Chapter 8
Yurisiel took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves.
Still… the fact that he felt the need to test her must mean he doesn’t know she’s a commoner. Not yet.
And it was a small miracle that he chose Luvrean as the tool for that test.
If he’d asked her something based on higher noble education—like astronomy, advanced mathematics, or formal sciences—she would’ve had no answer at all.
But Luvrean, at least, she knew. She’d learned it while copying texts.
For some reason, their house had quite a few books written in Luvrean. Her mother never threw them away.
She must have wanted to keep traces of that man—Yurisiel’s so-called father—who had brought them nothing but pain. Even if it was just through forgotten books.
It was ironic. A man she had cursed her whole life ended up being useful in a moment like this.
With the weight of suspicion lifting off her shoulders, Yurisiel exhaled slowly and continued reading the book in her lap.
It was her first time seeing it—some old, unpopular classic that had probably been buried in the back corner of the library.
Cassian watched her silently.
When she answered him with short, one-word replies, he hadn’t noticed anything. But now that her sentences were longer, more of her was coming through.
Her voice wasn’t cold or icy like he’d imagined—it was clear and smooth.
Her lips, soft and pink like jelly, stirred the sudden urge to reach out and touch them, just once.
Beneath her neatly tucked-up hair, her neckline curved gently, the skin of her nape pale and clean.
Every time she exhaled, her chest rose and fell in delicate, curved lines…
She didn’t yet carry the presence of a fully grown woman, but her figure was far from childish. It was quietly seductive.
The sensation of her soft lips brushing against his fingers still lingered in his memory.
He had planned to release her soon—to let go of the leash he’d half-heartedly wrapped around her neck. But then, she appeared like this.
How could he let her go now?
He couldn’t help it. His feelings turned over as easily as flipping a hand.
Only moments ago, he’d been ready to expose her lie and push her away. But that impulse had already vanished.
It wasn’t him who reattached the leash. She did it herself. So none of this was his fault.
Bathed in the gentle spring sunlight, Yurisiel read aloud with a calm, steady voice, as if none of this mattered to her.
Right in front of him. In front of Blanchet.
Before his terminal diagnosis, Cassian had often attended noble banquets and balls.
It was nothing new to have young ladies clinging to him.
In the noble world, marriage was a transaction. And the heir of Blanchet was a valuable commodity.
Even now, despite his absence from the estate, countless letters of proposal continued to pour in. How laughable.
Even knowing he was dying, people still wanted a piece of the Blanchet heir.
They wanted to mix their blood with his before he disappeared.
But Yurisiel seemed completely uninterested in any of that. She lived only for the day in front of her.
Now she was simply following orders—reading an old, forgotten novel about a dying man.
As the title The Last 365 Days suggested, the book told the story of a man with only one year left to live, and the romance that unfolded during that time.
Cassian doubted the lord who had prepared these books for him even knew how the story ended.
He probably just saw it as a typical romance novel and assumed it would be comforting.
If he’d known, he wouldn’t have dared hand this kind of story to someone who was dying.
Yurisiel’s clear voice echoed through the room like sunlight rippling across a lake.
A dull and predictable story suddenly sounded elegant when told through her lips.
Her voice was soft and composed, but when she recited lines from the book, she sounded like a stage actress. Confident and emotional.
“Shouldn’t you understand by now, after all this?”
“Why are you saying this all of a sudden?”
“I told you. I’m done. I’m sick of it.”
“…”
“Your arrogant tone, your selfish delusions, your obsession—everything.”
The novel began with a pathetic scene where the man, having taken another woman to his bed, coldly pushed the heroine away.
It was vile. But realistic.
The empire had more than enough of those kinds of men.
Most noblemen claimed whatever woman they wanted, treating marriage vows as meaningless scraps of paper.
By that measure, the female lead of the novel could be seen as devoted… or painfully naïve.
To believe a man like that.
“So it was all a lie?”
“What, did you really think I’d marry someone like you?”
“What…?”
“Lady Vivian is a duke’s daughter. That’s something you can never be, no matter how hard you try.”
“…”
“My mistake. I was never meant to be with someone like you.”
There was a time when people in the empire even placed bets on this cliché.
Some said the woman was wrong—for daring to dream of standing beside a man above her station.
Others said the man was wrong—for abandoning someone who loved him purely.
The highborn noble ladies, likely to become duchesses themselves one day, insisted the woman was at fault.
The gallant gentlemen who played the role of romantic lovers chose the opposite, threatening the man’s name for betraying love.
Their opinions changed depending on which side suited them more. It was ridiculous.
