Chapter 236
…The first year Freesia disappeared.
Back then, Izar’s emotions hadn’t yet worn down. On the contrary, he thrashed in madness, consumed by ever-growing fury.
“I will never forgive her.”
Even after he had laid bare the entirety of his heart, in the end, Freesia had betrayed him.
She ran away while carrying their child? She dared to deceive him and go into hiding? And now they said she wasn’t even in the Deneb estate?
“Ha…! How remarkable.”
Just how well did she manipulate people, to the point even Van Dike could vanish without a trace?
No matter how much he pressured and monitored the Dike family, they only looked bewildered at how he treated the situation. They still believed Van had died during the attack on the duchy.
‘As if that could be true.’
Would he really betray his master and flee with his master’s wife?
Given the proof that even the Grypheus Plains had been sold off, Freesia must have had no intention of living uncomfortably, even if she ran.
‘Did she take the money to live in comfort with another man?’
She had left behind all the other jewels he had given her, hadn’t even taken a single one bestowed by the imperial family.
“…There’s no way she went far in that condition.”
Izar repeated the words to himself again and again.
‘I will find you. And when I do, I won’t beg for forgiveness anymore. I won’t feel affection for you ever again.’
He didn’t care who she was with now. Whether it was a woman or a man, whoever dared to become her refuge after she left him—they would die for that sin.
He would kill them in the cruelest way possible and make sure she witnessed it all without being able to turn away.
“Until then, I will never…”
He would never fall into despair. He would not fear—he would only burn with rage.
Clinging to nothing but hatred, he rooted out every household in the surrounding regions where she might be hiding.
Small villages she might have reached on foot, towns, forests, abandoned cottages.
He issued sweeping search orders to all of them. Receiving reports at the castle wasn’t enough anymore.
He too went out personally, scouring the land without resting for a moment.
“Next time, I’ll find her for sure.”
Next time. In the next village. In the next territory’s town. In the domain across the river…
〈Milord, we are sorry.〉
He had grown tired of hearing apologies. The faces were always filled with guilt and helplessness, but how could he not see what their eyes were really saying?
Maybe Freesia…
“The imperial descendant is not dead.”
He snapped like a beast driven to its limit.
“Search the next territory—even if it means turning over every village. No matter what it takes!”
He cried out like that and thought the same thing every single day:
‘I curse you, Freesia.’
He cursed the very fact that he had met her. He cursed himself for letting his heart be stolen by her.
But even with the imperial family mobilized in the search, the woman’s whereabouts remained uncannily elusive.
She wasn’t an ordinary woman—how could the Emperor’s cherished granddaughter vanish like a mirage?
And no matter how much Izar tried to fuel the search with anger, the moment eventually arrived.
The day spring faded from the empire—and far beyond the time Freesia’s lifespan should have run out.
…Could she really be dead?
‘No, impossible!’
It wasn’t enough to tear the failure report to shreds.
Furniture in the bedchamber was slashed to pieces with a sword, and the tapestries decorating the walls were not spared either.
Standing amid the shattered debris scattered across the floor, Izar forced himself to summon rage.
She couldn’t have died so meaninglessly, leaving him behind.
She couldn’t have died while carrying their child.
She couldn’t have died… leaving nothing behind for him. No trace.
‘There must have been a miracle. She must be hiding somewhere.’
Laughing at him for failing to find her, holding their baby in her arms…
Maybe even teaching the child to call some other man ‘Papa’.
She might be whispering lies to Nova, telling the child that man was her father.
Of course—that must be it. Which meant she couldn’t have died.
“Ha…”
The more he thought, the more his rage was overtaken by a deeper emotion.
A suffocating anguish that filled his lungs and left him unable to breathe.
From the day he was swallowed by that emotion, Izar began to have nightmares every night.
And in those nightmares, Freesia smiled beautifully.
Back when he adorned her with jewelry, her face had always looked so dark—so how could it be, that in the dream, not a single shadow clouded her expression…?
She was always walking hand-in-hand with another man.
In the nightmare, Freesia was living with someone else.
The place where she hid her body changed every time.
A cozy cabin in the woods.
A two-story home in a quiet village.
On some days, a tranquil noble’s annex.
〈Darling, welcome home.〉
And in the dream, Freesia called that new man by that name.
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