Chapter 67
Delonas opened her eyes.
“Ah…”
Familiar bath walls. She was in the bath. Clad in at least minimal clothing. Not the white indoor gown that had been torn to shreds by their hands. A new, proper garment had been placed upon her. It was strange to be clothed while in water, but the man who had insisted upon it—
“You are awake.”
—supported her from behind.
“!”
At the voice, she startled, about to move abruptly—water splashed.
“Forgive me for startling you. Immersion in holy water is the swiftest method for healing.”
The man—Ian—held her only enough to keep her from slipping beneath the water. He did not touch her further. Indeed, he raised both hands as if to show he intended no contact.
“…….”
—Drop.
The water droplet falling from his raised hand traced another ripple upon the undulating surface. Delonas’s eyes darted about as she tried to grasp the situation.
“This is…”
“I brought you here. You could not remain there… and above all,” Ian spoke with a troubled expression, “you seemed deeply confused.”
He was diligently explaining why they were alone together in the water. Delonas regarded him silently. Before she lost consciousness, this man had dominated her.
‘Just a little longer,’
Unlike the voices of others who urged her to spread her legs further or relax as they thrust into her, this man had spoken with desperate sincerity.
‘Just endure a little longer. Even if you despise me.’
Those words, paradoxically, had released something in her mind. This man…
Her gaze drifted to his chest. The sigil upon his firm, water-glistening chest was clearly visible. And from him—the one who had taken her—
—Drop.
Yes. Just as droplets fell from his fingertips… tears had seemed to fall.
‘We met once, twenty years ago.’
So he had said. And that boy she had seen twenty years ago…
Amidst her confusion, Delonas found the question she must ask.
“Did we, by chance…”
Ian waited patiently until she spoke.
“Did we meet in the forest… twenty years ago?”
That place had been hers and that boy’s alone. Until the forest burned. Those memories belonged only to that boy and herself.
At this, Ian nodded.
“Yes. The small log cabin in the woods.”
The cabin… she knew rumors of its existence had spread quietly among some.
“Looking out the window, you kept asking me: Don’t you have to go back?”
At those words, Delonas’s eyes widened. This was truly a memory only she and that boy shared.
“I didn’t want to return. Returning meant being forced by Lekia and the priests to produce holy water. To serve a god I had no heart for—”
He clutched at his heart. Even with the protective stone suppressing much of the brand’s pain, it could not eliminate it entirely. But he forced the words out.
“—to become the Pope of the Consecrated Bloodline, serving Ephina.”
Delonas covered her mouth.
“Truly, that boy was the Pope… was you?”
“Ian.” He slowly closed his eyes, then opened them. He did not wish to be addressed by a title he had never sought, rather than his name.
“Ian…” Delonas murmured the name.
Her first friend, beyond all stations. Perhaps because she kept asking when he would leave, one day he had vanished—and she thought him left behind in the burning forest, dead.
“The forest caught fire… how did you escape?”
“Lekia set that fire.” Ian pushed back his hair, revealing a somewhat pallid face. The bright eyes of childhood were gone, the boy’s features blurred—but those brown eyes she remembered clearly.
“They said no one must discover the Consecrated Bloodline. So I thought you had died.”
Ian spoke.
And you thought I had died, too.
We both believed each other dead, all this long time.
“Ah…” Delonas breathed softly.
“If I had known you were Delonas—Delonas of Beakin—”
Ian, who had been led through the order and unable to hear news from outside.
Between Ian—who had only learned of the outside world upon reaching the age to debut in society—and Delonas, whose beauty had become legendary only then, an insurmountable wall existed. Ian lowered his head. Whatever his reasons, he was the one who had produced the holy water that brought her nation to ruin.
“……I would never have done such things.”
At those words, Delonas found herself reaching toward him involuntarily.
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