Chapter 2.4
Kian always followed Ines’s orders.
Even though he didn’t like slowly eating away at her life, a host’s command was absolute.
“No matter how many times I go through it…”
Rain was falling. Ines stood in the heavy downpour without trying to cover herself, clenching her trembling hands tightly.
“No matter how many times I experience it, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.”
The feeling of her life being drained was strange. It didn’t hurt. She just couldn’t breathe properly, and her heart beat abnormally fast.
Amid those anxious heartbeats, she could feel her life force burning away.
Ines lifted her head and looked at a corner of the isolated roadside.
Three large officers were slumped over, groaning.
“…Take them, Kian. Go to the city guard… Report that you couldn’t find them.”
Kian was a being that fed on the darkness rooted deep inside humans.
What he did best was stirring up their darkest, most miserable emotions, pushing them into a mental breakdown.
Once they reached that state, they could be brainwashed.
A black mist flowed completely out of Ines’s body.
As it wrapped around and seeped into the three men, they opened their eyes.
Their unfocused gazes slowly disappeared into the rain and darkness.
Ines barely caught her breath and sat up.
She had been crouched for a while, and her skirt was completely soaked.
The shock to her body and the cold made her legs tremble.
Still, she had to stop wasting time and hurry back home.
‘Sir Robert must be worried…’
Just as she took a step forward—
Squelch.
Someone stepped into a puddle behind her.
Even without turning around, she could tell it wasn’t an ordinary person.
The rain had drowned out all other sounds—footsteps, breathing, the rustling of clothing—but that splash sounded unnaturally loud.
Almost like they had stepped in it on purpose to make noise…
As the squelching sound got closer, Ines stood still, eyes fixed on the empty air in front of her.
‘Did I miss one of the guards…?’
Just as she was about to call Kian’s name—
“You really never stay in one place, do you?”
The low voice made her thoughts come to a halt.
It was still pouring rain.
The deserted road was too dark to see properly.
Her wet hair clung to her pale cheeks and neck in strands.
That, at least, she was thankful for. At least it covered her face a little.
Just before the person behind her grabbed her shoulder, Ines barely managed to move away.
‘Kian.’
The moment she heard that voice, fear seized her.
It didn’t matter whether the brainwashed guards had completed their task or not.
She had to get away immediately.
“They say they’re searching the entire continent for that missing royal from Jenaire. Almost obsessively. I even heard Eleanor recently requested help from Apael.”
Because of what had happened with Neia and Ronya, she had momentarily forgotten how dangerous her situation was.
She was an internationally wanted fugitive.
If caught, she would not escape punishment for having deceived powerful nations.
She would either be executed for fleeing, or dragged back to the palace and made crown princess, just as originally planned.
‘Kian, Ki—’
Her steps, at first hesitant, turned into a desperate run.
Ines dashed through the rain-soaked street.
She didn’t have time to check if he was following her.
But the chase didn’t last twenty steps.
“…!”
She stopped just in time.
At the alleyway leading to the main street, knights in silver armor stood blocking her path.
Clang. A sword with a rose emblem blocked her way.
Green silk was sewn into the knights’ armor.
Silver and Green.
Colors that symbolized someone she knew.
She was now certain of the identity of the man walking up behind her.
His voice cut through the rain like shackles.
“There’s no point in running anymore.”
“….”
“Turn around.”
The man didn’t speak politely.
When the calm, cold mask he always wore cracked, his raw intensity was overwhelming.
Her chest ached with tension.
She had imagined what it might be like to see him again.
In her imagination, he was still quiet but strangely kind, his noble dignity hiding a spark inside.
“It’s been half a year, and you still won’t show me your face?”
But right now, she was scared.
“Run and you’ll lose your head.”
That’s what Jenaire’s knights had always threatened her with.
What made this man any different?
She didn’t know. She had no certainty when it came to Rayan Eleanor.
