It's Too Late for Regrets - Chapter 9.12

Clink!

 

The teacup he knocked over fell to the floor and shattered into pieces.

 

Ines looked up at him with a shocked expression.

 

“Why, why…?”

 

“…Don’t drink this kind of thing in front of me.”

 

His voice sounded briefly desperate, as if swallowed by hellfire. The cold and secretive atmosphere he had before was gone, replaced by a face full of fear.

 

The change was so sharp that it was confusing.

 

Why is he acting like this again?

 

It was just a fragrant flower tea.

 

But the question was quickly answered.

 

She remembered what Clara had told her.

 

“She died right in front of him. After drinking the tea he poured.”

 

Ah, that’s why.

 

At that moment, she found a perfect way to break this dangerous man.

 

Her hand searched the table and picked up another teacup. A cold smile appeared on her lips.

 

“You expect too much from me, Your Highness.”

 

She glared at him and drank the tea in one gulp. Rayan’s face turned pale.

 

“…”

 

He stared at her, as if Ines might die and collapse at any moment. He looked so pale he seemed like he wasn’t even breathing.

 

His hand trembled violently and reached toward her cheek.

 

“Don’t swallow it. Don’t drink that…”

 

His hand hurried as if he was going to grab her throat and make her throw up everything she had swallowed.

 

Ines sharply pushed his hand away.

 

“You…”

 

The man let out a trembling breath, held it, and repeated several times.

 

“You really…”

 

After a long while, he slowly straightened and slumped down into his chair.

 

He roughly brushed his messy silver hair from his forehead, and his hand dropped, gripping empty air with no meaning.

 

His voice was low and hoarse, mixed with trembling and tears.

 

“You really… have a talent for making me miserable. Before, and even now…”

 

Rayan Eleanor was helpless in front of her. She found that very satisfying.

 

Ines brought up a topic to break him even more.

 

“The duchess who was once your wife.”

 

Her tone was calm, as if talking about a third person.

 

“I heard she did not suit Your Highness at all.”

 

“No.”

 

He was cut off as soon as he started.

 

His green eyes flickered painfully.

 

Ines looked at him slowly and clearly spoke.

 

“She was a despised illegitimate child.”

 

“…”

 

“No one loved her. Not even her husband. Of course. She was like a worm that ate away pride just by existing.”

 

The man stopped breathing like a stuffed corpse.

 

“She must have been lonely until she died. A poor woman. That’s the price for wanting too much. Without knowing her place.”

 

Ines felt a strong joy while tearing herself down. He looked at her with a face that seemed to want to cover his ears.

 

“Don’t say that, Ines.”

 

“I don’t remember how married life with you was.”

 

She couldn’t deny that she was drawn to him somehow. Maybe because of the pieces of the past that never left.

 

Suddenly, she really wanted to know.

 

“Did you ever love me, even once?”

 

“…I did.”

 

Rayan reached across the table and took her hand. This time, Ines did not pull away.

 

“I loved you.”

 

He pressed his pale cheek against her palm and breathed heavily. His hand holding her wrist felt her quiet pulse.

 

Ines still asked with a dry face.

 

“Since when?”

 

“I don’t know. I don’t know. No matter how much I think about it… I don’t know why I became like this.”

 

“If you don’t know anything, how did you know you loved me?”

 

He bit his lips many times and muttered sadly.

 

“Because I feel like I’ll die without you.”

 

“…”

 

“At some point, if you weren’t there, I couldn’t be myself anymore… If I could see you again, that’s the only thing I want to say. That’s why…”

 

The man collapsed in a few words, as if he had never overwhelmed her before.

 

Surprisingly easily.

 

Proving that she always had the upper hand in their relationship…

 

When Ines showed no reaction, Rayan’s voice grew anxious.

 

“I want to hear again what you said to me a long time ago. Yes, that’s enough, but I…”

 

“What did you say?”

 

The moment she asked, her own voice echoed in her head.

 

I love you.

 

I love you, Rayan…

 

Love. She did love this man, it seemed.

 

Then what about him?

 

“You really mean it when you say you want to love me again. Nothing else matters… Actually, that one sentence is enough. Then I can do anything. Anything…”

 

“If you loved me, why did you let me die?”

 

Rayan’s words stopped suddenly in confusion. Ines asked with a face full of disbelief.

 

“How could you let me die beside you?”

 

“…”

 

“Why did you let me drink tea that did not suit my body?”

 

“…”

 

“You didn’t know? Otherwise, it makes no sense.”

 

There was no answer from him.

 

Ines pulled her hand out of his grasp and muttered quietly.

 

“Your love is a lie. Even if I don’t remember, I think I know that.”

 

“…”

 

“So I won’t accept anything from you. No words of love, no letters sent to the mansion, no favors. Of course, I won’t give you anything either.”

 

Ines left the frozen man and stood up. Her bruised foot ached sharply, but she forced herself to stand straight.

 

“So, let’s stay apart like strangers who never met. Forever.”

 

With those words, she left him and the teahouse.

 

There was nothing left she wanted to hear from him.

 

 

Rayan sat in the teahouse long after she left.

 

The sun was low below the window frame, stinging his eyes.

