I Will Die for You, My Darling! - Chapter 30
Chapter 30
Arietta gave a small laugh. “Dale’s followers aren’t all dead. The survivors went to the neighboring town.” Even though Seia had taught her nothing, Arietta had gleaned that much from overheard conversations. After Isaac had been promoted from laborer to Maud’s inner circle, she’d often leaned against him in the staff lounge, listening to the gossip.
“Once word spreads that Mother is dead and Maud has abandoned me, they’ll come to kill me.” Arietta clasped her hands behind her back and turned in a slow circle. The rain had stopped, but her clothes still clung to her, damp and shapeless. “Like you said, I’m incompetent. I can’t do anything. I’ll die without putting up a fight.”
With every word, Isaac felt a growing coldness in his gut. Yes, a parent’s enemies often became the child’s. Arietta and Seia were bound by fate.
“So, I’ll die in the next few days.” Arietta would be murdered by Seia’s enemies? Within days?
“No, you won’t.” A wave of possessiveness washed over him.
“You said you were going to kill me.”
Isaac gritted his teeth, his eyes bloodshot. “I told you… I would kill you.”
Arietta smiled faintly. She remembered his words clearly, even the unspoken ones. She spread her arms wide.
“Then kill me.”
Isaac couldn’t breathe. He glared at the girl, her arms outstretched, her vulnerable points exposed, as if he could incinerate her with his gaze. He stalked towards her, his hand closing around her slender throat. He could feel her pulse beneath his fingertips. She was alive. This girl, cast adrift, powerless now that Seia was gone, was within his grasp. If he killed her now, unresisting, it would be his first kill.
Arietta was still sleek and beautiful, simply a grown-up version of the child who had ignited a sense of deprivation within him. If she died now, this beautiful image would be forever etched in his memory. He couldn’t allow that. It wasn’t fair.
“You think you can live a life of ease… and then die so easily?” Isaac’s voice trembled. “No, Arietta. You have to suffer the humiliation I endured. You have to grovel at my feet for far longer than you lorded over me.” She had to experience the brutal reality of the life he had lived, a life of struggle and hardship, for far longer than he had.
“You have to live… until then.” ‘Until I can see you broken and ruined, just as you saw me. Only then will it be fair.’
He would kill her after she had been worn down by hardship. He would mock her emaciated body and tangled hair, then offer her a single purification tablet as charity. And then… before she could even swallow it, he would slit her throat.
His vision blurred. He had to keep Arietta alive for now. He had to protect her from others, so that he, and he alone, could end her life in his own time, in his own way.
Isaac released his grip on Arietta’s throat. She stood rooted to the spot, her gaze fixed on him.
“Don’t die.” Isaac commanded. Arietta didn’t reply.
“Your life is mine. Don’t give it to anyone without my permission.” His golden eyes, locked on her empty, silver-grey ones, seemed to burn with an almost incandescent intensity.
“Alright.” Tears spilled from Arietta’s eyes. She wasn’t sure why she was crying. Was it because she had to face life without her mother? It didn’t seem to be just that. It was the first time she had cried so uncontrollably, tears seemingly beyond her will. Isaac, his face a mask of fierce concentration, followed the tracks of her tears with his gaze.
“Izzy.”
“What?”
“You’re all I have left now.” Her mother, her constant companion since birth, was gone. Now the only significant presence in Arietta’s life was Isaac, the one she had intensely desired to possess for half her life. ‘People call that possessiveness love,’ she’d heard.
“I love you.” And so, Arietta spoke the words. As soon as she uttered them, a stronger conviction took hold. ‘I love him. I love Isaac.’
“Argh!” Isaac raked his fingers through his hair in a frantic gesture. He grabbed Arietta by the collar, her slight frame pulled effortlessly towards him. The young man hunched his shoulders and pressed his lips to the tears streaming down her cheeks. The tears of a girl struck by tragedy tasted sweet.
“You… you use this… this as a weapon…” Isaac gripped her shoulders tightly.
“You leech off of others… you’re useless on your own…” His accusations were cut short as his lips claimed hers, swallowing her tears and her words.
