Come and Cry at My Funeral - Chapter 165
Freesia stared in horror as the man with a completely altered appearance approached her.
It was shocking to see the once gentle, serene priest now looking like a ruthless mercenary, but more than that…
Seeing him like this only made her realize how much he resembled Izar.
‘I remember thinking that once before.’
With his hair and eye color so different, she’d dismissed it as her imagination. But when Izar forced himself to smile through anger, his face looked eerily similar.
But, ‘sister-in-law’?
‘Izar has a brother?’
The shock from that revelation made her finally notice the document the man was holding, tauntingly waving in front of her.
However, as her eyes moved to the document with its dull gold-embossed surface, she froze, her skin chilling as if a thin layer of ice had formed.
‘Isn’t that… the marriage certificate?’
It had to be the document that was supposed to be safely stored in the capital’s temple. And at the bottom was Izar’s signature, but…
“H-How…”
The space where she had carefully written her own name after he had roughly signed it first was left blank.
Why? How?
“Instead of standing at the door, why don’t you sit down and take a proper look, sister-in-law?”
With Canopus’s indirect invitation, Kara supported Freesia, whose legs seemed ready to collapse, and guided her to a seat.
As though her visit had been anticipated, a faint steam rose from the teacup placed nearby.
But Freesia’s eyes were still fixed on the document in Canopus’s hands.
“I apologize if I was a bit rough in bringing you here.”
“Rough in bringing me here…? Ha, you knocked me unconscious and kidnapped me! And the people there… how many of them…”
Raising her voice, Freesia tried to stand but couldn’t summon enough strength and fell back into her seat.
It was only after a prolonged fit of coughing that she could finally speak again.
“I… I thought you were a good person, Priest.”
“I can be a good person. To those who follow me and are important to me.”
Canopus looked at her with a warm expression as she struggled not to let her face crumple in distress.
When she was fully conscious, the monsters had an aversion to approaching her, so he had to keep her sedated to maintain control.
But now, after being cared for so delicately, her face glowed with a subtle radiance in the sunlight, her hair gleamed, and her large eyes shimmered with betrayal.
Her lips, which trembled as she let out a faint sound, reddened every time her small teeth bit down on them.
The sight sent an oddly thrilling sensation up his spine, like a snake curling its tongue along his back.
Canopus’s smile deepened, and his eyes narrowed.
“And when I said you and I felt like siblings, I meant it sincerely.”
“……”
“After all, we are practically family.”
“Stop spouting nonsense and—cough!—explain yourself. You said you were Izar’s brother?”
“Shall we start from there?”
It was an old tale, tediously known to all, yet he had no choice but to begin from the beginning.
A woman who, despite politely declining the proposal, was forcibly brought to the Duke’s lands to marry the tyrant.
The imperial family, turning a blind eye to his numerous crimes of assault, condoned it due to his accomplishments.
Even after she bore an heir, she was constantly ridiculed for her humble origins, with mockery whispered beneath the surface.
The tyrant’s obsessive questioning about whether she was meeting another man and eventually her fateful escape with a man who showed her compassion.
“…That union led to me. I was young, but I remember Mother telling me she was relieved I looked just like my father.”
“……”
“And you must know what happened after that, don’t you? In the end, they were all caught, and the former Duke tearfully executed his own wife.”
Lies, all of it. Freesia wanted to deny it without any evidence, but his familiar appearance left her speechless.
And even more so when she noticed the ring on Canopus’s finger.
It was battered, as though someone had tried to remove it, but the Arcturus family crest engraved in the center was unmistakable.
‘Could it be a keepsake the former duchess took when she fled?’
She stared blankly, letting his story sink in, imagining a child who’d escaped after witnessing his mother’s execution.
All the years it must have taken for that child to grow to this point…
“My dear older brother did know of my existence, it seems. Even if he wasn’t sure exactly what I looked like.”
“You’re saying… Izar knew?”
“Of course. He must despise me to no end.”
Canopus spoke with a smile, as though musing idly to himself.
“That would explain why he tolerated the servants gossiping about you in the temple, wouldn’t it? Because you and I are cut from the same cloth.”
Canopus held out the document gently to the speechless Freesia.
“That’s why even this sacred document doesn’t acknowledge you.”
“……”
“He wouldn’t want our stain on his precious family history. From the start, he probably wanted to erase us both.”
He was implying that she and he were both illegitimate, despised by the world, and thorns in Izar’s side.
He hoped this revelation would embed itself like a sharp bone fragment deep within Freesia’s heart, stirring her hatred toward Izar.
Slowly, Freesia took the document in both hands but struggled against it until the end.
“How do I know… you weren’t the one who erased it?”
“Don’t you know only the officiating priest could have done such a thing?”
“……”
“For your information, he said he’d been handsomely paid by the Antares family. There’s no way he’d have done it without negotiating with the Arcturus family beforehand.”
