It's Too Late for Regrets - Chapter 10.5

In a moment, her voice was completely hoarse.

 

Ines brought her trembling hand to her cheek. Her pale cheek, almost blue, was as cold as ice.

 

“How… where have you been all this time…?”

 

But Ines could not finish her sentence.

 

A dull, neutral voice flew over their heads.

 

“Get up.”

 

Before they knew it, five or six men in black robes had surrounded Ines and Celia.

 

“Daughter of Kanok. The host of misfortune, at last found.”

 

“…!”

 

“It’s time to return to Jenaire. Stand up.”

 

A man with the same hairstyle as Lim, who had sent Ines here, grabbed her shoulder roughly.

 

“I kept my promise… I kept it!”

 

Celia, who was inside Ines’s body, raised her head and shouted in a hoarse voice. It was a desperate cry.

 

“I really, really told you I’m the real Jenaire’s illegitimate child, that this woman is my original body…! Now send me back!”

 

As Celia’s scattered words and the words of the strange men who seemed to be Jenaire people connected little by little, it became clear.

 

Celia, trapped inside Ines’s body, had made a kind of deal with those trying to take Ines back to Jenaire.

 

To return to her original body.

 

It was something Ines had never expected — that they would try to take her from here.

 

Why suddenly?

 

While she lived as the Duchess in Eleanor, the Jenaire side had never contacted her.

 

Why only now, after she died and came back…?

 

“I keep my promise. So shut up. We can’t let our location be discovered.”

 

The Jenaire man coldly pushed Celia’s hand away and dragged Ines roughly from the tree root.

 

His grip was violent. If she had not been wearing riding clothes under her dress, the sharp grass would have cut her legs.

 

But she couldn’t avoid the red marks left on her shoulder and neck from his strong grip.

 

Even as she was dragged like livestock, she felt as if she had gone through this kind of situation many times before.

 

Ines was thrown into a small clearing surrounded by old trees.

 

“Hurry and prepare. If you delay, he will notice.”

 

“It looks like rain will come soon… We will start immediately.”

 

She barely supported herself with her hands and raised her upper body.

 

When she looked around, Ines realized she had been thrown into the middle of the grass pressed down into a geometric shape, just like before.

 

Jenaire sorcerers stood one at each point of dozens of overlapping triangles. It looked like they surrounded her.

 

The sky beyond the dense trees was growing darker.

 

A raindrop hit the tip of Ines’s nose.

 

She moved her cracked lips and whispered in a faint voice.

 

“What… are you going to do to me?”

 

“Only to restore everything back to how it was.”

 

A cold reply came. Celia was thrown beside Ines, looking pitiful.

 

The magic circle where they sat was meant to restore the swapped soul to its original place.

 

“All that was taken by the barbarians — the land of Jenaire, the imperial city, the army, His Majesty the Emperor… even the darkness passed down in Jenaire.”

 

“…”

 

“To regain all of it and revive our empire, you must return to your original body first, host of misfortune.”

 

After saying this, he smiled bitterly and turned his back.

 

As he returned to his place, the intersections of the symbols finally filled completely.

 

Seven sorcerers took a breath together. Then they began chanting spells in unison.

 

It was an ancient language Ines had never heard before, but strangely, she could understand it.

 

[اسان جو پيءُ جيڪو پراڻين اونداھين کي سيل ڪري ٿو]

 

‘Our father who sealed the oldest darkness.’

 

[ ڪوشش ڪري رھيا آھيو ھر شيءِ کي واپس]

 

‘Now trying to bring everything back.’

 

Golden light began to flow along the marks where the grass was pressed down.

 

Ines stared blankly at her two hands.

 

Her palms were stuck to the ground and would not move. Not just her hands, but her whole body.

 

The golden energy layered over the magic circle wrapped tightly around her body like bindings.

 

Even so, her mind worked quickly.

 

“So this is why Jenaire raised me instead of killing me.”

 

Her past self had some power… and when she died, that power disappeared.

 

Where did that power, the misfortune of Jenaire and the oldest darkness, go?

 

The rain hitting her head and exposed skin grew heavier.

 

The grass pressed down by the magic circle began to soak with water. The golden light started to turn black.

 

The voices of the sorcerers grew urgent and faster.

 

[مدد ڪريو تبديل ٿيل روح کي وري ان جي جاءِ findولڻ ۾]

 

‘Help the changed soul find its place again.’

