“The chapel?”
“You haven’t been able to go because you’ve been busy fixing this and that. The people involved were all crying and begging to be saved, so I was curious just how lavishly it had been decorated to make them like that.”
When Ares shrugged, Grace laughed out of habit. At her laughter, Ares quickly signaled to Jessie with his eyes, and Jessie promptly brought a fur coat. She had been just about to urge Grace to step out for a change of mood anyway.
Grace put on the silvery-gray fur Eliza had given her and went to the chapel with Ares.
If the chapel at the Taylor ducal castle was like that of a priest offering devout prayers, the chapel at the Richmond ducal castle was like that of a holy knight who did not fear death for his god. The knights guarding the chapel hurriedly greeted the duke and Grace, who had arrived unexpectedly, then opened the doors.
And the moment the door opened, Grace’s eyes grew wide.
Somehow, it smelled as though a garden in full bloom had been moved indoors. It was not the scent of artificial perfume, but the diverse fragrance one would feel in a real outdoor garden, subtly permeating the entire vast chapel. Just as she thought she smelled the thick, sweet fragrance of acacia, the alluring scent of roses drifted from somewhere else, followed by fresh herbs, wood, and the smell of damp earth.
If the invisible fragrance was to this degree, what then of the visible sights?
There was not a single thing in this place untouched by Eliza’s hand. It wasn’t just the chapel—nothing had been prepared carelessly. The dress, the bouquet, and even the veil to wear upon her head.
Her gradually slowing steps came to a halt at the end of the aisle.
To me, who had regarded Richmond as nothing more than a weapon I desperately needed, Richmond had bestowed upon me far more than I deserved.
The reason I could not touch the treasures Eliza had passed down, the reason people’s kindness felt as though it filled the hollow in my chest only to overflow and melt my insides, the reason the man who had stayed by my side each time came to mind was…….
“Grace.”
A low call seized her consciousness, which had been sinking into a deep quagmire.
Firm, dark eyes seized her green eyes, which had been clouding over blankly.
“Grace.”
Grace asked without realizing it.
“How did you endure it.”
How could I have thought that hiding my intentions and putting on an act was the same as bearing a dead person’s name? My heart, which had been warmed by people’s kindness, melted the moment I realized that kindness was not meant for me.
If I feel this way, what must his heart be like, bearing a dead person’s name?
At the unexpected question, Ares blinked quietly, then smiled.
“Well.”
“…….”
“It seems your wish was delivered to me.”
It seems your wish reached even that cold, cold place.
Her face was reflected in eyes as deep and black as the night sky at its deepest, seemingly without end.
A wish.
Could it be that the wish I had been unable to reveal to anyone had reached him?
Grace stared at her reflection in his eyes as though entranced. She had the sudden illusion that only she and he remained on a black road without beginning or end. But strangely, she felt no fear.
Then he took from his breast a small blue box the size of his palm. As he then studied her right and left hands, Grace quietly offered her left hand. After a brief pause, he supported her hand with his left while slowly sliding the ring onto her ring finger with his right.
“What is this?”
“A ring.”
“No, I didn’t ask because I didn’t know what it was…….”
“It’s from me.”
Grace understood the meaning those words held at once.
A gold ring of moderate thickness with a tiny green emerald set in it fit her finger perfectly, as though it had been sized precisely. Since she had never worn a ring with a stone set this way before, she examined it from every angle; it was truly beautiful.
Meanwhile, as Grace silently looked the ring over from every angle, Ares’s mouth went dry. Everything here belonged to Walter; all that truly belonged to him was the purse of gold coins an attendant had pressed into his hand when he left the imperial palace.
He had bought Grace’s ring with gold coins he’d merely carried around for over a decade, but after slipping it onto her finger, it looked impossibly modest. In truth, it was more modest than any accessory she had ever seen, and now that he looked at it, it did not even seem to match the jewels worn by maids.
“If you don’t like it, take it off.”
Grace raised her eyes.
“If you don’t like it, take it off. It doesn’t matter.”
For some reason, his nape, bathed in golden light, seemed red. From spending time together, what Grace had realized was that both Eliza and Ares, though clumsy with words, were kind people at heart. Her heart, which had been cooling little by little, grew warm again, and the warmth that had nowhere to go finally seeped out as laughter.
As Grace quietly burst into laughter, Ares’s gaze, which had been fixed pointlessly elsewhere, was drawn to her as though by magnetism. Grace, who had been chuckling to herself, pursed her lips and released them before speaking softly.
