190. Realizing Too Late

2024.04.07.

A white wind lashed through the gorge.

Inside the cloak draped over her by the Rev brothers, Clade whispered quietly.

“Don’t die.”

Even as he trembled with regret—his curse had passed through everyone around him, and ultimately led even the woman to her death.

“Don’t die, Yuan Pelliese…….”

He pulled her small, frail body even tighter into his arms.

In a world where only the two of them remained, he repeated just one phrase over and over again into her bloodstained, lifeless ear, like a broken machine.

“Don’t die…….”

***

The air writhed as if submerged in water.

The foreign sensation buried deep in her chest burned like fire.

The pain Clade had sealed away tightly, all in an attempt to kill Igor, now poured out as if it had been waiting—seizing control of her body.

Agony so intense that not even a scream could escape shook her entire frame, and her heart twisted as if gripped and squeezed by invisible hands.

It felt as though a black hole had opened in her heart, sucking in not only her pain but her very soul.

Yuan twisted her limbs violently, resisting like a body in seizure.

I can’t give this up! I need this! The demon must suffer just as much as Clade did! Though her entire body felt as if melting away, Yuan gritted her teeth and held on.

It was like struggling against an incomprehensible force.

She endured until her body was drenched in sweat, screaming curses through clenched teeth.

The more fiercely she resisted, the more intense the crushing pain in her heart became.

She didn’t flee from the agony pouring down on her, as if determined to make her suffer. Instead, she clung to it, embraced it, and endured.

How long had she held on, writhing in agony?

Soon, Yuan began to feel as though that force was being drawn into her.

The torment that had choked her breath and constricted her heart—the most unbearable pain she had ever experienced since birth—suddenly subsided like fire doused with cold water, then exploded inside her body like fireworks before seeping through her as a warm, gentle warmth.

Startled by the unfamiliar sensation, Yuan was abruptly expelled from that indescribable void.

“Hah. Hahh—. Haaah.”

She gasped like someone pulled from underwater.

She looked up dazedly, but saw only a sky so bright it seemed white—already, the all-consuming darkness had vanished.

Yuan ran her hands over her body.

She still wore the sack-like dress from just before she closed her eyes, but the sword that had clearly been lodged in her chest was gone.

Had the sword disappeared? Was she dead? Was this a dream or reality?

Yuan quickly stood up and looked around. The entire endless horizon was covered in white snow.

Beyond the horizon, a magnificent snow-capped mountain range rose grandly.

The snow-covered peaks spread before her like a folding screen, so pure and white that not a trace of green from trees could be seen.

Yuan blankly looked down. Her bare feet were red with frostbite.

And in front of her feet lay countless footprints left by those who had passed before.

For some reason, her stomach kept churning.

And then, a bright red flame soaring upward into the sky.

It resembled a phoenix, just like the one carved into her family’s ancestral seal.

A flock of crimson birds flew in formation, guiding her toward the snowy mountains as if leading the way.

Just a little further, and she might escape both the cold creeping up her legs and the numbness in her head from the fierce battle she’d just endured.

All peace lay there.

That strong conviction kept driving her legs forward.

She didn’t know why. She just felt it.

Walking briskly with a blank, expressionless face—like someone whose mind had been bleached—Yuan suddenly froze in place as the snow-capped mountains drew near.

She looked around like someone who had just remembered they’d forgotten something important.

Her feet refused to move.

For a moment, her heart clenched again, and across the entirely white space, a scene flashed by as if painted in watercolor.

A life flashing before one’s eyes.

Wasn’t it said that people see their most memorable moments just before death?

Yuan silently stared at memories filled with pain and suffering, until finally she was crushed under the flood of recollections pouring into her mind.

They weren’t her memories.

The protagonists within countless memories were diverse.

Not only Louise, but even people she barely knew—all were cut and pierced by the black sword, writhing in agony.

Amidst cackling, mocking laughter, their pained groans burst forth.

Yuan could only stand frozen, dazed like someone caught in a storm, until she saw Clade among them.

Over the image of young Clade, a dark shadow loomed.

It was Emperor Igor.

His face, as he delivered the curse—“Everyone you love will die”—and ruthlessly split his nephew’s body apart, tore violently through her mind just as all the previous memories had, as if they were her own experiences.

Don’t die, don’t die!

Though it was already a memory of the past, Yuan desperately cried out as if cheering for that child.

Her cry soon transformed into the voice of young Clade, then deepened with puberty, and finally became the voice of a grown man.

That familiar “Don’t die,” so deeply ingrained in her, resounded powerfully inside her head.

Yuan wept, her face distorted as she moved through her own childhood memories and Clade’s, flashing by like a slideshow.

Then, unable to go any further, she collapsed to her knees.

She threw herself onto the snow, clawing at the ground as she sobbed uncontrollably.

After the storm of memories finally subsided and the snowfield fell silent, Yuan trembled.

