Chapter 146
“Haah.”
She felt dizzy with suffocating humiliation.
The emotion that accompanied it was a choking anger.
But the most resented was…
‘Me.’
She had accepted herself as someone outside the doctrine, born out of wedlock, believing ‘this treatment is my reality.’
‘Why did I accept it?’
Why did I, instead of facing the painful memories head-on, run away without properly getting angry or furious?
Like a commoner shepherd submitting to the real nobility. Still unchanged.
“Haah, ugh.”
“Freesia, calm down.”
“Yes, ah, hiic…”
Freesia gritted her teeth, pressing her forehead against his shoulder. She wanted to cry, but shedding tears over that horrible incident felt like a waste.
The breath in her lungs was painfully hot. But perhaps thanks to the hand gently stroking her back.
“Freesia. Is it still hard?”
Her vision hadn’t gone completely dark. Freesia curled up in his embrace and whispered faintly.
“…I’m okay now.”
Hatred, anger, and shame gradually dulled to just a lingering pain.
But they hadn’t disappeared entirely, and she still didn’t hate herself any less for being helpless.
‘But what did Adamant say?’
<In the time that remains, achieve what thou desirest, whatever it may be.>
If so, she could be forgiven for seeking personal revenge while fulfilling God’s will.
Freesia quietly gazed at an item placed in the gazebo.
The bow Izar had given her as a gift glinted softly in the sunlight.
* * *
After bringing Freesia back to his chamber, Izar looked down at the woman who had fallen asleep in his arms.
It seemed she had fallen asleep due to a mix of physical exhaustion, relief, and weariness.
“How much of what she said should I believe?”
Izar muttered, feeling deeply troubled.
Hearing something so unimaginable felt like someone had stirred up his mind.
But the first thought that came to him when he heard Freesia’s explanation was.
‘Freesia’s mother.’
The madwoman of the estate.
Whether she had gone mad from having her tongue cut out or if she was naturally prone to madness was irrelevant.
‘What matters is how others perceive her.’
There were already some vassals subtly discontented about his union with Freesia. They kept their mouths shut only because of his firm stance.
And they clearly remembered what Freesia’s mother was like in the estate.
‘Madness is a disease difficult to cure even with divine power. Especially since Freesia has already had a seizure once.’
If word spread that she had heard God’s voice? If she recklessly spoke of experiencing a miracle unheard of in centuries…
“Haah.”
The temple would be in an uproar.
His gaze darkened as he looked at the woman who had fallen asleep again.
<And in the future, I’d like to ask you not to… finish inside me.>
Although he had been rough with her, he hadn’t planned on having a child immediately.
But the thought of not wanting to have children at all was a different matter. Given that he had decided to keep Freesia by his side.
‘Is it really true she only has a few hundred days left?’
Or was it a fabricated story because she didn’t want to have children?
“…Lord Izar.”
But at the soft voice calling him, he looked down. Freesia had woken from her light sleep and was looking up at him with clear eyes.
“Why. You can sleep until evening if you wish.”
“If you had come back and named the baby then…”
“…”
“What name would you have given?”
That topic again.
Izar frowned, recalling the most complicated part of what she had said.
<After losing our baby, I think I also died not long after.>
Because Freesia spoke of her own death as if it were someone else’s story. No matter how she felt, it was incredibly disconcerting for him to hear.
But Izar stroked her cheek and responded.
“Did I say I would name the baby?”
“Yes…”
“…What was its gender?”
“It was a boy.”
Freesia weakly fiddled with his hand.
“Lord Izar. You told me to tell you if I wanted something.”
“I did.”
“Even though I know the baby isn’t here in this life… could we go to the rose bushes at the castle together later?”
“…”
“I would like you to pray with me for the baby just once.”
Izar remained silent.
In her unbelievable story, the baby was said to be buried under the fragrant rose bush.
The very thorn bush that had once scarred her legs so badly.
“…Alright, rest for now.”
But what else could he say at this moment other than agreeing?
After Freesia closed her eyes, reassured, Izar sighed deeply only after a long time had passed.
‘Can all this be a fabricated story?’
Could she have made up such sorrowful words? Even he, who didn’t initially believe Freesia, couldn’t dismiss her emotions as lies.
However, a simple solution occurred to him upon further reflection.
‘…If the emperor’s grandson indeed gets attacked by monsters, then it’s true.’
It wouldn’t be easy to make such a bold claim if it weren’t true.
‘Then, the day of reckoning isn’t far off.’
The day they had to enter the palace was now fast approaching.
He sincerely hoped that all of Freesia’s words were just delusions caused by her seizures.
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