Chapter 48

* * *

When he opened his eyes he was in the monastery’s narrow, shabby room.

The crisp, early morning air filled his lungs.

Edwin sighed and followed the faint light slipping through the window with his gaze.

Elicia was sleeping soundly beside him.

‘It was a dream.’

He knew it wasn’t real.

It was the same cruel illusion that always showed him a wish that could never come true.

Still, moving as quietly as he could so she wouldn’t wake, Edwin sat on the floor and leaned on the bed.

Her slow, steady breathing calmed his racing heart.

‘She’s safe.’

She was here.

Even if it was only a dream, she was within reach of his hand. She was somewhere he could protect.

Relieved, he reached out and took Elicia’s hand that lay on the edge of the bed, touching it as though it were a fragile sugar doll that might shatter with the slightest force.

It was more like the tips of his fingers brushed her hand than a firm grip.

Even so, a deep fullness filled his chest and he let out a long sigh. Then a nasty chill brushed his fingertips and he snapped awake.

The sick, metallic scent of blood stabbed at his nose.

‘Ah.’

This wasn’t the monastery.

He stood in the very center of Lombard castle’s deepest underground dungeon, that horrible place cut off entirely from the world.

His breath hitched and he looked down at the floor.

Something small, dark, lay on the black stone.

What he’d been holding most precious a moment ago lay on the floor, caked in blood.

Exactly ten.

‘This is a dream.’

He didn’t want to go further.

But his legs moved without his consent.

A tuft of hair lay a few paces away. The warm brown hair he loved was torn and tumbled down the corridor.

‘This is a dream.’

Edwin was running before he realized it.

His lungs burned and his vision shook.

Barbed whips, a charcoal-blackened branding iron, warped pliers and metal tools clearly used for other purposes lay scattered on the floor.

He ran past those things and raced down the corridor in a desperate sprint.

He knew the ending of this recurring nightmare.

‘I don’t want to see this.’

At the end of the long hallway stood a rusted iron door.

Edwin stopped before it and felt filthy liquid seeping under the crack soak his toes.

The unlocked door creaked open with a sickening sound.

The metallic reek hit his nose.

His stomach turned, but his body moved of its own will and he desperately embraced the lump of a body left in a pool of blood.

It was hardly human anymore.

‘No… open your eyes. Please, please look at me. I’m sorry. I’m so late… no, please… ahhhh!!’

He couldn’t save her even in the dream.

Maybe this wasn’t a dream at all.

The blood smell, the bone-deep cold of the stone, the wetness under his feet, and the silence of the one he shouted for.

Everything was so vivid it couldn’t be unreal.

Edwin screamed. He screamed until his voice failed, until the white of his eyes ran bright red with burst capillaries.

Blood or tears, he couldn’t tell, soaked his cheeks.

“…”

Edwin woke.

He saw a familiar ceiling. The ornate ceiling painted with Lombard’s black dragon, his own bedchamber.

“No wonder I fell asleep so fast.”

He rose slowly.

He brushed his fringe from his eyes then slammed the bedside table in a sudden, nervous movement.

A fury he could barely hold back churned through his head.

He ground his teeth and tried to calm himself, but finally ripped the greatsword from the wall and strode out of the room.

* * *

“Ramon, what are you doing up at this hour?”

“It’s not Ramon.”

“Excuse me?”

“My name is Agent Number Two, currently on a confidential operation.”

Baron Conte stared at the man blocking his path as if the ‘agent’ were a madman.

There was a lot to say, but first, looking back to the days before Administrator Ramon reappeared, the baron had been in very low spirits.

When Count Alnor’s lawsuit first exploded, the bureaucracy’s opinion of the duchess hit rock bottom.

Rumors had flown that the duke would do whatever it took to divorce the duchess or lock her away in a tower for the scandal that would go down in Lombard history.

If that had been the whole story, Baron Conte might have kept his distance without much worry.

But the officials’ scorn had begun to fall on the baron as well, who had long enjoyed the duchess’s great favor. Whether Elicia consented or not was another matter.

“Damn, I thought I had the right connections, but it was rotten rope.”

As a low-ranking noble among the duke’s retainers, Conte had a tiger of a wife and a clutch of rabbit children to care for.

Ah, the weight of being the head of a household.

Frightened, the baron began to avoid Elicia that day.

He tried not to show it, but it surely showed. People could call him ungrateful if they liked.

As if understanding his plight, Elicia herself distanced from him, and the officials’ whispers gradually faded.

Conte felt guilty.

Elicia had helped him get promoted and raised his pay, yet he felt ungrateful and worried about the family waiting at home.

‘Don’t go against the tide’ had been the baron’s lifelong rule for survival.

‘Who would have thought the lawsuit would end so soon?’

Stumped and unsure what to do, Conte was stunned when Elicia produced a bold settlement and resolved the conflict with Count Alnor in one stroke.

He thought to return to her side, but the place beside her was guarded by two massive figures, Berthold and Ramon.

On top of that there was a powerful guard named Berry.

There was no room for a small, precious baron to wedge himself in.

He resigned himself to watching Elicia from afar, gnawing on a handkerchief.

“Why did I become Agent Number Two… well, that’s beside the point. Tell me, you said you have a wife?”

“Yes? Ah, yes, I do.”

“A political marriage?”

“U-um, I’m a bit embarrassed but it’s a love marriage.”

The baron answered the random question as if he were still trapped in a memory.

Ramon snapped his fingers like someone who’d finally succeeded.

“Agent Number Three, the steward and I are on a secret mission.”

“Who is Number Three all of a sudden… wait, are you looking at me? Me?!”

“His Grace is on the training ground. As you know, when he takes up the sword his whole being is dignity and splendor. Anyone would fall for him.”

Ramon ignored Conte’s protests and spoke boldly.

“I want to show the mistress Your Grace’s magnificent form. I need you to fan the flames for me. Say things like there’s no man like him in the world or he’s handsomer than the Sun God. You know the kind of praise.”

Conte had no idea what on earth Ramon meant.

“Then go to the training ground and get ready. I’ll go fetch the mistress.”

“Wait, hold on!”

The baron looked up at the dim sky.

He almost warned Ramon that waking the mistress at such a time would cause a furious storm, best to wait until the sun was higher, but Ramon looked so gleeful he stopped himself.

Some lessons you only learn by experiencing them firsthand.