You Said You Wanted Us to Break Up - Chapter 111

“Bring me Mother’s jewelry.”

Even though I demanded it abruptly the moment I returned from meeting Iswen, Apple brought what I asked for without a word of complaint.

The red gemstone I had once sold to raise cash was tucked safely inside the velvet lining. It was there because Sioden had recovered it and returned it to me.

I lifted the jewelry and pressed my fingertips against the velvet lining underneath. Like other jewelry boxes, it was filled with feathers, yet the texture felt strangely different.

I removed the brooch pinning my clothes, thrust it into the velvet, and tore it open. As I fumbled underneath, my fingers soon brushed against the corner of a piece of paper.

When I pulled the paper out, Apple, who had been watching my actions from the side, asked,

“What is that?”

“……Something Iswen had prepared.”

Aside from the deep creases where it had been folded, the paper was so well-preserved that it showed no signs of the passage of time. It bore the seal of the merchant guild run by Iswen.

It was a check issued to the bearer.

“Since someone else manages my cash, he told me to use this whenever I needed it….”

My words trailed off.

I wondered how Iswen felt as he gave the instruction to hide a check inside this box—a check he couldn’t even hand to me directly.

It was a hypothetical question to which I had no real answer, yet my throat tightened with a slight ache. It felt as though my eyes were beginning to burn.

It was a change that felt laughably simple. No matter what the circumstances were, it didn’t change the fact that there were countless moments when Iswen had shown me cruelty.

Even before coming to the South, I had made up my mind not to forgive the wounds of my past just because the other person had their reasons.

That was why I hadn’t accepted Sioden’s apology, nor did I believe in the love he claimed to have.

I was certain of that resolve, yet as I imagined Iswen instructing someone to place that check inside my jewelry box, my chest felt heavy and bitter, as if I had a bout of indigestion.

Cruelty had not been his true nature but merely a shell; it was the thought that what the man truly wanted to reveal was not his countless biting words but the emotions contained within a few sheets of checks.

The emotions held within those papers—not even a letter—hit me so intensely that my nose began to sting.

I clamped my mouth shut, not wanting to cry, and Apple took my hand.

* * *

The day I found the traces left by Iswen years ago, I did not cry. I had shed enough tears over the years. While tears are effective at washing away momentary emotions, they do not help one make clever choices.

Instead, I thought about why my attitudes toward Sioden and Iswen were different.

Perhaps it was because we had experienced together what kind of person our father was. As the saying goes, “you see as much as you know,” People empathize well with the pain they recognize. On the other hand, Sioden’s life was not the kind I could even imagine.

What was certain was that the right to not be understanding and the right to accept an apology both belonged to me.

Therefore, if I wanted to forgive someone, I only needed to compromise with myself.

Thinking that way made my heart feel lighter.

Before I could even fully enjoy that sense of relief, another invitation arrived from the Imperial Palace.

This time, it was not delivered directly to me, but it was an invitation that came through Iswen.

Even after coming to my study personally to hand me the invitation, Iswen did not leave. After pacing in front of the desk, he came to a halt and looked at me.

“You don’t have to go.”

The subject was omitted, but it wasn’t difficult to realize what he was talking about. He meant that I didn’t have to accept the Emperor’s invitation.

I looked up at Iswen, pulling my gaze away from the letter written in elegant calligraphy.

“For what reason?”

It wasn’t a sharp retort, but a question asked out of genuine curiosity.

The Emperor’s invitation was an invitation in name only; it was closer to a summons. It could not be refused without a proper reason.

Iswen remained silent for a moment before speaking.

“Say that you are ill. That your health has declined because the weather has turned hot lately.”

“I am healthy.”

I hadn’t been this healthy in years. I was eating well, sleeping well, exercising regularly, and there was nothing to trouble my heart. It was only natural that I was in good condition.

I responded to Iswen, who was staring at me with his mouth pressed firmly shut.

“I’m going.”

Beatrice is interested in me.

And I, too, have grown interested in what she knows.

……And in what she possesses.

The blue flower in the Imperial Palace could even cure my father’s heart disease. If that weren’t the case, my father wouldn’t have tried so hard to push me into the position of Crown Princess, so it was a detail I could trust.

In any case, Beatrice could find out the truths she wanted without even seeing my face. Power guaranteed the same for my father, and Beatrice held even greater power than he did.

Therefore, rather than blindly avoiding a confrontation, it was better to use her interest to gain something for myself as well.

Iswen knit his brows, but he did not oppose my decision.

* * *

Stepping onto the soil of the capital for the first time in roughly half a year, Sioden felt it was not much different from his memories.

As he headed toward the Imperial Palace to announce his arrival to the Emperor, he realized that the world changed much slower than he had thought. It was a fact that felt even more poignant because he himself had changed to an irreversible degree.

Up until the moment he left this place, he had harbored a certain hope.

Memories that had melted away under the hot weather began to crawl back one by one. Without trying to trample them down, Sioden slowly retraced the thoughts he had recited like a prayer half a year ago.

