Chapter 113
It was his fault. He had ruined everything.
He wasn’t the victor—he was the defeated.
Not the master, but the slave.
From the very beginning, he was the one who had longed. He was the one who had begged. He was the one who needed.
By nature’s law, he might be stronger. By the rules of man, he might be the ruler. But between the two of them, Jaha had won. Jaha was his master.
If he couldn’t make her submit, then he should have been the one to submit.
Instead of trying to possess her, he should have surrendered—begged for her mercy.
Instead of restraining her, forcing her not to look at another man, he should have pleaded, “Please, just love me.”
He should have accepted this redefined truth from the start.
But the realization came too late—now, it stabbed through his heart like a dagger. This wasn’t regret by a hair’s breadth; it was too late for even lingering attachment to be anything but a luxury.
Staring at the ruins where not even a trace of the original remained, he asked himself:
Can I ever restore this to what it was?
If it’s even possible, how much time would it take?
He had no confidence. A wasteland could be replanted with grass, a desert given a spring—but how does one refill an emptied person? There was no guide, no answer.
Even if he poured everything he had into her, he couldn’t guarantee the end result would resemble what she once was. Rather than restoration, she might become something entirely different.
No—she would undoubtedly change. Broken objects could never be perfectly restored, so how could something as intricate as a human being return without a single flaw?
He had no right to hope for a miracle. So he simply wept.
Jaha stared blankly at the emperor, his tears falling onto her cheeks.
Why is this man crying so bitterly?
What could possibly make him this sad?
Now, everything was easy for Jaha. There was nothing left to hide, no reason to suffer. The filters in her mind were gone. If a moan escaped, she let it out. If it felt good, she said so. If it hurt, she said that too.
It was so effortless that she wondered why she had struggled so hard before. Yet, the man seemed to be in agony—the more content she became, the more he suffered, perhaps even more than she ever had.
Why?
Hadn’t he wanted a doll that would spread its legs without resistance?
It was the first real question to cross her mind in a long time.
Jaha hardly ever thought anymore. If the man before her hadn’t been crying like a child, her submerged consciousness might never have risen to the surface.
It was strange and curious, seeing a grown man weep like that. But that was all. She had no will, no interest, no energy to think any deeper.
His tear-filled, trembling violet eyes were pitiful, but they stirred nothing in her.
She was too parched to be moistened by his tears. A few drops of water on a long-dead tree wouldn’t make it sprout again.
With only a faint sense of puzzlement—If he wanted me broken, why is he grieving now?—Jaha sank back into the abyss.
The emperor grew stranger with each passing day. One day, he would rage at Jaha, storming around like a madman—the next, he would dote on her as if ready to carve out his own liver for her—and then, on another, he would drop to his knees, weeping and pleading.
There are no perfect secrets in this world, and so, one by one, witnesses began to emerge to the emperor’s erratic behavior.
A knight standing guard outside the door heard the emperor wailing like a beast.
A servant saw His Majesty fawning over Jaha, desperate for even a single glance from her motionless eyes.
A maid, passing by the bedchamber late at night, glimpsed through the door crack the emperor muttering like a madman, begging incoherently.
One attendant, having seen something unknown—but clearly shocking enough—even fled the palace altogether.
The head chamberlain and head maid strictly enforced silence, but rumors could not be contained. Soon, there was no one in the palace unaware of the emperor’s state. Before long, the nobles—who had long planted their own eyes and ears within the palace walls—learned of it as well.
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“Jaha, what kind of day do you like best? A clear day? A rainy day? Or a snowy day?”
The emperor stroked Jaha’s hair gently as he asked, his tone affectionate. She lay with her head resting on his lap—not by her own choice, but because he had arranged her that way.
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Kamelia Kaltig