Chapter 244
“……Why.”
The words slipped out unconsciously. His lips moved on their own, stumbling over the question that had been circling his mind like a vulture.
‘Why are you so desperate to leave?’
‘Even if you don’t love Cain anymore, you could endure coexisting with me. You don’t have to leave. Everything I’ve built here—it was all for you. Our past, our memories, our love… Wasn’t it all so vivid? So radiant?’
The reply came, flat and final.
“Because I can’t endure it anymore. I’ve lived a life of patience. I’m too tired to keep enduring—for Mikael’s sake, and for mine.”
…And for yours.
Ysaris swallowed the last part. There was no use in voicing fragments that wouldn’t change anything.
This was the conclusion she’d reached after days of agonizing. They had been through too much to ever be happy together.
Now that her memories had returned, she knew she couldn’t pretend. If Kazhan so much as reached for her, she’d retch. If she recoiled, he’d be hurt. If she forced herself to endure, the disgust would fester.
There was no version of this where they didn’t destroy each other.
“It’ll hurt now, but you’ll be fine. Time heals everything—so don’t do anything drastic, and live well.”
Just as Cain’s death, once so unbearable, no longer drew tears from her. Just as the years had dulled the frequency of his ghost in her thoughts.
All emotions had lifespans. She trusted time to erode this wound too.
“One day, I might even stop resenting you. When that happens, I’ll visit. With Mikael. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“Did I—”
Kazhan stepped forward, cutting her off. His face was eerily blank, as if all expression had calcified.
“Did I really wrong you so terribly? Enough to deserve losing you?”
“…Ha.”
Ysaris took a beat to process the question. Not because it was complex, but because she couldn’t believe he’d asked it.
“How can you—how can you even ask that?”
All this time, she’d held back her sharpest words out of lingering tenderness. But now she understood, Kazhan Tennilath wasn’t a man who could be reasoned with. He was obsession incarnate.
“No matter the misunderstandings, you crossed lines you should’ve never crossed. If you truly loved me—like you claim—that makes it worse.”
Her voice dropped, colder than frost. The anger she’d suppressed flared white-hot as he dug into the wound.
“How many times did you force yourself on me? How many years did you leave me to endure the nobles’ scorn? How many commoners did you play with like toys? How dare you act like you don’t know your own sins! How dare you!”
Her voice rose, trembling with fury. Her feelings for him were complex, but the scales would always tip toward resentment—no amount of context could outweigh the wounds.
Humiliation and shame surged like bile. Grief curdled into rage and spilled out.
“If you’d just answered me properly when I asked why you were doing this! If you’d just asked me why I forgot Cain—!”
‘None of this would’ve happened. If you’d trusted me. If you’d faced the truth instead of running from it.’
‘Would I have lived a life so suffocated by despair?’
‘It could’ve been so easily fixed.’
Her lips twisted, trembling with wretchedness. All her efforts to stay composed shattered, leaving raw emotion exposed.
Kazhan watched, motionless, before speaking at last.
“The day you denied me at your engagement to Kelloden… Cain Jenut died.”
“Are you admitting the core of you is rotten?”
He ignored her jab. Or maybe he just didn’t have the capacity to care.
“Ysaris Chernian died too.”
His hollow voice echoed through the study, a relic of a past long gone.
“In my world, she died with him.”
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