Chapter 222
Ysaris stared blankly at the familiar ceiling of her room before closing her eyes. The commotion around her didn’t even register.
‘You deceived me. You deceived me.’
‘Even after learning of my innocence, you covered up your own sins and… lied to me like this.’
She pressed a hand over her face. She couldn’t even begin to define what she was feeling.
A fire raged inside her. She wanted to scream curses, to burst into tears. At the same time, she felt like laughing hysterically—had she finally gone mad?
“You’ve been unconscious for two full days. There’s no serious physical damage, but your energy is severely depleted—”
“Get out.”
“Pardon?”
“All of you. Now!”
At her sharp command, the servants scrambled to obey. Once the last of their presence faded beyond the door, Ysaris gritted her teeth and pressed her palms against her eyes.
“…Hng.”
‘Don’t cry. Don’t you dare cry, Ysaris Chernian. No—Ysaris Tennilath. If you cry now… how pathetic would that be?’
She tried with all her might to suppress the emotions, but years of accumulated feelings had burst through like a crumbling dam. A tangled mess of sensations, too chaotic to even name, spilled over.
Ysaris had experienced love. She had lost love. She was misunderstood as betraying the man she loved—and then betrayed by the man who claimed to love her.
Her entire life had been stained with love. If even its ugliest facets could still be called love.
‘Love, love, love…’
“Ha—love!”
She spat the word out like a convulsion. Her teeth ground together on their own.
She loathed herself for thinking of Kazhan when the dark mage asked what love was. ‘That’ couldn’t be love. This… this was…
What the hell is this, then?
“Hic.”
Ysaris held her breath. Tears fell in torrents, drowning her rationality. She couldn’t even tell if the emotions pounding chaotically in her chest were truly hers anymore.
Rustle.
Pushing herself upright to cool her burning head, she cupped her face in her hands and took a deep, steadying breath.
She needed time. Time to sort through the memories and emotions she’d endured. Time to decide how to face Kazhan from now on.
Thud!
“Ysaa.”
…But apparently, not enough time to avoid facing him immediately.
“……”
The sound of Kazhan’s approaching footsteps made her emotions surge again.
‘Why are you always like this? Why don’t you ever consider my position? Why must you act so selfishly? Why, why—’
‘Why did you do this to me?’
“Are you all right? If your head hurts—”
Slap!
She struck away Kazhan’s outstretched hand.
Was this the lingering influence of the past? Or was it her present emotions spiraling out of control?
It didn’t matter. There was no need to distinguish between the two—both were Ysaris.
“…Ysaa, it’s me. Your husband, Cain. You’re back in the palace now. There’s no need to be on guard.”
And so, Ysaris laughed at Kazhan’s words. No—maybe it was anger. Or perhaps more tears welled up instead.
Though she wandered through a haze of tangled emotions, one thing was certain.
“I know. I know it’s you.”
Ysaris resented him. The things he’d done crossed too many lines to forgive just because they stemmed from a misunderstanding.
Slowly lifting her head, she met Kazhan’s frozen gaze. His crimson eyes, wide with something unreadable, locked onto hers as she spoke clearly.
“That’s why I struck you, Your Majesty.”
“……”
A frigid silence filled the room. Kazhan stood motionless, like a caterpillar trapped in a spider’s web, before finally speaking after a prolonged pause. His words clung to a hope so transparent it was painful.
“I’m sorry I was late. I tracked you as fast as I could, but you and Mikael were trapped in that dark mage’s lair for days—”
“Do you really think I’m acting like this just because you were a few days late?”
Ysaris’s patience frayed at Kazhan’s cautious scrutiny. It was obvious—just like always, he was assessing the situation first, then planning to placate her.
“You dare call yourself ‘Cain’ now… as if it’s some endearment.”
Kazhan’s breath hitched at her incredulous tone. ‘Please, no.’ The desperate tremor in his eyes would have been laughable if it weren’t so pathetic. The fact that she could read him so clearly—that she had once loved him enough to know him this well—only twisted the knife deeper.
“You must have enjoyed yourself. Living a life where you could pretend none of it ever happened, mimicking the happiness of the past. Isn’t that right, Your Majesty?”
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