Chapter 55

Chapter 55. The Thirty-Fourth Regression, Our Lamentation

It had been four days since the Emperor woke up and the doors to the Empress’s palace were locked. When Vinea called, Balak set aside everything and came with a gift he thought she would like, but he was greeted by Vinea’s dead blue eyes.

“It was you, Balak. Balak Utar, it was you all along.”

She sat in the chair on the terrace as always, looking at him, but something was different. Beneath her slowly blinking eyes, there was undisguisable anger and hatred.

Ah. Balak realized like a bolt of lightning that Vinea had learned the truth behind all this trouble.

“The person Eurene Castallo would use, the one person who would benefit most if her plan succeeded. It was you.”

Lifeless pale cheeks, dull sunken eyes, a gaunt face and body as if she hadn’t eaten in four days, a gaze devoid of any affection.

Realizing that he himself was responsible for making her like this, Balak wanted to strangle himself.

Vinea’s eyes closed weakly as she rested her face on her knee drawn up on the chair. Her faint breath scattered like that of a dying person. Balak’s eyes filled with terror at this pitiful sight.

“Vinea!”

Balak hurriedly knelt at Vinea’s feet and checked on her. He heard her breath, so faint it seemed it might be blown away by the wind.

The taut tension finally broke, like a snapping thread.

“Please, just look at me once.”

His trembling hands repeatedly brushed back Vinea’s fallen hair.

“Please answer me, I beg you.”

Vinea slowly opened her eyes. The eyes that looked at Balak no longer held any trace of affection.

“…I hate you, Balak. I can’t bear how much I hate you for finally crossing the line and giving me the greatest despair of my life.”

Balak grasped Vinea’s hand. As he raised his head, he saw Vinea’s face shadowed. Even the midday sun couldn’t push away those shadows, and Balak found he couldn’t look directly into the blue eyes he had loved.

“I chose a gift I thought would make you happy. Thinking of how you would move freely under the sky wearing this…”

Vinea pushed away Balak’s hand. It was a light gesture, as if a feather had flown away, but Balak flinched as if struck by a thorny whip and dropped his hand. The red brooch he had taken out of his br*ast pocket rolled unceremoniously onto the floor along with its box.

Vinea spoke to Balak in a cracked voice.

“Why did it have to be him? Why did you have to erase me from him, of all people?”

“It was all for you, Vinea. Didn’t you want so desperately to escape? From this palace, from the Emperor. From everything that was suffocating you.”

“Ha, haha…”

“I can explain everything. So please look at me. Please, Vinea. I brought a gift for you.”

Vinea, who had buried her face in one hand, burst into a hollow laugh.

“Balak, how are you any different from her? From Eurene Castallo…”

Vinea ruthlessly shook off Balak’s hand that was desperately grasping her other arm. Her frosty gaze left him. Fear overwhelmed Balak that this might be the last time.

“I was wrong. I made a mistake. I’ll fix it. I’ll do anything, so please, please don’t abandon me…!”

As Vinea staggered to her feet and passed by him, she said coldly:

“Your freedom cannot save me. Not in the past, not now, and not in the countless lives we will face in the future, forever.”

It was a farewell to the countless lives that would follow, which he would never know about.

* * *

The Empress’s palace, which had been closed to everyone for four days, opened. In less than half a day, news spread throughout the palace that the lover the Empress had been keeping close had been thrown out.

It was also the day when the Emperor and Empress were obligated to share a bed.

The night was quiet. A chilling atmosphere filled the palace as if its master had died. It was because the Emperor, who had lost some of his memories, was in a very sharp mood.

Standing before the tightly closed bedroom door, Tatar recalled the day he had woken up.

The shocked face of the Empress, Vinea’s appearance.

‘No, no…’

‘Empress?’

‘How could you escape alone? How could you leave me behind!’

He had instinctively tried to catch the Empress as she staggered greatly, but Vinea had pushed away his embrace with a distorted face.

‘You coward…! We agreed to walk through this hell together, how could you…’

Recalling that day’s conversation, Tatar pressed his throbbing forehead. As he opened the door and entered, he saw Vinea standing on the terrace with her back to the moonlight.

“Empress.”

At his call, Vinea slowly turned her head to face him.

“Your Majesty.”

Tatar was silent for a moment before speaking.

“Let’s talk about what happened that day.”

At Vinea’s silence, Tatar swallowed a sigh. As long as they were married, even if only formally, they couldn’t keep this distance forever. He took a big step forward.

Her face, hidden in shadow, came into his view. Deep fatigue, empty eyes, dry lips, pale cheeks…

Just as he was about to open his mouth, thin fingers lightly touched his cheek.

The overly close distance should have felt strange, but it didn’t. He stared blankly into Vinea’s eyes, breathing shallowly.

Vinea’s eyes, looking up at him, blinked slowly.

“What will we be doing half a year from now?”

Though he didn’t understand the intent behind the question, Tatar spoke the thoughts that came to mind.

“The same as now, I suppose. I’ll be doing my work, and the Empress will be doing hers. It will be just after winter, so we’ll surely be busy in many ways.”

Vinea smiled bitterly.

“You’re wrong. You cruel man. Do you know how terribly those words sound to me…”

Vinea’s hand fell away. As the warmth that had briefly lingered on his cheek disappeared, he felt a deep emptiness, as if a part of his arm had been removed.

His wavering gaze fell on Vinea’s gaunt cheek. Without realizing it, he raised his hand and brushed her right eye.

Why did her face, standing there so quietly without frowning or making a sound, pierce his eyes so? Why did she look like she was crying?

“If I’ve made a mistake, tell me. I don’t know how to improve your mood. What did I do in these situations before I lost my memories?”