“Thank you.”
“…….”
“I like it.”
The moments when she had felt excited about a marriage that was not hers, then suffered heartache from guilt, seemed to vanish like a lie. As she gazed quietly at the pale green emerald that seemed exactly the color of her own eyes, she suddenly realized she had prepared nothing herself.
“…I’m sorry. I haven’t prepared anything.”
When Grace tilted her gaze to look at him, Ares raised his head to look up at the deity statue carved from marble.
The sight of his sharply prominent Adam’s apple bobbing repeatedly was strangely captivating. Feeling somehow embarrassed, she lowered her eyes, and then she heard a voice, tight and rough.
“Then call my name, just once.”
It felt as though goosebumps were rising along her ears and nape. Surprised, she stopped breathing and raised her head; he was gazing at her.
His sharp features, tinged with golden light, seemed to be suppressing something tightly. Grace felt as though her throat were pressed beneath the large, slender foreleg of a tiger.
He took a step closer. She should have stepped back, but the reason she couldn’t was the large, warm hand resting against her left cheek. His thumb pressed lightly under her chin.
“Don’t hold your breath.”
As she exhaled the breath she hadn’t known she was holding, he lowered his head. And he pleaded, so that no one else could hear.
“Please, just once is enough.”
A name.
How much meaning could the name I call hold for you?
Could it hold as much meaning as I cling to your words?
A name as delicate as a sharp pen stroke, yet so frighteningly fitting for him, would slip from between her lips as swiftly as winter wind passing through dry branches.
Grace very carefully sent the name she had pronounced alone hundreds, thousands of times past her lips.
“Ares.”
He whispered urgently.
“Once more.”
The name whispered so softly that no one might hear was like an incantation. Her mind felt as though it had been rubbed blank, incapable of any thought, and perhaps because of the faint, blurred wall lamps, she felt as though her body were floating in the air.
Instead of the scent of flowers, his wild scent devoured everything, and his red-rimmed eyes, as though pleading, were unbearably sensual.
“…Ares.”
And so, even knowing he was drawing nearer, she had no choice but to call him; even as she felt his large, warm hand encircle her nape, she had no choice but to surrender her whole body helplessly to this moment.
“Again.”
“Ares.”
The last call shattered inside his rough, hot mouth and flowed down the back of her throat, and the world was dyed with him.
Ares Dekan.
As a man like winter, who wielded fierce might to freeze everything over, and who on some days bestowed snow of a beauty incomparable to anything else.
* * *
I’m going crazy.
At the thought that suddenly surged up, he quickly turned over and lay down.
But in the end, he sprang up from where he sat and splashed water on his face. Try as he might to shake it off, he couldn’t, so he had no choice but to surrender to that moment crashing over him like a tidal wave.
The faintly illuminated chapel.
After slipping that humble ring onto her hand, his heart had never pounded so hard.
‘If you don’t like it, take it off. It doesn’t matter.’
He had spat out childish words he didn’t mean, then turned his eyes away because he couldn’t bear to look at Grace. Just as he was worrying that his heart was beating so loudly she might hear it, a soft, stifled laugh reached his ears.
When he turned his head as though entranced, the world stopped.
Who was I, what had I been running for, how had such a moment come to pass. In a world where even I myself had vanished beyond time and space, the only thing with meaning was that person’s smile.
Grace was laughing.
Her delicate eyes curved into crescents, and hollow dimples appeared beside her lips. Seeing her like that, she seemed not a person standing at the boundary between winter and spring, but one standing at the boundary between spring and summer.
‘Thank you. I like it.’
When Grace had said that, he thought,
What’s so special about something like this? Next time, I have to give her something better. If she likes it, I feel like I could drag the whole world here and offer it to her.
Then a realization quietly approached from behind and stabbed him in the back. The thought that perhaps in this life, the only thing he could give her was this ring penetrated deep into his back and pierced his heart.
His heart, which had been beating joyfully, sank. It felt as though a sticky swamp was pulling him under from his feet.
Ares raised his head to look up at the deity statue carved from marble.
‘You won’t be an obstacle to her reclaiming Taylor. Since it’s a marriage that will be annulled anyway.’
The words that had been lodged like a thorn somewhere deep inside him stabbed his already pierced heart once more.
Annulment. The name of all the time Grace and I had spent together.
Ares could not endure it. So he spoke impulsively.
Call my name, just once.