episode_0038

Time flows. Time flows like a flowing stream, like falling flower petals.

The season also changed from a lush green summer to early winter when cold north winds blow.

I opened the window and let the wind in. The cold wind swept through the room once and then went back out.

I could hear the maids chattering outside. Their expressions and tone seemed more excited than usual.

When they noticed that I was watching them, they deliberately raised their voices.

Then their conversation started to reach my ears little by little.

“~~ right. How many people died because of that guy? It’s really horrible to think about again.”

“It’s just their karma. They killed people like crazy. They got what they deserve.”

“When is the execution ceremony?”

“They said it’s tonight in the plaza? The head maid said she’d come too.”

“Really? Ugh… I hope I don’t run into the head maid while playing…”

“Still, isn’t she… better than that woman?”

A maid glanced at me. I flinched and closed the window again.

Bang!

For a while, I heard the maids giggling outside, and then it became quiet again.

“……..”

The slightly stuffy air, not yet perfectly ventilated, choked my throat.

A lot happened in less than half a year.

Mikhail won the Battle of Kazakh and succeeded in driving my father to the capital.

My father chose to resist in the capital instead of abandoning the capital and joining Count Guise,

This became the worst choice.

Much faster than my father expected, even before he properly requested reinforcements from Polski, the capital fell under Mikhail’s command,

My father was captured with his hands and feet tied, unable to resist at all.

Oh, poor father. He should have taken his own life instead.

But defying everyone’s expectations, Mikhail did not immediately kill my father.

Instead, he crippled my father, threw him into prison, and then dealt with the remaining monarchist forces.

The monarchist forces that were holding out in the west, led by Count Guise, quickly crumbled upon hearing the news of my father’s capture and Mikhail’s advance,

The civil war ended in less than a year like that. With Mikhail’s complete victory.

Last night, Mikhail returned to the capital, dragging Count Guise, who had been a pillar of the monarchist forces, like a dog.

Tonight, the execution of Count Guise and my father will take place.

This is a fact that will absolutely not change.

If I had joined the monarchist forces from the beginning…

If I hadn’t sent Mikhail to the battlefield…

If I hadn’t saved Mikhail…

“…That’s enough. What kind of self-pity is this?”

It was a meaningless hypothetical at this point anyway.

Indecisive me, unable to do anything, joined Mikhail haphazardly, and as a result, my father was captured and is just waiting for the day he will die.

No matter how much I cried and begged, Mikhail’s stance on my father was firm.

He would overlook everything else, but he would take my father’s life.

In a situation where I was completely dependent on Mikhail, I couldn’t make any more demands, so I couldn’t change my father’s fate.

“I’m sorry, Father…..”

I spat out the words as if atoning to my father, who was imprisoned and waiting for the day he would die.

I’m sorry, Father… I’m truly sorry…

Don’t forgive your daughter who knew the future but was afraid and changed nothing.

Please, please resent me.

Because if I don’t do this, I feel like I can’t bear the guilt.

Please resent this foolish daughter until the end.

“I’m sorry… I’m truly sorry…..”

Thanks to Mikhail’s discretion, I was able to be excused from the execution ceremony. But that was it.

Since most people had gone to watch the execution, very few people remained in the castle.

Thus, stealing a bottle of alcohol from the empty kitchen was no trouble, and as a result, I held a cheap bottle of alcohol in my hand.

I immediately popped the cork and swallowed the alcohol.

After realizing Mikhail’s affection, I had vowed never to get drunk… But this time was an exception.

Because I felt I couldn’t endure it sober.

Because I absolutely couldn’t bear this night without being drunk…

Please, let tonight end quickly.

Wishing earnestly, I drank the alcohol again.

—

Looking around, it was all dark darkness.

Even if I felt around, there was nothing I could grasp the shape of.

In the darkness where I couldn’t see an inch ahead, I got up.

Thump.

“?”

Then something caught my foot. Was it a stone? Was there a stone in a place like this? With a small question in mind, I knelt down to examine it closely.

It had a peculiar shape. It looked like it had about five legs attached closely together, like a giant insect, like… a human hand.

Like a human hand. No, it wasn’t ‘like’. It was a human hand. It moved its fingers and grabbed my ankle.

Like a trap to ensnare me, it held my ankle tightly and wouldn’t let go.

“Kyaaaaaaaaak-!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Thump! Thump!

Terrified, I shook it off. Then the hand rolled away and disappeared into the darkness.

I quickly tried to move to leave the spot.

But

I couldn’t move.

Another hand grabbed my ankle

slowly, slowly

was climbing up.

Other hands are also constantly climbing up. I can’t move. In no time, the hands reached my waist.

No. It’s creepy. No. No. No. No.

“Aaaaak-!!!!”

Screaming, I tried to tear off the climbing hands. But even when I tore them off and threw them away.

The hands kept climbing up. As if trapped in a swamp, they kept pulling me down.

As they reached my chest, human bodies began to sprout from the hands.

At this grotesque sight, like something out of a horror novel, my face turned pale white and I couldn’t even scream.

The form that was completed was someone I knew very well.

It was my nanny, Nanna.

