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SERIES: What Remains in the Damaged Place
CHAPTER: What Remains in the Damaged Place 7
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7
His resolute voice was like a blade.
As if mercilessly stabbed by that blade, Lirette’s resistance ceased. In that moment, Valderion’s deep, husky voice pierced her, more profound and intimate.
“I can’t have you crippling yourself with some foolish stunt right now. If you were to die, and your Name manifested on me within the year, I’d be a goner too, wouldn’t I?”
“...”
“And that is not a welcome prospect.”
Her fingers, having returned to their original form, clawed at the carpet as if wringing something out.
“If a year passes and your Name does not appear on me, I will let you go wherever you wish.”
“...”
“Even if that place is hell, I won’t stop you.”
In a way, his resolve was tragically absolute.
A dry, barren tone that declared this relationship began with a Name and would end with a Name.
But Lirette felt no resentment or disappointment.
His promise to release her after a period of endurance dripped like honey into her ears.
But it took only a moment for darkness to flood her mind again.
With eyes half-devoid of hope, Lirette stared blankly ahead.
“...What if the Name appears?”
“...”
“If my name appears on you, Your Grace...”
“That is something to think about when it happens.”
He spoke so lightly of an event that could bind them to each other for eternity, like a subjugation of souls.
Valderion lifted the palm that had been pressing down on the floor and straightened his posture. Lirette, too, gathered her huddled form and leaned her back against the bed.
“So if you have the energy to act like this, why not use it to recover your health.”
The man swiftly straightened his disheveled appearance from the commotion. Beneath his clean, efficient movements, his arrogant and cold features reappeared, just as they were before.
Lirette remained seated on the floor, looking up at him.
The man’s lips parted slightly as if to say something, but he stopped. Instead, he scrutinized Lirette’s fingers, which were now moving perfectly, unlike before.
Soon, he turned away without a word.
Lirette stayed sitting, not moving a muscle, until he had left the bedroom. Only her fingers, which she had drawn carefully to her chest, wiggled as if in disbelief.
* * *
The weather was mild for winter.
Valderion swept back his hair as it swayed in the blowing wind. Perhaps because he was surrounded on all sides by gentle currents, he felt as if he had been dropped right in the middle of the sea.
The water garden, set in a corner of the palace, always evoked such a tranquil sentiment.
“See? Wouldn’t it have been nice to be on a boat?”
As if misinterpreting his gaze, Dailan, sitting opposite him, complained while slouched like waterlogged seaweed.
Today, too, his attire was far from formal, looking more like it had been half-undone.
The reflections on the quietly flowing water were also black and white; though the two men were gathered in one place, they presented a scene of complete opposites.
“There’s a new leisure boat from the Kingdom of Pontilli. It’s quite large and luxurious, you know.”
“Isn’t the weather too cold for that?”
“You don’t know a thing. Boating is best done in winter.”
Cackling, Dailan spouted this baseless claim and took out a cigar, placing it between his lips. Valderion’s head was already throbbing as if from a noxious smell, and he replied with a sigh.
“I detest boating.”
“Then again, you’re the type who knows nothing of such romance.”
Romance.
To think that even a man who partied in the most chaotic and vulgar ways sought romance—it really showed that good bloodlines were something else, he thought.
Valderion inwardly swallowed a laugh at Dailan’s attitude, who could see one thing but was blind to all else.
To be precise, it wasn’t boating he detested. It was boating ‘with Dailan’ that he detested.
If they were to board a leisure boat and circle this vast, magnificent water garden, they would have to remain on the boat for a long time even after concluding their business.
To Valderion, that was a clear waste of time. Thus, their conversation took place not on a leisure boat, but in this rest area set up in a corner of the water garden.
“So, how is it?”
Dailan, letting out a long yawn, asked with a languid expression.
As if reading the question ‘What is?’ in his eyes, he curved his lips into a smirk.
“Lirette, I mean.”
“...”
“Is she doing well?”
As it happened, the very reason he had come to see Dailan today was because of that woman. Valderion lowered his eyes and briefly reflected on the past few days. When a sigh escaped him of its own accord, Dailan burst into a fit of laughter as if it were the funniest thing in the world.
“I pretty much expected it. She’s not one to back down easily, after all.”
He was in full agreement on that point.
If her body hadn’t been held hostage by the Name, the woman had enough vicious nerve to leave a long, ugly scratch on his pristine face. The proof was in her eyes, which never lost their singular glint, unlike her body that was so weak it collapsed at the slightest provocation.
