You Said You Wanted Us to Break Up - Chapter 88

An opportunity once missed is never given again.

Iswen Rowen’s life had been like that for a very long time.

“Don’t act disappointingly for my son.”

Even when forced to stain his hands with the most despicable and cruel sin due to his father’s pressure.

“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, Is…”

Even when the collar of a prohibition spell was placed around his neck by the stepmother he loved more than his own mother.

“Brother, I—I’m scared.”

Even when that collar, which he thought only he had to endure, began to choke his younger brother’s neck too.

“Join hands with me, young Duke Rowen.”

Even when he accepted the princess’s offer to wield a sword inside the palace and stepped onto the blood-soaked carpet.

He never assumed there would be a second chance.

In reality, even a single opportunity was hard to grasp.

So, where would he find the leisure to imagine a second future?

The life he had rigorously squeezed for himself eventually handed him an opportunity that seemed like it would never come: the chance to commit patricide.

When he got his hands on the opportunity to kill his father, Iswen didn’t hesitate.

Capren Rowen, with his sword—which he handled like an extension of his body—tossed aside, laughed at the son who was on top of him, choking his neck.

“You fool.”

The mocking sound, mixed with a metallic rasp, scratched at his ear. Iswen didn’t even twitch an eyebrow.

Capren struggled beneath him, as if he desperately wanted to live.

Finally realizing that no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn’t escape his son’s grip, Capren gathered his last remaining strength and cursed.

“Why don’t you know that you already have nothing left in your hands?”

Iswen retaliated against the man’s question with silence.

He felt the sinew in his ankle, which had been bound by the prohibition spell first, begin to rot. It was the pain of his ankle being sawed off while alive, but he did not loosen his grip. He knew that if he continued, a day would come when even his tongue and eyes would rot, yet he persisted.

In the end, he strangled his father with his own hands.

Nothing left?

He had known that long ago.

There was only one thing he had to accomplish, even if he became a pauper with nothing.

Afterward, just as his father cursed, he truly lost many things.

He gave up all the time he had spent holding a sword. He became unable to even get on or off a carriage without the help of a knight, and he was to spend the rest of his life as the head of a family among the Southern nobles, where being crippled was a flaw.

Still, it was alright.

“Brother.”

Because something was left for his younger siblings.

At least, they had a future.

“Brother, what should we do? Iella, Iella…”

They must have a future.

“Iella said she won’t come back.”

At those words, his vision momentarily went black.

Iella would continue to stay in Raslet.

No. Iswen could not leave his sister on that land. He could not let her live the rest of her life tied to a man’s name, without respect.

His two siblings were more like his own flesh than his own flesh and more like his own blood than his own blood.

Just because he had never warmly embraced them didn’t mean he hadn’t embedded them in his heart. Just because he couldn’t utter a single affectionate word didn’t mean he genuinely had nothing he wanted to say.

Just because he couldn’t give her what she wanted didn’t mean he truly didn’t want to give her anything.

Hadn’t he crawled through the mire his entire life solely to somehow protect his own blood?

Of course, Iswen knew.

[—Please send what you wish to say via letter.]

He knew that she didn’t want to see them and that she wouldn’t return to her family, even if it meant living with an unhealable wound.

That a person’s worth is determined by their words and actions.

Why wouldn’t he know that?

Despite knowing, Iswen moved his tongue.

“I will go to Raslet.”

The only thing left for him, who had lost so much, were his two younger siblings.

If he couldn’t restore freedom to his sister, then truly nothing would be left in his hands.

* * *

Kneeling in the snow of Raslet, Iswen recalled the rule that governed his life.

There is only one chance.

The expression on the gaunt face was utterly dry. The light green eyes were the same. The surprise at seeing an unexpected sight lasted only a moment; ever since he knelt, Iella’s eyes had been like that—dead.

Gazing at that, Iswen thought.

Had this child ever looked at the world with such dead eyes before?

Or was she looking at him that way, making her eyes so dark?

He could not know. And perhaps he never would.

Because only one opportunity remained for him.

Iswen could not use that opportunity to beg or apologize. Even if those were the only two things he most wanted to do right now, that fact remained unchanged.

If he did, Iella would be wary of him and drive him away.

Thus, Iswen looked up at his sister with the same expression as before. Clad in the coldness that he had worn for an impossibly long time, which had now become his very demeanor, he uttered the ruthlessness most familiar to them.

“Father is dead.”

