Winter Bud - Chapter 95

So being alive was useless. Nanna’s life, and the man in front of Nanna who put “forgiveness” in his mouth…. The children Nanna once loved like her life, and the man who died in front of her. The lover who left, forgetting her…. She closed her heavy eyes and opened them. Maybe she slept a little, because the dim dawn light shimmered on the ceiling.

She groped for the blanket and sat up. Dizziness came like a habit. She sat at the edge of the bed and looked at her white feet exposed beneath the negligee. The murmuring, “Useless to be alive…,” circled in her head.

She got up and walked to the balcony. The dawn just before morning broke was all hazy and unclear. Nanna couldn’t forget the sensation of death closing over her at the boundary between life and death.

It was pain and fear she’d never experienced before. Even so, the reason Nanna didn’t stop was because the hardship of the life she would have to face again if she couldn’t get past that crisis was so overwhelming. It truly…. was a wound deeper than death.

Unbearable, and with no meaning to overcome. Her entire life was stained with wounds, and didn’t it fester without even time to heal? She walked across the floor where the cold air had settled. Staggering and moving slowly, she grabbed the balcony railing.

The dawn fog covered the beautiful garden. Nanna blinked slowly, then loosened the strength in the hand gripping the shawl. The shawl wrapped around her collapsed limply onto the floor. She lifted her leg to climb over the railing. The height and width were higher than she thought, so it was hard to shift her body outward. Nanna breathed in shallow breaths and lifted her head.

She felt better than she thought. Was it because this was the second time? The garden, where the fog had begun to scatter, had quite a fine charm. Come to think of it, she recalled the owner of the estate boasting at length to the emperor about the estate.

Nanna dropped her gaze and looked down at the dizzying ground. The height was enough. If she threw herself like this, it felt like her breath would properly cut off. Nanna tried stepping into empty air. Instinctive fear wrapped around her.

What should she call it? It was similar to being swept by waves and floating in a sea where you couldn’t touch the bottom. Seawater kept getting into her mouth, and she couldn’t breathe. Nanna briefly thought about what happened that summer.

It was a ridiculous thing that happened at the southern beach they went to for a summer retreat with Thea. Then how did she get saved? So how did she make it out alive?

“Nanna.”

A heavy, low voice rang in her ear. Nanna slowly turned her head. The man who met her gaze showed no emotional agitation. It was a face that said her decision wasn’t surprising.

“…Do you want to die that badly?”

The muscles around her eyes twitched at his low question. Nanna looked at him without even nodding. She wanted to say she would forgive him if he permitted death. All the things he said were his fault. The violence inflicted on Nanna one-sidedly. Isn’t it too shabby to say now that it was love? It was cruel to Nanna, but it was also cruel to the children born between them. But more than anything, what was horrific was that he took away the tiny bit of hope and happiness that had been given to Nanna. That much, she couldn’t forgive.

But in this moment, she wanted to say she’d forgive him if he allowed her death. In truth, she just wanted to run away from him. Even so…. But no matter how she parted her dry lips, the tip of her tongue didn’t move. In the meantime, Orestes reached her.

“Do you want to run away that badly? From me….”

A neat, low voice with no distortion shook her. The wind blew, and the white, slender body wrapped in a negligee began to soak in the morning light. Orestes grabbed her wrist. Nanna reflexively tried to shake him off, but she slipped.

“Ah!”

Her foot dangled in empty air. Orestes held onto her wrist without any strain at all. Nanna let out shallow breaths and lifted her head.

“L-let me go.”

“No.”

“…I, I’ll forgive you.”

“Me?”

“You did wrong to me, you wronged me.”

Nanna couldn’t forgive, and so she thought of an irreversible wound. The reason she couldn’t understand every time he spoke of love was because the origin of all that violence lay in love. Because he loved her. Because an unacceptable love wasn’t even something she could accept as reasonable. Even so, wasn’t it so filthy and dirty the way he revealed his craving for possession?

What if Nanna had been a noble’s daughter like Thea? What if she’d been the daughter of a minor noble, if not a great house like Everhardt? He probably wouldn’t have treated her this horribly.

But Nanna couldn’t imagine herself being born as some noble’s beautiful daughter. She was the eldest daughter of ignorant peasants, and so she always had to be swept helplessly by poverty and grief. But being hungry was nothing. Yes. That wasn’t what tormented Nanna.

“I told you. You don’t have to forgive me.”

“…Your Majesty.”

“Don’t forgive me. Forever.”

Like fallen leaves crumbling, his sunken voice rang in her ear. Nanna’s face slowly, little by little, twisted. She slowly shook her head.

***

Her sister’s wedding dress was extremely beautiful. The veil was so long and splendid. Things like lilies and orioles that symbolized a noble woman of the imperial family, and linden leaves, were densely embroidered and hung down long.

Slan looked at his sister, who was agonizing over whether to twist up that jet-black, abundant hair or let it fall with the veil.

Stella stared at herself in the mirror for a long time. She often heard she resembled her father from childhood, but as time passed, she grew to resemble her mother more. Anyone could see it, because even her fiancé nodded like that in front of her mother’s portrait, since she resembled her mother whose pale, pure face shone clear.

Slan recalled his sister, who had nitpicked one thing after another about not the groom’s attire but her brother’s. Since they would be walking that long virgin road together, of course her brother’s attire was important too, she said. Anyway, she cared about a lot of things.

Even so, since it was a once-in-a-lifetime wedding, there was no reason he couldn’t match her tempo, so Slan was enduring even the rather miserable feelings.

In front of the long mirror, Stella, who’d been looking over the dress she would wear to the reception, turned around. His sister, now fifteen, was very beautiful.

He recalled even the noblewomen famous for having lots to say, including their deceased grandmother, saying that the young girl would grow into a great beauty. Just as they said, Stella grew into a very beautiful maiden. She was only a fifteen-year-old girl, not yet ripened as a woman, and yet Stella’s beauty spread beyond neighboring countries and across the entire continent.

“You don’t like it?”

“No. I think I’ve gained some weight.”

“That’s an obsession. How skinny do you want to be?”

Slan furrowed his brows. The somewhat harsh words slipped out of his mouth, but Stella didn’t mind. Hadn’t they grown up bickering? Especially after their parents ended up like that, it was even more so. Slan tried to push away the gloomy thoughts that surged in like storm clouds. With the wedding approaching, Stella became even more sensitive than usual.

She originally had a picky, prickly temperament, but when the Empress Dowager set “the imperial princess’s national marriage day” and told her to prepare the ceremony to match it, Stella seemed to grow even more restless. Still, no matter how good her relationship with her fiancé was, leaving her homeland wasn’t an easy thing. Slan walked toward his younger sister, who had grown tall before he knew it.

“You’re perfect.”

It wasn’t an empty compliment. It was a dress that suited Stella extremely well, with her tall height and slender, supple body that resembled their father. The ballroom dress made of sky-blue satin fit her body perfectly. Besides, lately, maybe because she couldn’t eat well from mild stress, she really was in a shriveled state.

In the Empress Dowager’s eyes, Stella was excessively thin, and Slan agreed with that. At those words, Stella nodded too, but that didn’t mean it could ease her gloom. Slan couldn’t do anything about that part either.

“What are you thinking about?”

Slan asked his younger sister, who had turned her head and blanked out. In truth, it was something he could know without asking. So he should’ve let it go without asking, but his lips moved on their own. Stella turned her gaze.

“I want to go to Andella…. I can’t, can I?”