Vinea’s eyes creased. A dry sadness was half-hidden under her long eyelashes.

“Remember. How we, how you acted whenever we wanted to forget this desperate reality.”

“I…”

What could be so hard for the Empress? Was life in Tessibania so burdensome when they hadn’t even been married for a year? With his jumbled memories, he wasn’t sure which was the right answer.

The shadow he cast covered Vinea’s face. His hand delved into her soft platinum blonde hair.

“It’s strange. Why does a choice I wouldn’t normally make seem so right?”

Their lips met and parted. It was a kiss like that of a child, but the breath that escaped between their parting lips was tinged with undeniable desire.

He was a man too. One whose eyes are drawn to beauty, whose heart is pulled, whose body reacts.

His Empress, dressed in a thin slip and silk shawl, was dangerously beautiful. His Adam’s apple moved up and down greatly.

Tatar’s lowered eyes took in Vinea as if scratching her.

“…Push me away if this isn’t right.”

His large body pressed against Vinea. The two bodies pressed together under the moonlight. As their body heat rose along each other’s warmth, their minds became hazy as if they had been drinking.

His hand encircled her thin waist with his arm and pulled up her slip.

Though the terrace overlooked the outside, the garden below was only accessible to the royal family, so there was no one passing by.

He pressed Vinea’s body against the railing. Unable to move, Vinea quietly looked up at him.

As he lightly pulled, the white silk shawl Vinea had been wearing fell to the floor. The shawl that had slipped through the gaps in the railing fluttered this way and that before settling on a corner of the garden floor.

Tatar didn’t want to drag this delicate body standing in the moonlight into the darkness where the bed was. He just wanted to fully feel this moment, this time, this scene.

His hand traveled up Vinea’s thigh. The hand that had been kneading the soft, pliant flesh soon passed over the mound and reached just below her left br*ast.

Lowering his head, he captured Vinea’s lips again. His body temperature, which had become much hotter than the light kiss from earlier, swept through Vinea’s depths.

Why? Why was it so sweet? Like a person who had been starving for a long time, he greedily swallowed Vinea’s breath and firmly pressed the soft br*ast that filled his right hand.

He untied the string holding his waist. Lowering his loosened waistband, he pressed his body even closer to Vinea’s waist.

His thumb pressed down on the highly raised tip of her br*ast. As Vinea’s neck tilted back, Tatar seized the opportunity to grasp her waist with his other arm and lift her onto his body.

The clearly exposed legs of the female body leaning against the white railing pierced his eyes.

He grasped his manhood revealed below his lowered waistband and pushed its blunt tip into Vinea.

Unlike her skin cooled by the night breeze, her hot body temperature strongly pressed against his m*mber.

“Ah…”

A suppressed moan escaped Vinea’s lips.

Though the hand in her hair, the hand pressing her br*ast, and his body temperature penetrating her were all just as she remembered, this man was not the one she wanted. In despair, Vinea hid her miserable expression by burying her face in Tatar’s shoulder.

Her slender arms embraced his neck.

“Your Majesty, Tatar…”

A voice filled with deep longing called his name. He guessed that Vinea was searching for who he had been before losing his memories.

“Focus, Empress.”

He wanted Vinea to focus only on him. Just as he was doing.

He raised his hips upward. He firmly embraced Vinea’s staggering body.

“Hng, Your Majesty…!”

“Call out again. Who is joining bodies with the Empress.”

Though he hoped to hear once more the name he had never heard from her since their marriage, Vinea only let out moans and did not respond to his request.

With an inexplicable sense of loss, he gritted his teeth and thrust his hips up quickly. The embarrassing sound of skin brushing against skin was scattered by the distant hooting of an owl.

Vinea’s body was now almost lifted onto the railing. As her round b*ttocks and thighs touched the cold marble, they involuntarily tensed.

With her lower body suddenly tightening, he had to exert maximum patience to keep thrusting his hips upward without spitting out vulgar curses like a street thug.

Vinea’s body undulated greatly up and down in his arms. Her back was empty and her thin legs were wrapped around his waist. If he let go of his arms, she would clearly fall backward, so Vinea had no choice but to wrap her arms around his neck.

“Ah, ahh, hnng!”

“Haa…!”

A moan he couldn’t suppress from the heat escaped his lips. Now his eyes no longer took in the moonlight or the scenery beyond the railing. Only the scent, heat, and body temperature of the female body filling his arms mattered.

“Em-press…!”

The broken words stimulated Vinea’s sensitive ears. At that moment, his manhood deeply penetrating her struck her deepest point. Tightly embracing Vinea’s arched body, he pulled out his m*mber and cl*maxed outside.

White fl*id dirtied the railing and floor here and there. Traces of him also stained Vinea’s legs, which twitched uncontrollably from the stimulation.

It was a markedly different feeling from their perfunctory wedding night. A feeling of finally finding his place, his person.

Feeling a deep satisfaction that made him dizzy, Tatar murmured while holding Vinea:

“If only time could stop like this.”

Vinea, embraced in Tatar’s arms, raised her head. Her face, which had completely erased the heat, was terribly distorted.

“Why couldn’t you let me indulge in this sweet dream, even for just one day, no, just this one night…”

“Empress…?”

“I don’t have the confidence to endure this hell without you. If you tie me down on your own and run away alone, I, I…”

Vinea pushed Tatar’s chest with all her might. So suddenly that he couldn’t react in time. Vinea’s eyes were consumed by despair and resignation.

“…When I open my eyes again, I hope this terrible nightmare will be over.”

Vinea’s body, which had gone over the railing, fell to the ground. At the same time, his vision turned black.

That was the memory of the end of the thirty-fourth regression, which left an unforgettable and terrible trauma for both of them.