Chapter 205. Night Visit (1)

Translator: Atlas / Editor: Regan

As Leah sat frozen, Lady Mirael spoke desperately.

“Your Majesty!” She pleaded, her voice squeaking with distress. “It’s a misunderstanding…aghh!”

She didn’t have a chance to protest further. Blain clutched her hair and threw her to the ground. Even as she looked up at him with tear-filled eyes, his gaze remained cold.

“A vulgar bitch who knows nothing…” His leather-gloved hand lifted, and Leah leapt to her feet.

“Please, stop!” She screamed. As Blain turned slowly toward her, she hurried around the desk and caught his arm. “I think that’s enough.”

His reaction seemed so excessive to her, and she wished he wouldn’t be so violent. And especially that he would correct the bad habit of slapping with those hard hands. But Blain ignored her and only stomped down on Lady Mirael’s hand with his foot, making her cry out in pain.

“Please, don’t!” Leah protested, and he looked at her with rage.

“How long has this bitch been doing this?”

The way he was grinding Lady Mirael’s hand underfoot made Leah angry. She couldn’t understand why he behaved this way, but she was tired of it. And maybe it was simple self-defense. She knew that at any moment, Blain could turn on her and treat her just as poorly. The thin threads of her control snapped.

“You’re the one who caused this,” she said impulsively. It was Blain’s poor treatment of Leah that made Lady Mirael think she could get away with behaving so disrespectfully. None of this would have happened if he hadn’t taken a consort.

Blain’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Leah, and his jaw clenched tight.

“…everyone out.” At first, no one moved. Her ladies-in-waiting were too frightened to understand what he meant, and Blain muttered a curse and shouted. “Everyone get out now!!!”

The ladies left hastily, along with Lady Miriel, leaving only Blain and Leah in the office. Though she was afraid he might strike her again, she still spoke.

“You weren’t like this before.”

In her memory, Blain didn’t treat people like trash. She had been trying to understand him, convinced that he had become callous because of the pressures of ruling, but she couldn’t tolerate it anymore. It felt as if some barrier in her head that had accepted and excused his atrocities had broken.

“You’ve changed too much,” she said, voicing the feeling she had held in her heart.

Blain didn’t answer. He only stared at her in eerie silence, his blue eyes terrified. For a long time, they looked at each other, and he broke the silence first.

“Do you love me?”

For the first time, she didn’t answer instantly. But Blain didn’t wait for her reply. He only smiled.

“…It doesn’t make sense,” he murmured, and then turned and left without another word. The office door thudded shut behind him.

Leah’s legs wobbled beneath her, and she sat down on the floor of her office, her mind in chaos. After a long time, she wondered suddenly if those memories of the past were true.

***

Leah had come to the conclusion that something very strange was happening.

Her feelings of alienation and the discrepancies she had noticed were becoming so obvious, she wondered that she hadn’t noticed them before. There was no way to be sure that she had lost memories, as that man had claimed. But it was clear that there was something she didn’t know.

And she knew she couldn’t trust anyone, or tell anyone what she was feeling. Count Valtein, Minister Laurent, Countess Melissa, her ladies-in-waiting…all of them were part of it, their discordant behavior contributing to her sense of alienation.

As she worked, Leah was asking questions that had no answers. She had reached an impasse. But even if she wanted to investigate, she simply didn’t have time. By the time she had finished all the things she had to do that day, night had fallen again, and she was too exhausted to think about anything.