Chapter 70. The Final Order

2023.12.09.

Yuan sat bolt upright as if struck by lightning, her breath halting completely.

The shock she received from the first page continued relentlessly into the next.

[I sensed an energy similar to my own from the deposed prince. I don’t know through what means, but it seems he somehow received both power and suffering at once. Since he’s not a Pelliese, he can’t use the power and only feels the pain.] [Only you, Yuan, who can absorb it, could possibly heal him. But I don’t think it’s necessary for you to take on that terrible power and pain for someone completely unrelated to you. So it might be difficult to bring you here. Could you wait a little longer? Someone has made me a plausible offer.] [First Prince Bollonico. He’s an odd man, but since I can’t bring you here, I’ve decided to accept his proposal.]

Rather than a continuous letter, these were separate notes, so the content was abrupt, lacking explanation, extremely brief.

Yet Yuan felt as if the blood in her entire body was rushing backward after reading just these four sheets.

Hearing Louise’s name coming from Bollonico was shocking enough, but it was equally shocking to realize Louise had tried to inform her about Bollonico.

After clenching her hands together with a long, confused expression, Yuan quickly snapped back to attention, opened her eyes wide, and scanned the contents again.

As far as Yuan knew, Louise did not possess any ability like the Pelliese family’s.

If she had such an ability, her uncle would never have left Louise untouched.

That meant Louise had been hiding her power all this time.

And that power was…

‘The ability to transfer my own suffering to others.’

An incomprehensible ability.

Yuan had always believed her own power—taking on the suffering of others—was fitting for the Pelliese family, known as a lineage of ‘physicians.’

She even thought it plausible that the family’s ancestor, famed as a great physician, had risen from commoner status to become a court noble by curing the emperor of that era using this ability.

In that sense, Louise’s claimed ability—transferring her own suffering to others—did not align with the Pelliese name.

Yet Louise stated matter-of-factly that the deposed prince, not being a Pelliese, could only feel the pain from whatever power and suffering he received somewhere, unable to manifest the power itself.

What could this mean?

‘If the Pelliese ability… can both absorb someone else’s suffering and transfer it to another person?’

What if the Pelliese ability had two aspects like that?

Yuan shivered involuntarily, rubbing her arms.

A strong intuition struck her—perhaps Louise’s ability was a secret not even her parents, let alone her uncle Gerret Pelliese, had known.

Staring intently at the damp note as if imprinting it in her mind, Yuan focused now not only on Louise’s shocking confession but also on the mention of Bollonico.

‘Of course. Just as he made an offer to me, he must have made one to my sister too.’

Louise must have come to the Black Mansion in her place upon hearing bad rumors about the deposed prince.

And during the period when Clade hovered near death, she must have sensed an energy similar to her own within the Black Mansion.

At some point, she likely realized the source of that energy was Clade.

She might have also sensed that if she died or was exposed, causing Yuan to come here as originally intended, Yuan would end up absorbing that energy.

Her plan to extract Yuan from the Pelliese estate and bring her here was probably revised around that time.

But just as Yuan had been, Louise likely felt she had no power to protect herself, unable to leave the estate and survive while evading her uncle’s pursuit.

And then.

What if Bollonico approached Louise and made her an offer?

‘Louise didn’t run away.’

Yuan carefully folded the damp note, wrapped it in a handkerchief, and tucked it into her chest.

Then she recalled what Bollonico had said to Marquis Companni in the palace:

‘I have a strong feeling that what Louise Pelliese failed to do, Yuan Pelliese might just accomplish.’

Louise had attempted something Bollonico ordered and failed.

That was when Bollonico realized Louise wasn’t the person he’d been searching for.

Yuan’s tightly clenched fist trembled faintly.

So on the day Marquis Companni barged into the Pelliese estate with Louise’s corpse…

‘The real one is here.’

‘I present to you the next Crown Princess Consort.’

He had said ‘the real one.’

***

Since noon, Clade had stood in the same posture, and now butler Gustav delivered good news with relief.

“She arrived safely, please don’t worry. According to Mazalang, she suffered severe motion sickness, so they stopped to rest several times along the way.”

“I can see that too.”

Butler Gustav hesitated, then bowed his head and left.

Silence fell upon Clade’s bedroom. In the darkness with not a single light lit, Clade gazed out the window.

Arms crossed, his tall frame leaning slightly against the windowsill.

Long shadows, as long as his eyelashes, stretched across his firm, pale cheeks.

