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SERIES: What Remains in the Damaged Place
CHAPTER: What Remains in the Damaged Place 4
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4
Dailan, who had been sitting languidly as if he might melt away at any moment, rose leisurely amidst the countless gazes fixed upon him.
The absolute power he was born grasping in both hands had raised him to be a man who paid no mind to others. Heedless of the attention focused on him, he walked at a relaxed pace and approached Lirette.
‘Hmm...’
Kneeling slowly, Dailan stared intently into her hazy eyes, which looked as if her very soul had fled. Then, he gradually widened his focus, observing her youthful face for quite some time.
‘No matter how I look at it, it would be a waste to kill her.’
‘...’
‘A face like this isn’t common, after all.’
His blue-gray eyes tilted this way and that, as if lost in thought. Before long, Dailan spoke to the knight who held his sword as if ready to strike the moment he gave the word.
‘Don’t kill this one.’
‘Pardon?’
‘But Your Highness, she is the daughter of a heinous traitor.’
‘It would be best to deal with them all at once...’
Muffled sounds of concern arose from those around them, but when Dailan clicked his tongue in annoyance with a *tsk*, they immediately fell silent.
Only then did a satisfied smile grace his lips. Dailan spoke to Lirette, whose face was stained with moisture.
‘I saved you.’
‘...’
‘Therefore, your life is mine.’
His blue-gray eyes, stained with a bizarre madness, glinted dangerously.
‘The term is...’
‘...’
‘Until I grow tired of you.’
His gaze was as grim and desolate as the entrance to hell.
“...Gasp!”
She had been dreaming often lately.
Fragments of the past that were of no help whatsoever.
Lirette wiped her sweat-drenched face and slowly sat up. For the past few days, her health had fluctuated wildly.
Her condition would improve slightly, only to plummet to its worst again. One day, her fever would be so high she was delirious; the next, she would be well enough to sit up and think.
Today, seeing how clear her vision was, seemed to be the latter.
“Is there anything you require?”
The butler spoke softly, noticing Lirette’s restless movements. She looked at him warily before answering in a slightly hoarse voice.
“I’d like some water.”
At her single phrase, the butler moved with quiet agility.
Lirette’s gaze remained fixed on the butler’s back as he moved about diligently.
The master of this mansion, the owner of the Name engraved on her body, was excessively thorough. As if the shackle gripping her ankle wasn't enough, he had even planted a warden in her bedroom.
The presence of someone watching her every move was a greater burden than she had anticipated.
Swallowing the water handed to her, Lirette glanced at the butler standing beside the bed.
His gaze, behind a monocle, was sharp and keen. As if imitating the eyes of his master, who wasn't even here.
Every time she noticed it, she felt unbearably uncomfortable and uneasy. It was so unsettling it felt as if her back, where the man's Name was engraved, was aching.
“His Grace instructed me to assist you in moving to another room, should this one not be to your liking,” the butler said suddenly.
He seemed to have interpreted Lirette’s furtive glances in that way.
“There are larger bedchambers available.”
“...No, this is more than enough.”
Lirette set down the water glass she was holding. With her stiff, rigid hands, even the simple act of gripping something required concentration.
“More importantly... I’d like to rest alone for a bit.”
“...”
“I'm not planning anything foolish. It's not like I could even try.”
As she moved her calf, a cold sensation enveloped her ankle. The shackle was still fastened.
The shackle, and now the butler.
Valderion's layered measures to confine her were on the verge of suffocating her. She felt as if she could die of asphyxiation even though nothing was covering her nose and mouth.
The butler was silent for a moment, then, seeming to find her words reasonable, he bowed and exited the bedroom.
Lirette hugged her knees with both arms and stared blankly at the doorway where the presence had vanished. The sight of the open door slowly closing was reflected in her melancholic pupils.
‘Your life is mine.’
Dailan’s words rang in her ears like tinnitus.
Lirette’s life had been utterly ruined after her father’s rebellion. Under Dailan’s authority, she had been forced to endure days no different from hell.
Dailan had truly treated her like a ‘toy.’
Not as a person, but as a plaything he could harm as he pleased. For someone born of a noble bloodline, he had a wicked and cruel side. The violence that stemmed from it could not be overlooked either.
It was a time of immeasurable persecution.
Under his thumb, her body was broken and healed, over and over, until no part was left unscathed.
Not sexually.
Just as she had told Valderion, the Crown Prince considered her a filthy, dirty creature, like livestock.
Though he slept with countless women, he strangely never touched Lirette sexually.
But because of that, he was more vicious in a physical sense.
In the end, her father had been right.
As she was brutally tormented under Dailan, Lirette was forced to realize that he must not wear the emperor’s crown. The thought of the empire falling under the rule of such a man was so lamentable it brought her to tears.
