Chapter 125
Yet despite needing comfort more than anyone, he clumsily stroked her hair—before rounding on the servants.
“What were you all doing while Jaha was playing near the window? How did she fall?”
The servants trembled in terror. Honestly, no one had anticipated this—there had been no time to stop it.
Who could have guessed that the docile fool, always as still as a doll, would throw herself out a window?
The Emperor seemed to treat it as a mere accident, but those present knew otherwise. It had clearly been intentional. Yet under the Emperor’s razor-sharp fury, none dared voice that truth.
She looked unharmed now, but when they first retrieved her, her limbs had been bent at grotesque angles, blood seeping from ruptures inside her body from the impact. The image of the Emperor pouring magic into that broken wreck wouldn’t leave them.
His face bloodless, as though he were the one bleeding, chanting spells without pause—over and over—
An act meant to save a life, yet there was nothing holy about it. What radiated from him was something far more unsettling.
There is something about the excessive, the transgressive, that chills the bone just to witness.
What they sensed in the Emperor was that exact brand of dread.
If he loses that slave, he won’t remain sane.
Even with her, he was crumbling—but without her, he’d collapse entirely, like a sandcastle.
And the empire, glorious for over a thousand years, would tremble with him.
They all thought it. And in that same moment, they knew it.
The Emperor would never forgive them. He would absolutely not pardon those who failed to stop her suicide attempt despite being in the same room. And now, their vague premonition was about to become reality.
At the Emperor’s signal, the knights moved. As the servants were dragged away one by one, Jaha stared blankly at the scene—until the Emperor covered her eyes with his palm.
“You should rest.”
Had her brain become simpler after colliding with the ground just once? Like an animal that falls asleep when its eyes are covered, Jaha was immediately swept away by drowsiness.
The next day, when the Emperor left his post, Jaha jumped from the window again. This time, unfortunately, she remained conscious until the moment she hit the ground.
Amid the agony of her body shattering, she slowly lost consciousness.
When she opened her eyes again, the first thing in her vision was those violet eyes—just like before, bloodshot, the whites completely crimson.
“Are you awake?”
Another failure.
They say you can’t be full from the first bite—apparently, once or twice wasn’t enough.
Would she have to keep trying until she got the hang of it? She’d already had enough of repetitive learning back in her senior year of high school. She’d gritted her teeth, vowing never to study like that again—but if she’d known it would come to this, she would’ve slacked off more. Why did I even study so hard? It was always going to end up like this anyway.
At any rate, it seemed she’d have to endure this nauseating cycle of repetition for a while. Until the day she succeeded.
“Does anything hurt?”
The Emperor’s trembling hand cupped her cheek.
Jaha slowly nodded. She knew he’d keep asking the same question until she answered.
Only then did the Emperor pull her into a crushing embrace, as if he’d finally received permission. He touched her everywhere, as though confirming with all five senses that she was alive—rubbing his face against hers, burying his nose in her skin.
The moment his chapped lips brushed against her skin, Jaha thought it wouldn’t be so bad if the Emperor just opened his mouth and devoured her whole. If he loved this body so much, he might as well gnaw it apart piece by piece—starting from her head down to her toes.
She hated pain, but if it meant a definitive end, she could endure it. Even better if he used magic to numb her, like anesthesia before surgery.
Magic truly was remarkable. It could turn a shattered ragdoll of a person—who’d flung herself from a window—back into something whole.
For the first time, she understood the Emperor’s arrogance. Who wouldn’t become like this with such power?
Then, the cryptic words spoken by that unfathomable voice resurfaced in her mind—
“You want me to accept my place and live in this world?”
—Yes. Obey your master.
That answer made everything she’d bottled up until now explode.
“Why the hell should I?!”
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