You Said You Wanted Us to Break Up - Chapter 97

 

It didn’t take long for Apple and me to embrace each other.

After hugging her with all my strength and fully taking in her warmth, a man standing behind Apple came into view.

The man, who was wearing an eye patch over one eye and looking somewhat anxious while glancing at me, was Demian.

It didn’t take long to figure out the connection between him and Apple.

“…Did you bring Apple here?”

“She was nearby.”

Demian rolled the one remaining eye he had.

“It’s less that I sought her out and more that your maid was in the South, making it easy to bring her.”

Demian mumbled, his tone uncertain as to whether he was trying to take credit or just brush it off lightly, then rubbed his face.

“I’m sorry I’m not explaining it well.”

But his explanation wasn’t the important thing.

The warmth currently in my arms was the heart of the situation.

I tightened my embrace around Apple.

It felt strange after avoiding talking to Demian all this time, but the thanks came out of my mouth.

“Thank you.”

In a way, it was natural.

If I could just be with Apple, I would do anything.

—

Iella soon went inside the mansion, taking her maid with her.

Demian silently watched her retreating figure for a moment.

It was the brightest she had looked since returning to Rowen, and his eyes couldn’t easily turn away.

However, upon hearing footsteps approaching him, his gaze naturally turned toward the sound.

“Brother.”

“Demian Rowen.”

Iswen, holding the horse’s reins with one hand and leaning on his cane with the other, was approaching him.

He spoke, his brow deeply furrowed.

“Did you forget what I told you about taking an attendant with you when you walk outside?”

It was less a genuine question and more an accusation.

Therefore, instead of answering, Demian strode toward his brother.

He took the reins from the man’s taut hand and asked.

“Did you hold the reins yourself?”

The man did not answer.

Demian frowned.

“Your leg.”

The function of his leg was not the only thing his brother lost due to their father’s death.

The blood vessels, muscles, and bones in that withered body part would sting as if burned every time he tried to move it.

Demian knew this because the same thing was happening to his own eye.

Even though his eye had been gouged out before their father died, making the pain less, every step Iswen took must have been agonizing.

Knowing how his brother must have felt walking stubbornly while holding the reins, Demian spoke cautiously.

“Brother, since Iella is back in the South too, why don’t you tell her why things had to be that way in the past?”

The man’s cleanly shaven jaw tensed.

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

“You want to get along with Iella, too, don’t you?”

“She probably doesn’t want to.”

Demian couldn’t refute that.

In fact, Iella was clearly very uncomfortable around them since returning to the South.

Demian wasn’t even sure that resentment would subside in the future.

“She’s a child who will be leaving soon; don’t cause a fuss.”

With those final words, Iswen stubbornly looked ahead and continued walking.

The time they had to spend like this wouldn’t last much longer.

The only thing he was allowed to do was help her enjoy as much as possible.

—

Apple said she had been keeping an ear out for news of me even after leaving the castle.

Then, when she learned I had left Raslet Castle, she followed me down to the South, but she didn’t come straight to Rowen.

“I didn’t want to cause My Lady any trouble.”

So, instead of returning to me, Apple lingered around the capital.

She said she met Demian during that time.

Worried that Demian might have shown his rough temper to Apple, I asked her various questions, but Apple shook her head.

“There was no trouble.”

It seemed that after losing his temper and shouting once at Raslet Castle, Demian’s personality had mellowed considerably compared to before.

After hearing all of Apple’s story, I told her how I had left Raslet Castle.

Apple offered only one comment on the final conversation I had with Sioden.

“You did well.”

She reached out her hand toward me.

Her sturdy fingers gently wrapped around mine.

“I am proud of My Lady.”

In the past, I would have immediately thought pessimistically, believing that only Apple saw me that way.

But now, I was simply happy that I could be Apple’s pride.

Without a word, I embraced her.

Apple held me back with equal strength.

—

After spending the happiest evening since returning to Rowen, I went out to the field the next day, and someone other than Iswen was waiting there.

A person with the same hair and eye color as Iswen, yet someone you could never mistake him for, even from a distance.

“Iella.”

Demian waved awkwardly.

He was holding Goldie’s reins with one hand.

I approached him and asked.

“I thought Duke Rowen would be here.”

“My brother had some business today.”

That was unexpected.

The one who had told me to come out to the field yesterday was none other than Iswen.

Iswen seemed like the type of person who wouldn’t make a promise he might break.

However, people have many facets, and we were not close enough to say we knew each other well, even as a formality.

I reached a simple conclusion: that Iswen might have a side to his personality I didn’t know.

Just then, Demian muttered hesitantly.

“Do you dislike me? Still, it’s better than leaving it to a knight, so I…”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Yesterday was the day Apple finally returned to my side.

I planned to leave for Resebel with her.

In Resebel, I would find a riding instructor for Apple and two cute, gentle horses.

