Even If It Means to Break - Chapter 16

“I’ll gouge out the remaining eye once Hill wakes up.”

“Ugh… uhh…”

“I was curious what kind of expression she’d make when she heard who was behind this. That’s rather disappointing.”

But if she couldn’t hear it, then so be it. The man glanced at Hill once more and roughly tended to several of his more serious wounds.

The boy gathered what little strength he had left and struggled, but it was pointless. Smearing his own blood crudely across the boy’s injuries, the man rose to his feet and whispered,

“It would be troublesome if you died before Hill woke.”

After prattling on about how one should witness the end of a sinner with their own eyes to feel satisfied, he took out a small whistle and blew it. A thin, high-pitched sound—barely audible through the air—escaped the hole.

Soon, masked figures appeared and prostrated themselves before him.

“Clean this filth up and prepare water to wash Hill.”

“Yes.”

“Food and clothes as well. No, send Andouche instead. She’ll know what to do.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

After tenderly brushing Hill’s pale cheek, he draped over himself the red hide of a monstrous serpent he had set aside earlier. Then, striding forward with long steps, he commanded,

“The rest of you, follow me.”

As he passed through the small door, he declared quietly,

“We’re going to capture the old ringleader of Atuba who broke the pact.”

* * *

When Hill drifted in and out of consciousness and finally awoke, the room looked completely different.

The gloomy gray chamber that had stunk of death had been transformed into something bright and neat enough to pass for a private room in the royal harem.

If not for the boy still bound there, barely clinging to life, she might have believed she was somewhere else entirely.

Andouche, who had overseen the preparations, bowed deeply to Hill as she got up and presented her with a bowl of soup. Hill had no appetite, but she couldn’t bring herself to refuse.

She knew why Andouche was missing one ear.

After the meal, Hill was washed and dressed in fresh clothes. Throughout it all, the boy was treated as if he didn’t exist. Hill tried to bring him up, but Andouche, who had read her intention with the ease of long experience, shook her head. Hill curled in on herself instead.

If the boy were freed or killed, Andouche would lose her head.

Hill knew better than anyone how thin and fragile her sense of conscience was. Between the boy’s life and Andouche’s, she lacked the courage to choose either. She was fully aware that silence itself was a choice.

To help her avert her eyes, Andouche covered the boy with a large curtain. Hill spent the time under devoted care, weighed down by guilt and unease.

Strangely, the man did not come for two whole days.

Hill had expected to be violated like an animal every night even in the new room, so this absence surprised her.

When Andouche returned after tending to the boy just enough to keep him alive, Hill asked,

“Where did he go?”

Unless he had gone somewhere far away, there was no way he would simply leave her alone like this. At her question, Andouche bowed her head.

“I don’t know that either, Tana.”

Hill frowned reflexively. The title, used for the king’s woman, scratched at her nerves.

“Please call me Hill.”

“I don’t have the right to use Tana’s given name.”

Hill opened her mouth to respond, then bit her lip. Her eyes kept drifting to Andouche’s missing right ear.

Now that he’s gone, this is her chance. If she was going to run, it has to be now.

But… if she runs, Andouche will die. Without question.

‘So you ran before, thinking the lives of those watching you didn’t matter?’

The boy’s voice echoed like an unwanted hallucination. She didn’t want to hear it, but it continued.

‘Lives of people you know are precious, but those you don’t—did you think you could just pretend they never existed?’

It felt as if malice were roiling behind the thick curtain. Her heart pounded wildly. Clutching her chest, Hill darted her eyes around in panic, then desperately clung to a rebuttal as if it were a lifeline.

Then why didn’t you just kill me right away? A sudden surge of bitterness welled up. She hurled the thought out as if coughing up blood.

You should’ve just killed me. Instead of thinking up pointless revenge, you should’ve slit my throat and ended it.

It would’ve been easier for both of us.

Didn’t you say he ordered you to kill me outright? Then you should have—shouldn’t you?

As her thoughts spiraled in frantic resistance, Hill abruptly froze. She lingered on one word she had just thought.

He?

Who was he?

Confusion flooded her mind. The word carried a vague yet familiar feeling.

A sense that she was missing something important.

She dug through her memories as if clawing at the bottom of a well, but nothing came up. The fragments she managed to grasp scattered like sand caught by the wind.

The more she thought, the more she forgot what she had even been trying to remember.

She was… trying to remember something.

But she couldn’t. Even the concept of memory itself grew hazy. Thinking felt unreal and unfamiliar. She could no longer even be sure of her own existence.

Hill blinked like a lifeless doll, then stopped thinking altogether. She sat quietly, doing nothing but breathing.

After several minutes perhaps more the sense of reality slowly returned, and the world gradually regained its color.