You Said You Wanted Us to Break Up - Chapter 77

Sioden sat down in front of me as I wordlessly stared down at the jewels. He said,

“I bought them from a merchant outside the castle walls.”

“H-how?”

I realized right after the words left my mouth. What a foolish question. Doesn’t it make me look like someone clearly hiding something?

I bit the inside of my cheek before I could say another stupid thing. I stared at the red jewels pushed toward me and racked my brain.

Apple had said she sold those jewels to a trustworthy merchant. A significant amount of cash was needed to secure ship tickets, and the sale was meant to prevent drawing attention by suddenly acquiring a large sum of money.

Apple wasn’t stupid; she must have handled it discreetly.

But now, Sioden was returning the jewels she had sold to me.

Did he investigate Apple? Judging by the current situation, it seemed so.

If he investigated Apple, did he also find out that we were planning to go to Emerta?

My thoughts and anxieties chased each other, a continuous chain. My stomach churned. I felt like I wanted to throw up all the food I had just eaten. Perhaps concerned by my trembling, Sioden leaned forward slightly. He met my eyes, a common way to show lack of hostility.

He spoke with a face that looked as kind as possible.

“The laws concerning tax collection have changed, requiring luxury items above a certain value to be reported to the Lord’s castle.”

I couldn’t judge if that statement was true. I had never learned about the law. Iswen prevented me from learning anything that would allow me to be self-sufficient. Laws related to tax collection methods in various fiefdoms were among them.

A voice, likely the softest he could manage by his own standards, fell over my head.

“As I recall, they belonged to you, so I recovered them. Am I mistaken?”

There was no point in denying it further in this situation. I swallowed hard and nodded.

“No, they are mine.”

“But why…”

Before his question was finished, I brought out a hastily constructed excuse.

“I sold them because I didn’t like them.”

Sioden did not seem displeased that I had cut him off. He simply waited for my next words with a gentle expression. It wasn’t a particularly encouraging demeanor, but I tried to speak as casually as possible.

“I wanted to buy new jewels instead of those. B-but if I bought them right away, people would notice, so I wanted to avoid attracting attention…”

Before I could even finish my sentence, I realized. Sioden would not be fooled by such a shoddy lie.

I squeezed my eyes shut and bowed my head. That was when an unbelievable statement entered my ears.

“I understand.”

It was a peaceful assent, devoid of any hint of doubt.

This can’t be right? Doubt naturally arose.

The lie I had just told was so flimsy that even I could tell. Yet, Sioden affirmed my words without a moment’s hesitation. As if he had never learned what suspicion was. But I already knew how much he distrusted me.

I asked him in a shaky voice,

“Do you… believe me?”

“Yes.”

Nodding without a trace of hesitation, Sioden then advised me.

“Please don’t sell your possessions anyway. I will acquire whatever you desire for you.”

His voice was gentle, bordering on soft. His expression, too, was kind, as if the only thing that bothered him was that I had sold the items to get money.

My heart pounded wildly. It was a palpable tension, far too clear to be mistaken for excitement even by mistake.

Afterward, Sioden summoned a knight and had the jewels carried to my room.

Apple rushed to me, her face white, as I entered the room.

“My lady, are you alright?”

Before I could answer Apple, the knight followed in with the box.

“What is that?”

After seating me in a chair near the fireplace, Apple approached the box the knight had brought.

The moment she confirmed what was inside, Apple’s complexion turned ashen.

* * *

After tending to her lady, who had cried herself to sleep, Apple stepped out into the castle hallway. She planned to fetch and light an aromatherapy candle that would help calm her.

As she walked toward the room where candles and bath salts were kept, Apple gnawed on her lower lip.

“It m-must be a coincidence? It must have been good luck, right? Truly, the law just coincidentally changed…”

My lady had choked up with tears along with those words. Her white, tender eyes were already raw and red.

At the time, soothing her lady was the priority, so she deliberately didn’t mention it, but Apple knew the truth.

They had been followed.

The fact that she had sold the jewels was not information that could be found out by chance. Either the Lord himself took action, or someone reported the news to the Lord.

There was already a corner of suspicion. As she reached that thought, Apple spotted someone walking toward her from the opposite direction. She twisted the corner of her mouth.

“Mr. Ailac.”

Luke, who saw her smiling at him, cocked one eyebrow.

“You seem to be in a good mood today?”

As he approached her, Luke realized he had completely misread the situation. He corrected himself.

“The opposite, I see.”

