My Ruin to You - Chapter 140

He closed his eyes, but sleep would not come. Every time he drifted into a light slumber, Roseline’s final moments repeated like a nightmare. Today was no different. At dawn, he jerked his eyes open, faced a reality more haunting than any nightmare, and buried his face in Roseline’s rigid embrace. Would it hurt less to have his flesh torn open and his heart ripped out while still alive?

By afternoon, a peculiar energy stirred through the Grand Duke’s estate. It was because the Grand Duke, who had not left his bedroom, was heading to his study for the first time in a while.

Merrick, the butler, and even the servants of the estate held their breath, watching his every move. His figure, silently passing through the corridor and opening the study door, was much thinner than before. Whether due to weight loss, his already distinct features stood out even more sharply, and his eyes, weary with fatigue, carried an intense, intellectual weight. The forehead and bridge of his nose revealed beneath his neatly swept-back hair, along with the slightly set jawline below, created an almost mesmerizing aura.

Merrick and the butler, summoned to the study, desperately hoped his next words would finally set the funeral date.

Having cut off all external contact and sequestered himself in his bedroom since losing Roseline, the imperial family and high society were holding their breath, waiting for his decision while time passed.

“Bring the dress that was tailored to the bedroom.”

The order that came after he had processed all the postponed paperwork also eased their worries. It was the wedding dress. Since it was not uncommon to dress the deceased, who had passed without marrying, in a wedding gown, they thought: It seems the Grand Duke has finally prepared his heart to send his lover off.

“Deliver this to His Majesty.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”

Shortly after the butler left, Valen quickly scrawled a letter and handed it to Merrick.

Upon leaving the study and returning to the bedroom, the wedding dress hung on an antique stand beside the full-length mirror. The pristine white silk, with its subtle sheen, seemed to melt like a snowflake each time it caught the light. After briefly running an indifferent gaze over the wedding dress,

“I’m back, Roseline.”

He moved to the bedside, pressed his lips to Roseline’s cold forehead, and smiled faintly.

“Come on, I won’t bother you anymore. Let’s just change your clothes.”

He carefully lifted Roseline’s arm. He massaged and loosened the stiff joints gently to avoid forcing them, periodically checking on Roseline. After putting the dress on her and tying the ribbon at the back, he brushed his hand over her exposed shoulder blades.

“There’s not a single part of you that isn’t beautiful.”

Only after kissing her shoulder blades did he lay Roseline back down. Unlike his dispassionate glance at the dress earlier, he now looked at Roseline as if beholding the most beautiful thing in the world. For a very, very long time.

“I’ll answer you again. It wasn’t that I wanted to tame your disobedience into submission; I just wanted to receive the love you give. You might not know this, but I liked you precisely because you didn’t listen to me.”

Their first meeting was certainly unusual. A woman, drunk, barging into the imperial palace gardens, clutching a stone, and pouring her magic into it—and it wasn’t even magic of her own affinity. Perhaps he felt a strange sense of kinship. Because he, too, was born with powerful magic that was difficult to control, forced to live always restraining it.

Was that why? The woman, forcibly drawing upon magic of a different affinity while drunk, piqued a strange curiosity in him.

Her absurd and innocent ideas were endearing too. Roseline, who had no expectations of him and sent a letter of repentance when he told her to write, was cute and precious. He found himself waiting for her trivial letters, and that waiting became a habit, and that habit grew into affection, swelling larger with each passing day.

There wasn’t a single moment he disliked. In a life that had lacked nothing, she was the one precious, irreplaceable thing. Even this moment, where she had ultimately abandoned him, felt so beloved that it made his heart ache fiercely.

“I can’t agree with you saying we should never have met. But if we have a next time, I’ll try harder.”

He placed a dagger in Roseline’s stiffened hand. Then, clasping her hand with his own, he guided it toward his own chest.

“So that you won’t be in pain.”

As the dagger’s sharp blade pierced his flesh, his white shirt quickly stained crimson. Like petals unfurling, the blood slowly spread. Clutching Roseline’s hand tightly, he exhaled quietly.

“I love you, Roseline.”

He collapsed beside Roseline. As he forcibly raised her rigid hand to place one last kiss on its back, that’s when he noticed.

Since when had it been gone?

Roseline’s wrist was clean. The scar from the snake bite had vanished without a trace.

He held his breath for a moment. Though his senses were rapidly fading, his vision remained strangely clear. It was a relief. He could keep Roseline in his sight until the very end.

Slowly, very slowly, he moved his gaze along the lines of Roseline’s face. Her eyelashes, the bridge of her nose, her cheek, her jawline. Only after imprinting everything he loved onto his eyes did the long darkness finally swallow his consciousness.

◇◇◇

Roseline was bewildered.

The memory of her magic running rampant in the prison was vivid. Yet, when she closed and opened her eyes, why was a splendid banquet unfolding before her? At first, she thought the completely mad Valen had brought her unconscious self to a banquet hall, but her attire was bizarre. Wasn’t she wearing an academy uniform?