Chapter 260
“…Please leave.”
“……”
“Let’s talk later.”
At Freesia’s quiet refusal, Izar closed his eyes. He hadn’t expected sweet love like in the past, but even kneeling before her, all he received was rejection.
He eventually stood, but still couldn’t bring himself to let go of her hand.
Meanwhile, Nova, who had been holding her breath all this time, slowly shifted her gaze. She’d wanted to squirm for a while, but her mother’s atmosphere had been too serious to interrupt. But when she looked up and saw the tears on Freesia’s cheek, she was shocked.
Without hesitation, Nova grabbed the nearest cushion and threw it.
“Go away!”
Nova’s face turned bright red. Freesia quickly tried to stop her, but the child, already red-eyed from earlier crying, now shouted in a raspy voice.
“Go away…! Nova doesn’t want to see you!”
Just half a day ago, she had begun to open up to him, but now, Izar could say nothing. The cushion she threw didn’t hurt, but he had never felt more pain in his life.
Not even when a monster bit through his arm at age twelve. Not even when his father, drunk with madness, seized him and dragged him to where his mother was.
〈I found your mother, Izar!〉
That childhood, that desperate hope—none of it compared.
***
In the end, Izar left the room, as Freesia had asked. Even from her position, watching his silhouette sink like a stone into deep water made her heart ache.
So when she greeted Riegel while still holding the now softly snoring Nova, she wasn’t in the best state of mind.
“Why is he here?”
Freesia glanced resentfully at her cousin. She knew she had asked too much, but she had believed this one relative would protect her to the end.
Riegel let out a sigh that seemed to sink from his very lungs.
“The Duke followed the clues himself and forced his way here.”
“But…!”
“And he acted as if he would break my neck with his bare hands.”
“What? H-How could he…”
“It means he no longer cares about committing treason.”
Freesia bit her lower lip quietly. A mixture of guilt toward her cousin and confusion rendered her speechless.
She thought about how much Izar had suffered because of his parents, how hard he had tried to erase the disgrace from the family name. Remembering that man made it all the more bitter.
‘But if he was capable of this now… then why couldn’t he have been kind to me back then?’
He could’ve kept her from being left to suffer under Electra’s blows. Even if she was shameful or unloved, he didn’t have to turn his back on her.
“What do you want to do about him, little sister?”
“……”
“You know, don’t you? That man will never back down from this.”
Right now, he may have gone silent in despair, but soon, he would steel himself and fight desperately to remain by Freesia and Nova’s side.
If Riegel could see it clearly, Freesia surely could too.
“Earlier… Izar said something.”
“What did he say?”
“He said this might be my last time.”
Freesia blinked, watching Riegel’s expression carefully.
“Is it true?”
“We can still try. There are other sanctuaries left.”
Her cousin encouraged her firmly, but Freesia slowly shook her head.
“…No. I can feel it too. I don’t think it will work anymore.”
Even in this sleep, she had heard Adamant urging her. Unlike before, the magical energy was slower to replenish.
Death was, in the end, something that couldn’t be endlessly kept at bay by human effort.
“And even if I want to cut ties with Izar… Nova can’t.”
Freesia gently brushed back her sleeping daughter’s dark hair.
Nova was her daughter, but she was also of the House of Arcturus.
‘The reason I didn’t completely destroy that land… was also for Nova.’
Even if she herself died, Nova should still live her life and claim what was hers.
Freesia also thought back to her own mother long ago.
〈Your father is a nobleman.〉
Her mother, with her tongue cut, had stubbornly insisted with frantic gestures and hastily scribbled notes.
〈He’ll come to find us, riding a beautiful white horse. You’ll see, Freesia.〉
But no, no man on a white horse ever came to find the tongueless woman and her child.
Never.
Yet Izar had come on a black horse to find Nova. And so, it was impossible to separate them forever.
Nor could she bear to let Nova grow up hating her father to the point of convulsing, as she had earlier.
Freesia held Nova even closer and closed her eyes.
‘If there’s not much time left now…’
Then she would create memories that her daughter could hold dear. So Nova could remember these days with her parents as beautiful treasures.
Even if the happiness of the three of them being a family was a fragile illusion, so what?
Even if it tore her apart every time she saw Izar again, so what?
‘If it becomes a happiness Nova remembers for life… then it’s worth it.’
She would push her own pain aside and endure for that one reason alone.
That would be Freesia’s final task on this earth.
The last thing she could do in the time that remained.
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