MBYS 19

Chapter 19

Kailus’s gaze descended heavily upon the face of the woman who had collapsed within his embrace.

Through her pale, parted lips, a coppery, dark red trace of blood bled thinly down the line of her jaw. The ash-gray eyes wandering through empty space had long since lost the flame of their vitality.

‘It is merely that my sole painkiller has reached its limit.’

Yet the warmth of the blood soaking through his thin shirt and clinging to his bare skin was fiercely, searingly hot.

Though he had not batted an eye amidst the carnage of the battlefield, for some reason, an unidentifiable tension lingered around his tightly clenched jaw.

Kailus scooped Eveline up and carried her toward her bedroom.

The exact moment the back of her head touched the pillow, the movement of his hand supporting the nape of her neck paused minutely.

The line of her neck, bending powerlessly backward, particularly grated upon his optic nerves. As if possessed, his hand reached out and slowly brushed back the silver hair matted with blood and sweat. The texture meeting his fingertips was chillingly cold and light.

Taking a step back, Kailus’s gaze dropped to his own shirt. The dark red stain smeared across the white fabric was drying to a blackish hue beneath the flickering fireplace light.

“Is anyone outside?” “Yes, Your Lordship.” “Fetch Edwin.”

As the sound of footsteps faded, a faint spasm flickered across Kailus’s hardened jawline as he leaned against the wall. Beyond his tightly gripped forearm, her cool body temperature—which had felt on the verge of shattering—clung with the stubborn persistence of phantom pain.

A moment later, Edwin burst into the bedroom in a flurry, clutching his medical bag. The instant he laid eyes on the bed, all color drained from his deeply lined complexion.

Kailus silently stared into the old, ashen face. Edwin immediately hurried to Eveline’s side.

With trembling hands, Edwin pulled a magic stone from the inner pocket of his bag and placed it upon Eveline’s chest. The surface of the stone, once clear and transparent, began to be permeated by an ominous, bloody light before rapidly staining into the jet-black color of death, as if someone had splashed ink across it.

Edwin’s movements ceased. As he retrieved the stone and turned his head, the corners of his eyes were trembling.

“Her condition.”

Edwin’s lips parted, then pressed shut tightly. Kailus’s brow narrowed savagely.

“……Her internal organs are overloaded. Because four days’ worth of accumulated buildup poured down all at once, her fragile blood vessels simply failed to endure it.”

Kailus’s cold gaze pierced sharply into Edwin’s wavering eyes.

“And? I am asking just how perilous her condition is.”

“If she takes sufficient rest, her consciousness will return shortly. However…… unless you reduce the frequency and intensity of the demonic power transference, a catastrophe like this may repeat itself at any moment.”

Force tightened along Kailus’s jawline.

“Your sole duty is to keep that woman alive. Use any means necessary. Maintain her as a perfect ‘tool’ that can fulfill its utility whenever I demand it.”

At the frosty command, Edwin shrank his trembling shoulders and bowed deeply at the waist.

“……I shall do my utmost.” “I have no use for pathetic attempts at a best; bring me absolute results.”

Kailus turned away mercilessly. As he walked toward the inner door connecting their two bedrooms, his broad back stretched long in the flickering light of the fireplace.

Just before his hand grasped the doorknob, his red gaze swept over the bed with a lingering reluctance. The door closed with a dull thud, leaving him alone in the deep darkness. Yet his feet, standing with his back against the securely shut door, remained motionless as if rooted to the floor.

Leaning heavily against the door, he slowly tilted his head back. The silence of a space that should have felt familiar felt alien, empty, and vast beyond measure tonight.

The scent of drying blood drifted up from his shirt.

‘Once Edwin fixes her, the matter is concluded.’

Belieing the arrogant monologue echoing on the tip of his tongue, his feet—standing with his back to the tightly shut door—did not budge an inch, as though they had fused straight into the carpet.

How much time had passed?

Tap, tap.

From beyond the door against which he was leaning, the sound of a knock echoed. The doorknob turned, and Edwin revealed himself.

The moment the door opened, the old doctor’s shoulders jerked in a start as he found himself face-to-face with his liege standing a mere step away.

