You Said You Wanted Us to Break Up - Chapter 43

Sezna felt a pang of relief inside when she sensed the family head hesitate.

Yes, when she thought about it, the family head had always been generous to his mother. Wasn’t the man who had treated his father like a stray dog until his death the one who had endured all the insults his mother had heaped upon him without ever flinching?

Sezna continued, her words accompanied by a few tears.

“I always felt sorry for your mother. I have always served the madam with all my heart. How pitiful she was……”

It wasn’t a lie. While Evelyn was alive, Sezna truly felt sorry for her.

…Although she sometimes thought it was the whining of someone spoiled.

It was a feeling the family head wouldn’t know. No, no one, including the family head, would know. Sezna had never outwardly revealed this thought, because she knew her livelihood depended on that spoiled friend. Evelyn had actually helped Sezna a great deal.

Her friend had been dead for quite some time, but Sezna wanted to receive her friend’s help one last time.

Sezna bowed her head as low as possible to appear as pitiful as she could.

“Please consider that when the lady was alive, I was her only comfort from far away……”

Before she could finish, a counter-question came.

“…If you pitied my mother so much, what about Iella?”

Why was that woman from the annex suddenly brought up? Sezna involuntarily raised her head to look up. The family head was glaring at her fiercely.

The question fell again.

“Don’t you pity Iella?”

Sioden knew.

If Sezna truly pitied Evelyn, she would have felt something similar, even if not exactly the same, when she saw Iella.

They both shared the commonality of being bound to a flawed husband in a land where the sun never shone warmly, and their lives were gradually twisted because of that husband.

Sioden asked the trembling Sezna, who couldn’t answer.

“She came from a distant place, just like my mother. Didn’t you think she might need comfort too?”

Sezna, her face ashen, remained speechless.

There was no need to hear her answer. If she had even a shred of such feeling, she wouldn’t have tried to shift the blame for her crime onto Iella.

Sioden shuddered with unbearable aversion.

“Honestly, everyone in this family…”

It was sickening. The consistently repugnant mindset, where no one ever did anything good of their own volition, like cogs in a machine where lives were sacrificed.

Because he was also bound to the family, Sioden began to think that he was no different from the pathetic fools around him.

Indeed, many of the incidents that happened to Iella were perhaps things he could have prevented.

Ruminating on an unchangeable past is only harmful, leaving nothing behind.

Knowing that, Sioden still constantly questioned himself. If he had only paid a little more attention. If he had only judged a little better. If he had only been a little more capable.

Even if he had only reached Iella a single day earlier.

Wouldn’t things have been less of a mess?

Sioden concluded in a broken voice,

“…Every single one of them is pathetic and contemptible.”

Nothing had changed, even after years had passed.

Including himself.

Sioden couldn’t erase the thought that he was ruining not only the lives of those already dead but also those still alive.

Self-loathing, which had been coiled in his heart for a long time, welled up like bile. Before that utterly unpleasant emotion could overflow, Sioden looked away from Sezna. He gestured to the knight.

“Take her away and throw her into the dungeon.”

“Yes.”

The knight grabbed the woman’s elbow and pulled her to her feet. Sezna, who knew what kind of place it was, even though she had never been there herself, urgently called out to him. “Your Grace! Your Grace!” Sioden didn’t answer.

He leaned against his desk and wiped his face.

Just before the knight left the room, Sioden gave further instructions.

“…Ask Iella if she can spare some time this evening.”

He needed to explain what had happened during the day and rectify things.

This was unavoidable, even if Iella didn’t want to see him.

The woman’s voice echoed in his mind.

‘Yes, Rodalton. As you said, I remember what happened two years ago.’

It was a voice he had heard from outside Iella’s room just before entering.

Although there was no direct mention, Sioden immediately understood what she was referring to.

Because he, too, had never forgotten what happened two years ago.

Two years ago, Sioden had temporarily entrusted Iella with the foundation, which included the nursery.

