how could that be possible?
He saw the past through a dream — something that Lucius, at this point, should have no way of seeing; a future-turned-past he hadn’t yet experienced.
If I entertain the possibility, however tentative: could Lucius have had some kind of regression too? Not like Reyel who came back knowing everything, but perhaps Lucius is recalling partial memories in dreams.
Putting everything aside for now, the most important point was simple: he had projected his past self through a dream. I’d only heard the latter part of the extra chapter, but he might have seen earlier parts too — or might remember more in the future. If tonight’s dream let him glimpse the past, time could bring more recollections.
If that happens, he’ll learn what the possessors did to Tiana, and he might feel even worse about the past Tiana.
Lucius still didn’t know that past Tiana had been possessed. He saw her as Tiana herself. Wouldn’t he feel betrayed by the woman who accused and ruined him?
I didn’t want him to be hurt by possessors any more.
I myself had once been a possessor, but I was different in many ways. Above all, I wanted to cherish and protect him. One reason I decided to break the original story was to change his fate.
I wanted to change, with my own hands, the destiny where he was betrayed and forced into a miserable death, never rewarded by the one he loved.
He steadied his breath and lifted his face to look at me. I couldn’t help but feel elated to see my face fully reflected in his deep golden eyes. It felt wonderful that I filled this man’s gaze.
“Isn’t it nice that we’re together like this? We can share warmth.”
“It is. Just looking at you calms me.”
“Are you feeling much better?”
“Yes. Thanks to you.”
“Then will you tell me? What did His Majesty say to you? Or rather, what did he say to you?”
“That…”
He, who had been answering me so easily a moment before, hesitated and tightened his expression. He seemed reluctant to answer and averted his gaze. After thinking for a moment, he rose from atop me, took my hand, and said,
“All right. I’ll tell you. But first, there’s something I want to ask you.”
“What is it?”
“You said you had a dream. A dream with you and me in it. A terrible dream where I killed you and I died too.”
“Yes.”
“In that dream, you didn’t love me. Not only that, you showed no affection whatsoever — you even scorned me and hated me. I don’t know why, but you looked at me with contempt and hostility.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
It was impossible for me to behave like that toward him. Even now, holding him and stroking his hair, I couldn’t imagine doing such a thing — not in a million years.
But that’s because the Tiana in Lucius’s dream was a possessor. Hearing it directly from him was shocking.
“Yes. Even in the dream I doubted my own eyes. You didn’t seem like you were you.”
He watched my reaction and gently stroked my hand. His thumb circled on the back of my hand as he met my eyes.
“And then I suddenly felt… like I’d seen you somewhere before.”
“Seen me where?”
“Before you lost your memory — before your riding accident.”
“…!”
If before the riding accident, that means before I was possessed — the woman who had been in me before. My heart thudded so loudly I felt as if it would stop. Could it be that Lucius knew about the possessors?
“Come to think of it, the you I saw in the dream was similar. No, she was identical.”
“…Really? Very identical?”
“Yes. The parts I saw and the way she felt — now that I think about it, they were exactly the same. Like the same person. Of course, they would all be the same Tiana. But…”
He trailed off, and I was both curious and painfully tense. It had been a long time since I’d felt so nervous. But this was important, so I couldn’t avoid it.
I tried to hide my tension and waited for him to continue. He squeezed my hand tightly and finally spoke.
“She wasn’t you then, was she?”
“Pardon?”
“That Tiana then — she wasn’t you.”
“What do you mean…”
“The Tiana who hurt me wasn’t you.”
“…!”
“Who are you, then?”
Thud — it felt as if a second heart had dropped into my stomach.