I’m sorry.

“Inherit your share of the inheritance.”

I want to do something for you, whatever it may be.

“After that, I will not interfere.”

It is late, but won’t you let us be a family now?

The words he could not utter turned into a blade as he swallowed them back. It scraped down his esophagus and tore through his insides. It was a punishment-like agony.

The pain would vanish if he just confessed what was in his heart right now. Knowing that, Iswen still did not utter words like I’m sorry or I want to get along well with you.

Because if he did, Iella would not believe anything he said.

He could not risk that if he wanted to give this child property and rights properly.

Iella looked down at him silently, then pronounced.

“Get up.”

Her light green eyes scrutinized him up and down. A look of disillusionment swept over his whole body. Because those were the eyes with which she had been viewing him all along, Iswen paradoxically sensed that this child would grant him a chance to speak.

The permission came exactly as he expected.

“Let’s go inside and finish talking.”

With those final words, Iella turned her back. Iswen took in the sight of his sister’s back as she walked away, leaving him behind.

The child who used to look back so often when she was little kept her gaze fixed only forward until the very end.

* * *

The shock of Iswen’s limp was momentary; the thought that crossed my mind when he knelt was singular.

Ah, here we go again.

Iswen was a person better suited to shed a cup of blood than a single tear, but hadn’t Demian also left after spewing a lot of nonsense?

I didn’t think Iswen would be in his right mind either.

However, Iswen didn’t utter the word sorry.

“Let’s go home.”

There was only one reason he said those words.

“Inherit your share of the inheritance.”

The gold eyes looking up at me held none of the shallow guilt that Demian had shown.

Only his posture was lowered; his face was still arrogant.

Seeing that expression, the thought occurred to me that perhaps something might be different this time. It seemed he would say something of value, not just engage in a back-and-forth battle marked by useless emotions.

Indeed, as soon as he entered the drawing room, Iswen got straight to the point.

“It’s an earldom.”

A man who had followed him immediately presented me with a document as if he had been waiting. It appeared to be the deed for the title and the territory.

While I read the paper, Iswen spoke.

“It is your inheritance. Use it as you wish.”

Inheritance.

So things like this come out when Father dies. A frivolous thought occurred to me.

I had never expected to hold a noble title in my life. I was merely a commodity meant to maximize profit for Rowen.

No one gives rights to a product they intend to sell.

But the current Iswen seemed intent on throwing me something, even if it was just bait.

Even if I didn’t trust him, reading the title deed wouldn’t be a big problem.

If the title was genuine, I would have my own land and assets.

It was a condition that would allow me to annul the marriage and live alone with Apple.

While I tried to understand the densely written letters, Iswen’s words continued.

“However, to inherit the title, you must come down to the South, as per the law.”

Was that his true intention?

Demian’s pleading appearance suddenly came to mind.

“You can hate me, but if you would just look at my brother’s face once…”

He spoke as if there was some profound story with Iswen.

But Iswen, in fact, didn’t talk about himself and instead showed me what was immediately visible.

Of course, I much preferred this to the former.

When I set down the paper I was holding, his gold eyes immediately focused on me.

I informed the man, who resembled my father more and more as time passed, both in appearance and in his true thoughts:

“I don’t know how to read documents.”

I could read the letters, but I didn’t know the terminology used exclusively for legal drafting.

So, even if Iswen presented me with a hundred or a thousand of these papers, I couldn’t fully grasp the meaning of a single one. That was the fact I had realized after trying just now.

I asked Iswen, who looked as if he had been blindsided:

“You made sure I wasn’t allowed to learn, remember?”

Iswen then finally offered a hollow response.

“It’s not too late; you can learn now.”

Demian had said something similar.

“If you come down to the South, I’ll let you learn everything you ever wanted to learn.”

And what did he add?

“I’m not talking about useless keyboard instruments or anything like that. Whatever you want, I’ll buy books and assign all the tutors you need.”

But the organ playing he called useless was the one thing I had learned for a long time and was most proud of.

To them, the sky was so vast that what was virtually my only skill seemed insignificant.

After nailing up the windows so I couldn’t even look outside.

The words Iswen spoke to my father while preventing my education were still vivid in my memory.

‘She must be kept ignorant.’

‘…’

‘She needs to know nothing so she’ll rely on the family even after marriage.’

That memory would remain with me until I died.

I spoke to the man who was trying to deceive me in a more plausible way than Damian:

“No, it’s too late.”