 

The sunset spread, and even though the tears that had been at his eyes dried without a trace, he just stared blankly at the empty seat across from him.

 

His heart beat irregularly.

 

The knight who had been pacing nervously outside the flower shop finally came in.

 

“…My lord, you should get up now to be on time for dinner…”

 

“…”

 

“The young master is waiting…”

 

The word ‘young master’ reminded Rayan of his promise with his son, and he finally took a deep breath.

 

He asked in a dry voice.

 

“The carriage?”

 

“We tried to get one, but it was refused.”

 

The woman with red hair that the knight had seen staggered and leaned on the wall as soon as she left the teahouse.

 

The lord was probably watching her back in the mirror hanging on the teahouse wall.

 

Her unstable form, stumbling several times as if in pain, shaking her head as if suffering a headache, and walking away.

 

I won’t accept anything you give me.

 

Her feet must have hurt a lot…

 

But she would rather walk with bleeding feet than be caught and forced to heal by him.

 

Knowing that, his heart rotted black but he could not pull her back.

 

“Still, at least I saw her face…”

 

He saw she was alive and moving. He confirmed he was not completely ignored.

 

That’s enough for today… Rayan pressed his hot eyes with his palm.

 

He grabbed the jacket he threw beside him and stood up.

 

Though he had crumbled into pieces and shed tears before, his broad back recovered its firm strength.

 

“…Let’s go.”

 

Rayan had developed a new habit recently. He found an effective way to control the madness that flared up more and more often.

 

After arriving at the mansion, he ate dinner with Caesar with a slight smile, then went straight to the top floor.

 

Each time Ines, crueler than before in another body, rejected him, he found the other woman he kept locked in his space.

 

The bedroom on the top floor, locked with several locks and strictly guarded by two knights and one sorcerer.

 

“Anything unusual?”

 

“No.”

 

The sorcerer Irak from Jenaire answered shortly. Rayan passed him and opened the door.

 

The room was small, more like an attic. It was dark inside.

 

He heard a sound from the bed inside — a sob or a moan.

 

Hic… ugh…

 

Golden threads, shining like human hair, completely surrounded her bed.

 

Inside the circle made of golden threads, faint sparks glowed.

 

Rayan leaned against the wall and slumped down, as if eating dinner with his son with a smiling face was all he could do while staying sane.

 

He looked at Ines on the bed with his head against the wall.

 

Her blue eyes trembled with fear. The magic had tied her body and tongue, so she could do nothing.

 

From the start, that ‘thing’ was not a living human.

 

Just a moving doll or corpse. The shell of Ines, whom he had made beautiful and healthy.

 

Seeing that gave him some breath.

 

Still, that thing in Ines’s body looked at him with such desperate eyes.

 

She wanted me like that…

 

Seeing those eyes eased the despair Rayan felt whenever the real Ines rejected him.

 

He moved his lips quietly as he stared at her.

 

“…You know, Ines? The reason I can’t return you to your original body right now is…”

 

It’s because my last honor knows it’s better for you not to come back now.

 

If you come back and become the real you, and look at me with those eyes like today…

 

I don’t think I can hold on anymore.

 

Rayan was surely going mad, but there was one thing he must never forget.

 

In this new life he got, Ines must be happy.

 

As she wished during all the years they lived together, she must live like a human, free to fly wherever she wants.

 

Not trapped in a strange body, but herself — the beautiful Celia Irope, with her beloved son.

 

Rayan knew well that this was what Ines truly wanted.

 

The throne, the engagement, the grand and magnificent imperial city, the finest clothes, wealth… she would hate those things even if she remembered.

 

So she must be digging into Jenaire…

 

All the notices Ines was reading at the flower shop were about the envoy from Jenaire.

 

She must have guessed that the reason her body changed was connected to Jenaire.

 

A woman who was denied her life by her husband and the world must have the right to know everything.

 

So Ines must get her body back someday.

 

Just not now.

 

Because if she sees her complete self now, he would be greedy for more than the limits he set.

 

He might try to imprint himself on her again. This time, he would tie her tightly so she can’t run away.

 

Maybe he wouldn’t even listen if she cried or begged.

 

He didn’t want to go that far, truly.

 

 

 

“Well, even now I’m still barely crossing the line.”

 

But isn’t what happened today okay? Rayan thought this rather boldly.

 

“In the end, you did nothing. You didn’t even touch her with a finger…”

 

The woman’s blue eyes filled with tears of fear as she heard these words she couldn’t understand.

 

Rayan looked at her closely and spoke.

 

“Ines, say you love me.”

 

“Ugh…”

 

“Say you forgive me. Say you want me in your future.”

 

“Ugh, uh…”

 

“I love you. Now you say you still feel the same…”

 

Rayan muttered to the empty air and suddenly chuckled.

 

“I’m crazy.”

 

Yes. It had been like this for a long time.

 

Since he cut off Emperor Jenaire’s head and stayed long in a foreign imperial city last fall, he had completely given up returning to his old self.

 

One corner of his mouth twisted up. He gladly gave himself over to the feeling of being disconnected from reality.

 

Thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump.

 

His heart beat off rhythm.

 

Rayan stayed in that room all night like two years ago, when he guarded his wife’s glass coffin in the chapel of his mansion in the duchy.