Chapter 23
Thud!
The carriage jolted violently from side to side.
Kyrie, unable to keep her balance, collapsed against the floor. From behind came the coarse, overlapping shouts of men.
“Damn it! I said stop the carriage, not kill the driver!”
“After them! Stop that thing!”
There’s no coachman.
Realizing what had caused the runaway carriage, Kyrie bit the inside of her cheek.
“Stop it, I said!”
Thunk!
Arrows thudded into the walls of the carriage, one after another. The trembling grew more violent. As she struggled to steady herself, Kyrie could feel her heart pounding furiously.
‘Bandits.’
She’d heard that the Empire’s military campaign abroad had weakened domestic security, but she hadn’t imagined things had gotten this bad.
‘We haven’t even gone that far past the capital.’
A quiet unease stirred in her chest.
‘Maybe this wasn’t random. Maybe it was planned.’
Yes. That seemed more than plausible.
Anyone could be behind it– Lexion. The Duke of Ehrenberg. Or someone else entirely, someone who hated the mad dog of Imperial society just as much.
She had always had enemies.
Every time she looked back, they were there. Mountains of blame for things she hadn’t done, hatred from people she’d never met.
There was a time she’d found that absurd. Even now, a bitter laugh slipped past her lips.
‘Whoever it is…’
Attacking a duke’s unguarded carriage, pretending to be a bandit, it wasn’t difficult. Especially when the one inside was the so-called mad dog. There’d be some idle talk of responsibility, and that would be the end of it.
A dry laugh burst from her mouth like a sneeze.
“Hah… Hahaha…”
‘So this is what it’s come to.’
Dodging, evading, searching endlessly for another way, and this was all she’d managed.
Kyrie forced herself to pull her fraying resolve back together.
‘It’s fine. I’ll run while they’re busy looting the carriage.’
If she twisted her wrist hard enough, she could break it, enough to slip the shackles. If not, then while being dragged away. Or when their guard was down. And if that failed… then something else.
Even as she tried to reassure herself, she knew it was a long shot. Her heart was beating hard enough to make her dizzy. Her head pounded. She was breathing so fast it felt like there wasn’t enough air.
“A… ahaha…”
When she closed her eyes, a memory flickered behind her eyelids, her nursemaid, bloodied and unconscious, being hauled off in a wheelbarrow.
‘Did she die?’
She must have.
Beaten nearly to death and thrown out with nothing, what hope did she have? Even if she’d miraculously survived, she wouldn’t have found work without a letter of reference.
A woman with no place to go… would’ve died on the street.
‘Don’t let anyone take it from you. It’s your happiness, milady.’
The only person who had cherished her. The only one who had ever told her to be happy. And she was gone.
And not just her.
‘Mother.’
Her mother, too.
‘It hurts to look at her. Burn everything.’
‘No! Don’t! Please, ’
‘…Lock the young lady in the punishment room.’
Her mother’s portrait, left to gather dust in the attic, then suddenly burned because her father said it was painful to look at, floated faintly through her mind.
That gentle smile, always present in the painting. A woman she had never met, and yet the only one who had never glared at her with cold disdain.
She had fought to protect even that. The punishment was beatings in the punishment cell.
When they destroyed her mother’s greenhouse, she had stood for hours in the rain among the wreckage, until she fell ill with fever.
And still, she’d survived.
‘The people who gave me a reason to live…’
“Hah… Ha…”
‘Why did they all have to meet such ends?’
Her chest ached as though the wind had been knocked out of her. She couldn’t even keep her balance. Her whole body felt bruised, battered by the jolting of the runaway carriage.
Thud!
Another arrow struck, and one of the already arrow-studded walls finally gave way. It tore free with a deafening crash and hit the road. Cold air surged into the carriage.
It felt like she was aboard a sailboat in a storm. Yet strangely, the chill cleared her head.
‘I don’t want to give up.’
Even now.
‘What if…’
‘What if I jump through that opening?’
If it was going to end here anyway, what did she have to fear? Even if her body shattered, at least she wouldn’t be dragged away and humiliated.
Like a ghost, Kyrie crawled toward the opening. She couldn’t stand, so she dragged herself forward on her elbows, the wind lashing her silver hair like blades.
‘Roll toward the trees.’
If there were trees, there would be grass, better than bare earth.
Even now, her mind clung to the smallest chances. If no one would help her, she would help herself.
‘I can do this.’
She bit her lower lip and reached for the gap.
“There’s a woman!”
“Grab her!”
One of the bandits galloping alongside locked eyes with her. She instinctively pulled back, but he was faster. A rough hand grabbed her and yanked her out.
“Ugh!”
“Stay still!”
As she struggled, the bandit snarled. His horse tossed its head, staggering beneath him. Kyrie panted, acting on sheer instinct.
“Aaagh!”
The man screamed, she had bitten his hand. He yanked the reins violently.
“This bitch, !”
She tried to jump free in the confusion, but he grabbed a fistful of her hair.
“…Tch.”
“Was gonna go easy on you since you’re pretty, but, !”
He raised his arm, cursing. The sunlight behind him cast a long shadow over her face.
Kyrie clenched her teeth.
‘Please.’
‘Please don’t hit me somewhere that’ll knock me out. Just let me stay conscious. Let me fight.’
‘Let it hurt, even, just let me stay awake.’
Just as she braced for the blow,
“You really are a handful, aren’t you?”
A voice she hadn’t expected.
Thwack!
Something hot and heavy splashed against her back. A wave of warmth. The thick, metallic scent of blood filled her nostrils.
Something hit the ground with a dull thump.
Whinny!
The horse, suddenly without a rider, reared up in panic. Kyrie, untrained in riding, shackled, barely mounted, was about to fall.
Almost.
Whoosh.
A deep, heavy scent filled her nose. Unfamiliar, yet no longer strange.
“Milady.”
A large, rough hand caught her by the waist. She didn’t resist.
She didn’t need to look. She already knew that voice. Those hands. That heat, how many times had it burned her?
She held her breath and turned.
Time slowed.
And there he was.
The man she never expected to see again. The man she believed had abandoned her, just like everyone else. Cold and emotionless like a statue, except for that crooked smirk he wore when he looked at her.
She couldn’t see his face clearly against the backlight, but the scent, there was no mistaking it.
“…Your Grace.”
Her voice cracked.
Still obscured by light, the Grand Duke clicked his tongue and pressed a thumb to her lower lip.
“This is what you look like after a few days without me?”
“…”
“I thought I gave you advice about your market value.”
Whatever relief she’d almost felt was gone. Without hesitation, he lifted her up.
His firm chest, his sculpted abs pressed against her fragile back, he radiated heat, enough to burn.
“My market value… was never in my looks.”
Even through her haze, Kyrie replied.
The Grand Duke didn’t answer. Instead, he reached out again.
His large hand, broad, yet unexpectedly precise, touched her bloodied hair, where the bandages clung. He examined it briefly, then leaned in.
“Tsk.”
Kyrie flinched without meaning to.
His hand drifted to her shackled wrists, bruised and swollen from her escape attempts.
His fingers brushed her skin, assessing. Callused fingertips moved over her arms, her sides.
Kyrie swallowed hard.
It was just an appraisal. A cold assessment of damage.
So why did it feel like this?
His hand slid slowly up her ribs. Still close to her ear, he whispered.
“You never listen to advice, do you?”