It seemed Apple Leta was the type of person who only turned up the corners of her mouth when she was in a foul mood. No matter how eccentric someone’s personality was, he usually didn’t mind, but the woman in front of him was strangely irritating. Luke asked with a friendly smile,

“It’s been long enough for the hangover to be completely gone, and I paid the bill, so you shouldn’t have the displeasure of buying a drink for someone you didn’t like. So why the expression that says I’m so irritating?”

He had spoken deliberately kindly so as not to be caught out, but Apple paid no mind to his kindness.

“Because the cause hasn’t been eliminated.”

The woman looked at him with eyes so fierce they looked like they could exert physical force.

“Neither the hangover nor the bill would have happened if it weren’t for you, Mr. Ailac.”

Meaning, her mind would only be at ease if he were eliminated. Luke let out a hollow laugh, unable to hide his bewilderment. Ha.

The woman asked without batting an eye.

“You followed me, didn’t you?”

Luke stared at her and then leaned his head over Apple. Since there was a significant height difference, his shadow fell over her.

With all traces of amusement wiped from his face, Luke said,

“That’s a secret, Miss Leta.”

“……”

“You have your own secrets, don’t you? Consider this the same.”

Perhaps displeased with the answer, the woman’s brow suddenly furrowed. Luke raised the corner of his mouth at the satisfying reaction.

Apple was glaring at him with eyes that didn’t hide the urge to inflict injury. Finally, she walked past him and offered a piece of advice.

“Don’t stick your neck out and poke around too much. What if you get caught and hurt your neck?”

“……”

“No matter how skilled a physician is, they can’t fix their own twisted neck.”

Luke’s eyes widened slightly at the chilling warning. He watched the retreating back of the woman for a moment, then resumed his walk. A subtle irritation tickled his chest.

Before long, Luke arrived at his original destination, the Lord’s office.

Setting the records he had brought down on the desk, he asked his superior,

“Your Excellency, did you investigate your wife?”

While Apple Leta was irritating, Luke had never made an additional report to his superior. So, if something had happened, it would have been obvious whose intention it was.

His superior answered without taking his eyes off the documents.

“I believe I told you to keep silent about Iella.”

“The lady’s maid seemed suspicious of something.”

Sioden finally looked up from the paper and faced Luke.

The maid Luke spoke of was the red-haired woman Iella currently kept as her only attendant. That maid had sold Iella’s jewels. It was a fact he soon learned while checking Iella-related matters for risk management purposes.

The merchant who bought the jewels was suspicious and reluctant to hand over the valuables easily. However, recovery was not impossible. Raslet was his land, and Sioden knew how to resolve problems in his desired way when they arose.

At least when dealing with others…

“Do you believe me?”

The image of the woman’s green eyes, trembling and looking up at him, flashed before him.

Iella had lied.

No woman sells the jewels worn at her wedding merely because she wants to buy new ones.

Yet, Sioden had nodded.

In the past, when she spoke the truth, he didn’t listen.

Therefore, he couldn’t deny it now, even if Iella lied. He couldn’t repeat an action that might reopen the wounds of the past. When it came to his wife, no suspicion was allowed for him.

In front of Sioden, who was lost in thought, Luke continued.

“She said she would twist my neck. She seemed serious, so if I’m found dead, the scope of the investigation shouldn’t have to be wide.”

After saying that much, Luke belatedly realized that his superior didn’t seem interested in his words.

“Your Excellency, are you listening?”

His superior only then gave a slight flinch and asked him,

“Why did you come in?”

It wasn’t the first time his superior had been like this.

After the accident involving his wife and the subsequent failure to reconcile their relationship, his superior had become frequently absent-minded.

And it wasn’t just his superior whose mind was elsewhere.

Rhys, too, was constantly worried that his father might cause trouble by getting involved with the Elders, hoping to prevent being swept up in the major execution that was soon to take place.

Luke gestured politely toward the desk.

“I brought the past records of the last Ethel.”

He had compiled and brought the records from when Merwen Ethel first entered the castle, a task performed at his superior’s recent command.

His superior silently picked up the leather-bound notebook.

“It’s such an old event that not many records remain. There are also traces of concealment from the previous generation.”

“Concealment, you say.”

“It seems there was something bothersome.”

It must have been something bothersome, not for Merwen, but for Lerox.

As the only one who could tamper with the Lord’s records was the Lord himself.

Sioden’s gaze, which had been scanning the record with traces of deletion, stopped over one passage.

“Why was the record from this period erased?”

Judging by the time frame, it was before both Merwen and he were born.

The records from the time when they were in the midst of war with Caulum had been deleted.

Luke told him his speculation.

“You know about the refugees outside the castle, protected by the military unit, don’t you? I think it might be related to them.”

