Chapter 259
Izar fell silent at Freesia’s calm declaration. The hope that she would wake, that he could hold her hand and speak with her, shattered like glass.
The broken hope scorched and tore at his heart, making it impossible to control his emotions.
“…What exactly is over?”
He clutched at himself inwardly, desperately trying not to collapse. He couldn’t fall apart here, in front of the woman he had finally found. Not like in those days when people called him mad as he wandered, never again like that.
“You’re not dead—so what’s over?”
He stepped toward her. The attendants exchanged glances, and sensing something wrong, withdrew to go call Riegel.
“Izar. I’ve already been declared dead by the Imperial Family.”
Freesia tightened her arms protectively around Nova as she whispered.
“So you can remarry and move on without anyone condemning—”
“Even if you were dead, that wouldn’t be the end of us!”
At the mention of remarriage, he nearly raised his voice. If the child in her arms hadn’t flinched, he probably would have.
But even trying to hold back, the pain felt like his heart was being crushed. He covered his face with one hand and whispered roughly.
“Why do you get to declare it over? When you’ve been alive this whole time?”
“……”
“After you said you’d wait. After you told me… where that bastard Canopus was.”
Wasn’t that because some part of her still cared for him? If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have just destroyed a fortress, she would have burned the entire duchy to the ground. She wouldn’t have hesitated to see Izar himself die.
Maybe Freesia still cared for him, just a little. Maybe when she woke up, she’d welcome him. Believing that, that belief now felt hollow and worthless.
“…I won’t deny I changed my mind at the very end.”
She averted her gaze from the man who looked at her like a ghost. The poison of her heart had drained like water on sand, and what replaced it was a gnawing guilt.
“You kept trying to change. So instead of seeing revenge through to the end… I changed my heart.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
Izar reached out his hand to her. If she’d recognized his efforts even a little—wasn’t that a beginning?
“Let me stay by your side. At least for the time you have left—”
But then came the cruelest words he had ever heard, falling lightly like feathers.
“Izar, if I’m going to die this time… I don’t want to see you again.”
“……”
“It’s too painful for me.”
Freesia closed her eyes and whispered softly.
〈Goodbye, my beloved husband.〉
When she had burned their portrait and bid her silent farewell, she had wished for only one thing.
〈Please, don’t ever let me meet him again.〉
Some days, it seemed that if she could just change her own heart, she might have lived peacefully. But when night came, it always felt like she alone had paid the price in both lives, so much that the grief made her want to cry.
Izar had lost nothing in comparison. And that imbalance made her feel wretched, as though just doing the emotional math made her petty and foul.
If that feeling was love, then she wanted to be free of it.
“Please leave, Izar…”
The only love she had left was reserved for Nova. She didn’t want to see Izar and be shaken again.
Freesia held her small daughter like an anchor in a storm and pleaded with him. The word ‘husband’ stuck in her throat every time she said it.
“I want to forget you now.”
“…Freesia.”
“I’m still struggling. Please… just go.”
Izar looked down at her blankly.
Freesia was crying.
The woman who had just barely awakened… was weeping because of him. All his vows not to fall apart upon seeing her again meant nothing now.
He remembered how his father had crumbled after seeing his mother again in his childhood. He had sworn never to collapse like that. But now…
“…No.”
Izar knelt and took Freesia’s hand as she sat on the bed.
“Let go—!”
She tried to pull away, but when he bowed his head, she froze.
“I can leave now. But I can’t walk away.”
“……”
“If this might be… your last time, how could I leave you?”
Freesia looked slowly down at Izar, his voice trembling.
The hands that wrapped around hers were quivering.
Big, calloused hands befitting a swordsman, but now they looked unnaturally sharp—like they had been honed to a blade.
His violet-shadowed eyes, his chiseled features… they all showed how close to the edge he was.
But Freesia was at her limit too.
Facing Izar again was like wringing out the last drop from dried-out emotions. She was already so very, very tired.
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