But she, who had swallowed that realization alone, was powerless. After losing all her blood relatives, her life was that of a lonely wanderer in the wilderness.
In that barren environment, her will to live quickly withered.
It had begun to fade, little by little, from the moment she saw her family's heads being lopped off before her eyes, and it was completely extinguished under Dailan’s venomous abuse.
‘You want to die?’
But Lirette was not even granted the freedom to die.
After her suicide attempt was discovered and failed, Lirette truly became someone who lived because she could not die. She was forced to live with her limbs tied to pillars.
Dailan made it so she could not perform even the most basic human actions on her own. It was, he said, a punishment for daring to try to die on her own terms.
‘Don’t do it, Lirette.’
‘...’
‘If you try to die, I will chase you to hell itself and drag you back.’
What meaning was there in a world where she could not even end her own life by her own will? From that point on, everything in Lirette’s life degenerated into a hazy, ashen gray.
There were countless other things to recall.
When she locked the door of her cramped, shabby bedroom, he would break the handle and then deliberately rattle it every night to torment her; when he was displeased, he would wield a wet whip until her skin burst; having her ankle broken for attempting to escape was a common occurrence...
Her head slowly lifted, her gaze fixing on something.
A tapestry hanging on the wall.
The crest of a great-horned deer, its antlers entwined with rose vines, set above a shield with two swords crossed diagonally.
In the memory of that final night with her family, a night stained with the stench of blood, a flag bearing that same crest had fluttered vigorously.
The Imperial Family and the Duchy of Justitia.
They were allies, like one body.
The sun and moon that lit the empire's sky—that was what they were called.
To think that if she couldn't be in the Imperial Palace, she had to be here.
A dry, hollow laugh escaped from deep within her. Valderion’s face, smiling sardonically at her, flickered faintly in her mind. She felt something boiling inside her.
Lirette glanced at the shackle, then got off the bed and walked.
The iron chain made a grim sound as it scraped across the carpet before pulling taut. She could go no further, but the distance was enough.
The tapestry was now right before her eyes.
A distance too short to escape, but close enough to defy. Without hesitation, Lirette tore the tapestry down and threw it to the floor.
* * *
“Did she eat?”
Valderion, who had been holding a cigar, stubbed it out in an ashtray and asked the butler standing in a neat posture.
“She did.”
“Did she finish it all?”
“Not all of it, but... she ate enough to fill her stomach.”
“And her condition?”
The butler quietly averted his eyes.
“The same as when she first arrived.”
“So even with rest, there’s no change.”
Although Valderion had anticipated it, he wore a displeased expression at how the situation was unfolding without the slightest deviation.
Leaning against his desk, he massaged his furrowed brow and murmured as if to himself.
“Does she really only get better if I touch her?”
Despite resting in a warm bedroom with quality meals, Lirette’s condition had not improved.
The fever that had scorched her entire body, likely a symptom accompanying the manifestation of the Name, had subsided to some extent, but her stiff arms and legs were unchanged.
It meant that her environment and food were not the root cause of the problem.
“Stiffness, and then paralysis, was it?”
Valderion considered the symptoms of a Name.
The key to a Name was contact.
One had to have physical contact with the owner of their Name to maintain a normal state. That was why it had earned the moniker of an illness that could only be cured by touch.
If that contact was denied, one would slowly sicken and wither.
At first, symptoms of a cold and chills would appear. Then, the tips of the hands and feet would gradually stiffen like blocks of wood, and later, each and every joint would become paralyzed, as if detached from the body. If this period grew prolonged, the nerves would begin to rot from the inside, causing the skin to fester.
From what he could tell during their brief conversation, the woman already couldn't use two of her fingers.
Presumably, once her other three fingers stiffened up, the paralysis would begin.
“Hah.”
The thought of Lirette brought to mind her eyes, glaring at him with all her might.
She was so delicate and thin, a woman with a faint impression, as if she might break at the slightest touch. She was reminiscent of a white peony blooming in a dry field. That was likely why he hadn't noticed her at first when she was collapsed in the snowfield.
She didn't seem out of place, buried in all that white...
Even so, the light dwelling in her eyes was extraordinary.
Though worn down by countless hardships, it held power even in its broken state.
While she would hesitantly shrink back as if she didn't want to deal with him, she never averted her gaze.
Just as they say the eyes are the window to the soul, that steadfastness of hers was certainly worthy of praise.
“Lunch has long since passed... It will have to be dinner.”
“Pardon?”
“Prepare dinner for two for the annex.”
The butler quickly grasped the meaning of the order. Valderion watched his retreating back as the butler politely replied that he would do so, then turned his head.
Outside the arched window, it was snowing again. This time, the flurries were a bit fierce.
The winter that had seemed over showed signs of returning.
A pale dusk was settling over the afternoon.
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