“Lady, what did I do so wrong? Why did you save that beggar slave’s life but abandon me whom you breastfed and raised?”

With her uniquely rough touch, she sank me onto the floor teeming with countless hands.

Only now could I understand the identity of these hands.

These were my sins.

People who would not have died if I had had a different mindset.

And people who would have had a happy ending.

They were people who would have led ordinary lives if I had turned away from Mikhail.

Hundreds of hands covered my body.

My nanny Nanna, Count Guise, the leader of the monarchist faction, countless nobles and their families.

The maids and servants who took care of me, the people who lost their lives in the war.

And even my father.

They spat resentment at me and consumed me.

Unable to resist at all, I was dragged down and down by their hands.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Repeating apologies that would never reach, I died crushed by karma.

The hands finally reached my hand and pulled me. I stretched out my hand as a final resistance, but there was only emptiness there.

Please, someone save me. Please… please… please…..

But there was nothing. It was a natural result because I had thrown away everyone who could have saved me with my own hands.

Why did it end up like this? Where did it go wrong?

No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t grasp even a clue. I just couldn’t understand no matter how much I thought.

Should I have left Mikhail to die from being whipped? Or should I have helped my father and cut off Mikhail’s head?

Well, it’s just a meaningless imagination now.

I slowly sank into resentment without receiving any salvation.

But at that moment of giving up. At the moment when only a fingertip remained.

Someone grabbed my finger.

And that person, as if lifting a light object, easily pulled me out and held me in their arms.

A scent I had smelled somewhere before. The feel of a familiar palm.

Everything was clearly familiar. Everything was something I knew well.

If I thought a little more, I could quickly figure out who it was.

But this embrace was warm. The warmth it conveyed was so warm.

I just want to forget everything and be held in this embrace.

My eyes are slowly closing. Little by little. Little by little.

I closed my eyes, feeling the warmth conveyed by someone unknown.

—

Mikhail gazed at the sleeping Anastasia.

She held onto his hand tightly, as if it were a rope, and wouldn’t let go.

“…….”

Was she having a terrible nightmare? Seeing her clutching the hand of the enemy who killed her father like a treasure and not letting go.

Mikhail felt guilt and a slight possessiveness towards Anastasia like that.

For Mikhail, Anastasia’s father, Nikolai, was the enemy of his family.

The person who destroyed his family that was living in peace and dragged him to the royal palace to torture him in every way.

How could he feel good emotions towards such a person?

But despite that, seeing that he felt love for Nikolai’s daughter, Anastasia, it seemed that the world’s affairs were truly unpredictable.

Mikhail kissed the back of the sleeping Anastasia’s hand. The smell of her skin, which he hadn’t felt in a long time, was truly addictive.

“Heh, as expected, the smell is good.”

Rustle rustle (referring to breathing/sleep sounds, maybe more like gentle breathing)

Mikhail let out a silly laugh and his impression. For the laugh of a man who would become king, it was truly vulgar.

But he couldn’t help but laugh. Meeting the person he loved after two months, of course he would laugh.

He tried to end the war as quickly as possible, but no matter how much he shortened the time, it would take at least a few months, so he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t take Asha to the battlefield either.

“Ugh…”

Suddenly, the sleeping Anastasia tossed and turned. Whether it was because her sleeping position was uncomfortable, or because she wanted to feel Mikhail’s touch more, no one would know the reason.

After tossing and turning a few times, Anastasia placed her hand and Mikhail’s hand right in front of her face, and as a result…

Mikhail was right next to Anastasia’s face.

To explain, as Anastasia tossed and turned, Mikhail, who had frozen, was dragged along while kissing the back of her hand,

When she placed her hand right next to her face, Mikhail was pulled along with it.

Mikhail watched Anastasia’s face up close, not even breathing.

Asha’s sleeping face was different from usual.

Because of her slightly upturned eyes, Asha usually had a slightly fierce impression, but with her eyes closed like this, her impression changed to a gentle one.

Moreover, her slightly flushed cheeks and her ripe, rose-colored lips that breathed out hot air.

There was nothing that wasn’t lovely.

Mikhail slowly brought his lips closer without realizing it.

An unagreed-upon kiss. A disallowed expression of affection. Nothing about it was allowed for him, but Mikhail broke that taboo and took the fruit.

And the taste of the fruit he took… was nothing short of ecstasy.

Although he had tasted those lips several times, the taste of the fruit was bitter yet very sweet, as if stealing the first kiss of a tender maiden.

Was it because she was relaxed due to it not being a forced kiss but a kiss in a completely defenseless state?

Mikhail wanted to keep tasting this fruit. If it’s this much just from a slight nibble, how ecstatic would it be if he completely burst it and tasted the juice inside?

But not now. Unfortunately, Mikhail retreated, promising the future.

Of course, even if he retreated, since one hand was tightly held by Anastasia, all he could do was pull his face away.

Mikhail sat there for a long time like that.

Only after the dawn light broke and Anastasia was freed from the spell of sweet sleep, did Mikhail leave the room as if he had never been there from the beginning.

And this incident remained a secret only for Mikhail.

An event known only to him, not even to the person involved, Anastasia.