Pharmia remained seated, seemingly oblivious to the voices around her. Her father, Duke Odin, was taken away by the imperial guards as if he were a servant, leaving only his daughter behind. She did not look at her father.
Once the guards left, I dropped to my knees, still holding my book. “Lady Pharmia.” She responded slightly when I called her name, and I saw a faint tremor in her cheeks as she lowered her gaze.
I had to settle things with her. I had a feeling this would be my last chance, so I opened my mouth to speak, but she beat me to it.
“It wasn’t for you,” she said.
Now that she had finally spoken, everything she had been suppressing all surged out in one big rush.
“I didn’t do it for you. I’ve always hated you, Lady Elianna. Do you understand how it feels when someone suddenly appears and takes away everything you ever wanted? Why did you have to be here? If not for you, I... Why are you trying to protect me? I didn’t want you to protect me. Anyone but you!”
I held my breath as her raw emotions hit me. My actions must have hurt and cornered Lady Pharmia even more than I had imagined. And just as I had feelings that I wouldn’t back down from, she’d done everything for the sake of someone else.
“You wanted to protect His Highness’s honor,” I said.
The story of His Highness and the Saint had spread throughout the country. It was undoubtedly a strategy of Duke Odin’s faction to spread rumors and make them come true. However, now that the duke’s evil deeds had been exposed and his falsehoods revealed, the only thing left to dispel were the rumors about His Highness and Lady Pharmia. I had a feeling they would remain among the people forever. In other words, it would lead to the disgrace of His Highness. That was why she’d said that she hadn’t done it for me.
I took her clenched hand and smacked it against my cheek before she could pull it away. There was only a dull sound, but she finally looked up.
“Please strike me as much as you like, Lady Pharmia. As much as you want, to make up for me hurting you, even though I didn’t realize that I had. After that, let me strike you too. I can’t forgive what you have done. Despite the fact that you gave the citizens hope as their saint and distributed the dried pomelo fruit, you also worked to spread the virus, and I absolutely cannot forgive that.”
“What...?” A faint light appeared in her eyes. “You... You always think you’re so perfect, don’t you? Always on your high horse. What do you know? You act like you know it all, yet you’re always in a safe place where you’re protected. You don’t know a thing about someone like me. I hate people like you. Don’t talk like you understand.”
She didn’t hit me, but she did dig her nails in. A sharp, hot pain ran through me. Even so, I didn’t back down and continued to face her.
“But I like you,” I said, forcibly thrusting my emotions onto her, stepping into her position. “When I came to the royal capital, I was not used to society, but you always took care of me. Others only paid attention to me because I was the prince’s fiancée, but you always cared about me, and I didn’t take it for granted. I thought you understood people’s pain.”
I’d thought she was a caring person, even when I had been persistently bullied, when my clothes had been soiled, and when others had laughed at me. She had always been there to take care of me.
“Stop it. I told you I hate you,” Lady Pharmia replied.
“But I like you.”
“I said stop.”
At some point, I felt a surge of affection toward Lady Pharmia, whose voice was trembling. I put myself in Lady Pharmia’s shoes for the first time and thought about what she had been through. She wanted to make a name for herself as a saint and become Prince Christopher’s wife. I was sure she had experienced things that I couldn’t even imagine. I had nothing to give back to her either. On the contrary, that would surely hurt her even more. That was why...
“I was always envious of Lady Therese,” I stated. She was the flower of high society, adored by everyone. She was seen as the representative of the next generation who would lead everyone. I had felt this way for almost five years, since I first met Lady Therese. “I also wanted to call you Mia, Lady Pharmia.”
Her hazel eyes went wide. It was as if a dam had broken and her feelings were rushing straight toward me. Drowning in the waves, I couldn’t even breathe.
“Are you a fool?” she muttered, then collapsed into sobs.
Suddenly, her gaze flew to behind me, and I heard Jean yell, “M’lady!”
It wasn’t clear what happened and in what order. The surrounding people had kept a distance from us, and everyone who had committed a crime had already been taken away, so I had relaxed my guard. In my peripheral vision, I saw Lady Pharmia raise her hand, her expression one of terror. Instinctively, I held up the book I always had in my hand.
“Ah!”
Something sharp pierced through the hard book, and the shock waves from it coursed through my whole body. A grubby man in front of me yelled something, and because I didn’t let go of what I was holding, his force threw me around. I was consumed by confusion. Both my arms felt severely numb.
Jean, who was unusually emotional, intervened. “Watteau!” Without even giving the man a chance to counter, Jean stopped him with his dagger in one blow. For a moment, their eyes met, but then the man collapsed and stopped moving. Jean stood up, hiding me with his lanky back. He was panting.
The room became noisy. The guards rushed in and began to move the crowd away. Among them, Jean muttered, “I could have ended up just like Watteau, if not for one thing.”
Both Jean and the man were once part of the royal family’s Shadows. What was this “one thing” he spoke of? I thought about what he’d said. Maybe the person by my side wasn’t Jean as he had been, but Jean as he was now.
I was still holding my large record book. It was an original design I’d created myself so that Jean couldn’t burn it anymore. It was the only one like it in the world.