The Sand Bride - Chapter 70

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The time Esther had been in the prison was less than a week, but despite that short period, Esther became severely ill.

This was because she couldn’t eat or sleep properly due to the pain caused by the gruesome sounds of the prison. Those pains were not something that could be alleviated even by the thick blankets and high-quality meals provided as the only exceptions in that underground prison.

She, who was already not very healthy, succumbed to illness much sooner than Karzhen had anticipated.

As Esther, with a pale face and drenched in sweat, trembled her blue lips, Karzhen, looking down at her with a complicated expression, moved Esther from the underground prison back to her original room.

Even after being moved to the warm and comfortable room, Esther became very quiet. The anger had hidden away within the terrifying prison. The shock had also weathered away and scattered. However, in the moments when Karzhen was absent, everything gathered like iron filings sticking to a magnet, choking Esther.

Those intense, unexpressed emotions turned into self-destructive tendencies, and Esther began to abuse herself. So, her illness did not easily heal and continued sluggishly despite the use of good medicine.

Karzhen, who had brutally f****d Esther to the point of terror inside the prison, did not touch her sexually after moving her back to her room. Her condition was too poor for that, and he also had no desire to do so.

He assigned servants to provide Esther with medicine, meals, and other nursing care in his absence and came to Esther’s room every day. And each time, he personally took care of Esther.

Karzhen, who had never nursed anyone in his life and could count the times he himself had been sick on one finger, took care of Esther with utmost devotion.

He would cool each spoonful of finely ground and boiled porridge before feeding it to her, and after the medicine was similarly administered, he would wipe away her sweat with a towel dampened with warm water or put something sweet like fruit or candy in her mouth.

When she slept, he provided not only heating for the room but also covered Esther with thick blankets and furs to prevent any possible nighttime chill.

At night, Karzhen would lie down next to Esther. He would place one of his arms under Esther’s head and fall asleep with her pulled into his embrace. The sick Esther would sometimes cough roughly in her sleep and tremble.

Each time, the sensitive Karzhen would wake up and gaze silently at Esther. He would stare at Esther’s flushed red cheeks and sweat-drenched forehead, and sometimes he would put his ear to her chest to listen to her heartbeat. To Karzhen’s ears, even Esther’s heartbeat sounded small and weak.

However, as Esther’s illness worsened day by day, failing to improve despite his devoted care, Karzhen became furious and grilled the court physician as if he would devour him. The court physician, whose white beard covered his chin thickly, had to endure the pressure of feeling like all his beard hairs would fall out every time he examined Esther.

“Unless you’re a quack, there’s no way she wouldn’t be getting better like this.”

Karzhen’s eyes sharpened as if he would literally sever the court physician’s head, not just strip him of his qualifications.

The aged physician was so overwhelmed with injustice and fear that he couldn’t even sleep. In truth, all illnesses require the patient’s own will to recover, but even to him, it was obvious that Esther herself was refusing to get better, so it was natural that even the most renowned physician would have no effective remedy.

Esther vomited the porridge that had been painstakingly fed to her and also threw up the medicine. Even in her sleep, she would sometimes mumble as if having nightmares, calling out for her father or mother, and occasionally uttering the names of a few other people before moaning again.

When she called for her father and mother, Karzhen’s face remained impassive, but when she called out other people’s names, especially if they were men’s names, his eyes would sharpen.

He seemed to endure the inexplicable unpleasantness that surged up within him each time he looked at Esther’s sick face, but sometimes he couldn’t bear it and would interrogate Esther.

Who was that bastard? Wasn’t it because of that bastard, not her parents, that she had tried to crawl back to that hellhole of a hometown? Those were the kinds of questions he asked. Each time, Esther, with the learned response of the powerless, diligently answered Karzhen. He was a cousin, or a neighbor. He was married.

Then Karzhen would smile with a satisfied expression, only to have his face harden again. That was because by then, Esther had fallen silent and was moaning again. Now, it seemed he wasn’t exactly talking because he wanted to, but more because he wanted to see Esther speak.

However, whatever words came out of his mouth, Karzhen’s body diligently nursed Esther. He wiped away the vomit that splattered on her body, opened her mouth to put in porridge and medicine again, and if she vomited again, he would repeat the same actions.

Even though fatigue gathered like fish scales all over his expressionless face, he came to find Esther.

When the situation reached that point, not only the inner palace servants but even Karzhen’s direct subordinates were at a loss.

“Sayar, my Lord…….”

“You haven’t forgotten, have you?”

“Lord Hemor…….”

“None of you have forgotten Lord Hemor, have you?”

The inexperienced and loose-lipped servants whispered like that amongst themselves whenever they were alone. Incomplete and fragmented words, spoken through each other’s mouths, were secretly passed on through lips and ears.

“Stop! Do I have to tear your mouth to make you come to your senses!”

Whenever such words leaked out, the experienced servants would glare fiercely and discipline the immature ones.

Only after sternly telling them that if they uttered such words again, they would be severely whipped in the punishment chamber, did they send the immature servants back to work. However, even the experienced servants could not completely free themselves from the anxiety that the immature servants harbored.