Chapter 29
Chapter 29
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 29
Chapter Title: What Are You?
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Among the yellow flowers, a golden-haired woman smiled radiantly. Bathed in sunlight, she was so beautiful she couldn't be said to belong to this world.
“Mommy!”
Daphne uttered the words she missed most in the world and ran toward her. With Mommy—Beatrice’s appearance, the world was dyed in gold.
Yellow daffodils blooming profusely against the blue sky, the languid time of spring. Daphne threw herself into her embrace.
“Come here, my darling.”
Mother Beatrice hugged Daphne tightly and kissed her round forehead. Daphne realized she had returned to her childish form.
Her mother always carried that soft, fragrant scent. She buried her face in that embrace. Slender hands stroked Daphne’s hair.
Daphne was no longer wearing the drab, worn-out maid’s uniform. She was dressed in that bright forsythia yellow she had hated so much before.
“I missed you.”
Daphne kept rubbing her cheek against her. In response, her mother tightened her arms around her.
“I missed you too, Daphne.”
“……Yeah. Mommy.”
We won’t be parted now, right? We’ll stay together forever, right? You won’t wither away from illness, right? You won’t leave me alone, right?
I can die now, right?
Daphne sobbed in her embrace. She wept, knowing peace had finally come.
“No.”
But as if reading her heart, her mother’s cold words made Daphne lift her head.
“You have to live. Live and be happy.”
Tears fell drop by drop onto her forehead.
Daphne tried to look up at her mother. But her mother pressed down on her head, preventing her from moving.
“Why? I don’t feel like I can be happy now.”
“…….”
“Don’t tell me to live. Stay with me. Please, Mommy.”
We miss each other and love each other like this—why can’t we be together?
“I’m sorry, Daphne.”
The tears falling on her forehead had a strange fishy smell. Drip, drip—the water droplets turned into beads of blood. Red blood soaked her mother’s clothes. It stained Daphne’s bright yellow dress.
“Kyaaak! Kyaaak!”
Daphne looked up at her mother. Her mother was already dead.
Blood dripped from her gaping mouth. The stench of blood and crushed, rotting flowers assaulted her nose.
Daphne staggered backward.
“You have to live.”
Her mother’s voice echoed in her ears, insisting she had to survive no matter what.
* * *
“Huh!”
Daphne awoke from the dream drenched in cold sweat. The ceiling loomed as close as a coffin. Even the faint, sweet time in her dream had been but a fleeting moment.
Daphne recalled why she hadn’t chosen death. It was because of her mother’s dying words.
As her mother lay dying of illness, she had looked pityingly at her weeping daughter begging to be taken along and said with a sad face,
‘Daphne, live and be happy. You must be happy.’
Why tell me to be happy after throwing me into this hell? Why live and be happy? Daphne gritted her teeth and sobbed. I hate you. I hate you, but I miss you. I miss you and love you.
The one who had loved her most in the world was already gone.
Her body seemed fully recovered. Yet Daphne sobbed in her cramped little room. Life was so lonely, and she kept crying.
Then Daphne realized her empty room felt even narrower somehow. And it didn’t smell of the usual mustiness—it carried a familiar scent.
She turned her head and looked around. Someone was sitting in the chair Sara had brought.
In this filthy cesspit of a place, Asherad sat watching Daphne.
“You’re awake?”
It was an oddly tender tone. Almost nostalgic. Daphne stared blankly at Asherad. Why was he here? Just as her body was recovering—what on earth? Her listless gaze drifted away from him.
Asherad’s lips were cracked and dry, but Daphne didn’t notice. Not content with just averting her eyes, she turned away from him entirely and stared at the wall.
Even after sharing her body with him so many times, Daphne felt a fundamental distance from Asherad. That was when he spoke.
“What a filthy room.”
It was true, so it didn’t bother her much. She glanced sideways, and Asherad was frowning as he surveyed the room where she had been staying.
For a place in the Imperial Palace, it was utterly deplorable. The ceiling was as low as a coffin, and it was a pit of dust.