“Your Lordship……” “Her condition.” “She will recover consciousness by dawn. Her life is in no immediate danger.” “……I see.”

It was the flicker of a fraction of a second. Through the small gap of Kailus’s tightly sealed lips, a faint, unmanageable sigh slipped outward for a single moment.

At that strange reaction, which he had failed to control himself, Kailus’s jaw stiffened thinly.

“……Then, please get some rest.”

Consciousness, which had been submerged in an abyss-like darkness, bobbed urgently toward the surface of the water. A sharp gasp broke through cracked lips, and her lungs exhaled a tearing pain.

As she groped for the ceiling flickering across her blurred vision, the familiar, cool air of her own room—permeated with the deep-blue light of dawn instead of Kailus’s heavy scent—brushed chillingly against her sweat-dampened cheeks.

When she moved her stiff fingers, a dull ache surged from her wrists all the way up her forearms.

The coppery taste of blood pooled inside her mouth scraped across the tip of her tongue, warning of the previous night’s horrors.

In an instant, the severed memories rushed back like a lightning strike.

The dark red stain spreading helplessly across Kailus’s white shirt. And his intensely burning eyes as he looked down at her collapsing form.

Her heart plunged into an icy freefall.

‘He found out.’

The cracks she had desperately hidden solely for survival had shattered wretchedly in a single night.

‘Just how much did Edwin tell him?’

If the truth that she was terminally ill had been exposed, Kailus would no longer even attempt the demonic power transference. It would mean her sole value for existence was being completely and utterly negated.

Turning her pale gaze aside, she saw Edwin sitting desolately beside the bed.

“……Edwin.” “You are awake.” “What did you…… report to His Lordship?” “……I told him it was temporary vascular damage caused by a massive overload of demonic power, and that the intensity of the transference must be reduced.” “Is that all?” “Yes. That is…… all.”

The rigidly tensed muscles of her neck went slack, and the breath that had been tightly blocked finally unspooled in a faint wheeze.

Eveline moistened her dry lips and stared out at the deep blue sky outside the window.

“Thank you.” “……This is no matter for thanks.”

Edwin lifted his head.

“My Lady. Last night’s volume of transferred demonic power was…… more ferocious than any figure I have measured throughout my entire life. The power accumulated over several days poured out all at once, and His Lordship’s own demonic concentration was in a state of extreme turbulence right after the battle.”

Edwin slowly raised his head. Within the old physician’s eyes, devoid of their usual cool rationality, uncontainable sorrow welled up.

“Do you recall the deadline I mentioned when I first examined you, My Lady?” “……You said one year.” “Due to last night’s catastrophic transference, the damage to your internal organs has accelerated drastically.”

A wretched spasm fluttered across Edwin’s bloodless lips. The unnatural vacuum of the unuttered words caught on the tip of his tongue sucked all sound out of the room, tightening like a noose around her windpipe.

“Tell me.”

“Your remaining time is…… ten months. If you insist on maintaining the same frequency of transferences as before, even that cannot be guaranteed.”

Ten months.

Eveline silently stared at that cruel number suspended in the air. She had thought a mad shriek would well up inside her, or that hot, helpless tears would pour down.

Yet what settled in one corner of her heart was neither of those things, but a bizarrely cool and tranquil stillness.

Ten months meant that the harsh spring would pass, summer would give way, and autumn would deepen.

By the time bitter snowstorms began to lash this barren north once again, she would no longer exist in this world.

She quietly looked down at her own hands, lying powerlessly across the blanket. The dark blue-black veins that had been fading slowly, layer by layer, over the past three days had been plunged back into a terrifying, morbid blackness by a single night.

When she bent a single finger, a dull ache followed at every joint. Eveline slowly clenched and unspooled that hand before speaking.

“So I have ten months left.” “My Lady…….” “Edwin.”

Eveline raised her pale head to look the old physician straight in the eye. Within her hollow, gray eyes—which ought to have faded into nothingness—flickered a bizarre flame she had never shown before.

“During those ten months, what must be done to ensure I can fully serve my purpose?”