Jane visits the imperial palace once a week with her grandfather, who is a pharmacist, to examine Ian.

When asked if she could come every day, she firmly refused, saying she had to take care of other sick patients. She insisted that once a week was enough to monitor his condition and prescribe medicine.

But for Ian, it wasn’t enough. He wanted to spend more time with her.

If he had his way, he would keep her by his side all day. But he understood that Jane didn’t want this. She was not someone who could live like his mother.

Ian knew well that if he selfishly tried to force her to stay in the palace, she would leave the country without hesitation with her grandfather.

So he wounded his palm. He knew well that if he said he was sick, she would definitely come running.

“Why do you need sword training when you’re only 8 years old? You’re the Crown Prince. Can’t you just have the knights handle dangerous blades?”

“But I can’t avoid sword training.”

He trembled slightly, showing anxiety as if his well-being would be in danger if he didn’t receive sword training.

“Your Highness, the Crown Prince…”

He could imagine what kind of absurd thoughts were going through her mind.

A frail Crown Prince, unloved by the Emperor and ignored by the Empress.

She would think he was being forced to undergo sword training to gain their approval. With her vivid imagination, she might even be picturing him being threatened by political rivals.

She, a commoner and orphan who lived alone caring for her blind grandfather, was pitying Ian, the Emperor’s eldest son and Crown Prince. It was quite contradictory, but Ian didn’t mind. Rather, he encouraged her misunderstanding.

While he wished for her to love him, if that was difficult, he desperately hoped she would at least pity him and find him pitiful. So that she wouldn’t be able to leave him.

If the Emperor used his power and force to keep the Empress by his side, Ian would use her sympathy to keep her tied to his side for life.

“Next time, call a healer. I know why you dislike healers, but I can’t rush here every time you need something now.”

It was like a bolt from the blue. He had believed that by using her sympathy, she would come running whenever he said he was sick, but was that thought wrong? Should he do as the Emperor did? But he didn’t want Jane to wither away like the Empress had…

Ian unconsciously clenched his fist, anxious that he might lose her.

“I told you not to put pressure like that. The stitches I worked hard on will burst.”

Jane tried to examine his hand with concern, but Ian grabbed her shoulders and said, almost pleadingly:

“Did you come to dislike me because I forced you to stitch it? Is it okay if it’s not a cut wound?”

Should he say his stomach hurts next time? If he lies about being sick and she finds out, she might get angry for being deceived, so should he eat some spoiled food?

In the imperial palace, where it’s harder to find spoiled food than rare delicacies… Should he try eating some unknown grass from the garden instead? Surely there must be some grass that causes stomach aches?

Ian pondered how he could call her back into the palace again. But it seemed she wouldn’t come even if he said he was sick, as she firmly shook her head.

“Even if it’s not a cut wound and somewhere else hurts, I can’t come for a while.”

At her resolute words, Ian felt as if the world had turned its back on him. Rather than the world abandoning him, the thought of being abandoned by her made him feel like his heart would stop.

Have you come to dislike me? Or have you figured out my lies? Is it because you find it disgusting and creepy that I hurt myself to see you? But Jane, you only come here when I’m sick. I couldn’t think of any other way.

“Why are you crying? You endured it so well when I stitched your wound with a needle…”

Jane used the leftover bandage to wipe away the tears welling up in Ian’s eyes.

“Because Jane said she won’t come… Because you’ve come to dislike me…”

When Ian spoke in a dejected voice, Jane flustered and waved her hands.

“Dislike you? What are you saying? I didn’t mean I won’t come at all… I just can’t come and go frequently like this anymore.”

“Why? Why can’t you come often?”

“The rainy season was long this year, wasn’t it? Grandfather says that in years with heavy rains, epidemics are sure to rage. We need to bring in new supplies before epidemics break out, and we also need to manage the existing medicines that have become damp due to humidity, so we’re short-handed. We’re always busy during the rainy season. We even have to reduce our sleeping hours.”

“…”

“Today, I rushed here in the middle of processing herbs because I heard Your Highness was seriously injured, but this absolutely cannot happen again.”

“You won’t come even if I’m really sick to the point of dying? Just because of managing medicines?”

“Just managing medicines? We need medicine to treat people. And if you’re that sick, call a healer, not an apprentice like me.”

“You know how much I hate healers…”

“If you hate them that much, then don’t get hurt.”

“…You won’t come once a week anymore? You won’t come ever again?”

“I’ll definitely come once a week no matter what. I need to bring Your Highness’s medicine. So don’t get sick, okay?”

Should he be grateful that she would come even that much? But a week was far too long for him.

If she wouldn’t come even when he was sick, how should he call for her now? How could he make Jane stay by his side always? If only he could chain her with shackles, linking his ankle to hers so they could never be apart for life…

Ian’s gaze lingered on Jane’s ankle.

“If I had broken Jane’s ankle back then to keep her by my side, would she still be here with me?”

Recalling a past that could not be undone, Ian tapped the glass tube with his fingertips, tok tok. Inside the tube, an ugly black mass was neatly wrapped in pure white silk.

“It’s strange… This is strange.”

Everything was strange. The strangest thing was that this black mass was Jane.

How could that be? Ian’s Jane was never like that.

She always tied her vibrant red hair tightly. Her obsidian-black eyes shone with determination, and her neat nose above her tightly pressed lips showed her unique stubbornness.

When she smiled, her right corner of her mouth would rise crookedly first, revealing her charming canine tooth.

Her rough, scarred hands were her pride from years of working as an apothecary.

To Ian, Jane was perfection and eternity incarnate. Someone who would naturally always be by his side. He had believed she would stay with him for life. He considered her his companion and the one he would rely on forever.

From the moment she held his feverish hand like salvation when he was 6 years old, no, from the moment she appeared like a prophecy in his dream before they met and smiled at him, Ian never once doubted that she was his everything.

“How can that be Jane?”

When Ian heard the news that the pharmacy had caught fire, he rushed there like a madman. Although the flames had been subdued, the building where Jane had been was in ruins from the fire.

Brushing aside the knights’ attempts to hold him back, he dashed into the pharmacy and dug through the ashes with his bare hands. What Ian found was a single corpse, blackened and shriveled up.

‘Why didn’t I question it? That the image of Jane I saw in my dreams had stopped around this time. That I had never once seen her middle-aged or elderly appearance.’

He laughed bitterly at his stupidity for not feeling any sense of discomfort or fear even after seeing her crushed by a dragon in his recent dream.

“I only thought of using that dream as an excuse to persuade her to marry…”

What did pointless official meetings matter? He should have escorted her personally. When his unease wouldn’t subside easily, he had sent Simons to check if she was alright, but he shouldn’t have sent him.

He should have gone to meet Jane himself. He should have stayed by her side until the unconfirmed anxiety was verified.

Tears rolled down his cheeks and wet the glass tube. Ian wiped the tears with his palm. He would stay here until he was certain whether that black charred mass was truly Jane.

“Kuhuk.”

Even after wiping away his tears, his vision blurred and a searing pain struck his entire body. Since losing her, he had stopped taking his medicine, and the pain had found him.

“Kuh… huhub, kukkuk.”

A strange groan, neither crying nor laughter, escaped his lips. He was already as good as dead. It was laughable that a dead person could feel pain. It made no sense.