Chapter 135. To You, Whom I Met Again
2024.01.13.
A crimson sunset touched her feet.
Feeling the seeping light, Blair's eyelids trembled slightly before she slowly opened her eyes.
Blinking blankly, Blair recalled her memories just before she collapsed and frantically felt her stomach.
Beside her, a familiar voice reached her ears.
"The child is fine."
Only then did Blair let out a sigh of relief and turned toward the direction of the voice.
In the pale darkness where the sunset hadn't fully reached, her eyes met the blue eyes that had been watching her. He was still wearing the same clothes as in the plaza.
Slowly rising, Blair examined his condition and asked.
"Are you okay?"
He looked fine on the outside, at least. But instead of answering that he was okay, he let out a hollow laugh. It was a laugh that sounded almost like crying.
Just as Blair noticed the subtly changed atmosphere, Herdin opened his tightly closed mouth.
"Did you not hate me?"
Unable to understand his sudden question, Blair blinked.
Swallowing his surging emotions, Herdin added.
"You remember everything. What I did to you in my past life, what wounds I inflicted."
When the words 'past life' flowed from his mouth, Blair's questioning eyes began to shake aimlessly.
"You shouldn't have married me again."
Having regained his past memories, her words overlapped with her appearance from the previous life, and everything made sense.
'Rather than a relationship that speaks of hollow eternity, I prefer one with clear beginnings and endings. A relationship where I can take as much as I give.'
Why she had said such things when proposing a contract marriage to him.
'Asiel...'
Who that man was, the one she desperately sought in her sleep.
'That priestess from earlier, she's the woman you will come to love.'
With what heart she had said those words, seeing him face Miela.
Only now.
Only after inflicting so many wounds upon you again.
Despite all of that, the existence of the mark engraved on her collarbone in this life too shattered him more devastatingly than any attack.
"Me—"
Herdin closed his eyes as if struggling to suppress his surging emotions, unable to finish his sentence.
Even now, when he closed his eyes, he remembered her small body that had grown cold in his arms, and his appearance that the past-life her would have last remembered.
He opened his eyes, clenching his fist as if trying to crush it. A choked voice scraped painfully past his throat as it flowed out.
"You should have hated me..."
Tears fell drop by drop from Blair's vacant eyes as she looked at him. At those tears, he felt like falling to his knees.
Herdin urgently grasped Blair's hand that was clutching the blanket and whispered.
"I'm sorry."
"...."
"I'm sorry, Blair."
Words he couldn't convey to her in the previous life.
"For hurting you like that, for making you lonely."
"...."
"For loving you even through all those moments..."
He wanted to tell her that it wasn't because of past sins, but that he had loved her for a very long time already.
He realized those words were wrong only after Blair opened her mouth.
"Then, am I supposed to forgive you...?"
Her voice was hollow as she spoke words that sounded almost like resentment.
Her purple eyes were filled with neither resentment nor joy, but with chaotic emotions. However, those eyes soon contorted in pain.
"If you say all those actions were because you loved me, then does that mean the wounds I received never existed? That they become nothing?"
After returning to the past, she had tried to suppress her past emotions. Now that everything had become as if it never happened, those emotions had become meaningless.
But she had never forgotten, even for a single moment, the devastating emotions from that moment when the love she had believed would protect her shattered that belief. Even after she came to love him again in the end.
That emotion would pierce her wounds unexpectedly. Like an awl hidden in a pocket.
She couldn't forget even if she tried. Even if the whole world forgot, it had been her reality.
She had lived chewing on those emotions, loving you who gave her those memories, hating herself for loving you like that, embracing her wounded heart.
Yet, for all of that to become nothing with just that single word—that it was because of love—was strange. Too strange.
"I... don't know."
"...."
"I still hate you. It hurts so much..."
Blair looked at him with resentful eyes and sobbed. Her fragile shoulders, her violet eyes wet with tears trembled pitifully.
Only after seeing her like that did Herdin realize his judgment had been wrong.
He thought saying "I love you" would fix everything. He thought that since he loved her and she loved him back, that would solve everything.
It was a foolish and stupid arrogance.
When her chest still bore blood-clotted wounds.
Herdin bit his lip and desperately grasped her hand. He buried his face in her small hand and whispered as if sobbing.
"I'm sorry. I... I was wrong about everything, Blair."
