“Ines… Are you really okay?”

“Yes.”

At her clear response, Carson took a deep breath, filling his chest. He quickly removed the priest robe covering Ines and took off his overcoat.

Draping it over her shoulders, he picked her up in a swift embrace.

Normally, she would have protested to be let down, but seeing his tightly sealed lips and taut jaw, Ines couldn’t utter those words.

Carson carried her as if hiding her, bringing her to the room where he was staying.

Even while climbing the lengthy distance to the third floor, neither spoke a word. Passersby gave them curious glances, but neither of them paid any mind.

Though it was still daylight outside, darkness had already descended in the room. He set Ines down on the bed. A silence hovered between them for a moment.

“Are you… angry? I’m really okay.”

There was no reply to her cautious question.

Carson didn’t know what emotion he was currently feeling. Whether he was angry at himself for feeling possessive toward this woman, or at her for continually insisting she was fine, he couldn’t decide.

Quietly staring down at her, he pulled up a chair and sat across from her. Like yesterday, the wooden chair creaked as if mimicking his emotions.

But barely managing a smile, he softly pinched both of Ines’s cheeks.

“Didn’t you say you don’t have nightmares anymore?”

“Yes.”

“Then what did I just see?”

Though he wasn’t pressing her, Ines looked for an excuse. As she rolled her eyes, the grip Carson had on her face tightened.

“Tell the truth.”

“It is the truth. I don’t have nightmares anymore. Sometimes I have episodes like earlier. I don’t feel terror like in a bad dream. It’s just that I can’t breathe.”

What Carson saw just now was more than a brief inability to breathe.

“You’re not feeling terror?”

“What I’m saying is, it’s not that kind of terror. It’s not like I feel as if I’m being chased in a dream or anything.”
Ines tried to explain to him as calmly as possible. No one had been able to diagnose her symptoms. Yet she thought so herself.

Her mind had won, but her body couldn’t forget the memories.

“Is it different from nightmares?”

“The symptoms may look similar. But it’s definitely different. This is a fight with myself.”

Despite her explanation, he wore an expression of not understanding.

“Let’s see a doctor.”

“My lord, all the priests in Edmont study medicine. Those here are the empire’s best doctors. Even they haven’t found the cause of my illness.”

“Then, are you in such urgent situations without any medication like earlier?”

‘Medication?’

At the word medication, Ines looked at him blankly.

And recalled the situation just before. When her episodes happened, the duration was very long. Only after moments that felt like dying did Ines’s panic end.

If what she experiences while asleep is mental, this was far more physically painful. Living with the ever-present possibility of pain was never easy.

But the moment she saw Carson, Ines had an entirely miraculous experience.

The moment her name was called, the air that was thin rushed in at once.

As Carson approached and grabbed her arm, her trembling body calmed down instantly. The moment she smelled the scent she missed of Carson, her blurred vision cleared immediately.

Just like the day she had fallen into the water.

Would it be alright to tell her that he is her medication? Somehow it felt disrespectful, so she held back her words.

‘Perhaps you’re my salvation even in such moments?’

Looking at Carson anew, his face was still emitting a faint light in all directions.

Between thinking his aura was beautiful, she suddenly realized he was uncomfortably close. She felt a strange emotion she had never felt before, even as Carson came very close to her.

As their breaths mingled, Ines removed his hand from her cheek and stepped back a bit.