Episode 118. Memory of the Heart
Ssssss!
Everyone was surprised by Leana, who suddenly appeared in Christine’s bedroom.
She appeared using teleportation magic when he said he was looking for her.
“Your Majesty!”
When Leana ran towards him,
“Everyone, get out of here.”
Christine, who was leaning back on a long chair, ordered. At that, the servants and guards in the room quickly retreated.
“I told you to always enter through the door when you enter my room.”
“I’ll get in trouble for that later. Are you okay?”
Leana approached him carefully, examining his condition.
“I want to say I’m okay... but I don’t think I am.”
He furrowed his brows with a pained expression and took a deep breath.
“Go to bed.”
Leana quickly helped him up and carried him to the bed. In order not to show his weakness in front of others, he forced himself to sit on the chair and endure the pain.
“You seemed to be getting better lately...”
“But I still came to my senses.”
Lying on the bed, he smiled with bloodless lips.
Seeing that, Leana got angry and upset.
“That’s why I told you to always keep me by your side! You disappeared without a word in the morning...”
“Yes, stop nagging the patient.”
“I’ll do it when you get better. Well.”
“But I want you to explain what this is.”
He grabbed his left chest in pain, but with the other hand, he unbuttoned his shirt.
Soon, red scars appeared here and there on his bronze-solid left chest. Blood was flowing out of the scars as if they had just formed.
Leana’s face hardened.
“I had Adele’s name engraved there at Your Majesty’s request. Before the ceremony that day. But when I erased her to save Your Majesty, it disappeared without a trace.”
And now, the name she had engraved on his heart was faintly visible.
He muttered in a low voice.
“When I think about it, it’s always been similar. The moments when I feel this pain are whenever I think of the woman named Adele. It’s the first time my wounds have been exposed like today.”
“You met her?”
“Hmm.”
Leana smiled bitterly.
“Your heart must have remembered.”
“I see.”
A woman who carved her name with a knife right before a life-threatening ritual. That must have been because he didn’t want to let go until the very end, no matter what happened.
Was she the woman he loved so desperately and with all his heart?
But she...
Aaron, who was running toward Mark, and Adele, who was standing next to him naturally, felt betrayed.
Couldn’t she wait even a few months?
Judging by the child’s age, it was right that she had accepted another man as soon as she broke up with him.
“I’ll use healing magic. Stop talking.”
“Then will this mark disappear?”
“Probably. Do you want me not to use magic?”
Christine shook his head.
“No way. Pain is horrible.”
Yes, it would be better to forget about a woman who left for another man...
“Then please close your eyes quietly.”
When Leana recited the spell, a bright light enveloped him.
***
“...And they all lived happily ever after.”
Adele read the last line of the book, but Aaron, lying on the bed, opened his eyes wide and didn’t respond at all.
The little boy seemed to be lost in another thought.
Adele found it funny and cute, so she gently grabbed his nose and shook it.
“Ouch!”
“What are you thinking about, Aaron?”
The boy sat up in bed as if he had been waiting.
“Mom, what is Your Majesty?”
Adele was taken aback by the sudden question.
Could it be that the boy had been thinking about him the whole time?
“Your Majesty... is a title used to address someone very high.”
“So that old man is a very high person? Everyone called him Your Majesty.”
“Yes. A very high person...”
A person who was so high up that he could no longer be approached.
A person who had completely forgotten her as he climbed up to that high place.
“How high is it? Like the sky, like ..."
Adele's mind kept wandering.
When he first took Aaron, she thought he was trying to kidnap him. She thought he was going to take the child she had abandoned all this time, and she felt like she was going crazy.
However, he didn't feel anything special when he looked at her or at Aaron. His expression was as if he were dealing with a stranger.
Could it be that he hadn't read the letter shr sent him?
Was that why he didn't know whose child Aaron was?
If so, would it be better to keep hiding it? Or...
"Mom, you don't like that guy?"
The child asked with the same blue-gray eyes as Christine. His gaze, as if it could see through people's hearts, was the same.
"I don't hate him, but he's too tall."
"You're worried you'll fall?"
"What?"
Adele laughed as if she were dumbfounded.
"He's tall. You have to climb high to meet him. If you fall, you'll get hurt."
As she listened to the child, Adele felt bitter. Because what he said was right.
“Yes. I’m afraid you’ll get hurt if you fall. I hope our Aaron won’t get hurt and won’t get sick.”
Adele had worried countless times during her pregnancy. She was worried that he might be born differently because he was a child of the wolf clan.
However, the child had grown up to be a perfect human. If the child’s eyes didn’t resemble his, even she would have doubted whether he was really his child.
And he received a lot of fatherly love from Mark, and grew up as a close brother with Pauline and Jade.
At least until now, he had been raised as a child who didn’t know lack or sadness in a happy family.
And she hoped that the child would live happily like that in the future.
Without even knowing that they were an abandoned mother and an abandoned child.
“Haaam~.”
Aaron yawned loudly as if he were sleepy, and his eyes slowly closed.
“I won’t get hurt, Mom. Don’t worry.”