“I was truly a fool, Louise.”

Yuan whispered toward Louise, who never appeared no matter how far she followed the footprints.

She had hoped that if she followed these footprints, she might find Louise.

No one had told her, but somehow she just believed it.

Inside the carriage, endlessly replaying the moment she became alone in front of the black mansion—the snowy white forest from her dreams.

Louise and herself, dying side by side in that forest.

When she thought that dream might have foreseen this moment, she hadn’t felt fear during her walk—only peace.

But strangely, she couldn’t take another step forward.

A dim light flickered in her dark eyes, still blankly staring at the snow-capped mountains.

At last, the words “I love you,” deeply embedded in her chest and never fading, which she had heard while held in Clade’s arms, now felt as if they were finally sharing warmth with her.

“He didn’t tell me that because he pitied me, knowing I was about to die…….”

From between her muffled voice, sobs filled with regret seeped out.

“He always told me he loved me.”

In childhood.

There was something Yuán had always said—someone who, though she loved Louise more than anyone, couldn’t bring herself to say it.

When young Yuan nursed Louise, who suddenly coughed up blood and collapsed, she burst into tears and threw a tantrum.

“Don’t die, Louise.”

“If you die and leave me alone, I’ll really hate you.”

“Never die.”

“Promise me—you won’t go anywhere without me.”

Without ever letting go of her futile resentment toward Louise.

Yet unable to control the feelings of dependence and attraction, every time Louise was ill, she fidgeted anxiously, expressing her clumsy heart with the words, “Don’t get hurt, don’t die.”

“I couldn’t say I loved you, sister, so I only ever said ‘don’t die.’”

Only now did she realize it.

“You always told me you loved me.”

Yuan murmured blankly. She was speaking to Clade.

You loved me too.

We loved each other.

Clade Euphris’s “don’t die” meant “I love you”…… I’ve only realized it now.

“I always realize things too late.”

Yuan whispered as she broke down.

“So perhaps I’m always left with nothing but regret, Louise.”

Just like me… just as foolish as I was, he always said it that way too.

He already knew the desperate regret of letting a loved one go without ever saying “I love you.”

That’s why he told me before I died. It wasn’t out of pity……

Yuan cried like a child.

It was so cold it felt like her flesh would peel away. Her heart pounded violently. Hot blood rushed through her body—but that only made her feel colder.

She sat there for a long time, collapsed like a fallen body, unable to move forward or turn back, sobbing.

How long had passed?

The wind that had kept pushing her backward grew stronger, swirling around her and forming a vortex.

Lifting her head at the strange sensation—both cold and warm at once—

Her black hair rose upward. And then, a voice came.

‘O Ruler of Suffering.’

A voice that resonated not in her ears, but in her head and heart.

‘You are the first Ruler who has absorbed all abilities.’

Yuan smoothed the furrowed brow she had drawn against the blinding light.

Again, into Yuan’s head, blankly staring up at the sky, poured a voice that was neither of a woman nor a man.

‘Why have you come to seek me?’

What can I even say? What can I offer? Who are you?

Her voice wouldn’t come. For a moment, fear rose toward the unseen presence—but only briefly.

Yuan quickly wiped her wet cheeks and shouted.

“Is Clade alive? Please save him!”

‘……Did you come all this way just to ask that?’

Startled by the disappointed-sounding voice, Yuan’s mouth fell open. Her bloodless lips trembled like those of a child who had never learned to speak.

‘The only thing I can grant is your lingering regret.’

“If he can just live happily…….”

‘Now that you’ve realized you love each other, is it enough for you that he lives happily? Is that truly the only regret you carry?’

The voice questioned, as if interrogating.

Yuan stood there, stunned, as if hearing such a question for the first time in her life.

The white clothes she wore flapped in all directions, and her body, which had been agonizingly twisted, felt perfectly fine after being expelled into the air.

She should have burst into laughter from the refreshing relief of finally being free from pain—but instead, her face grew more and more distorted, more and more broken, as time passed.

Her dark eyes, trembling in silence, gradually collapsed.

“……No.”

Thick tears fell one by one from her trembling dark eyes.

“No, I…… I want to live.”

Her sorrowful voice stretched into the vortex, scattering and reforming repeatedly.

“I want to go back and pick up the seashells I left behind in the southern sea, I want to see the golden wheat fields of the east one more time. I want to see the deserts of the west, which I’ve never visited. I want to thank Uncle Enoch and Lady Hille for helping me. I want to tell Noel, Tasha, and Sir Eugene how grateful I am for being my friends……. I want to see the people who cared for me in the black mansion. And, and…….”

Yuan continued urgently, sobbing like a child being told there would be no more.

“And…… I also, I also…….”

Her breath, rushing to the edge of her throat, hesitated.

Like someone slightly unsure of herself, yet more fervently than ever, she whispered:

“……I want to try living like other people do.”