Two Conditions

And the way he had been studying her so relentlessly all this while—she thought it must be guilt.

Evelynn was certain of it. For the time being, he would be lenient with her.

Ilya gave a short, scoffing laugh and issued an order to the maid at his side.

“Bring a meal. Something she can eat without trouble.”

She needed a full stomach before the matter ahead of them. She still had not told her husband the terms of the bargain, and she had no intention whatsoever of giving her blood away for nothing.

A short while later the maids wheeled in a tray, and a fragrant warmth filled the room. There was hot soup made from potatoes, soft bread, sweet fruit juice, and pudding, all arranged together.

She did not even have the strength to lift a spoon, so the maids attended her at the meal.

“My lady, shall we begin with the soup? It’s hot, so do take care.”

An older maid blew on the steaming soup and brought it to her lips. A savory aroma bloomed through her mouth.

“My lady, open up.”

Worried faces, gentle smiles. So they were capable of kindness like this. The thought made Evelynn a little sad, and she lowered her eyes.

The maid tore the bread into small pieces and placed them in her mouth. Thick with butter, it was astonishingly soft. The bread she had eaten in the Annex had been hard as stone, and now and then it had gone moldy.

“Anyone watching would think I’m the one starving you.”

Ilya, who had been watching her eat, spoke with a sneer.

Let him sneer. Evelynn went on with the meal. Now that she had become someone he needed, would she be allowed to eat decent food from here on? Surely they would stop tampering with it.

When she had taken the last of the pudding as well, she lifted her head and looked her husband straight in the face.

Ilya dismissed the physician and the maids, and only then did he settle himself properly.

“This bargain of yours. Let’s hear it. I ought to keep my word.”

Evelynn let out a long breath and cleared her throat. The sound that came up through it displeased her, and she cleared it again and again.

“There are two conditions. First…”

In the dim light her eyes shone with an uncanny clarity.

For a moment Ilya doubted his own ears. It was a venomous thing, and the last words he had ever expected from that meek mouth.

He had come here anticipating, at most, a plea not to cast her out. He stared at the woman before him in bewilderment.

“Not spare them—kill them? Your father, and every one of your brothers?”

“Yes. Kill them. You and my family have already crossed a river we can never cross back.”

“Would it… be all right if I asked why?”

“For my safety, and my child’s. That is all.”

She smiled bitterly and hid what she truly felt. The words she could not bring herself to say to her husband rose all the way to her throat.

If I divorce you, they’ll sell me as some perverted old man’s fifth wife, and I’ll be used until I die!

They’ll tear my son from his mother and use him however it suits them!

This hell ends only when every last one of those revolting Mardus men is dead.

Evelynn fought to gather the feelings surging in her, and went on in a trembling voice.

“I can serve as a double agent, too. I’ll be good at it. I will.”

Ilya could not understand a single thing his wife was saying. But there was nothing for him to lose, so he nodded.

“Fine. I accept the first condition. Our aims are the same.”

“Thank you.”

“And the second?”

“There will be no divorce until House Mardus is wiped out. When your revenge is finished… we part. You and I.”

Divorce. He had always known he would leave this woman someday. But the moment the word left her mouth, his mood sank hard and fast.

“So when we divorce, you mean to wring a fortune out of me in alimony?”

Ilya’s voice was sharp enough to cut.

“Of course not. Let me take my son… and go. Quietly. Somewhere no one knows us, just the two of us.”

The second condition was nothing like what he had expected either. Faced with a wife he could not predict from one moment to the next, his voice rose of its own accord.

“A woman like you, who’s never known a day of hardship—how do you mean to raise a child alone?”

Evelynn let out a hollow laugh and only repeated that she could.

“You won’t admit it, but that child is the legitimate firstborn of House Azantis. If you have other children later… my son dies. So I’ll take him with me when I go.”

From the moment she understood that her husband and her family had broken with each other, Evelynn had thought constantly of her last moment with him. Even imagining it had hurt as if her heart were splitting—and yet, in the instant she actually spoke that ending to him, a strange sense of release took hold of her. She laid her hand over his.

“Even if it isn’t my blood, you’ll be able to sleep. Before I leave, I’ll look for another way. You hate me anyway.”

He said nothing.

“I’ve never once asked you for anything. So… just this once… Ilya, please.”

Still he did not answer.

“I will never appear before you again. I promise. All right?”

For a moment he was overwhelmed by the desperate will of a woman he had first regarded with indifference, and afterward with hatred.