Even the head of the Blanchet family and his wife once took part in those debates.
His mother, normally composed no matter the situation, had grown heated over this topic.
She declared with full conviction that a lowborn woman desiring such a place was shameless.
The way she condemned ten years of love as nothing more than greed was classic Blanchet.
And his father, always wearing a kindly face in public, just smiled and nodded along with her—afraid to go against her word.
Mother’s family held enough political power to be considered an asset even to Blanchet.
Still, Father’s lifeless eyes only made her angrier.
She often accused him of chasing after some commoner woman, bringing up mistresses that didn’t exist. Maybe she really had sensed that there was another woman living inside his heart.
So perhaps this wasn’t entirely her fault.
In fact, the one who deserved more blame may have been Father.
Who was the woman he had quietly tucked away in a corner of his heart?
A part of me wondered. Now that I had been given a deadline for my life, it felt like something I could afford to be curious about.
Was she like the girl in front of me, with a pretty face and a quiet, tempting presence?
At least I would disappear from this world soon. That was a kind of relief.
If not, I might have ended up making someone like her cry. A woman I would never even think of making a mistress.
As the butler would say.
“What do you think?”
The girl lowered the book she had been reading. Slowly, she turned her head and looked at me with deep green eyes.
Her lips, soft and tightly pressed together, parted hesitantly.
“Think about what?”
“Do you think the woman was wrong, or the man?”
Her face twisted slightly.
As if asking what kind of question that was.
It felt like she was comparing me to the trash of a man in the story.
Even so, she was doing her best not to offend me.
After a moment, she seemed to come to a decision and opened her mouth again.
“The woman was wrong.”
I almost laughed. What a pathetic answer.
No one ever takes the side that goes against their own situation.
So her answer had been decided from the start. She believed the man was at fault.
Which meant the girl in front of me was telling another bold lie.
Pretending to agree with me just to stay on my good side.
“The woman was wrong?”
“Yes.”
So she really would say anything. Even lie, if it meant getting closer to Blanchet.
She always wanted to match my mood, but hearing her say something she clearly didn’t mean made me feel twisted inside. She was just being contrary in the worst possible way.
“Do you really believe that?”
“If someone like her dared to stay by a nobleman’s side, then she should’ve known when to leave too.”
There was no hesitation in her tone. She spoke as if it had nothing to do with her at all.
That only irritated me more.
Truthfully, this kind of behavior was expected.
Who would dare speak openly in front of Blanchet?
No one sane.
People trying to read my mood and adjust their words accordingly was nothing new to me. It was just part of my daily life.
But this girl wasn’t supposed to be like that. I hired her because she was reckless, someone who didn’t follow the usual rules.
She should have stayed that way if she truly wanted to avoid provoking me.
My words came out sharp, twisted by irritation.
“Of course. Just the fact that she clung to him with that kind of status proves her intentions weren’t pure.”
A simple and direct warning to know her place.
Her eyes wavered. She must have understood.
Seeing that reaction brought a small smirk to my face.
She looked hurt by my words, like she really had dreamed of sitting beside me.
Her face, on the verge of tears but refusing to cry, was surprisingly beautiful to watch.
So beautiful, I wanted to keep her beside me just to see it again and again.
A dangerous desire crept up inside me, the urge to break her completely.
Normally, I would have dismissed something like this as nothing more than a servant’s flattery. But now, I was becoming too sensitive.
It was unlike me. I had lost count of how many times I had thought this way.
It all started after she arrived.
She is dangerous. My instincts scream it with every breath.
But not once have I considered stopping this.
After all, I will disappear from this world soon. I have every right now to view it through a crooked lens.
She is the one who walked into this broken world, not me.
She kept reading for quite a while after that. I sat and listened, even though I already knew every line.
Words I had read so many times they were etched into my memory sounded completely different through her clear, gentle voice.
It was almost laughable, summoning her here just to read a book.
But I found it strangely interesting.
Her soft voice warmed the air.
Where I sat, there was shadow. From her feet forward, sunlight poured in.
The sunlight split us perfectly in half. It looked like a symbol—good and evil drawn along a clear line.
I was the evil that tormented her. She was the good that endured it.
But it didn’t matter. Blanchet was the absolute good, no matter what I did.
The only evil was anyone who defied Blanchet. That was her.
She finally reached the end of the book.
Standing at the final page, she took a quiet breath.
How absurd. She had read everything so easily in front of a dying man, and only hesitated now, at the ending?
I already knew how this book ended. I had read it hundreds of times.
And now, even if she had never read it before, she did. There was no way she didn’t understand what it meant.
