Chapter 175
Blind hope
With a voice filled with contempt, Freesia spoke, and a profound silence settled over the tent.
Izar, half-dazed, watched as tears slid down beneath her dark, honey-colored lashes.
Since Freesia had been abducted, he had been tormented by countless nightmares—dreams where she was dead, tortured, or abused.
Or, perhaps worst of all, that her heart had wavered, and she no longer wanted him.
But never had he imagined she would curse him with such hatred.
The lips that once whispered her love for him now said he was repulsive.
To him…
“I… I want to be free of you.”
As if being dragged into a dark, bottomless swamp, Izar sharply drew in his breath.
Though Freesia no longer struggled, she turned her tear-streaked face away from him.
“I don’t want to be with you anymore. Once we return to the capital…”
“…I won’t allow it. No.”
“Why not? I was never truly anything to you.”
She laughed, a hollow sound tinged with pain that made Izar hold his breath.
“Even a w***e can walk away if she’s dissatisfied with the price.”
“Don’t say that. You are my wife.”
Izar’s tone grew rougher, driven by a need to erase her self-deprecation.
The mere fact that she could say such things felt like an insult. The only woman in his life was reducing herself to nothing more than a courtesan.
She was insinuating that what they shared was nothing but a transaction, where she offered herself in exchange for a handful of jewels and flowers.
He clenched his teeth, his gaze fixed on that damned document.
If only he could go back to their wedding day, knowing he would come to love her.
But there was no miracle that could grant him that, so he ground his teeth and spoke to her.
“…It’s true. At first, I treated you that way, not wanting you. I won’t deny it.”
“……”
“But not anymore. I want you by my side. You, only you…”
He could still feel the overwhelming emotions she had stirred when she shared her memory of the wild berries.
Holding her, it felt as if his entire body would shatter under the weight of his joy.
That was happiness.
Freesia had been his first taste of true happiness. His only love, in the few months she had left to live…
The thought froze his heart.
“And… your remaining days. How could you talk of leaving when your time is running out?”
She had never told him the exact number of days she had left, only a vague estimate of ‘around 200 days’.
While he had roughly calculated it himself, he didn’t know her precise end.
“Freesia, how much time do you have left?”
“Don’t touch me.”
“How much time? Tell me now!”
“If you touch me again without my permission, I will die right here in front of you. I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.”
As he desperately tried to hold onto her, she spoke with chilling composure, and his breath stopped at her final words.
“Do it again? What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, right. You once asked how I died in my previous life.”
With her honey-colored lashes casting a shadow over her eyes, she smiled quietly.
“I died because I hated you so much. I threw myself from your bedroom window.”
“……”
“I tried falling down the stairs, hanging myself, but it all failed.”
“Stop.”
“So I finally succeeded by jumping from the window. If only I’d thought of it sooner…”
“Enough!”
Izar let out a strangled cry, as if poison were pouring into his ears. He didn’t want to hear it.
But his mind betrayed him, painting the scenes she described.
He could imagine Freesia’s body tumbling helplessly down the steep stairs of the ducal mansion.
Her attempt to end her life with a noose in his bedroom.
He could see her writhing body eventually going limp, a terrifyingly vivid image burned into his mind.
“Ha…”
It felt as if he had been thrown into deep water, pressure crushing his lungs.
Freesia had ended her own life in her first lifetime, and it was by falling…
Just imagining her body breaking upon impact made him shudder. How could she do that to herself?
“Why…”
He struggled to control his ragged breathing. It felt as if his soul were being shattered, every fragment ground to dust.
“If that’s how you died, then why…”
“Why did I come back to you?”
Through her tear-blurred vision, Freesia looked up at him with a strangely clear smile.
She hadn’t expected him to be so shaken by her words.
The sight stirred an unfamiliar, bitter satisfaction in her—that someone could be so deeply wounded by someone they considered utterly insignificant.
“Because, foolishly, I hit my head and died, and I forgot it all. All my resentment and hatred for you.”
“That’s…”
“If I had remembered, I wouldn’t have returned to you.”
“……”
“I would have disappeared from your life at the first opportunity.”
The large hands holding her shoulders and wrists slowly slipped away.
Freesia gazed at him steadily, watching as if he were witnessing his own heart being pierced by a spear.
Then, she whispered, barely audible but clear.
“So, Duke… I no longer love you.”
“……”
“We are nothing to each other. Just as you wanted.”
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