“Your Highness, please come here.”
Ivan hurried over and lent his shoulder. Contrary to warning Lily not to touch him, Damian put himself on Ivan’s shoulder.
Lilian received a shock as if she was sinking from the ground with a thud.
Damian rejected her.
Even if he rejected the whole world, he would never refuse Lily…
He tolerated others and rejected Lilian.
It took less than ten minutes to return to the Grand Duke’s mansion from the mansion of the Lannister family.
It was thanks to everyone moving in perfect order as if they were prepared for this situation.
They moved Damian to the bedroom first. Looking at Damian’s back, Lilian slowly regained her senses.
‘Recalling the memory of the first piece, when His Highness’ body changes, it’s closely related to injuries.’
If Damian’s changes have anything to do with his injuries, it may be that his altered form helps him endure his injuries.
However, even though Damian is now severely injured, his appearance hasn’t changed.
A terrifying feeling ran down her spine.
Perhaps…he’s desperately holding back.
She didn’t even have to think deeply about why.
Because Damian thinks that Lily doesn’t know.
He didn’t want to be seen like that by Lily.
‘Because…’
Because the moment Lily knew, he was afraid that she might hate him.
That devastating realization seemed to cool her mind. The image of Damian’s back, which had never collapsed before, and walking away half-leaning on someone else was a stigma that would never be erased from her mind.
From that point of view, it’s clear that forcibly putting up with the body transformation was extremely painful for Damian as well.
In fact, Damian endured intense pain as if his flesh was crushed and his broken bones were piercing through the crushed flesh, with the determination that he didn’t want to lose Lilian.
Lilian didn’t know the extent of Damian’s pain. He just desperately endured that pain so he wouldn’t be hated by her.
That fact itself was painful.
It was as if the force of gravity weighed a hundred times over the heart alone. It hurt like the pounding, beating heart was being crushed and sliced.
She was angry at the people who had trampled on Damian since childhood, and resentful of herself for not being able to convince Damian.
She wanted to hug Damian and tell him she loved him.
She wanted to love Damian for a hundred years if it took a hundred years for him to understand, a thousand if that’s what it takes.
She didn’t want to delay.
Lilian let go of young Damian’s hand.
“Ah…!”
Young Damian was taken aback. Lilian said she was sorry but firmly.
“I have to go for a while, Your Highness. Mrs. Maureen will be with His Highness.”
What she should love at this moment was not Damian’s past.
A person who endured all those miserable moments and had become a wreck.
To love that person now is to love all the past he has embraced. Lilian realized it belatedly.
Damian, who he is now, needed her.
***
The room Damian locked himself in was in the basement of the Grand Duke’s mansion. In fact, it wasn’t a room, but a space with an iron door attached to a dungeon-like space.
A space only for confinement.
Lilian rushed in without hesitation.
“Your Highness, from here…”
No one could stop the determined Grand Duchess.
Eventually, when Lilian reached the thick iron gate, Ivan showed disapproval and stopped Lilian.
It wasn’t unexpected. There’s no way that Damian could not have anticipated this situation with his thorough personality.
He was the kind of man who would have given orders hundreds of times beforehand to stop Lilian from approaching him if something like this happened.
“Sir Ivan Isaac.”
“Your Highness…”
Ivan groaned in response to Lily’s calm call. He was quick to notice.
He won’t be able to stop Lilian here.
But even so, he couldn’t clear the way right away. He had to at least buy Damian as much time as possible.
No matter what miracle happens, and no matter what Damian does, he might be in a condition to welcome Lilian.
Ivan liked the Grand Duchess very much. Not only did he like her, in fact, he almost respected her now.
Damian, his lord who was not mature enough, absolutely needed this person.
He couldn’t help but help as a subordinate.
“Your Highness, you’d better not go in now. His Highness is not in a condition to welcome Her Highness right now.”
“Sir Ivan, you have no right to stop me.”
Lilian calmly pointed out the facts.
“I am the Grand Duchess Rupenwein and as His Highness’ wife, I am recognized for the authority of Imperatrix bestowed by the late Emperor. I have rights as a wife over my husband.”
“Your Highness…”
“Open the door. This is not a request. It’s an order.”