“She seems to react sensitively to sounds.”
Dailan’s eyes widened as if he found this news quite unexpected. Before long, he grinned and crossed his outstretched legs.
Dailan set down the teacup he was holding and tapped his own ear.
“Ah, that’s because I used to shout in her ear a lot.”
“...”
“Did I slap her a few times, too? Her eardrums burst a couple of times because of that. That’s probably why.”
He had vaguely suspected it was due to physical abuse or cruelty, but Valderion was momentarily speechless at the utterly nonchalant manner in which Dailan recounted his evil deeds.
Pure evil, was that the term?
Valderion sometimes thought of that word when he looked at the Crown Prince.
‘You don’t sleep with livestock.’
‘...’
‘To him, that’s all I am.’
Was this why she had said such things?
Valderion suppressed the thoughts lingering like a hazy fog and took a sip of his tea.
“Surely you didn’t arrange this meeting just to ask something so trivial.”
*Hoo*, Dailan let out a deep breath and leaned his upper body forward.
“So, what do you need?”
Was it because of the cigar’s aroma? His tone was secretive.
It surely wasn’t just because of the hazy smoke and thick scent.
The meetings between the Imperial Family and the Ducal House of Justitia had always been like this.
The Imperial Family, like the sun that illuminates the empire, and the Ducal House of Justitia, which supports them like the moon from within the unseen darkness. The bond between the two houses, which could well be called the boundary between the sun and the moon, always had a profound and implicit quality.
Their close relationship originated with the first emperor.
The first Emperor Arden, who pioneered this dry and barren land to establish the Aleint Empire, had a twin sister.
As they were the ones who took the first step in the Aleint Empire’s history, no one knew the full details of their story.
Only one thing was passed down.
That the emperor had a considerable obsession with his twin sister.
The emperor of Aleint, who had achieved wealth and military strength through a dazzling leap forward since the nation’s founding and quickly established it as a formidable power, did not marry his sister off to a foreign land like a hostage to further develop the country.
As if determined to keep his sister within his sight, he bestowed upon her a noble title and created a domain just for her within this land. It was an expression of a certain attachment that not even Emperor Arden’s four founding dukes, who had opened the doors of history with him, could prevent.
Thus, the Ducal House of Justitia was born.
Its beginning was rooted in the emperor’s obsession with his sister, but as the years passed, it established itself as a power that supported the elegance of the Imperial Family.
With their lofty status, they took the lead among the noble houses, enforcing discipline, while at the same time, having imperial blood, they became an authoritative presence revered just like the royals.
It was a powerful symbiotic relationship that nothing could sever.
In this way, the Arden Imperial Family and the Ducal House of Justitia, with their hands joined, protected and strictly managed the empire for a long time, developing this land.
“Considering I asked you to sneak that woman out, you must have had some inkling, Dailan.”
“Hmm?”
“That her existence being revealed to the world would be of no help to me whatsoever.”
Dailan slowly raised and lowered his eyebrows in a gesture of affirmation. Valderion said no more and fell silent.
Even a simpleton who hated to use his brain would grasp what favor he had come to ask after hearing this much.
“Aha.”
“...”
“So, you want me to keep my mouth shut?”
“For one year, for now.”
“One year?”
“They say it will be decided within that time whether it’s mutual or one-sided.”
“Hmm.”
“...”
“I see… If it’s one-sided and not mutual, you plan to bury it as if it never happened.”
He saw it exactly.
If the Name manifestation ended with it appearing only on Lirette, Valderion had no intention of taking responsibility for her beyond that one year.
If their relationship came to an end like that after a year, he truly wouldn’t stop Lirette even if she dragged her frail body to hell.
If that happened, Valderion could return to his perfect life as a duke.
In other words, it would do him no good for Lirette’s existence to be revealed to the world within that year. Therefore, he planned to hide Lirette’s existence—or more precisely, the fact that his Name had manifested.
As the first step, he had personally come all this way to shut this scoundrel’s mouth.
An ordinary person would have guessed this with some intuition, but Dailan was an insolent man who might let his tongue wag whenever and wherever he pleased. When it came to the Crown Prince, it was necessary to make the point crystal clear.
“Well. It’s not that I don’t understand your position. If you hadn’t gotten tangled up in such a trivial matter, you would have proudly continued on with the blueprint you’d drawn for your life.”
“...”
“Including your engagement to the House of Floyden.”
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