‘Let’s tell Iella I’m sorry. If I explain the circumstances, she will understand. After that, I just have to give her everything she wants. It won’t be difficult. After all, haven’t I wanted to do that for a very long time?

I can apologize as many times as it takes. I can even offer her my cheek to strike. Now that the time has come where I am allowed to permit anything……’

In the past, he had returned to Raslet with such a wish held in his mouth. It was a reckless bravado he could afford only because, at the time, he did not realize that nothing he possessed could serve as compensation for her.

As they reached the entrance of the Imperial Palace, a guard approached them.

“You must dismount your horses from this point on.”

The guidelines were slightly more conservative than those of the previous generation.

Since many things had changed with the transition of power, a certain degree of conservatism had to be maintained in some areas to achieve balance.

Sioden silently followed the instructions.

Large floor-to-ceiling windows were installed along the hallway of the Imperial Palace he hadn’t entered in a long time.

Early summer sunlight shattered through those windows. Sioden instinctively turned his gaze outside. Realizing his superior was hesitating like a lost person, Reese spoke in a low voice.

“Your Grace.”

At that call, Sioden pulled his eyes away from the light and moved his feet forward.

Inside the audience chamber, the Emperor, seated on the throne, was waiting for him.

“Duke Raslet.”

“Your Majesty.”

Have you been in good health? To a greeting that could not hide its underlying dryness, an equally dry response returned. Indeed. Beatrice nodded coolly and looked down at the man below the dais.

“Have you been well, Duke?”

“Yes.”

It was an ordinary lie. The corners of Beatrice’s mouth curved.

Whenever she saw those who pretended to be fine on the outside while rotting away within, she felt a faint stimulation. It was an interest closer to pure cruelty than malice.

She asked the man, who had appeared before her entirely empty, a question that scratched at his insides.

“Did you achieve everything you desired?”

It was a question to which she already knew the answer.

Iswen Rowen and Sioden Raslet desired the same thing, and Iella Rowen—or Raslet—had left the North and returned to the South.

One side had achieved a wish that could never be shared. Thus, it was obvious what had happened to the other side.

Just as she predicted, a hint of distress appeared on his indifferent, handsome face.

However, before she could enjoy that distress any further, someone knocked on the door.

“Your Majesty, the Count has arrived.”

It was an exquisite coincidence. The curve of the woman’s mouth deepened.

“Understood.”

After answering toward the space beyond the audience chamber, Beatrice lowered her gaze.

“How long do you intend to stay in the capital before you leave?”

Sioden replied.

“I will not stay longer than a month.”

Since he had come because Iella called for him, he had to leave before she became uncomfortable.

The Emperor stared at him blankly with her light-blue eyes before offering a suggestion.

“Since you are already here, consider staying through the Harvest Festival before you go.”

The Harvest Festival.

There was a memory that completely occupied that word. Transparent eyes curving beneath the night sky and golden streams of hair pouring into his arms. A spring that felt more brilliant than the autumn that had monopolized all praise at the time.

The abstraction that had been so materialized was shattered by his hands.

His mouth felt metallic, as if he had swallowed the shards. Fearing his sentimentality might show on the outside, Sioden tightened his jaw.

Watching this, Beatrice spoke as if throwing out a casual remark.

“Shouldn’t you also be making a fresh start, Duke?”

The interference in her indifferent tone trespassed only as far as the rudeness permitted by the hierarchy of their status.

Soon, the Emperor lost interest in him and waved her hand.

“I have someone I must meet. You may leave now.”

Following that command, Sioden stepped out into the hallway of the Imperial Palace and chewed over the Emperor’s words.

‘Shouldn’t you also be making a fresh start, Duke?’

The Emperor had said those words, but he had come here to place a final period. To bring an end, not a beginning.

Sioden tried to imagine life existing after that final mark. It felt discordant, as if he were sketching a future that did not belong to him.

Instead of struggling to adapt to the unfamiliar, he turned his gaze toward the stark white light pouring into the hallway.

If this kind of sunlight fell upon Raslet, even the layers of snow piled across the land would melt. The thought occurred to him suddenly.

Sioden briefly imagined his hypothesis becoming reality.

The snow, so white it almost felt blue, all melts away to reveal the earth beneath. Then, he could plant the flowers that bloom so abundantly in the South, and he could build a new villa.

He could install floor-to-ceiling windows in the walls, and he wouldn’t have to fret worrying that someone might catch a cold. Even if the woman who had brought him so many sleepless nights had left forever……

However, it is impossible to capture spring in a land where the white, cold wind blows.

Sioden knew this fact well, for it was something he had already tried and failed to do.

In Raslet, even if the ground were to melt, only the dead buried beneath would crawl out.

In a place where everything freezes, even death does not rot; it simply pursues the living.

Ending his useless imaginings, Sioden shifted his gaze forward.

It was then that a voice, one he never expected to hear, struck his ears.

“Sioden?”