It was a second-best choice, as he couldn’t hand over the management of the castle, which belonged to the mistress.

He didn’t like seeing the woman, who had done everything she wanted while living with her father, living like a prisoner with him, nor did he want her to feel disregarded.

At that time, he also held a glimmer of hope that he might get along well with Iella.

“Okay.”

Seeing the woman blush as she looked at him made it even harder not to think that way.

However, if he had simply handed over the internal affairs that Merwen controlled, the elders, already burning with anger, would have interfered.

That’s why he gave her an organization he could control first.

If Iella managed the nursery well, he intended to use that as a basis to solidify her reputation and, in the process, gain control of the internal affairs.

He knew it was a foolish act. He also knew that even Ben, who had silently followed his orders on most matters since he came of age, would have tried to dissuade him.

Knowing all this, he still wanted to try.

At that time, Sioden was consumed by such things. Inefficient and unproductive acts of trying to grasp something intangible—the heart. Simply put, foolish and pathetic acts.

Because of his position, which prevented him from acting without proper justification, Sioden repeatedly rationalized to himself that he needed the woman’s affection.

The arguments were all flimsy excuses that pretended to be valid. If Iella develops feelings for him. Even if not to the same extent as when dealing with her father and brother, if she becomes attached enough to this land and to him. And if a place is created for him within the group she loves, her family.

Then, he thought they could live peacefully. That was the reason.

Even though what he truly desired wasn’t peace.

If he wanted peace, he wouldn’t have been so eager to give her control of the internal affairs. To live quietly, it would have been best to give her no rights and confine her to a specific place.

The fact that he deliberately placed the internal affairs before Iella indicated a goal other than peace.

For example, to prevent her from returning to the South.

Capren Rowen frequently sent letters asking for his daughter back.

It wasn’t only the letters from the South that grated on his nerves.

“Wouldn’t it be possible to annul the marriage as Lord Rowen wishes?”

Even the northern vassals who served the deceased often made such suggestions, after some hesitation.

Once he gave her control of the internal affairs, whenever the vassals made such suggestions, he could refute them by pointing out that he couldn’t send her back because he had already shown them the inner workings of the family.

He didn’t expect their marriage to be smooth.

However, even with the storm raging, Sioden wanted to keep the woman bound to this land.

His life had been a blizzard from the very beginning. Whether he liked it or not, he was bound to this frozen land for life, tending to his father’s legacy. Like those who came before him, he would live under the family name until his last breath and then be laid to rest.

In such a life, he wanted to grasp at least one thing he desired, preventing it from escaping him.

He didn’t feel guilty about his greed. In his eyes, Iella was no different from a woman the world had burdened him with. The Emperor had ordered their marriage, and Capren Rowen had sent his daughter north according to that order.

He had simply accepted what had happened.

Once he accepted it, he should be able to act as he pleased without refutation. That was fair.

Since he had given her control of the internal affairs, if there were problems, he could simply take it back. Even knowing that it was a method he would have casually overlooked, even not considered, in his usual state, Sioden thought so.

☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓 ☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓

The incident was typical. Embezzlement.

One of Iella’s maids had embezzled funds from the nursery.

Since money problems were common in places managed by people, it could have been covered up.

“If such an incident occurs again, the perpetrator’s family will also be held responsible.”

If he hadn’t said that when a similar incident occurred and the culprit who had touched the funds was beheaded…

In principle, embezzlement of public funds was punishable by death.

But he couldn’t sentence Iella’s maid to death.

Maids, one of the customs of the Southern noble ladies, played many roles besides serving. They also acted as the mistress’s eyes and ears during social events, and maids who had been around for a long time, like Sezna, were more than just friends.

Except for a few, Iella’s maids were those who had been with her since she was young. Just as Rowen had spies infiltrating Raslet, Sioden knew there were similar people in Raslet.

No matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t execute Iella’s maid. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to make a humanitarian judgment, but rather that he felt Iella would see him as a barbarian if he did.

But before he could decide on an appropriate punishment, the word leaked out.