Chapter 301 - (The End)
“Ugh… Mm…”
“Your Majesty! Are you awake?!”
Ysaris opened her eyes to the sound of Penesir’s voice, stripped of its usual composure. Blinking dazedly at the ceiling, she turned her gaze downward to find the duchess, her face pale with worry.
“Duchess Blake.”
“I—I truly apologize. The connection was successful, but for some reason, I couldn’t enter. Instead, Your Majesty, who was linked to me, ended up going in. When I realized something was wrong, I tried to re-enter His Majesty’s consciousness, but it was like hitting an impenetrable barrier—I kept getting thrown back—”
Ysaris listened silently, blinking as Penesir rambled. She didn’t know that Kazhan, having fully awakened his nocturnal lineage’s traits, had developed immunity to mental interference—nor that he had unconsciously left a path open only for her.
All she faintly understood was that he had been yearning for her all this time.
“…In the end, all I could do was wait. I’m ashamed. More importantly—are you alright? It’s only been ten minutes, so I was monitoring the situation, but if you’d taken any longer to wake up, I—”
“Ten minutes?”
Ysaris frowned. In her memory, she had wandered and spoken with Kazhan for hours.
“Yes, Your Majesty. Though it seems you experienced a longer span of time. The flow of time in dreams differs from reality.”
“…I see.”
Though she replied to Penesir, her thoughts were elsewhere.
How long were you trapped there alone? Clinging to a motionless, silent version of me, treating it as your only paradise—repeating the act of sleeping beside me, over and over?
What face should I even wear before you now?
Wordlessly, Ysaris reached out. She laid her hand over Kazhan’s chest, resting on the bed beside her, and felt the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath her palm.
“Come to think of it, His Majesty—”
“Could you wait outside for a moment, Duchess?”
Penesir stiffened at the eerily calm tone of the Empress, then bowed deeply.
“Of course, Your Majesty. Call for me if you require anything.”
The eldest daughter of an assassin family left without a trace, the soft click of the door the only sign of her departure.
Left alone, Ysaris turned her full attention to Kazhan. Thump. Thump. The pulse beneath her hand confirmed his recovery.
“Kazhan.”
No response. She wondered if he was still unconscious—until she noticed the crimson eyes fixed on her.
“……”
“……”
They stared at each other in silence, just as they had at the end of that crumbling world.
Then Kazhan moved first. After savoring the weight, warmth, and scent of her hand on his chest, he finally covered it with his own.
He traced her fingers, squeezed them, laced them with his—indulging freely under Ysaris’s patient gaze. Then, with an almost foolishly simple remark.
“You’re real.”
“Or am I an illusion?”
Her half-question, trailing off, drew his eyes back to her face. Kazhan studied her for a long moment before murmuring her name.
“Ysaa.”
“Yes, Kazhan.”
He called her but said nothing else, simply staring until he repeated it.
“Ysaa.”
“Yes, Kazhan.”
Her reply was the same. Tilting her head in silent prompting, she watched as he spoke again, like a man relearning speech.
“Ysaa.”
“Go brush your teeth. Then I’ll kiss you.”
Kazhan froze. His breath hitched as he stared at her, wide-eyed—until it dawned on him that she was serious.
“If you didn’t hear me, we can pretend—”
—Whump!
Before she could finish, Kazhan yanked her into his arms. The sensation of a real Ysaris—no phantom, no nightmare—yielding to him without resistance was so unbelievable that his mind short-circuited for a moment.
Then the first words spilled out, raw and unfiltered.
“I love you.”
Not because he planned to say it, but because the emotion had clawed its way up his throat and burst free.
“I love you, Ysaa. I missed you. Thank you. I’m sorry. I—”
‘I was afraid.’
“Afraid you’ll leave me again. Afraid even this will turn into another nightmare and vanish when I wake.”
“If you hadn’t been here when I opened my eyes, I might have died. I can’t live without you. I love you. Others move on after parting—why can’t I?”
“I’m sorry I can’t let you go. But you know, don’t you? You’re my world. My breath, my sun, everything that makes me me.”
“I’ll cling to you, even if I have to exploit your guilt and pity. I’ll become a burden you carry for life. Or lock you away if I must.”
“You’re responsible for this. You woke me. I was content to hold you forever in that dream.”
“I’m terrified of the future. That I’ll break you again. That you’ll never forgive me. That you’ll run from me in the end.”
“Can we ever be happy again?”
“Kazhan.”
Ysaris’s voice pierced through the storm of his thoughts. Her warmth patted his back.
“It’s been a long road, hasn’t it? Our wandering.”
As though she’d heard every word he couldn’t voice, she offered comfort—or rather, a confession of her own.
Gazing at the ceiling while sharing warmth with the man trembling in her arms, she spoke plainly, without platitudes.
“I missed you too. There’s gratitude, and guilt, and yes—I don’t love you as I once did. But who knows? Maybe this tangle of emotions is love, by some definition.”
She answered each of his fragmented words, her tone steady, earnest.
“I told you before—time fixes many things. Not always, but wounds do heal. I don’t recoil from your touch anymore.”
So she held him without hesitation, her embrace firmer than his own half-restrained grip.
“We have so much ahead. Raising the children, ruling Uzephia. Starting with dividing duties—yours as Emperor, mine as Empress. We’re finally becoming a proper imperial couple.”
No reply came. Not that she expected one—his tears had long since soaked her shoulder, though he’d never admit to shedding them.
Instead of pressing, she continued softly.
“You haven’t seen how much Mikael’s grown. You’ll be shocked. He’s slower than Casilia, but compared to when you last saw him as a baby? He’s doubled in size.”
“…How could I not recognize him? He looks just like you.”
“And Casilia is unmistakably yours.”
A small laugh. Her fingers combed through his hair, soothing.
“The road was rough, but with Casilia awakening Tenilaf’s powers, we won’t need to fret over succession.”
“Already thinking that far ahead?”
“Blame the habit of handling imperial paperwork all day.”
“My fault, then.”
“Isn’t it a good thing? You’ve gained another mind to share the Emperor’s burdens.”
“Never thought you’d become my advisor too.”
For people who’d just weathered a storm, their conversation flowed unnervingly smooth. The mundane steadied them—proof of their long-shared history.
They talked lightly after that, as if their relationship had never shattered.
Until Kazhan lifted his head and called her name.
“Ysaa.”
“Yes, Kazhan.”
Like waking from deep sleep, he studied her for a long moment—then condensed every emotion into three words:
“I love you.”
The same phrase as before, but refined now, weighted. Ysaris met his gaze, those crimson eyes turbulent yet unyielding.
It might take her a lifetime to match the depth of his love.
Perhaps the scales would never balance. His love was too thick, too heavy.
But the act of trying—that, too, was part of being husband and wife.
“I’ll love you too.”
She vowed to try. Just as he had for her.
《After the Pregnant Empress Left, the Tyrant—》
THE END.
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