It's Too Late for Regrets - Chapter 8.8

There was no response from his son, who was already fast asleep.

 

Normally, he would have been cheerfully chatting for at least two or three more hours, but since he had started nodding off right after lunch, it seemed the journey to the capital had been exhausting.

 

Despite being only six years old, Caesar never showed signs of pain or fatigue, and that always made Rayan worry.

 

He gently brushed the black hair off the boy’s small forehead and gave him a soft shake.

 

“Caesar, you need to take your medicine before sleeping.”

 

“Mm…”

 

Caesar only stirred a little and didn’t open his eyes. If the child acted even slightly different than usual, Rayan became helplessly anxious.

 

His hand, holding Caesar’s small one to check his pulse, trembled slightly.

 

‘A bit fast… and irregular…’

 

“…Berry.”

 

Rayan stood up and handed the child to the nanny.

 

“Take him to the mansion. Show him to Lim immediately.”

 

“Yes, Your Highness.”

 

Lim was one of the shamans he had brought back from Jenaire.

 

“If… if she says anything at all is wrong…”

 

His throat went dry as he spoke. If anything happened to the boy, everything he had done would become meaningless.

 

This was the only request Ines had left him. If he couldn’t even keep that…

 

Sensing the sudden sharpness in his master’s demeanor, Berry quickly bowed.

 

“I’ll give you a full report once we return.”

 

“…Good.”

 

Rayan roughly brushed back his hair, trying to shake off the ominous thoughts.

 

He had kept his lunch promise with Caesar. Now he had to move quickly for the rest of the afternoon.

 

His next destination was the information guild in Randeva, located on the outskirts of the capital.

 

Someone claimed to know Ines’s appearance in detail, and he had received the exact address from them. He planned to visit immediately.

 

He signaled to the knights at the front.

 

“Bane, Claude, come with me.”

 

“Yes, Your Highness.”

 

The summoned knights followed their lord, exchanging secretive glances with each other.

 

How many do you think will die today?
Not sure. But this info… it seems real this time…

 

Rayan heard their murmurs but paid them no mind.

 

Behind his blank face, his emotions were a mess.

 

Veins stood out on his tightly clenched fist.

 

<Her eyes are gentle, she has light double eyelids, her skin is so pale you can see the veins…>
<And there’s a small mole below her right earlobe, near the neck.>

 

No one had ever described her appearance in such detail before.

 

Especially that small mole on her neck—it wasn’t something you could see from afar.

 

Only someone like Rayan, who had touched her countless times, would know that.

 

He was the only man who knew her body from head to toe, even the most intimate parts no one else had seen.

 

Even after she died, he had spent half of every day for months beside her corpse.

 

Everything about her was etched into his memory so deeply that he could never forget.

 

That’s how he knew—this time, the information was different from all the others.

 

His worn-down reason, his faded memories, and his madness-driven instincts were all screaming at him.

 

Maybe this time… maybe she’s really close.

 

As he stepped out of the restaurant, someone waiting inside the entrance bowed to him.

 

It was an old man named Irak, a shaman from Jenaire like Lim.

 

But one person was missing.

 

“Kian.”

 

It seemed Caesar had once again let him go outside. Rayan’s voice dropped lower.

 

“Kian, I don’t remember giving you freedom.”

 

The shadow at his feet stirred. It was a refusal to return to his side.

 

He had to know this was a meaningless rebellion.

 

Rayan’s tightly closed lips twisted into a cold smile.

 

“Don’t try anything foolish. Come out, now.”

 

As the two forces clashed, the air trembled violently.

 

A sharp, grating sound scraped the eardrums. At the same time, someone’s presence silently appeared behind Rayan.

 

Black hair, tied high, fell softly over a dark cloak.

 

Rayan glanced back to confirm the figure stepping out of the shadow. Wherever he had been, Kian looked unusually upset as he was dragged back suddenly.

 

“Enjoying the show?”

 

“…If you know, don’t interfere.”

 

Rayan let out a short laugh at the blunt reply.

 

“Kian. You’ve been doing whatever you want lately… At least until Caesar is fully recovered, don’t. If you end up killing my son, what do you think I’ll do?”

 

There was no reply. Rayan stopped looking at him and walked past.

 

“So don’t argue. Follow me—unless you’d rather be thrown into the abyss forever.”

