It's Too Late for Regrets - Chapter 2.11

“Maybe so.”

Ines couldn’t take her eyes off Robert’s leg, which was still in a splint.

“I want to go with you… but this is your hometown, and you need to restore the herbal shop…”

More than anything, Robert couldn’t go even if he wanted to, not in his current condition. Feeling down, she lowered her head again.

Robert nervously looked at the girl who kept glancing at him.

Her eyes weren’t as unstable as they had been when she first arrived. Though her complexion was pale, a bright light still shone in her blue eyes.

Robert thought of the silver-haired man he had met once.

“Wasn’t he Duke Eleanor…”

Ines said he had promised to guarantee her safety.

If he was the ruler of a country, he would take responsibility for his words.

If that was true, then maybe this was a good thing. Ines needed more structured care. If she could be treated by a more skilled doctor in a nice mansion, maybe she could live much longer than ten years.

“If it’s the duke’s mansion, they must have a royal doctor. Go to him and get yourself checked. The most important thing is not to get emotionally shaken. You know that, right?”

Ines gave a weak smile and nodded.

“…If something happens while I’m there, I’ll definitely write you a letter, okay?”

“I will.”

She hesitated a little and added in a small voice,

“Once I get used to things there… I’ll ask His Highness if I can visit Apael again.”

“Of course. Did you plan to never come back until this old man died?”

A look of surprise appeared on Ines’s face, and then she smiled brightly. As always, it was the kind of smile that made her chest ache.

“…Live well, my child.”

Robert stood up and patted the girl hugging him. He silently prayed that the light in those blue eyes would never fade, not in ten years, not in twenty.

Are you really going, Ines?

Kian had taken his black beast form for the first time in a while. Ines paused in the middle of packing her small bag and turned to look at him.

You trust him too easily.

“…I think so too.”

She gave him a small smile and turned back around to continue packing.

Her diary, which she had written in occasionally over the past six months, the quill set Robert had bought her, and the wool scarf she had knitted in preparation for winter…

“He said he’d love me, Kian.”

As she carefully rolled up the patchwork blanket she had made, Ines spoke calmly.

“He said he’d love me… as a human.”

…

“He said his country would become a place like that. That he would make it so. That he has the power to do it.”

She was not the kind of person who could hear those words and not be moved.

Don’t trust anyone, Ines.

Kian said the same thing again. And Ines still knew that he was right.

Her mind knew it, but her heart refused to listen.

That man… kept giving her hope. As if he could see right through her, he asked her name, remembered the day they met, treated her kindly.

And to someone like her, hope was no different from poison.

Two days ago, and even yesterday, he clearly wanted her. He was restless and desperate.

One of the most powerful and beautiful men on the continent longed for a woman as worthless and lowly as a pebble.

Her pale hand tightened around the patchwork blanket. Ines asked in a voice lacking confidence.

“Kian… what if he really means it?”

What if he really loves me?

What if I really can be happy?

The hope that maybe, just maybe, had begun to sprout in a corner of Ines’s heart.

In the duchy that Rayan promised would be safe, maybe she could finally live like a real human being.

To love and be loved. Not as a low-born bastard, but as someone’s wife—as herself…

All those hopes gathered and completely tore down the walls of her doubt.

“Actually…”

The joy that had bloomed in her blue eyes eventually turned to tears, streaming down her cheeks.

“Even if it’s a lie… I want to believe it.”

…

“I want to live without fear anymore. In a good place, with a good person, and be happy…”

Ines wiped the tears from the corner of her jaw and gave a weak smile.

“I don’t even have ten years left, anyway.”

…You might not get another chance to run.

“I know…”

Ines looked at the emerald necklace he had forced into her hands the day before.

The green gem on the silver chain held the color of that man perfectly.

After saying her final goodbye to Robert and leaving the house, she found Eleanor’s knights waiting beyond the fence.

Among them, one man stood out instantly.

As if the night they had shared had all been a dream, he turned around, looking every bit the flawless nobleman with not a single wrinkle out of place.

“…Let’s go, Your Highness.”

Rayan saw the emerald necklace around her neck and smiled with quiet satisfaction. Green really did suit Ines well.

“Yes, let’s go.”

She slowly came forward and took the hand he held out. Rayan firmly wrapped his strong grip around the delicate hand in his.

At last, he had seized what he had almost lost forever for the first time in his life.

He caught her, wings and all—and locked her away in his world.

Support