Winter Bud - Chapter 88

“You can’t escape me.”

“What….”

“Whether you hate it or like it, you’ll end up like that.”

“Don’t say something so horrible. If it becomes like that, I’ll die!”

Nanna shouted roughly. Like someone whose throat had been torn, like she was having a fit, the woman who retched in disgust seemed truly sick of him. She really didn’t have even a single grain of affection left. So in the end, he had no choice but to accept it.

Nanna had worked up the courage to come here. She had come to find him and was shouting. He knew Nanna Petunie. This woman was terribly afraid of him. So afraid that even when she hated him to the point of getting goosebumps, she couldn’t even show it.

If he put even a little strength into grabbing her arm, she would flutter and try to avoid him like a chicken that had its neck caught. It was habitual fear. No, sometimes it even felt inborn. She must’ve become accustomed to violence. Even so, that primal fear was branded into her. She had finally escaped from him and run away, only to return.

Does she love him that much? So for Jerix Rotusi, she’d knelt under that fear like a brand. It felt like his heart was being torn to shreds. Like walking through a bottomless abyss. Black emotions he couldn’t shake clung stubbornly.

He stared at the woman who was carrying his child and yet loved another man. He was only looking down at her, but the difference in their size was so great that the gaze dropping down was like a thumbtack. He swallowed the strange emotion and parted his lips.

“Die?”

“Rather than live beside Your Majesty, rather than live like that, it’s better to die.”

“Even if I make you empress?”

“What does it matter! I don’t want to be empress! I didn’t want it then either. I didn’t want to take what belonged to Lady Thea!”

Nanna panted. By any name, she didn’t want to be by this man’s side. If it looked like taking another woman’s place, all the more. Gasping, she glared at him, then shoved at his chest hard as if it were a stone.

Orestes grabbed that small hand. Even though he hadn’t even put strength into it, Nanna trembled. He stared at the woman’s hand caught in his grip, a posture that was no different from being seized and swallowed. If he said he was wrong, if he knelt and begged for forgiveness, would she come back?

He’d thought that. If he said he hadn’t realized he had feelings for her… what kind of face would Nanna twist into? Yes, what form would she break into? Nanna would never be able to believe it. Because he had Thea.

Nanna knew how he had been with Thea. She’d watched it the whole time. Even when she’d admired him with the most fervent and pure heart, Nanna didn’t covet him. So Nanna’s love was different from the love he spoke of.

He had gone into heat for Nanna. The more that fierce and foolish heart toward Nanna thickened, the more he tried to draw near to Thea. He believed he loved her. That he only held foolish lust toward Nanna. Because love and desire were clearly different.

Love couldn’t possibly be this unruly and fierce. Even if a man went into heat at the sight of a prostitute in a brothel, he wouldn’t be loving her. He thought it was that kind of thing. That what filled him wasn’t something so proper. That it was only a violent emotion that would flare up fiercely in an instant and then go out.

But that blaze didn’t go out even as time passed. Now he was no longer human, and he could no longer keep principles like dignity or conscience. Because he had become a man who was a mess even to Thea.

Because he had become a man who betrayed even the wife he believed he loved. He was vile and pathetic. A foolish and shameless man. A man with no decency, a hopeless beast.

“…Give Jerix back.”

“….”

“Your Majesty did it, didn’t you? You, you… to my husband….”

Nanna cried. The way she held back her sobs and spat out each syllable, one by one, clearly, was beautiful enough to break. She was transparent and fragile, like she would shatter like glass if you touched her. He stared blankly at the woman.

“…It’s strange. Jerix has become strange. He doesn’t recognize me. He asks who I am. I, that, that.”

To swallow her crying, Nanna forced down dry saliva. Every time she recalled those empty brown eyes, a chill ran through her. Her stomach felt tight, like she’d eaten something wrong. Like she was choking on it…. Trembling, she moved close as if clinging to the man.

“Your Majesty, I’ll beg like this. If there’s anything I did wrong, I’ll apologize. Until I die, until I die, I’ll repent. Please give Jerix back. Don’t take him away from me. I….”

Nanna shook her head. She didn’t need to live lavishly like this. Even if she lived as a tenant farmer in a farmhouse that was falling apart, it would be fine. Even if she had to live as an urban poor, as long as she had Jerix, it was fine. With the feeling of begging for her life, Nanna clung to the man.

“Jerix Rotusi won’t come back.”

“…Your Majesty.”

“You won’t see that man again.”

Because I cut him out of you forever. Orestes swallowed the words he didn’t say. Nanna didn’t bother to pry into the words that didn’t come out of his mouth. Because they were words she could know without hearing.

So, is there any reason to live? Nanna closed her eyes. The sensation of losing consciousness was familiar.

***

“Mom’s coming back!”

Slan chewed over what his younger sister had said. Stella, seemingly sleepless, ran into his bedroom barefoot at dawn. Slan had already been awake when her white feet started pounding down the hallway. Stella turned the doorknob without warning. Then she shook his shoulder.

“Oppa. Mom is coming back!”

Stella looked extremely excited. But Slan looked at his sister with a dark face. The joy in her amber eyes felt desperately like despair. Sitting up straight, he looked at his sister and parted his lips.

“Are you happy?”

“Of course I’m happy! Are you not?”

Stella asked. Slan stared at his sister and said, ‘That isn’t a good thing.’ Stella looked at him with a puzzled expression, then raised her fist and hit his shoulder. She asked why it wasn’t a good thing.

She said she always missed her mother. That her mother was there and then not there, over and over. That their place to stay kept changing, and she couldn’t see her whenever she wanted like before. So she was sad. She said it was painful and hard. Slan couldn’t say anything to his sister, who burst into tears.

He only told her to sleep again. As he did, he patted the spot beside him. Stella didn’t refuse and lay down beside him. The siblings fell asleep together like that.

When morning came, Slan heard that his mother hadn’t been able to return to the manor outside the palace and had regained consciousness in his father’s bedroom. So what Stella said was true. Holding back the weakness in his ankles, he went early in the morning to pay his respects to the Empress Dowager.

The Empress Dowager didn’t say anything about his mother. Slan drank tea and returned to his quarters again. Then, before going into class, he spotted a tall man outside the window. He wasn’t wearing an armband like before, and he didn’t sweep his bangs up stylishly, but his refined face was recognizable.

Slan looked at him silently, then turned his gaze away. Maybe Mom won’t be able to endure it. She’ll grieve as if she’s lost the world… and suffer.

“Your Highness the Crown Prince.”

Suddenly, his tutor called him. Slan turned to him expressionlessly and went to the desk.

***

The audience chamber was wide and lavish. Exotic items that had crossed far seas were placed in the right spots, beautiful with nothing out of place or jarring. Instead of chewing over the emptiness in his head, he looked around the beautiful place spread out before him.

For a moment, dizziness rose, but it wasn’t severe. He lowered his head and closed his eyes for a moment. The place he opened his eyes in was something even he couldn’t understand. But that wasn’t strange. What was truly strange was that there was nothing in his head.

What his name was, how old he was. He couldn’t remember anything, not even about his parents, let alone his hometown or his job. Even the face reflected in the mirror felt unfamiliar. He didn’t know why he was here, and he didn’t know where this was.

He couldn’t remember what he usually did, and he couldn’t even recall what he did yesterday. It was absurd. It was like he opened his eyes and had possessed someone else’s body. But if it was something like possession, shouldn’t he at least know what kind of person he originally was before possessing it?

But it was all blank. As if he’d been left alone on a white sandy beach….