After that, I would choose a field and ride to my heart’s content, making up for everything I couldn’t do as a child.

I planned to fully savor what would be the freest moments of my life.

Once I properly experienced freedom and had somewhat adjusted to the territory, perhaps I could travel to Emerta.

Apple had given me a booklet describing the tourist spots of Emerta.

So, I wanted to give her the days when that booklet became reality.

Imagining the future I now felt I could seize with my own power naturally made me more generous toward my surroundings.

Demian and Iswen were still unfamiliar.

I didn’t want to befriend them.

I didn’t want to know their true intentions for being kind to me.

We had already been through too much to start wondering about each other now.

But the days ahead of me were too precious to hate them to death.

I climbed the ladder, which I had become somewhat familiar with after only one day of use, and sat on Goldie’s saddle.

Demian adjusted my stirrups just as Iswen had done yesterday.

After circling the field a few times, just as I had with Iswen yesterday, Demian stopped Goldie next to the ladder.

“Can I come out tomorrow, too?”

His eyes, looking up at me from below the horse, were slightly drooped.

I looked down at his single visible golden eye for a moment before answering.

“Yes.”

Later, after finishing the ride and returning to the mansion to bathe, the butler approached me and handed me a letter.

“A letter has arrived from the Imperial Palace.”

The envelope, bordered with gold leaf, which was used exclusively by the Imperial Palace, bore the Emperor’s seal.

I quickly glanced over the perfunctory address on the exterior.

[-To the Dear Count Resebel.]

Beatrice had used the same epithet when she sent me Jasmine years ago.

Then and now, the words were nothing more than a shallow courtesy.

I picked up the letter opener from the tray the butler was holding and broke the wax seal.

On the letter paper, written in a strikingly ornate script, was only a single sentence.

[-Have you found the answer to the question?]

What question had the emperor asked?

As soon as I thought that, a memory surfaced.

‘What was your mother’s name?’

Yes.

The Emperor had asked me my mother’s full name in the greenhouse.

And what had I answered?

No—did I even answer at all?

My memory was hazy.

I frowned, holding the letter in my hand.

It was strange, come to think of it.

My mother was the Duchess of Rowen.

Even if my father and Iswen had erased all traces of her, it was absurd that I had never once heard my mother’s full name in my entire life.

But that day, I wasn’t curious that I didn’t know my mother’s name.

I simply thought I needed to find the answer because it was the Emperor’s question.

So, I asked Iswen.

“What was my mother’s name?”

What did Iswen answer back then?

I couldn’t remember.

A chill ran down my spine.

This had never happened to me before.

A moment completely forgotten—and the very fact that I had forgotten it was also erased from my memory.

No matter how hard I tried to trace back my past, the only memory that followed was Iswen’s voice.

“Iella.”

Calling my name while sitting across from me in the carriage…

“Iella Rowen. Snap out of it.”

Recalling that memory brought me one certainty.

Iswen knows something.

At the time, I thought he was waking me because I had dozed off.

But looking back now, the phrasing he used was not typical for waking someone who was merely asleep.

I handed the letter to Apple, who was standing beside me, and asked the butler.

“Where is the Duke of Rowen?”

“His Grace is in his bedroom now.”

The bedroom?

That was an unusual location for him to be in, considering the sun hadn’t even set yet.

Even if it weren’t, I wouldn’t usually try to visit someone’s bedroom.

It was a great offense to enter someone else’s bedroom if you weren’t married to them.

But I had to meet Iswen immediately.

If not now, when might I forget this moment again?

If the letter hadn’t come from the Emperor, I might have never remembered that conversation at all.

The entrance to Iswen’s bedroom, which I approached despite the risk of being rude, was being guarded by a knight.

“His Grace is not in a condition to receive visitors right now.”

What?

I frowned at the unexpected answer, and the knight shifted his eyes with a troubled look.

“If you wish, I will inform him that the young lady stopped by.”

No.

Later would be too late.

I had to see Iswen right away, before my current memory vanished.

But if Iswen’s condition was genuinely poor, I couldn’t simply insist.

As I hesitated for a moment, wondering what to do, the door behind the knight opened.

From the darkness of the slightly opened doorway, a man’s strained voice leaked out.

“What is it?”

Clack.

The tip of a silver cane struck the floor.

I involuntarily turned my gaze toward the sound.

The first thing that caught my eye was the man’s hand, with veins prominently bulging.

Unlike his usual practice of covering it with a silk glove, Iswen was gripping the head of the cane with his bare hand.

Did he usually grip his cane so tightly?

At that moment, the rest of the man’s body emerged from the darkness.

In the light, Iswen’s face was severely contorted in a grimace.

He was never a man who wore a gentle expression, but today, something was different.

His bloodless, pale face looked clammy.

As if he were ill…

Before I could finish that thought, Iswen’s body listed forward.