What Became of the Tyrant After the Pregnant Empress Left - Chapter 47
“If you are prepared to die for me, will you believe?”
Kazhan asked a question to which he already knew the answer.
From the start, Ysaris had never asked him. She had merely revealed her own thoughts.
And his guess was precisely correct.
“No. You’re just saying things that sound good because you need to rely on me.”
“Do you think I would say such empty words?”
“Your Majesty, you’re human after all. Considering how you treated the Empress, it’s not surprising.”
Kazhan felt suffocated by Ysaris’s indifferent words. The faint glimpse of contempt in her endlessly dry eyes clawed at his heart.
He couldn’t think of a way to change her mind. Even after risking his life to resolve their relationship through conversation, her reaction made him feel that only his actual death would please her.
‘Would that satisfy you? If I were to die.’
‘Could I reclaim your smile even if it meant that?’
Ysaris was reflected in his now heavily clouded red eyes. She was organizing a messy pile of herbs with an expression devoid of any emotion.
“You must regret it. You were hurt more than expected.”
“……”
“You called for me earlier to suggest escaping through a fall, didn’t you?”
That wasn’t it. Facing the endlessly advancing enemies and losing hope, Kazhan intended to hand the Emperor’s seal to Ysaris.
A one-person magical device that teleports through the secret passage of the royal palace.
After giving that to Ysaris, he planned to find a way to survive somehow…
“Yes.”
Kazhan answered otherwise.
“If you hadn’t fallen first, you would be in better shape now.”
Since he couldn’t change anything, he decided to become the villain she saw him as. He hoped that her accumulated resentment and anger would eventually lead her to kill him with her own hands.
‘If you can’t love me again, give me all your hatred. You gave me life, so you should be the one to take it away.’
‘Because only you are worthy of my life.’
Kazhan twisted the corners of his lips in a strange way. It was hard to tell if he was smiling or enduring pain.
“I didn’t know you liked my body enough to protect me.”
“You said that was your only use.”
“…I won’t feel guilty about Your Majesty’s injury.”
“I never wanted that. It was for myself.”
Silence fell again. Ysaris said no more, and Kazhan fought against the searing pain.
Thus, the first night of their ordeal arrived.
* * *
Ysaris lay with her back turned to Kazhan, staring quietly into the darkness. Exhaustion should have made her eyelids heavy, but the last conversation they had kept floating in her mind, preventing her from sleeping.
More precisely, the temptation arising from it tormented her.
‘Should I kill him?’
‘Kazhan’s body was in such a severely damaged state that he couldn’t resist if she were to choke him.’
Ysaris, who had lived her life without ever staining her hands with blood, did not hate him enough to kill him herself. Even though he was her enemy, and despite the renewed humiliation, she was too exhausted to harbor such boiling murderous intent.
However, Kazhan’s death would ensure the safety of both her and the child inside her. Safety from direct threats and from pursuit.
The fact that his motive for saving her was to possess her body left no further qualms. The red eyes that had stirred her conscience faded along with her guilt.
“Your Majesty.”
Ysaris called out to Kazhan while still facing the pitch-black wall. If she was going to kill him, she should have moved quietly, but her mouth opened on its own.
To give him one last chance? Or to check if he was asleep?
As Ysaris paused to discern her own intentions, a faint sound returned.
“Ugh…”
“…!”
It wasn’t a reply, but a groan. Instinctively, Ysaris sat up and looked at Kazhan, faintly illuminated by the moonlight filtering through the leaves.
His body, burning with high fever, was drenched in cold sweat. The tightly furrowed brow and the groans escaping through his teeth suggested intense pain.
Has his fever worsened?
Ysaris swept her palm across Kazhan’s damp forehead. The heat radiating from his skin was so intense that an ordinary person would have been in serious trouble long before now.
Whatever Tennilath was, however he survived, it was natural for him to suffer from the same pain, given his body temperature.
“River water…”
Ysaris stopped abruptly as she was about to say she would soak a cloth. The struggling face beneath her hand came into focus.
‘Is it really necessary to make an effort to heal him?’
‘Maybe it would be better to let him die.’
