Chapter 231

The imperial descendant’s whereabouts

The day Freesia tried to harm herself—what state of mind had Izar been in when he walked out?

She had tried to end her life with the gift he had given her. The joy he’d felt, thinking he’d finally given her a present that suited her when it was placed against that slender nape, had sunk like mud.

Even so, he couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.

〈What should I give her?〉

At the very least, she had to be able to swallow something. Was there anything left that Freesia might still enjoy?

‘Wild berries…….’

He had wanted to give her everything in the ducal house, and yet the only thing that came to mind was that pitiful fruit.

But where would one find such an early-summer fruit in a season already overtaken by bitter cold?

‘If there’s anywhere with even the slightest chance……?’

He suddenly recalled the moment Freesia had once gleefully splashed water with her feet like a child.

〈Ah, wild berries!〉

The moment she had exclaimed that while happily picking and eating them at the ‘Spring of Healing’ in the Deneb estate…

Even if that region had a milder climate than the duchy, surely those fruits had long since withered and fallen by now.

‘But I have nothing to lose by trying.’

It was already deep into the night, but he couldn’t delay even a second. Not once did he think he was disgracing himself, even as the marquis’s family stared at him, bewildered, wondering, ‘Wild berries at this hour of the night?’

And Albireo Deneb, as if he had somehow foreseen Izar would come looking for this very fruit, remained perfectly calm.

〈We’ve stored about this much—will that be enough?〉

〈……How.〉

Even though he had come all the way here, he hadn’t truly expected real wild berries to appear. And not dried fruit, either, but fresh, as if they had forgotten the passing of seasons.

When Izar furrowed his brows, Albireo scowled in the same unpleasant way.

〈Don’t look at me like that. It’s not like I knew you were coming and prepared for it.〉

〈Then what?〉

Only then did Albireo Deneb avert his gaze.

〈……When we were experimenting with the ‘Spring of Healing’, we discovered a method of magical preservation.〉

It meant that he had developed it while experimenting to make a gift for Freesia in the past. Upon hearing the explanation, Izar silently stared down at the reddish fruit glowing faintly.

It felt like being tossed into the gutter. His mood was filthy.

Had he ever tasted such a crashing sense of inferiority over another man?

Freesia was his wife—yet the thing she liked had already been prepared by another man?

Maybe even in their past life… the wild berries Freesia had received had, in the end, come from the Deneb estate too?

〈Just tell me how you got the wild berries.〉

〈I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.〉

Which was why, when Freesia had asked before she left, he hadn’t been able to answer.

‘I didn’t want to tell her.’

Because it would have shattered his pride to admit that even the one gift that didn’t wound her hadn’t been obtained purely by his own strength.

Still, if Freesia could be happy, he could endure it. As long as she stayed by his side, then now, no matter what…

And that hope had been utterly destroyed.

The bitter sense of defeat he had felt in front of Albireo Deneb ignited once more. A flame composed of hatred and rage, refusing to die out.

“Tell me where you’ve hidden my wife. Now.”

It had to be this bastard.

There was no other place he could imagine where Freesia, in her condition, might be hiding.

‘I’ll kill him.’

There was a time he’d thought he could turn a blind eye—even if she took in scum like this as a lover—as long as she smiled only for him. But the moment he drew his sword, all such past thoughts shattered.

“Before your entire family is slaughtered with you, you’d better confess.”

“Cough— I-I don’t know……!”

“Don’t give me that!”

“Ghk!”

Izar once again seized Albireo by the throat and shouted.

“Everyone knows Freesia’s maid came here.”

“Ugh…….”

“Choose now—will your entire family be slaughtered by the Emperor, or will you tell me and die alone?”

At those words, Albireo bit his lip.

He wasn’t afraid to die alone, but for his entire family to be dragged into ruin because of his actions…

“Ha… That maid was indeed sent to me by Her Highness.”

“Where is she now?”

“I don’t know. She probably left for wherever she wanted to go.”

Albireo recalled the unexpected visitor and gave a twisted smile, his brow furrowing.

“……She didn’t seem to have any idea what was going on herself.”

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