 

The last syllable of the ancient language finished. Ines opened her eyes wide.

 

A change was happening inside her.

 

There was a ripping sound, like something tearing away with a chilling noise.

 

It was the sound of her leaving Celia’s body.

 

Celia’s body also collapsed beside her like a puppet with its strings cut.

 

Ines still could not move a finger. She couldn’t even breathe.

 

She tried to open her lips to scream, but her whole body froze in place.

 

A chilling fear covered her.

 

Then, suddenly, all her senses emptied at once.

 

“!”

 

Whether lucky or unlucky, that terrible vacuum lasted only a moment.

 

Ines was helplessly swept away by a sharp sense that surrounded her and pulled her fiercely.

 

The world before her spun dozens of times and then flashed white.

 

“Ugh…!”

 

And the next moment, everything spun dizzyingly and changed.

 

Oxygen rushed in fast, like someone forcefully blowing air into her lungs.

 

Ines moaned in pain and bent over. Cold dirt and grass stuck messily to her right cheek.

 

“…”

 

The ground she saw was sideways. She had fallen badly onto wet grass.

 

The hand she saw faintly was not Celia’s hand she had seen for three months.

 

It was smaller, thinner, and weak… the hand of a sick person.

 

Even as she breathed heavily, she barely thought.

 

‘I… I’m back…’

 

“The rain is getting heavy. Quickly, restore the summoning circle!”

 

The sorcerers’ urgent voices echoed faintly in her ears.

 

Her black, limp hair was soaked by the rain. Strands stuck to her pale, dry cheek.

 

“Again, the misfortune to that body…!”

 

But suddenly, their voices mixed with the rain cut off.

 

Waaaah.

 

“Huh…”

 

Ines exhaled weakly and barely raised her head. The rain, which she thought was a light drizzle, had turned into a downpour.

 

In the darkening surroundings, beyond the blurry sight filled with rain and tears, a silver light flickered.

 

“Who gave you permission to summon?”

 

A voice descended, making even the heavy rain sound like background noise.

 

Even in her dizzy state, she felt chills run down her spine.

 

“Who gave you permission to call that back into my wife’s body?”

 

She had never heard such an angry voice since she met him again.

 

Bang. Something exploded close by, piercing her eardrums. The humid air was filled with a disgusting smell of blood.

 

What rolled on the ground was, ironically, the head of the man who had thrown Ines so roughly moments ago.

 

“Eleanor…”

 

The sorcerers who had stood still at the points of the magic circle began to step back hesitantly.

 

The black energy spilled like ink over the symbols already blurred by the heavy rain soaking the ground.

 

Ines couldn’t bring herself to raise her head or meet his eyes and curled up her body.

 

‘How did he come…?’

 

This wasn’t a short-distance teleport.

 

She felt him crossing the magic circle straight toward her.

 

At that moment, a scene flashed through her mind — herself standing alone in a magnificent hallway.

 

Then she saw a dazzlingly bright man approaching her, a sight so vivid it felt like yesterday.

 

The memory

 

The first time we met.

 

The past seemed to overlap with the present.

 

Celia, unconscious, lay beside Ines. Just minutes ago, Ines had been trapped inside that body.

 

When the Duke’s boots stopped right in front of her, Ines thought maybe he would pick Celia up.

 

She wished for that.

 

She wished he would ignore her pathetic, ruined state this time — not approach, not hold, not stop her like before.

 

“Just pretend you don’t know. Please.”

 

She coughed softly and curled up more. Her heart beat too fast, hurting like it might break her bones and tear her skin.

 

She couldn’t think clearly. Hot tears ran down her pale cheek.

 

She heard breathing as shaky as her own above her.

 

Then, in the next moment, she felt something warm cover her back — a cloak.

 

Her body, crouched low like she was hiding, was slowly pulled up by someone’s hands.

 

She struggled reflexively, but he held her tighter to support her.

 

Ines barely lifted her heavy head. But she couldn’t look straight at the man, and her upper body swayed.

 

A flash of clear blue eyes showed beneath her eyelids — only for a moment.

 

But that was enough time for Rayan to recognize her.

 

He scratched his throat and laughed with a rough voice.

 

“You really drive me crazy.”

 

She couldn’t tell if he was talking to her, or to those who brought her here.