Come and Cry at My Funeral - Chapter 229
How long had he been staring at the horribly burned portrait?
He needed to face reality. He needed to move on to the next task.
The next task he had to accomplish was…
But Izar couldn’t move, as if he were nailed to the spot in front of the painting.
〈Come back safely. I’ll wait for you, no matter how long it takes, my beloved Izar.〉
The face of the woman who had spoken those sweet words had been burned beyond recognition.
This was the very reason she had been asked to paint this portrait in the first place…
‘Freesia, you…’
He reached out toward the charred section of the painting.
Freesia had undoubtedly burned her own face off the canvas. She had done it on purpose.
Otherwise, how could this part be so thoroughly and precisely burned away?
“Ha…!”
Izar clutched the painting with both hands and let out a breath he had been holding back. It felt as if thorns were lodged in his lungs, tearing through his throat as he exhaled. The pain was unbearable.
Would it have hurt less if Freesia had burned his face instead of her own?
“Why…?”
He whispered to the woman who no longer existed, even in the painting.
‘Wasn’t this what you wanted? For me to win and return to you? Isn’t that why you told me?’
Wasn’t it because she had decided to live with him that she had given him that clue?
“I…!”
He had managed to brush off Canopus’s sneering question—asking if he was sure the child was his—thanks to Canopus’s bizarre death. On the way back, he had forced himself to focus only on the joy of seeing her again.
He had held onto that hope, at least until he heard about the disaster at the ducal estate.
From that moment on, his thoughts had been consumed by her safety as he rushed back.
Perhaps something had happened to her powers, allowing the monsters to invade and leading to her disappearance.
He refused to believe that she had betrayed him, as Canopus had suggested.
But now, looking at the burned remains of the portrait, the truth was clear. His hands, gripping the edges of the painting, were so numb with pain that he couldn’t feel them anymore.
“Freesia, this was your plan from the beginning, wasn’t it?”
That damned lying woman.
She had made him fall in love, pierced his heart with pain, given him hope—and then left the ducal estate in chaos before disappearing like this.
She would rather die than show him her departure. She had even told him he might as well kill her before she left.
The raw, agonizing sadness that burned in his throat slowly transformed into something else.
‘This is betrayal.’
Even if he had deceived her in the past, this was something he could never forgive.
Finally, the fog clouding his mind cleared, replaced by the burning clarity of rage. His eyes filled with bloodshot fury.
He couldn’t forgive her for leaving in this state.
Bursting out of the portrait room, he shouted at the steward in charge of the search.
“What progress has been made in my absence?”
“My apologies, Your Grace. We’ve mobilized the personnel dispatched from the capital, but so far—”
“The people who were closest to Freesia. Where are they?”
“Head Maid Merope and the other maids… They realized the fire too late, so…”
“So, they know nothing.”
His chilling aura made the attendants gasp for breath, as if the air itself had become too heavy to breathe. One wrong word could cost them their lives—Izar’s sword could cut them down in an instant.
“I’m sure they were relieved to survive. It must have given them time to prepare their own coffins.”
“Our deepest apologies…!”
“Drag them outside the walls.”
This order meant execution by hanging outside the castle walls. But if he didn’t punish them, they would be dragged off to the emperor anyway, where they’d be torn limb from limb.
However, there was something more urgent than dealing with the incompetent maids.
“Where are Van Dike and Charles Károli?”
“Sir Dike’s remains have been confirmed, my lord.”
The casualties, though minimal compared to the chaos of the night, still included the dead. While many praised the imperial descendant’s power for limiting the damage, the fact remained—people had died.
Among the charred corpses, Van Dike’s body had been found. His family had already been notified of his death, and they were waiting for Izar’s return to hold the funeral.
“But Sir Charles Károli denies everything. He insists that Her Highness fled with Sir Dike, and he continues to—”
The one reporting couldn’t help but sound scornful toward Charles. How could he insult a fallen comrade after failing to protect the imperial descendant in the first place?
Especially when he had already lost a hand and owed his survival to Her Highness’s mercy.
