If You Leave Without a Word - Chapter 258

‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

She’d never personally experienced such a situation, but she’d heard plenty about it. There was no need to make her suffering too obvious and risk provoking her interrogator’s irritation.

“Teschen Alexei. I was told you wanted to see me.”

“Y-yes, my lord Marquis.”

She’d planned to see the Marquis again. She wanted to beg forgiveness, to confess she understood the full gravity of her crimes and truly repented, and to plead that her years of loyal service at the marquis’s estate might earn her some mercy.

But when the moment came, the words caught in her throat. It was the marquis’s intimidating presence—his cold gaze was overwhelming.

The aura of a man truly deserving his moniker, the Knight of Blood and Ice. Pleading for her life to someone with such a face could very well have the opposite effect.

Teschen felt lost. She was so weak with hunger that she could barely think. If only she’d had a proper meal, she might have been able to collect her thoughts. She shook her head.

“Please… let me live.”

It was all she could manage, the only words that came to her lips. She cut to the heart of the matter, leaving all formality behind. Let me live—there was nothing else she wanted.

“It seems I’m letting you live even now.”

Cain’s reply was cold and more brutal than she had imagined.

As Teschen’s body sagged forward, the knights holding her arms tightened their grip. She was sure bruises would bloom across her shoulders and arms by morning. Sweat beaded on Teschen’s forehead.

“P-please… let me out of this cell. Let me walk out of here on my own two feet. Please, I beg you…”

Teschen would have sold her soul if it meant escaping this place. The cell was utterly unlivable—hot by day, freezing by night, and shrouded in perpetual darkness. Most prisons were miserable, but here, the absence of even a single ray of light made it unbearable.

With no light except when the guards came, she’d lived in total darkness so long she was on the verge of losing her mind. The darkness magnified every fear.

In it, Teschen faced her terror of death over and over again—and never once won the battle.

Lost in nightmares, she would sometimes see a flash of light when a guard threw her a hunk of cold bread. If she looked up, desperate for that single sliver of light, it would already be gone.

Swallowed by the darkness, tormented by nightmares, any glimpse of light was fleeting. One day bled into the next, weeks into months, until Teschen lost all will and reason to live.

She couldn’t go on like this. She didn’t care about anything else—she just wanted to stand on solid ground and feel sunlight again.

Clear air and dazzling sunlight—she longed to feel them on her skin, but even that was a luxury denied her in this underground prison. Sometimes, the sensation of bugs crawling across her skin startled her awake, and she found she couldn’t even rest in peace.

Life and death were both beyond her control.

She’d once decided, if she ever saw the Marquis again, to say: If you won’t let me live, then at least kill me quickly. But faced with the terrifying war hero’s gaze, she found she couldn’t say it.

Please let me live. That was all she could say, over and over, lips working silently. Let me live—I’ll do anything.

She must have repeated the phrase thirty times before Cain, tired of her broken pleas, raised his hand to silence her.

“Give me a reason I should spare your life.”

“T-that…”

“There are plenty of reasons I should kill you. All you need to do is tell me why I shouldn’t.”

To hear such a chilling statement delivered so calmly—Teschen’s whole face trembled. Her teeth chattered, her head felt like it was shaking loose.

“I-I can do anything. Anything, my lord—anything you command, I’ll do. If you’ll just let me go…”

“Anything?”

“Y-yes, anything…”

Perhaps sensing her words seemed to be getting through him, a faint hope entered Teschen’s voice.

“I’ve heard many people claim they’d do anything to save themselves. But not a single one ever proved themselves useful.”

“T-that can’t be…”

“They either broke their promises and tried to escape, or they failed at the tasks they were given. All of them fell into one of those two categories.”

“…”

“Alexei. Which one are you?”

“Uh…”

She tried to move her arms, but the knights still held her fast.