Luke continued.

“There was that rumor, wasn’t there? That Caulum’s last mage, who escaped with his family, had made a deal with the previous Duke of Raslet.”

It was a rumor that circulated when they were young.

That the world’s last mage in Caulum had led a group of people and applied for asylum with Lerox just before the country fell.

That rumor died out before they reached their teens, as Caulum had long since lost its form as a nation.

The few remaining remnants of those people were completely crushed when they brought Iella. This was done so that no trace would remain to revive the memory of those days for Iella…

The red liquid that had flowed from beneath the woman’s skin and drenched his hands flashed before his eyes as an afterimage.

He found it hard to breathe. Before that could be revealed in his voice, Sioden cleared his throat. He ordered Luke,

“Find out what happened during that period.”

* * *

The day I received the jewels back from Sioden, Apple saw me sobbing and comforted me, telling me not to worry too much.

“We probably haven’t been completely exposed yet. I’ll figure out something.”

Apple must have just wanted to comfort me. She loved me. Enough to consider what I desired as her own wish.

I wanted to believe her consolation was the truth, with all my heart. But I wasn’t that naive, even with my limited knowledge, so I learned the truth within a few days.

Sioden had lied.

He had retrieved the jewels on purpose. And then he returned them to me as if it were a coincidence.

What did he want to tell me?

Even after shutting myself in my room and agonizing over it all day, I couldn’t figure out what he was thinking.

Apple tried to soothe me, who had completely changed from the person I was before the jewels were returned—a person filled with anticipation and happiness. I truly wanted to respond to her efforts, but the anxiety and fear on my shoulders were too heavy for me to do so.

How much time had passed? One day, Sioden knocked on my bedroom door.

“Iella.”

The moment he saw my face, he asked in a strained voice,

“Why have you become so thin?”

I avoided his blue eyes, which looked as though they were filled with tears, and cast my gaze downward. Sioden stood still, like someone who didn’t know what to do, then said in a hoarse voice,

“I would like to have a conversation.”

I couldn’t refuse that. I needed to find out what Sioden was thinking.

Sioden took me back to his study. As if my looking thin wasn’t a lie, he seated me by the fireplace and wrapped me in fur.

He did this despite knowing that the problem with Raslet was the atmosphere itself.

Sioden knelt on one knee in front of the armchair I was sitting in. He took my hands and gently massaged them as if trying to restore warmth. I didn’t pull my hands away from his. I had no strength in my body after being cooped up in the room for days.

Sioden met my eyes.

“I know I ruined everything, but things will be different from the past going forward.”

Yes, it would have been different. If only he hadn’t crushed my hope by returning the jewels Apple had sold.

I swallowed the thoughts that wouldn’t pass my parched lips. Sioden, unaware of my feelings, continued speaking.

“I have changed many things, and I am willing to change even more.”

“……”

“It doesn’t matter what you want to do. I will support everything you do in Raslet.”

Sioden released my hands and instead reached for my cheek. With his slightly trembling fingertips stroking my face, he asked,

“Can you give me a chance?”

His voice was utterly desperate, but at that moment, only one thought entered my mind.

Sioden knew I had lied, too.

Perhaps he already knew that I was planning to leave for Emerta. The reason he specifically mentioned Raslet felt like it had to mean that. If Sioden had caught onto my plan to go to Emerta, he would never let me go.

He said he would permit me anything, but escape wouldn’t be among those things.

Realizing that, the turmoil of anxiety in my chest subsided into a cold calm.

I had truly and desperately hoped to go to Emerta up until now. But Sioden shattered that hope without saying a single word. It felt like someone had hit me hard on the head. A bitter, pained laugh escaped me involuntarily.

“A chance?”

It was a frigid voice, one I couldn’t believe had come from my own mouth. Sioden, too, must have noticed this, as the hand stroking my cheek faltered.

But I didn’t want to take my words back.

“You had plenty of chances.”

Over the past three years, Sioden could have listened to me. He could have tried to believe me.

If he just put in an effort, the past me would not have been in so much pain. The reason the past me was so sad and hurt was that he never even attempted to trust me.

Even when he abruptly reached into my heart with a moment’s passion, I tried to believe it was love.

I grabbed his hand, which was still hovering near my face, and pushed it away. His dark blue eyes, which were already trembling, began to shake distinctly. He looked as despairing as someone witnessing the end of the world.

I did not bat an eye at his despair. I had already gone through too much to be swayed by his sadness.

I said to Sioden, who was looking up at me with shocked eyes,

“You’re the one who never took that chance, so why should I give you another one?”