“…”
From Lily’s determined gaze, Ivan’s intuition felt it.
“No way, Your Highness…”
Shit. All Ivan wanted was for Damian to come to his senses and not try to kill him. He couldn’t pin his hopes on an uncertain hope.
“Your Highness, do you know what you’ll see inside?”
“Yes.”
Lilian affirmed without hesitation.
Ivan saw something like a burning flame in Lilian’s blue eyes.
Her eyes, which he always thought were cool and friendly, was shining with unbreakable momentum.
After wandering around the battlefield, Ivan noticed it at once.
The people of Turin looked like this when they risked their lives at the crossroads of life and death.
They had the eye to see what was worth risking their lives for in any confusion.
The Grand Duchess was like that as well.
“You can lock this door when I go in. Whatever I see inside, I will not run away.”
“Understood.”
In the end, Ivan lost. It was an unexpected result.
The heavy iron door seemed to have created an entrance to the underworld, guarded by a three-headed dog.
There’s only endless darkness inside, but Lilian was unafraid and stepped forward.
It was an inappropriate metaphor, but she seemed like a human sacrifice.
Ivan couldn’t easily close the door and hesitated.
“Close the door.”
“I understand, Your Highness. But before that…”
Ivan put a lantern into Lilian’s hand. Lilian asked quietly, looking straight ahead.
“I told you to lock the door. I’m not joking or bluffing.”
“Yes, I understand. Please take care.”
Lilian stode into the deep darkness, carrying only one lantern.
The door was then closed with a thud.
***
There’s only complete silence and total darkness inside.
It was still daytime outside, but not a single ray of sunlight entered this underground dungeon-like space.
If Ivan hadn’t given her a lantern, she would have wandered around unsightly.
‘How wide is this place…’
It was desolate and dark enough to make even Lilian, old enough to not be afraid of the dark, slump her shoulders slightly.
Where is Damian? Since when did he prepare himself a space deeper than this prison, like a gigantic coffin?
Just imagining that this space was created because of Lily made her choke in sadness…
‘Now is not the time to be weeping.’
She had to find Damian.
Lilian held up the lantern and cautiously walked inside.
Fortunately or unfortunately, Damian, who was lying exhausted in the deepest part of the dungeon, was in no state to detect the presence of people.
Because the situation was so urgent, Damian was spread out on the cold stone floor with nothing on it. He was half unconscious.
His half conscious mind felt nothing but a burning pang.
His body, which had lost control, was running wild. It was changing at random, wriggling, fluttering, and sometimes making a cracking sound.
When Lilian arrived, Damian was hardly human.
Not only the arms that usually changed frequently, but more than half of his body was transformed into a bizarre form. Even his face, which had been so beautiful, was half black.
It didn’t even look like a cursed stone statue. Damian’s body continued to wriggle and change shape in front of Lilian’s eyes.
It was as if the nerves and muscles of a body that had just lost life fluttered and gave out its final throes.
It was proof that Damian’s body, whose recovery ability was damaged, was fighting the vemon core. But it’s such a miserable situation that anyone would scream and run away.
But Lilian didn’t scream. Of course, she felt devastated, but it wasn’t because of Damian’s grotesque appearance.
‘Why…in a place like this, to throw away a sick person like garbage…’
Damian shouldn’t be here.
The man who had become like this to rescue Lilian had to be nursed by his wife, whom he had rescued, not in this dungeon, but upstairs in his bedroom. It was his right.
“Your Highness…”
She couldn’t delay. She could placate and persuade Damian later. Now she had to ease his pain first.
Lilian put the lantern on one side and went over to Damian, taking his ugly squirming hand.
Right at that moment.
“…!”
Damian, who had lost consciousness, opened his eyes in a flash.
“Your…”
Before Lilian could call out to Damian, Damian let out a terrible scream and stepped back.
It was a scream that couldn’t be expressed with any onomatopoeia. If she had to put it that way, it was the kind of scream you’d hear when a drop of water is thrown on the ground in front of a prisoner who spent a thousand years burning in the depths of hell. It was such a terrible, desperate sound.
“Your Highness!”
Damian tried to run away from Lilian. But since this was the deepest part of the prison, he could do nothing but hide his ugly body in the little darkness left from the light of the lantern.
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