Chapter 2.1

It was already the second winter since I arrived in the North.

The North, which was practically an abandoned land of Quinze-Nouais, was a very desolate place except for a few territories near the South.

I settled in a territory in the North that had good security and a decent market.

News from the capital still reached the North. But most of the news was fabricated, and the proper news was usually months old.

So, it was only after I had settled in the North that I heard the news that the lost daughter of the Count Ianster’s family had returned to the capital.

And countless days passed.

“Helena!”

My name is now Helena.

Helena Evans.

“Yes, Evan.”

I’m about to start a relationship.

***

Claire ran away.

Smack.

A familiar pain flew toward him. But strangely, the next whip went wide. The blood must have splattered farther, but Adrian could feel it. The misplaced force…

Adrian didn’t hate Claire from the beginning. He had been standing in the forest, having lost his childhood memories. He was just huffing and puffing after taking down three wolves with a child’s dagger.

He walked along the forest path without any sense of direction and just entered a place where light was spilling out. And the first thing he encountered were those purple eyes.

The purple eyes kept talking to him, but Adrian lost consciousness.

After that, it was a continuous series of abuse. The abuse was no different in the orphanage or in this count’s mansion.

He couldn’t feel any sensation or emotion. The only things he could feel were pain. And rage and hatred.

But someone was dabbing water on his lips.

‘Just a little more…’

His throat felt like it was on fire. He got up to drink water from an unbearable thirst, and those terrifying purple eyes came into view.

<Is it poison?>

<It’s not poison, it’s water.>

Adrian looked at Claire with a creaking sound. After that, she seemed to be babbling something, but Adrian could only confirm one fact.

The emotion in her eyes had changed.

What had appeared was pity… fear…

What had disappeared was obsession… affection…

…It didn’t matter.

***

A nasty fever.

The fever was a bigger problem than the wounds themselves from the whipping. Adrian found it terribly painful to lose consciousness.

Some painful memory that tore his body to shreds would become sharp shards and stab him when he lost consciousness.

<Adrian… I’m sorry. It hurts, doesn’t it? I’m so sorry, I should have come sooner. You would have gotten hit one less time…>

What is this crazy bitch babbling about? Why are you crying? Who are you…

He was annoyed by the strange stinging in his chest. So he got up with his heavy body, went over to the woman with the purple eyes, and whispered.

<Get lost.>

Please shut your mouth.

But she didn’t stop approaching him. Her eyes still held fear and pity… a look that treated Adrian like a pathetic dog.

<Adrian, this is your name.>

Claire brought an object with his name branded on it. He took a step forward toward the object without realizing it.

‘No, my name… the spelling is wrong. My name is… name?’

For the next few days, Claire knocked on his door, but he was still fighting with his confusing memories.

Then she said something unbelievable to him.

<I can’t come tomorrow.>

‘Can’t come? Can’t come? Who said you can’t?’

On the day she said she couldn’t come because she was meeting the Crown Prince, Adrian paced around the room all day. Even though there were no more shackles to bind him, he couldn’t take a single step outside.

And he could hear Claire’s footsteps without a sound.

Feeling like she would turn around and leave at any moment, he reached out and grabbed her. And Adrian had to admit it. Only when he had the exasperating Claire in front of him could he finally take a deep breath.

<Please… please don’t forgive me, Adrian.>

Claire, who had suddenly knelt down to pick up a pencil on the floor, crawled toward him.

Adrian, who was conscious of his ankles being in Claire’s line of sight, hesitated and tried to move his body away.

He was ashamed of the scars on his ankles. More than anything, when the shackles were put on his ankles, a horrible, intangible memory tormented him like the afterimage of a shattered mirror.

So the shackles on his ankles were the most terrifying thing he couldn’t help but feel.

He could have avoided her, but Adrian couldn’t move from the spot, as if a nail was hammered into his foot.

The girl who suddenly crawled on her knees and held his feet in her hands was crying nonstop.

That Claire Ianster, who didn’t even blink when he begged her to release him, was crying with her heart out.

‘You… You’re crazy. Do you think I’ll forgive you if you do this?’

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry…’

He couldn’t put any strength into the ankle Claire was holding. He could just kick her away… Every time her tears wet his foot, his foot felt as hot as if it had been burned.

He moved her to the sofa after she fell asleep, sobbing with his foot in her hand.

Without even a moment to catch his breath, Claire leaned on him.

‘Can I… forgive you?’

Adrian couldn’t forgive himself… for wanting to forgive her.

“Hyuntaek ssi… Hyuntaek ssi.”

“Hyuntaek ssi?”

The moment he heard her desperately call that name, Adrian felt a tingling pain as if someone had grabbed his heart.

Adrian was engulfed in a foreign emotion that felt like his eyes would catch fire, that she would dare to dream of someone else when he was still being horribly trampled on in his dreams.

But he tried to ignore that feeling. What could he feel toward Claire Ianster other than hatred?

***

Claire Ianster, that horrible bitch, was reading the stars.

‘Pegasus…?’

He couldn’t tell if what she was saying was a lie or not, but he knew that the winged horse being happy was a lie.

Claire Ianster rolls her eyes awkwardly when she lies.

But… he couldn’t take his eyes off her black eyelashes fluttering in the wind. As if to find the substance of the emotion that was becoming clearer, Adrian just looked into her eyes, over and over again.

The woman whose face flushed as if she was embarrassed by Adrian’s gaze… If this was really acting, it was perfect enough for Adrian to just be fooled.

***

That day, Adrian was again trying to focus his thoughts by slicing the air with his sword. But that bitch’s purple eyes kept blurring his vision.

Then, as if it were a dream, Claire Ianster appeared in the mountain where he was training.

“Does this… still hurt?”

The moment Claire put her hand on his back, the back of Adrian’s neck tensed up. He grabbed Claire’s arm and pulled her into his arms without realizing it.

The moment he saw the woman who was all wet and trembling as she clung to his bare body, a feeling of wanting to torment and make her cry welled up in Adrian.

Her neck, which was bright in the moonlight, felt like a white flower petal.

If he were to put strength into his hands and break this fragile neck, she would die without even screaming. Would that suffocating feeling disappear then?

But after that day, Claire didn’t show up outside.

From what people were saying, she seemed to be very sick. Adrian realized that he was thinking about her an unreasonable amount.

And when he went outside to visit the orphanage with her, he didn’t realize at all that he had told Cedric that he wanted to go to the orphanage just to see her.

And Adrian… met Sebastian at that orphanage.

The son of the enemy who killed his mother. The fragments of a memory he never wanted to remember, not even in death.

How could he have forgotten and lived all this time?

He ran to the castle where he had stayed with his mother and found all his memories.

They became spears and swords, stabbing his defenceless body. The memory of his mother shedding tears of blood and looking at him that day, and his own bound feet, the shackles, unable to do anything.

Claire Ianster.

The woman who taught him to read, made him remember his name, and in the end, brought out the memory he most wanted to forget.

The woman who suddenly stopped doing the horrible things she used to do to him and did something even more horrible. And her sister, Celine Ianster, returned home.

Vicious Claire. A horrible bitch.

And the next day, she disappeared without a trace as if it were a lie. She completely vanished from Adrian’s terrible world.