 

As he left the restaurant, a pale fist clenched tightly behind him.

 

 

Gelnor was a slum on the southwestern edge of the capital. Light and darkness always coexist, and even a graceful place like Randeva couldn’t exist without its poor district.

 

Though it looked like a normal residential area, it was where all the leftovers from the bright side of Randeva gathered.

 

Besides the commoners who were born and raised here, those newly arriving in Gelnor usually fell into one of three groups:

 

Disgraced nobles who had committed serious crimes and lost their titles, commoners exiled after offending nobles, and illegitimate children of noble families.

 

They all had one thing in common—they feared the imperial family and the nobility.

 

So when knights stormed into such a place, it was almost certain that blood would be spilled that day.

 

Knights in armor with green silk trim moved through Gelnor’s narrow alleys. Terrified people all hid inside their homes.

 

Rayan’s brisk steps suddenly came to a halt.

 

He slowly tilted his head as he watched the dirty commoners scatter like ants.

 

Left. Right. After scanning the street once, he gave a flat command.

 

“Hide yourselves. Don’t cause unnecessary panic.”

 

The knights behind him quickly disappeared from view as ordered.

 

Rayan started walking again and pulled down the hood of his robe. His chilly silver hair was hidden under its shade.

 

If Ines is really here, I can’t scare her. I should at least make the road smooth for her.

 

If she got frightened and ran away, that would be a problem.

 

What rose in his throat, threatening to spill out, might have been joy—or maybe fear. His heart pounded so loud the world’s sounds faded.

 

The information broker leading him kept glancing back nervously.

 

“Th-this way.”

 

The place he pointed to was an old brick building at the end of the street. It was said to be where illegitimate children of nobles lived together.

 

Because knights could come any time and take these children as evidence of past sins, even in Gelnor, they were treated like ticking time bombs.

 

Naturally, they ended up living together.

 

Since there were quite a few of them, the building was larger than expected.

 

One floor of the four-story building had seven windows, resembling a detention center.

 

But the inside was terrible.

 

Rayan bit his lip hard as he walked past tattered curtains and hallways filled with dust and cobwebs.

 

‘She couldn’t have spent two years in a place like this, right…?’

 

When she first came to Lezan, she had been very weak. She was even clinically dead for almost three months.

 

Even if she woke up again, she couldn’t have been healthy.

 

She was already small and frail. The thought that she might have lived in such poor conditions made white-hot anger flare in his vision.

 

What if she’s worse off than before she died? Rayan clenched his fist and asked impatiently,

 

“When did she arrive here?”

 

“According to what I found, she was taken in by the head of this place after collapsing on the outskirts of Randeva two years ago.”

 

“…Her health?”

 

“She’s fully recovered. At first, she didn’t even remember her name and acted like an idiot, but recently, I heard she’s slowly getting her memory back.”

 

“Her memory…”

 

She had lost her memory…?

 

Rayan stopped in place. It felt like a heavy blow to the head.

 

There was a chance Ines might not remember him.

 

In this second life, she might not know or love him at all…

 

His lips went dry. Realizing how shocked he was, Rayan let out a bitter chuckle.

 

Even after the war, and after returning to Eleanor, there was one question that never left him.

 

If I find her alive… what am I supposed to do with her?

 

He had torn through Eleanor, Lezan, and Jenaire, desperate to find the answer.

 

If I can just find you… only you…

 

Then I…

 

Some days, it felt like it was enough just to know she was alive. He had prayed to see her smiling happily, even from a distance.

 

And if she allowed it, he wanted to meet her eyes just once and confess everything he hadn’t said.

 

If he could kneel at her feet and beg for forgiveness, that alone would be a miracle. Even if she didn’t accept him, that would be enough—or so he always thought.

 

But his instincts thought differently.

 

He often felt the urge to kill himself.

 

When Caesar awkwardly avoided his gaze, when he spent sleepless nights in the empty duchess’s room haunted by the memory of Ines with a swollen cheek, and when Ines…

 

<I don’t want to be alone…>

 

When she said that, and threw herself into his arms with her stunning, naked body—and when he dreamed of mixing everything with her: flesh, breath, fluids, everything…

 

Whenever he woke up from that dream, Rayan hated himself.

 

They say dreams are the voice of the unconscious.

 

If so, then no matter how much he denied it in his head, he was still living with that dirty desire deep down.