Chapter 237
Funeral
When Izar first heard that voice, even though it was only a dream, he couldn’t breathe.
It was more shocking than when she had said she loved him, or when he was told she had returned to his side once more after death.
Regardless of how he felt, Freesia wrapped her arms tightly around the man as if to embrace him, nestled her small head against the man’s shoulder, and whispered sweetly.
〈I missed you… I waited so long, you know.〉
Izar couldn’t make a sound in the dream.
So all he could do was helplessly watch as his woman whispered that she loved a man with a blurred face.
But the whole time, he screamed silently.
Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t say things like that to someone else.
The one you loved was me. Even after death, you chose to return to my side.
So why—why are you whispering those words to another man now…
With such a happy face.
When you were with me, you were never that happy…
Would it have been better if the damned nightmare ended with just that scene?
But nightmares are more than just ‘bad dreams’—they show you the worst possible ending.
And so Izar could not wake from that moment. He had to follow the dream all the way to its end.
The man standing by Freesia’s side looked different each time.
Sometimes it was the traitor Van Dike, and afterward, men of varying appearances came—some dressed as nobles, others as commoners.
In one dream, Freesia shyly smiled as she kissed the man.
In another, she strolled peacefully down a wooded path, hand in hand with a faceless wretch, like they were an old married couple.
And the first time he dreamed of Freesia in another man’s arms, Izar cried out with a new emotion.
Stop.
At first, it was a silent scream laced with rage. But the moment he saw that nightmare, his fury was replaced by despair.
She was a woman who used to blush like a spring flower every time she embraced him.
She used to smile, breathing shallowly, her pale green eyes filled only with him.
But in that nightmare, all of it belonged to someone else.
〈Ah… ahh…!〉
The face contorted in the throes of climax, the high-pitched moans escaping between flushed lips, the trembling of her honey-blonde lashes as she was overcome with pleasure.
〈I love you… I love you so much…〉
With the same radiant gaze she had once shown only Izar before the hunting festival, she now looked at another man.
When he saw her eyes shimmer with tears, overwhelmed by climax and happiness, Izar howled in agony from within the dream.
Stop!
Damned nightmare. He knew it was a dream, but he felt like he would lose his mind, terrified it reflected reality.
He feared that she might truly be in love with someone else now.
Seeing her happy with another man, he was struck by a realization he could no longer ignore:
Just how much happiness he and Freesia had missed out on.
Stop. Enough. No more.
He didn’t want to see it anymore. He wanted to wake up.
But even though the nightmares changed each time, their endings were always the same.
Every time, the dream ended with Freesia dying in another man’s arms.
Lying in a bed as though she would sink into a peaceful sleep, she would reach out and stroke the man’s cheek.
Even on the brink of death, her expression was nothing but blissful.
〈Thank you… I’m so glad I met you at the end of my life…〉
There wasn’t a trace of regret on her face.
No longing for the power she once held as the duke’s wife and the cherished imperial descendant.
Why…?
He could have given her so much more than that man.
If only she had given him one last chance.
〈…I’m so glad I left Izar and met you instead. I love you, my darling.〉
Those words, spoken before she died, tore Izar’s reason to shreds and crushed it beneath her heel.
The last time I saw you, you said you loved me.
You were the one who said you’d wait for me.
So how—how could you say those words to another man?
How could you?
How could you!
“Haah…!”
With a strangled cry, he always awoke.
The nightmare melted away with the morning light like melting snow, and only then did the reality of where he was begin to return.
“Guh… ngh…”
He was in the room where he had last spent time with her.
The room where he and Freesia had last shared a bed.
The room where, in another lifetime, she had taken her own life.
“…Ah.”
A pounding headache throbbed at his temples, unbearable.
“Ha… hahaha…!”
A tangled sound emerged—part sigh, part scream, part laughter steeped in madness.
How much time had passed since he realized that this sound had come from him?
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