She had tried her best to keep it clean, but the place itself was beyond salvaging—cleaning was pointless. The bed she had barely managed to obtain was worn out, and the sheets had faded to a dull gray.
“And it smells.”
She had kept the sheets clean, but the smell was inevitable. His face remained expressionless, yet for some reason, that made it all the more humiliating.
“That’s Father Emperor for you—truly doing his utmost to make you suffer.”
That was what he had said upon seeing her in pain. You’re no different. Daphne bit her lip. Biting her chapped lip brought the taste of blood.
She wasn’t trying to show pride to Asherad in particular. It was just that those words grated on her for some reason.
Daphne closed her eyes without even replying. Then he would assume she was still in pain and leave on his own.
“Shall I get you a different room?”
“…….”
Asherad asked quietly. Daphne opened her eyes and lifted her gaze to him. Staring at his face for a moment, she curled the corner of her mouth slightly and answered.
“No.”
What if she asked for a change and he actually did it?
Nothing could be more ridiculous. It would make her no different from a whore trading her body for a better life.
It wasn’t that he had to change it on his own or anything. The truth was, she just didn’t want it that badly.
It felt like he wanted her to bend, using it as leverage. How much more would she have to pay to accept the favor from the man who had ruined her life with all his might?
A cruel monster who had killed Fabian, no less.
Daphne’s feelings toward Asherad were stained with too many emotions: hatred, sorrow, resentment, disgust that made her teeth grind, and the fleeting joy she had felt seeing him approach her as she cried.
Daphne tried to define that feeling as anger. That was when Asherad spoke.
“Why don’t you get up, then?”
Daphne looked at him with a puzzled expression. Instead of answering, Asherad scooped her up and whispered,
“I can’t embrace you in this filthy place.”
Daphne let out a hollow laugh. Another part of her heart crumbled somewhere inside.
* * *
Water dripped from Daphne’s body after washing up. Her hair carried a fragrant scent that didn’t suit her.
Whenever she lay with Asherad, she bathed in the tub attached to his bedroom. That was how she absorbed that perfumed aroma.
Asherad had a cigarette in his mouth; when Daphne arrived, he stubbed it out. The acrid smell of tobacco filled the room. Asherad’s face was pale, and he looked exhausted.
Daphne knew it, but she had just recovered from her own illness.
She gazed at Asherad impassively. He neither invited the standing Daphne to sit nor offered a smile.
It was the blank expression of one looking at furniture. The face of someone who saw no reason to invest any emotion in a being.
Daphne realized Asherad almost always wore that expression.
Why had she only noticed now?
“What are you?”
Asherad suddenly asked. Daphne didn’t answer. Nothing mattered anymore. She slipped off her robe. Drip, drip—water fell.
“Come here.”
When he reached out, Daphne approached the chair where he sat as if it were habit and knelt before him. Seeing this, Asherad grasped her chin and lifted her face.
“Pretty.”
A woman with wet golden hair. Her cheeks were peach-like from the hot bath, her lips red.
Her glass-blue eyes tried not to look at him. Seeing that feeble rebellion, Asherad caressed her cheek.
“Daphne.”
“…….”
“Tell me what you are.”
It was a tender voice. Daphne answered without hesitation.
“Your dog.”
“Dog?”
“I come when called, go when told. You call me pretty only when you feel like it, and I’m not worth cherishing otherwise.”
“Ha.”
Asherad chuckled.
“You knew you were a dog? I hadn’t realized.”
He seemed quite satisfied with her answer. Standing up, he slipped his hands under her shoulders and lifted her. She rose without resistance.
Asherad looked down at her body and wrapped his arm around her waist, pressing her close. The tie of her robe loosened, exposing bare skin that brushed against his taut trousers.
“Then what am I, for fucking a bitch?”
“…….”
“A beast, I suppose.”
Asherad snickered. As Daphne opened her mouth to speak, he pressed his lips to hers. Thinking it was another kiss, she parted them—only for his thumb to thrust roughly inside.
“Mmgh!”
His thick thumb stirred inside her mouth. As she winced in pain, Asherad said,
“So that’s why you took the infertility drug?”