“I had no right to the title. I seized it anyway. If he’s of my blood, what’s to say the boy won’t grow up and do the same?”

The words came out of him seething, and his face was savage. Evelynn looked up at her husband with tears standing in her eyes.

“Then… do as you wish. That will be yours to decide, as Grand Duke of Azantis.”

The long talk had left her plainly exhausted. She was sorry for it, but it was time to end.

“Fine. When we divorce, leave with the child. And while the two of you remain here, I’ll guarantee your safety.”

“I’ll do well. Thank you. Truly—thank you.”

Watching his wife smile so brightly, Ilya’s feelings were a tangle. A bargain that left a taste this foul. His steps were heavy as he turned and walked out.

The funeral of the late Grand Duke of Azantis was carried out with great pomp.

He lay in a glass casket, beautiful as he had been in life. The mourners were shocked to see a body that seemed only briefly asleep, and then they promptly forgot it.

They had only one object. Living power.

Ilya Azantis, who would succeed to the grand ducal seat. The hero of the Tatar campaign.

Every sort of person crowded in around him until the place was a crush, and the loudest voice among them belonged to Count Ruten. He was the head of the most powerful vassal house in the Azantis grand duchy.

“Your Grace, how great your grief must be. At a time like this, all the more reason to secure an heir as soon as possible.”

An heir, at a funeral. Ilya let out a dry breath of laughter at words whose insides he could see straight through.

“You seem to have forgotten that I already have a child.”

“Surely you don’t mean to hand the title to Mardus blood? You must beget a new heir.”

Mardus blood. So this was why his wife had been willing to give even her blood, if only she could take the boy and leave.

“Your Grace, I have an only daughter. Would you care to look upon her?”

Count Ruten eased his daughter forward. When Ilya lowered his gaze, a woman like a rose in full bloom smiled, her eyes folding softly.

“Your Grace, I am Micheline Ruten. I had the honor of seeing you a few times as a child…”

“I remember you.”

The girl who had courted his brother so ardently. All at once he recalled how that angel of a brother had wanted nothing to do with her.

Her first, fervent love lay right there, and at the very rite held in his memory she was making eyes at Ilya. The reversal of his own station finally felt real, and he laughed under his breath.

“Your Grace, my daughter came of age this year.”

“Your Grace, over here as well…!”

At his laugh, vassals on every side began, ever so subtly, to press their daughters forward.

It was a strange funeral. The dead were present, and there was no one there to grieve them.

Evelynn attended the funeral with her face hidden behind a black veil. She was the only person there who mourned the end of Nasser Azantis. Looking at him as he lay, beautiful as he had been in life, she shed her tears in silence, drop after drop.

When the funeral was over, she walked the vast castle of the Grand Duke alone. Follow the little path from the chapel to the Annex long enough, and one came to a small, plain garden. It was winter, and the place felt bleak; she walked it by herself.

Evelynn had learned of her family’s betrayal of her husband only long afterward. If she had known… she would never have sent a letter as foolish as that.

A tender man. Even when everyone in the castle treated Evelynn and her son, Liber, like vermin, the master of that castle alone had been different. When he died so suddenly, Evelynn awakened as an Illusionist.

She had only wanted people to remember him as beautiful as he had been in life. If she could send him off in the drifting rain of blossoms he had loved, that would be enough. That was all she had thought—and a miracle happened.

The corpse that had been rotting and reeking became a handsome man who might have been painted, silver-haired and green-eyed. The desolate winter became a spring in which flowers opened and a warm wind blew.

At the last she went and sat beneath the cherry tree Nasser had loved. She leaned against the trunk, closed her eyes, and called back the beautiful season she had shared with him, brief as a breath.

And when she opened them again… small white flowers burst into bloom, all at once, along the barren branches. Blossoms heralding spring scattered over Evelynn’s head and poured out a deep, rich scent.

Now it was truly time to say goodbye.

In a world gone entirely white, Evelynn smiled brightly and waved.

Thank you… goodbye…

As if in answer, the branches of the cherry tree danced, and the blossoms spilled open with a force that seemed ready to turn the whole world white.

Nasser. Nasser. Nasser.

In the paradise she herself had made, Evelynn parted from someone precious.

From far off, Ilya watched his wife call another man’s name as if she meant to shout until her voice gave out, and the corner of his mouth twisted upward.

Even in death, this is cheating, brother.

The moment Ilya received the title, the first thing he did was hold a grand memorial for the knights who had died in Tatar.

A knighting ceremony followed at once. So many had been lost on the Tatar campaign that replenishing their ranks could not wait.