Chapter 205
“You’re saying you’ll help restore the kingdom.”
Ha, a hollow laugh echoed through the prison.
“In what way? I don’t know how many of the people dragged to the labor camps are still okay, and all the royals have been beheaded.”
Roina silently gazed at him. Because this was the first time he had started speaking properly since she came here.
“You were the Crown Prince of Castrello, weren’t you?”
A soft but clear voice flowed from Roina’s lips. At those words, Ethan flinched. Only then did he meet her eyes. They were the same eyes she had seen briefly before, like those of a wounded beast.
“Yes. The dishonorable Crown Prince who sold out his country. The result is this, after all.”
He bit down hard on his teeth and spoke as if suppressing something. But it was himself who was being weighed down and wounded by that weight.
“It can’t be undone.”
His shattered honor and pride, and the vanished purity, sank into the depths. Ethan bit his lip as if in agony and lowered his head.
Roina spoke quietly towards him.
“Then are you just going to sit there and give up?”
Ethan’s shoulders twitched.
“And then die?”
He frowned as if in pain and said,
“What do you even know…”
“I know. What it’s like to live as a slave.”
Ethan closed his mouth. Silence flowed through the prison. Because Roina’s tone when talking about her experience as a slave was even and calm, he couldn’t say anything.
“I’ve thought about death like you are now.”
Before she entered this world, Roina had truly died like that, and even after that, she had repeatedly had gloomy thoughts under the Crown Prince. Was there even an exit on this path? She had felt resentment and despair.
“But that’s running away, isn’t it? Running away because you can’t face the people who will resent you, because you’re tormented by the self who ruined everything.”
The prison was quiet. Neither she nor Ethan spoke, and only intermittent breaths could be heard in the air. Roina took a deep breath, as if sighing, and then uttered the next words.
“Live.”
As if spitting it out, her small white brow furrowed as if it was difficult even for her.
“Live and face it. Fight back.”
Ethan himself probably knew all this. Separated by a single bar, the two stared at each other. In fact, these words were also directed at Roina herself. She continued in a trembling voice.
“You still have a chance, don’t you?”
As if determined, Roina approached the bars and reached out her hand. A hand much smaller than Ethan’s extended through the prison bars. Ethan stared blankly at that hand.
He gazed at it. The hand she had reached out to him on a night when faint moonlight was scattered came to his mind. For Ethan, who had lived only for his country and others until now, her hand was the first thing he wanted to grasp with his own will.
Everything she had said was right. He simply couldn’t bear how detestable he was. She wasn’t at fault, and she didn’t need to hear his resentment. But despite that, she had listened to his words, and even reached out her hand to him again.
Ethan felt his eyes grow hot and lowered his head for a moment. A drop of tear fell. His shame and self-loathing combined and swirled within him. He closed his eyes tightly once more, then grasped Roina’s hand firmly. And he pressed down hard as he stood up. He held her hand for a long time, as if he would never let go again.
Seeing his quietly trembling shoulders, Roina quietly waited for him to calm down.
Ethan headed to the Magic Tower with Roina that way. Rager and Fides were waiting at the Magic Tower, and they took him away, saying they would first wash and clean up the filthy him.
Roina went straight to Lutan’s room and sat on a chair next to the bed, then stretched and sighed.
She was tired, exhausted, and worn out. Even while she was doing that, Lutan continued to sleep. Roina soon gave a lonely smile.
“Lutan. Am I even qualified to be doing this?”
Roina lowered her head and kissed Lutan’s forehead, then simply hugged Lutan, who was increasingly covered in golden scales. When she held him and listened quietly with her ear, she could hear his thumping heartbeat, which was good because she could confirm that he was alive.
“Before Ryuhyeon destroys this world and kills you too, I will catch him. And I will bring you back too. But to do that, I have to keep having relationships with other men.”
Is this the right thing to do? Roina asked, whining. Lutan had no reply. Roina gently closed her eyes and rested her forehead on Lutan’s chest for a moment, then jumped up.
“Anyway, I won’t give up. Don’t you give up either. Please come back here.”
Roina said that while looking at him, who was unconscious, with a heavy heart.
If she wasn’t going to give up, then she had no choice but to do what she could. Roina turned back resolutely.
As Roina left, Lutan’s brow furrowed slightly. As if having a painful dream.
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