Winter Bud - Chapter 91

“I’m not angry because you don’t love me.”

“….”

“I was feeling it, actually. You get your dick hard every time you see Nanna. It’s ridiculous to call that love, but. Anyway, if you say that’s what it is, there’s nothing I can do either.”

Thea smiled a little. She shook with laughter as if the man in front of her was truly funny. Orestes looked at her silently. Thea didn’t twist again. She didn’t cry, or cling to him, asking why he didn’t love her. He lowered his gaze.

“Orestes.”

“I’m not going to depose you or drive you out.”

“That’s not what I want to hear. You know that, don’t you?”

Thea swallowed down her anger. In truth, she was so furious it felt like her head was going to break. The Empress Dowager said every time that he loved her. That he had such deep feelings that he even wanted to stop her death by using alchemy.

But the Empress Dowager was wrong. Orestes was just a selfish man with twisted sexual desire. Even that feeling toward Nanna couldn’t be seen as pure love. So Thea didn’t envy Nanna. Even if jealousy rose, when she looked at this woman who was shattered like this, she was afraid of becoming the target of that abnormal desire and being craved by Orestes.

At least she hadn’t been driven that far. In the end, Nanna wouldn’t be able to have any of it, not the one thing she wanted. Compared to that, what was she? Even if Orestes didn’t act like he was doing her a favor and tell her to let go, she knew. He still needed Thea. The words that he needed her were probably sincere then and now.

Didn’t he say it just a moment ago? That he needed her. Thea curled her lips. Maybe even putting her to sleep for such a long time included political calculation. It was the same now. If he deposed her from the position of empress, it would put him in trouble too.

Since it was hard to restore Nanna as empress again, and it was also hard to leave the position of empress vacant. So Thea wasn’t anxious about her own safety. She just….

“Apologize.”

“….”

“Ask for forgiveness for all of our past.”

Thea spoke clearly, pressing down her surging emotions one by one. Thankfully, tears didn’t fall. Maybe that was only natural. Thea also didn’t have even a scrap of lingering attachment to him. Grief, anguish. Or lingering feelings. Things like that…. She crushed the heart she could pour into a twisted monster like this long ago.

But she still had to receive an apology. For deceiving and playing with her under the name of “love.” For all the time and years that bound them together…. Orestes stared at her for a long time. He slowly raised the gaze he had laid on the floor for a while.

“…I’m sorry.”

***

How long did she sleep? Nanna stared blankly at the ceiling. Reality that didn’t feel like it belonged to this world was distant. It still felt like she was wandering in a dream…. She couldn’t even pour water into her dried throat. Nanna stared up at the high ceiling without moving. She raised her hand and felt the pulsing at her throat.

She was still alive. Even after all of that happened…. She was alive. Jerix left her. He said he couldn’t remember anything. After leaving the bedroom where a man and a woman clung to each other noisily, the emperor brought her to his quarters, sat her on the edge of the bed, and calmly brushed back her hair.

“You saw it, right? He’s not coming back.”

“….”

“He won’t ever recall his memories of you. Jerix Rotusi will live with the woman he held. Just like you’re carrying my child, he’ll get that woman pregnant. And he’ll become some child’s father.”

“….”

“Nanna.”

He whispered Nanna’s name. Nanna listened calmly to what he said. Strangely, her pulse was quiet. She didn’t twist. She didn’t burst into tears like she would tear apart, or cling to him. She just looked at him.

All of this was Orestes’s doing. Making Jerix like that. Trying to kill him…. Was it because he failed to kill him, in the end? So did he separate Nanna and him in this way?

Maybe. But even if all of this was his scheme, the fact wouldn’t change that Jerix held another woman, made a child with that woman, and would live like that. Because Orestes wanted it. Maybe someday he would recall his memories of Nanna, but at least not now.

Nanna lowered her gaze. Jerix’s naked body kept coming to mind. Covered in muscle…. The body she loved. The gentle, warm… the courteous touch. The clear smile, the generous, warm embrace. Nanna lost all of it.

It was ripped out by the roots and thrown away. Her blood went cold. Orestes stroked her cheek. Nanna never looked down at him.

“Madam?”

A maid who came into the bedroom to set down a water pitcher saw Nanna with her eyes open. She hurried over and asked with a worried face.

“Are you all right? Would you like some water?” the maid asked quickly.

Nanna turned her gaze to the water pitcher. When she nodded, the maid poured water and brought it to her lips. After wetting her throat, Nanna looked at the sky that was brightening, then turned her gaze to the curtains.

“I’m fine now. You don’t have to worry.”

“I’m glad. His Majesty….”

“I want to be alone, so will you leave?”

“Ah. Yes.”

The maid hesitated for a moment, but nodded. After feeling the maid’s footsteps grow distant as she left the bedroom, Nanna stood up. She walked to the window and idly touched the soft curtains. She thought about reasons she had to live. There weren’t any. There was no reason for Nanna to live. She had committed no sin

She had done nothing wrong. She had never done anything bad in her life. There was no reason for her to suffer this pain, to endure all of this. She had never committed anything evil. She had never hurt anyone, never killed anyone, never spoken cruel words to wound another’s heart.

She stroked the soft hem of the curtain. The curtain was a very splendid weave. It probably wouldn’t tear easily. Nanna stroked the child one last time. The child wasn’t at fault. She hadn’t carried it because she wanted to, but the child would be the same. It probably didn’t choose to settle inside Nanna’s belly.

‘Poor thing.’

Something pitiful and wretched. Even so, Nanna didn’t love the child. Now, even carrying it felt tiresome. It disgusted her, and sometimes she felt like bile was rising.

Jerix gently stroked her stomach, saying it was fine even if it wasn’t his child, even if he wasn’t the one who got her pregnant.

He looked at it with lovely, affectionate eyes. It’d be nice if we raised it together. If only we could, I could become the best father more than anyone. Sometimes he said things like that. In those moments, Nanna liked the child.

If Jerix loved the child like that, she felt like she could love it like that too. But not now. It couldn’t be that way now.

Orestes said Jerix would make that woman carry a baby, just like he got her pregnant. He said he’d make him become a proper father. So he wouldn’t steal someone else’s child.

“If I make her his woman, he won’t think like that, right?”

Orestes laughed crudely. Her eyelids trembled in small shakes. Nanna thought again of the man holding a woman who wasn’t her. He also had something between his legs, and plunging into a woman’s body wasn’t some special thing, but it was only then that she realized he was a man who knew how to take a woman in that way.

With Nanna, he was always careful. So he was a man who couldn’t even easily touch her body and hug her. After she gave birth, we can do it anytime. When he said that, the man’s eyes were always sincere.

Clutching the curtain, she lowered her gaze. Jerix wasn’t in his right mind. He’d lost his memories of her too. So she couldn’t even call it betrayal. And yet Nanna….

‘There’s no turning back now.’

A distant cry rang through her pitch-black mind.

Yes. There was no turning back. Jerix becoming that woman’s husband… Jerix having a child with that woman was Orestes’s will. He would make it happen no matter what. Because he said he’d break everything she could return to. Because he said he’d keep her by his side even if he had to do that.

Her blood slowly went cold. Nanna tightened her grip on the curtain.