Chapter 253
Izar learned all too painfully the very next day that Riegel’s description of Nova had been entirely true.
The moment the child saw Izar, who had been anxiously waiting for her to wake in the bright morning, she leapt out of bed with astonishing speed.
“U-Uncle! Uncleee!”
Nova ran toward Riegel on her chubby legs. The way she tugged at his hem was nothing short of desperate.
“That, that…!”
“You mustn’t call people ‘that’, Nova.”
Riegel gently scolded her as he lifted her into his arms. Though he had been firm the night before while weighing Freesia and Izar’s pain, now, he couldn’t bring himself to look directly at Izar’s devastated expression.
After all, his daughter had bolted the instant she saw him and was now fleeing in horror…
That aside, however, Izar’s eyes glinted with killing intent, as if he wanted to slice off the arm holding Nova.
Avoiding his gaze, Riegel softly told Nova,
“Nova. That man is your father.”
“Gasp…!”
All the color drained from Nova’s face. The scary man who had tried to open her mother’s glass coffin…! No way someone like that could be the ‘Papa’ from storybooks.
“Nova. You asked Mathilde about your Papa, didn’t you?”
“Ah…! No, I didn’t! I didn’t!”
Nova shook her head frantically at Riegel’s nudge. Surely this man was a monster she’d conjured up from under the bed with her unnecessary thoughts.
He had the same hair color and eyes as her, but there was no way she could accept that person as ‘Papa’.
“Nova doesn’t want that to be her Papa!”
“Nova—”
“Nova doesn’t know him! Tell him to get out!”
At last, Izar couldn’t stand it anymore and took a step forward. Now that he could see her more clearly in the light, despite the mix of his own features, she looked a great deal like Freesia.
This was the child he had wandered in nightmares just to hold. And because she resembled Freesia, it felt like even she was rejecting him—his heart began to panic.
“Nova. I am your—”
“AAAHHH!”
But before Izar’s hand could reach her, Nova shrieked like a wild kitten and screamed sharply.
Perhaps because there was nowhere left to run, she glared wide-eyed and roared in fury.
“Get awaaay! Don’t touch me! Nova doesn’t know you!”
Maybe it was better than sobbing through hiccups, but hearing his daughter scream like that was gut-wrenching all the same.
While Izar stood frozen in shock, Riegel wiped a cold sweat in dismay.
Reports had said the girl was secretly curious about her ‘Papa’, so he’d thought that in the daylight, she might show some interest…
“For now, just… give it time. Close the distance slowly.”
“……”
“I’ll tell you what she likes. As bait—no, I mean, to help you get close.”
For a moment, Izar’s mind went blank from his daughter’s rejection. Rage began to boil up inside him. He was her father, and yet Nova clung to Riegel as though he were the real one.
‘Who do you think made me spend all this time apart from her?’
If he had raised Nova himself, he wouldn’t need Riegel’s help to know what she liked. He should’ve been the one to soothe her when she cried, the one she ran to first when scared.
‘…Endure it.’
But if he expressed any more resentment now, his daughter would only pull further away.
And just when he was struggling to calm his heart despite Nova’s harsh rejection, a very familiar face strolled in, mocking him, it seemed, with its sheer nonchalance.
“What are you doing here?”
Why had that shameless blond bastard shown up here of all places?
Izar glared at Riegel with eyes burning with fury. Though Albireo Deneb looked awkward, he frowned at Izar’s open hostility.
“I came under His Highness’s orders, Duke.”
“And did he tell you what you’re supposed to do here?”
“……I was told it was to assist His Highness.”
“You damned rat.”
Izar ground his teeth watching Albireo avert his gaze and answer a beat too late. It was obvious—he must have heard Freesia’s life was at stake, so he had abandoned all high-society engagements in the capital and rushed here.
Izar turned to Riegel with a glare he couldn’t suppress.
“Don’t tell me even Deneb knew about this Sanctuary?”
“He didn’t…”
Caught between two irritable men, Riegel rubbed his aching forehead.
“I told him only this time. He arrived after I summoned him.”
“And what’s the reason for calling him here?”
“Because I can’t figure out what’s wrong with this Sanctuary by myself. So I summoned the person I trust most from the Academy.”
Riegel couldn’t possibly have known how much these two men loathed each other. But the cause of their rift wasn’t the issue at hand right now.
“If… if even the mana from this place isn’t enough…”
Because one of Riegel’s worst hypotheses might be becoming reality.
At last, he whispered the possibility he had been unable to bring himself to say the day Izar stormed in.
“……It may be that this is the last time Freesia ever wakes.”
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