As she stood stiff with fear, the man roughly grabbed her shoulder and turned her around.
Her fragile body swayed at his careless grip.
“!”
Their eyes met, only a step apart.
His green eyes looked down coldly at her from just above.
Silver hair gleamed under his hood.
Half a year later, he was still flawlessly beautiful and dignified.
“Your Highness…”
Ines’s already pale face turned blue.
Her legs gave out beneath her.
A strong arm caught her as she collapsed.
Afraid he might drag her off, she desperately tried to push him away.
“I… I can stand on my own.”
Her mind was a mess.
She had only heard today, around lunchtime, that Eleanor’s knights had received permission to stay in Apael.
So how had they already found her?
And why had the duke come in person?
“How… How are you here?”
“How I got here isn’t what matters.”
“But…”
Noticing her resistance, his arm tightened around her waist.
His voice turned even colder.
“You didn’t think you could run forever.
Not after mocking both Lezan and Eleanor like that.”
Ines didn’t answer. Her teeth chattered.
She wanted to call Kian again, but he didn’t respond.
He was resisting.
Telling her not to use any more strength.
Even in the darkness, his green eyes scanned her face and body.
Then he clicked his tongue and muttered something—
a vulgar curse, shockingly crude for such a refined man.
Ines flinched, and the duke looked like he was losing his mind.
But he quickly pulled himself together.
He urged her with a blunt voice.
“Let’s go. We can’t talk here—”
“I… I don’t want to go. Let me go.”
“Then are you going to stand out here in the rain? In that state?”
Rayan couldn’t hold back his irritation anymore.
He hadn’t said any of the things he’d prepared for this moment—
and she was already trembling like this.
One of Eleanor’s knights handed him a green cloak.
Rayan threw it over her and pulled the hood string tight.
“…Don’t shake. I didn’t come here to do anything to you.”
Her resistance quieted only after he forced himself to say words he didn’t want to.
Rayan turned her around by the shoulders and pushed her forward.
Even though she was right in front of him now, the discomfort didn’t go away.
Rayan had brought Ines to an inn on the outskirts of the city.
“Prepare bath water.”
“Yes, Your Highness. I’ll inform them.”
After the knight went to fetch the innkeeper, only the two of them remained in the room.
Rayan pulled off his wet cloak and hung it over a chair, then picked up a towel from the neatly arranged bed.
He walked straight to Ines and tugged at her robe string.
The ribbon came undone, and the robe slipped off in an instant.
“!”
It was nothing for him to overpower her small resistance.
He pinned her to the wall with his body and began drying her wet hair and face with the towel.
His own uniform was soaked from touching her drenched body, but he didn’t care.
“I… I can do it…!”
“Stay still.”
He didn’t move his gaze downward until her hair had stopped dripping.
Wet clothes couldn’t be dried with a towel.
She needed to change.
His gaze followed the line of her shoulder downward and then stopped.
“….”
Her pale skin, almost white, showed through the wet fabric.
A droplet from her chin rolled down past her collarbone, disappearing between skin and cloth.
“What… what are you going to do to me?”
Her lips, pink and soaked, trembled as she swallowed nervously.
The blue eyes that watched his every move were filled with tension.
There was only one clear emotion on her face.
Fear.
It was ridiculous.
She wasn’t even thinking about him—just trembling in fear.
And yet he couldn’t stop looking at her.
He was starting to hate himself for it.
“Answer me first.”
His voice came out rough without meaning to.
“How did you escape?”
“….”
“I’m asking how you got from Lezan all the way here to Apael.”
Ines kept her lips shut.
Not because she had nothing to say, but because her chest ached so badly.
The pressure coming from him made it hard to breathe.
“Answer.”
He clearly had no intention of backing down.
His strong hand tilted her chin up, parting her lips slightly.
Ines barely squeezed out a voice.
“I left that place… only because I wanted to, Your Highness.”
“How did you get out?”
“…In a way Your Highness could never understand.”