Beneath his languidly lowered eyelids, his eyes, holding a distant glimmer, were fixed on one precise spot.

From the carriage parked at the entrance, no one emerged, no matter how long he waited.

It was the time when the sun withdrew its light and darkness gathered.

Normally, this was also when Clade’s pain would surge in.

He felt a level of pain swimming through his body that, compared to before, was barely a tickle.

It hurt.

Even if incomparable to the past.

Pain was still pain.

‘This much is nothing.’

The woman’s catchphrase drifted leisurely through his mind.

A mocking wind, as if sneering, “Can’t you even endure this much?” brushed past his ears and faded.

The brief rustle of wind was the woman’s quiet laughter.

Clade recalled the sunlight within it.

Was it laughter?

No, her eyes.

Sunlight was occasionally the woman’s dark eyes staring fixedly up at him.

No, not that.

The woman was darkness.

Each time he struggled to remember her, she became a thickly painted night, blurring truth and falsehood.

Eventually, it brought a calm, comforting color that made him indifferent to whether it was real or not.

A sharp, tingling pain swelled beneath his feet, skillfully crawling up his calves and thighs, passing through his taut abdomen, knocking at his chest, and tightening around his throat.

It asserted its presence, as if to say it would always remain with him, no matter how weakened.

The pain caressed his cheeks and ears, whispering.

You could stop hurting, you know.

You want to get rid of me, don’t you?

His deeply sunken eyes slowly began to redden with bloodshot veins.

Just before complete darkness arrived.

Finally, the woman stepped weakly out of the carriage.

The pain whispered.

She’s been waiting.

His legs moved on their own.

The pain and anxiety that had clung to him for the past ten years thickened like fog, enveloping and urging him.

At the same time, it clung to his mind, continuously speaking.

But what is it you’re waiting for—pain, or peace?

…Or is it that woman?

***

Hire Hatarun clutched his hair and paced in circles within the dark room.

Time had passed long enough for the hearth, extinguished long ago, to lose all warmth, yet he couldn’t calm his trembling heart.

He felt cold, though it wasn’t winter.

He unfolded his clammy, sweat-soaked hands and barely managed to spread out the damp note.

His hand, holding the small piece of paper, trembled violently.

An order had come from First Prince Bollonico.

[Kill the monster and watch over the night.]

The monster was Clade. The night was Yuan.

[Final order. Choice is yours, but responsibility?]

Hire clearly understood the meaning of that last sentence.

Orders to kill were familiar, but this was the first time one had explicitly said ‘final.’

His expiration date had truly come.

If he chose not to kill the deposed prince, he would pay with his life.

Hire downed one glass, then another, of the wine the maids had prepared on the side table, but eventually, unable to bear the anxiety, he burst out of the annex where his room was and entered the main building.

The Black Mansion, even if its master had regained his color, remained silent under strict rules as darkness fell.

Hire raced up the central staircase like lightning, passed through a place where not even a mouse stirred, and wandered before Yuan’s door on the second floor. With trembling hands, he rapidly knocked.

There was no movement from inside the room.

Hire’s face turned pale.

Someone else might be hiding in this mansion, watching him like this.

Please. Please—

Desperately praying, Hire knocked on the door again and again.

“What is it at this hour?”

A chilling, utterly unfamiliar voice poured not from inside the room, but directly onto the back of his head.

He turned quickly and saw a pale, slender face.

Since her confession, Hire had never quite gotten used to Yuan’s noticeably colder demeanor.

Swallowing a bitter smile, he swiftly stepped aside from Yuan’s door, hiding his trembling hands. But Yuan seemed entirely indifferent to his state.

As Yuan treated him like a transparent presence and entered her bedroom, he quickly scanned the surroundings and slipped rapidly into her room. Before Yuan had even taken off her coat and casually hung it over a chair, he blurted out:

“I received an order from the First Prince.”

Yuan’s gaze, which had paused, now fixed on him.

Before Hire could even pull the order from his pocket, Yuan strode forward and snatched it from him—leaving no chance for him to add a single word.

Reading it with terrifying intensity, Yuan’s expression first turned deathly pale and stiffened, then gradually crumbled.

Hire quickly sorted through several plans he had considered in his mind, then opened his mouth to comfort her.

He didn’t have an immediate solution, but perhaps together they could find a better way.

“I…—”

“Leave.”

Yuan, her eyes filled with distrust, coldly commanded Hire.