His two hands that wrapped around her infinitely more delicate hand trembled. As if she would disappear if he let go.
"Don't forgive me."
Blair neither shook off nor pushed away his hand, only sobbed. So painfully, so sorrowfully.
At the sound of her crying, it felt as if his world was collapsing.
Herdin reached out his hesitating arms and embraced her. The sound of her crying ringing in his ears clawed at his heart.
He desperately patted the sobbing Blair's back and spoke as if squeezing the words out.
"Don't cry..."
He didn't know how to stop her tears. He didn't know how to make her smile either. She simply didn't cry because he was by her side, and smiled because he was by her side.
But if you don't smile even when you're beside me.
Then what should I do.
What on earth should I do...
Suddenly, a painful breath burst from between his teeth as he realized something.
He had wanted to take her to the sea. Like the promise he once made. But the promise was never kept, and Blair came to the sea alone.
Now he had to accept it.
That she no longer needed a knight to take her to the sea.
That fact constricted his chest, but with the feeling of tearing out his own heart, Herdin promised Blair.
"Once we find the culprit, do as you wish. Whatever that may be."
So that nothing else may hurt you.
That was the only thing he wished for now.
* * *
Upon arriving at his office, Herdin first lit a cigar and put it in his mouth, then took out documents from the drawer.
These were the Esmeralda documents that the unidentified man had handed him on the night Blair fled from the Delmark ducal residence.
Afterward, he had set them aside temporarily to pursue Blair immediately, but he had brought the documents with him when coming to Nerha.
Herdin flipped to the very last page of the documents. The last page was just as it had been when he received it from the man—torn away as if someone had ripped it off.
On that missing last page, there should have been either the identity of the culprit who orchestrated all of this, or clues to deduce it.
While tracking Blair's whereabouts, he had ordered his subordinates to search for the last page, but there was still no news.
It was time to begin finding the true culprit in earnest.
'The method used to disguise both of their deaths as accidents and the method used to kill Blair and drive me berserk are exactly the same.'
At this point, it would be strange if the culprits of both incidents weren't the same person.
In his previous life, he hadn't discovered the documents Esmeralda left behind, so he couldn't have imagined that his parents' deaths were premeditated murder.
Therefore, naturally, he also couldn't have guessed that the mastermind who killed his parents and the one who cast dark magic on him and Blair were the same.
'The commonality among the victims is that they were all masters of Delmark.'
That meant the culprit was targeting Delmark.
If he divorced Blair, she would no longer be a Delmark, but the problem was the existence of the mark.
As long as the mark remained, she would continue to be used as a medium to kill him.
'I must find and eliminate the mastermind, and sever the mark.'
Herdin glared at the torn last page as if it were the culprit and exhaled smoke. Just then, a knock broke the silence of the night.
"Come in."
The one who entered the office was Ruth.
"Did you call for me?"
"Send archaeologists to the Elir Plains. Those well-versed in the demon language. Tell them we'll cover all the funds needed for the expedition."
"Excuse me? The Elir Plains? Why there all of a sudden?"
Ruth expressed doubt at the sudden command. It was the reaction Herdin had expected.
Ancient ruins would be discovered in the Elir Plains about a year from now. The current Elir Plains was nothing but an empty wasteland.
But explaining his past memories to Ruth would be complicated. There was no need or reason to do so.
Herdin stubbed out his cigar and answered.
"You'll know soon enough."
It meant he shouldn't ask any more questions.
Ruth found his cryptic command strange, but answered instead of questioning.
"...Understood. Any other orders?"
Instead of other orders, Herdin stared at the alive Ruth for a moment.
As Ruth was about to ask what was wrong under his incomprehensible gaze, Herdin spoke first.
"I'm sorry."
At the sudden apology, Ruth blinked in apparent bewilderment, but soon his expression grew increasingly serious as he realized something.
"There are more than one or two things you should be sorry to me about, so I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to, but I hope it's nothing new that I don't know about."
Herdin frowned at Ruth's nonsense.
"I meant go get some sleep."
"Yes, sir."
Ruth still had an unconvinced expression, but he left without asking any more insolent questions.
Watching the door close, Herdin rose from his seat and left the office. His steps, which had unconsciously headed toward the bedroom, halted.
Blair was sleeping in the bedroom. She who couldn't light the fireplace.