196.

Almighty.

It was an almighty night.

Throughout the walk back to his quarters along the dark corridor, his chest ached to the point of dizziness. Johannes. Johannes…! The desperate cry faded with each step. From Isolde’s reaction, which changed from violent trembling while confined within the bed curtains to gradually becoming sobs on the verge of breathlessness, everything was painful for Johannes, yes.

That pain itself was an unbearable climax.

The blood vessels in his silvery whites of his eyes were red as if they had burst and cracked. Beneath his half-open eyelids, he finally let out a faint moan like someone who had suffered alone, thud. His shadow, filling the long corridor, wavered in the chilling moonlight.

As his ominous body staggered, Johannes gripped the stone wall as if digging in his nails. His tilting horns scraped against the wall, making a metallic sound. That back figure with folded wings. He looked like a sad devil statue that had lost its whole body’s balance due to having only one wing. Leaning against the wall like that, Johannes raised one hand to cover his ominous eyes, as was his old habit. He couldn’t bear it. Right now… he wanted to run to her.

Rather than joining bodies with the likes of me, I told you it would be better for you to rub against such a man.

That night. Of all things, in the first night Johannes witnessed, Isolde’s husband was quite proper despite being naive. No. Because he was a dullard, he treated his wife properly. Johannes believed without doubt that this would have been a somewhat boring attitude for Isolde, who inherited Valdemar’s blood. She would have wanted more, in fact. He shook his head. Why are you lying to me? He gritted his molars with a faint smile.

You prefer to be in more pain.

He still remembered his parents’ bedroom. Just like the scene of this night. It’s vivid in his mind. Walking steadily down the long corridor and encountering a door by chance. The humid air that wafted through the door he pushed open without any particular ulterior motive, as it was his parents’ bedroom. A woman’s wailing. The bedroom like a dragon’s cave with a distant ceiling. Beyond the curtains, his mother was lying face down on the bed like a dog.

And gripping the princess consort’s hair roughly with hands covered in thick calluses, while exhaling low, low, cruelly deep breaths slowly and lengthily, the dragon was the Iron Duke Valdemar. Yes, such a man was his father. Isolde. Your father.

You know too, don’t you? That’s the kind of love we learned. Without ever having touched or held it, we long for it fiercely as if it were a once-lost memory. Yearning is like bloodline. There’s no way to escape it.

Suddenly, he glanced back slightly. Isolde’s sobbing is still flowing from the far end of the corridor that looks like a black dot. Every time the torch flickers, hot heat boils inside Johannes’ ribcage and below in his stomach. The night’s chill that drifts like fog settles on his skin, turning into steam.

Nevertheless, he calmly lowered his unchanging face and stared at his own hand. His long, inward-curving nails and the palm within them were harder than the duke’s. He was confident he could tear the duke’s armor like parchment.

“Ha….”

The breath he exhaled as if chuckling was chilling. He dreaded yet eagerly anticipated it. More than the current situation, more than Isolde’s sobs clinging to the back of his neck at this moment, the prospect of his lover’s form that he might encounter in the future was terribly welcome and pleasing. He murmured while clenching and unclenching his fist. You lie face down like Mother. Beg me like the woman of old. Break. I will respond to you in the form of the father you so desired and in the form of your former brother. In that place where we desire and love each other, there will be neither Idris nor Johannes. Only violent emptiness. There will be you alone, moaning as you cling to a phantom.

The light slowly spreading across Johannes’ face was quite gentle and bright. His burning heart was filled entirely with pure joy. He was the duke who had forgotten his worries, a flawless god, and an existence perfectly dead in Isolde’s world. At last, he could simply be ‘nothingness’. And thus, almighty.

It was an almighty night.

“I will… accuse you…”

“……”

“After this long night passes…. As soon as dawn breaks…. When the whole court awakens…. Before everyone…”

“……”

“Johan. I will accuse you of your atrocities…. You…”

“……”

“Ah, you….”

That night, Johannes, who went to bed out of habit still in his devil form, felt every detail of the unceasing turmoil from beyond the stone wall in the banquet hall. Isolde’s presence and voice, curling up her exhausted body flatly as if finding a corner not yet soaked in blood in her bedding, seemed so close to shattering.

Why don’t you just give up now?

Just before falling asleep, he thought with a slight smile. He closed his eyes.

***

And that night.

Johannes saw something strange.

It was Isolde’s chamber. As only one candle was lit on the bedside table at the late hour, everywhere was pitch dark. As if looking at himself reflected in a tilted bronze mirror, he was suspended in midair, looking down at himself below.

Johannes, sitting on the edge of Isolde’s bed, was a sturdy young man with black hair. As if praying, he had his elbows on his knees and was covering his forehead with his outstretched hands. Due to his deeply bowed head, his detailed features were not clearly visible.