Was he saying he wouldn’t see him, or that he wouldn’t get hurt...
But the child quickly fell asleep.
After confirming that Aaron was asleep, Adele went into her room and wrapped a cashmere shawl around him.
“Where are you going tonight?”
Tanya asked worriedly as she followed her in.
She had been worried since she heard that Adele had met Christine during the day. She had heard that he had treated her like a stranger.
Tanya was so angry that she almost cried at that story, but she couldn’t even imagine how hurt Adele must have been.
“I’m going for a walk.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Sorry. I’ve decided to go with Mark.”
“At this hour?”
Adele and Mark were known to the public as a married couple. However, in reality, they were a married couple only in name.
Even in the mansion, Adele and Mark’s bedrooms were in different buildings. She and her children lived in the main building connected to the bakery, and Mark used the annex building next door.
And in the six years they had lived together as a married couple, they had never once visited each other’s bedrooms. In that state, they had faithfully fulfilled their roles as mother and father to their children.
“Why? Is it strange for me to take a walk with my husband at this hour?”
“No, that’s not it...”
Tanya, who was observing Adele’s expression, smiled as if relieved. There was no sign of her having any thoughts about the daytime.
“Then, since you’re already out, why don’t you put on some makeup?”
Adele was taken aback when Tanya ran to the vanity and started rummaging through her cosmetics.
“What are you talking about? Why are you putting on makeup at night...?”
“But it’s good to look pretty to the Count, right?”
“I don’t need it, so you should just get ready and go to bed. I might come home late.”
“Oh, you don’t have to stay overnight. So you two should talk a lot.”
Tanya smiled meaningfully and saw Adele off to the front door.
“Anyway, that nosy...”
“Fighting tonight!”
***
Adele, who had been unintentionally kicked out of the house, walked around the garden for a while.
Of course, it was a lie that she was going for a walk with Mark. She was trying to shake off Tanya, who was worried about her and wanted to chase after her.
Right now, she just wanted to be alone.
She knew that the depression would seep into her heart and she wouldn’t be able to bear it, but she wanted to be alone. Because she couldn't pretend to be okay or strong anymore.
In fact, inside her lived a child who was more timid and weak than anyone else. She only looked strong because she tried not to let it be known.
But now, she didn't have the strength left to try so hard.
"Haaaaa...
In the end, she sat down on the garden table and covered her face. She didn’t make a sound, but tears were already running down her cheeks.
Her cold gaze as he looked at her kept coming to mind.
She felt as if he was mocking her for not giving up.
How pitiful she had felt in front of him, the Emperor of the empire?
Every time she thought of the day, Adele felt like a knife was stabbing her heart.
“The night air is still cold, Adele.”
She was startled by Mark’s voice.
“Mark...”
“I guess you can’t sleep.”
“Yes.”
“If you keep doing this, you’ll catch a cold.”
He took off his coat and wrapped it around Adele’s shoulders. He knew she was crying, but he pretended not to notice.
“Thank you.”
“You’re not. It’s what a husband should do.”
“Today... I feel a little... crappy...”
Mark sat down next to her and hugged her shoulder.
“I know. If you want to cry, just cry.”
“No. I won’t cry anymore because of that person.”
But even as she spoke, tears continued to flow from her eyes. Mark clicked his tongue as he watched Adele quickly wipe them away.
“Holding back too much is also bad.”
Those words seemed to be the trigger.
“...Sob!”
Adele suddenly burst into tears. She covered her mouth to hold back the sobs that came out without her knowing, but it was no use.
“Ugh! Ahh!”
His affectionate consideration had broken her heart.
“Good job, Adele. Your weakness has always been holding back too much.”
In front of him, who was patting her on the back in an adult manner, Adele ended up crying like a child.
She forgot her shame and poured out all her emotions.
After a while, when Adele raised her head after her crying subsided, she met his warm eyes.
It was strange. She had only cried her heart out in front of him, but she felt like she had shared some kind of secret.
Mark seemed to feel the same way. His warm gaze was gradually becoming strangely heated.
His large hands cupped Adele’s face, and his thumbs gently caressed her lips. His breath was hot and rough.
Adele knew what that meant.
She asked, clutching the hem of her skirt tightly.
“Do you want to hold me, Mark?”
He nodded with shaking eyes.
“Every time I see you. Always.”
Embarrassed, Adele slyly glared and laughed.
“I didn’t know you had such a dirty idea.”
“I thought you’d run away.”
How dare someone like me...
She felt foolish for not being able to let go of the man in her imagination all this time, when she had such a perfect person by her side.
Adele, who had been staring at him blankly, nodded cautiously.
“Do whatever you want, Mark.”
Before she could finish her words, Mark had suddenly embraced her.
His eyes, watching the man and woman disappear together in the darkness, were as cold as glaciers.
No, deeper down, a dark red flame was surging hotly.
The shadow that came out of the darkness picked up Adele's shawl that had fallen on the floor.
With an unbearable feeling, he picked up the shawl and buried his face deep in it.
It was a maddeningly sweet scent.
He felt his heart pounding and bleeding again.
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