Nevertheless, Johannes knew that man was himself. That point was strange. If that is me, then who is ‘this me’? Feeling dumbfounded, he just stared for several minutes.

Knock knock.

Someone knocked on the chamber door. So faintly it was almost inaudible.

However, the shoulders of Johannes sitting on the bed jumped as if he had heard a thunderclap. After freezing for a moment, without even lowering his hands covering his forehead, he only tilted his head slightly to look at the door. His face was still not clearly visible.

“Open it.”

“……”

“Open it.”

“……”

“Open it for me.”

“……”

“Johannes….”

Without exception, both Johannes’ breaths stopped completely. Johannes’ face was finally revealed in the darkness as he lowered his hands that had been covering it to below his knees.

He was a man with delicate features like a scholar, in contrast to the muscles clearly visible under his simple linen clothes, as if he had just been about to go to bed. His dark eyes were full of fatigue. Though he clearly seemed to be in the prime of youth that should be burning brightly, he looked like someone who had already reached old age. That Johannes once again raised his hand to cover his eyes. It was a gesture that, though lacking strength at the moment, would have made him shudder a hundred times if possible.

“I cannot open it.”

Though it was a rather firm refusal, the end of it was trembling helplessly.

“Why.”

“……”

“Why, whyyy?”

The woman outside the door asked as if about to cry. Due to her drawling speech, her voice sounded somewhat younger than her age, and it was clearly Isolde’s. Johannes swallowed his surging emotions and quietly rebuked her.

“You know the reason better than I do.”

Isolde was silent. After a moment.

“Were you… upset?”

“……”

“I’m sorry…”

“……”

“I’m sorry. Forgive me. Hmm?”

“……”

“Please…”

“……”

“It’s because your father happens to be an apostate. It’s because your father happens to occupy our forest at his whim and won’t come out, that you have to hear such harsh words. This… what can I do… I can’t sew up all their mouths…”

“If I begged you to sew them up, would you do it?”

“Huh?”

“I’m saying, is that something that should come from the mouth of someone who joined in the ridicule and even took the lead in condemning? Moreover, you have no right to begin with. You know better why he is committing such mad acts.”

Silence.

Isolde outside the door closed her mouth again. Even her tear-filled breathing was cut off abruptly as if it had all been a deception. It was a silence that made even one’s eardrums feel muffled, as if the air surrounding the chamber had stopped. In the end, the one who first got up from their seat was the more pitiful one.

Johannes’ chest heaved violently as he paced around the room. From some point, he no longer hid his inner turmoil. He shook his head, muttered a low curse, “Damn it,” to himself, and then suddenly stopped, turning his head to glare at the entrance.

“You.”

The closed door called to Johannes. No. Of course, the person who spoke was Isolde outside the door, but her voice was so devoid of emotion that it would be more believable if the door itself had spoken.

“You got angry because I teased you by linking you with your father. Because I made you a laughingstock in front of my subordinates, so… your pride was hurt. That’s why you got angry. That’s why you hate me.”

Her tone sounded certain, yet at the same time, it seemed as if she truly didn’t know and was asking to find out. It was difficult to discern her true feelings.

Would someone who witnessed the sky falling have such an expression? Johannes, suspended in midair, thought that the expression of himself down there, staring at the door with a miserable look, was not so unfamiliar.

“Rather than dealing with this reaction of yours… I might as well just kill that man.”

Isolde outside the door muttered anxiously. Should I just set it on fire? The small, continuing self-talk that followed was like a convulsion. Yet it was heard clearly as if whispered right next to him. At that, Johannes let out an incredulous groan. This time too, there was no distinction between the one above and below. He himself shook his head.

“…You.”

“……”

“What great pride do you think I have left to hate you for such a reason?”

After a breath, Johannes approached the entrance and opened the door. Click, through the gap opened just wide enough for one slender person to pass through, the hem of a long skirt seeped in.

“I’m not angry. I don’t hate you either.”

“Th-Then?”

The woman who now raised her blue eyes like a sad animal to ask was Isolde. Johannes’ heart ached at her eye whites that looked ready to shed tears at any moment. He rubbed Isolde’s eyes.

“Self-loathing.”

“……”

“For being pathetic enough not to leave your side even while enduring such humiliation.”

“……”

“That’s all.”

“Leave…? Me? You’re going to leave?”

Isolde made a sound as if her breath was caught.

“No.”

Before Johannes could answer, she rushed in, pushing her entire slender body. Yes. She rushed in. It could not be called a collapsing or clinging posture by any means. It was closer to grabbing and tearing at Johannes’ collar. Johannes lost his balance. He hurriedly grasped the doorframe with one hand while pressing down on her back with the other. He looked very flustered, as if the incoming body might fall to the floor along with him.

“No. No. No! No! Don’t go! I’m sorry. Forgive me. I won’t mock you again. Ah. Johannes. Johan. I’m sorry…. I! I’m sor…. Ah!”