Chapter 31

“Your Highness! How could you do this to this old woman!”

Former Grand Duchess Abenr panted with anger as she approached Callisten. She still had a cramp in her leg, making it difficult to walk properly.

She had come all this way, limping because of her fear of death.

“If you don’t want to die before your time, behave yourself.”

“Your Highness…!”

“This is my final warning. I’m not someone who gives warnings.”

Callisten glared at former Grand Duchess Abenr as he spoke.

“If you try any more tricks with Bri, I’ll separate your head from your neck.”

After saying this, he gestured. A nearby knight then pulled former Grand Duchess Abenr away from the carriage and tried to close the door.

“Don’t you need the power of our Mays Grand Duke’s family!”

“When have I ever needed it?”

When Callisten replied mockingly, the knight looked around nervously before closing the carriage door.

Then the carriage departed.

“Huwick…!”

Matriarch Abenr collapsed to the ground, her legs giving out from the injustice, bewilderment, and humiliation she had felt today.

She hadn’t been able to sleep last night due to worry. After spending the night in tears, she had waited in the scorching sun for an hour and a half as soon as it was time.

Then she had even begged in front of Briseyes’s friends.

On top of that, she had been kneeling for more than two hours.

“Ahuhwick…!”

She cried while hugging herself, but there was no one around to help her.

Former Grand Duchess Abenr barely managed to come to her senses and return to the Mays Grand Duke’s residence.

⁕⁕⁕

“Why are you here again?”

Briseyes had just bathed before bed and was looking at her books again when she saw Callisten arrive and her expression hardened.

“I came because I missed you.”

“You shouldn’t break imperial rules like that. Doesn’t the entrance close at 7 PM?”

“I don’t use doors.”

“…Don’t even talk.”

She said this and turned over, lying down and picking up her book.

“I’ll hold it for you.”

“Leave.”

“Yes, I’ll move to your side.”

He said this and came to Briseyes’s side. He wasn’t wearing his Academy uniform, perhaps because he had been doing something in the imperial palace.

Briseyes unconsciously frowned at Callisten’s black uniform and red cape.

Whenever she saw him, Briseyes thought he was like a very colorful snake. Or maybe a colorful mushroom.

The more colorful, the more deadly poison it contained.

“Won’t you leave?”

“No.”

“You left obediently earlier.”

“That was because former Grand Duchess Mays was out front.”

He said this as he took off his cape and uniform coat. Then he removed his vest and hung them nearby. He sat on Briseyes’s bed wearing only a simple white shirt and black pants.

She frowned and tried not to make room for him.

“If you let me lie next to you, I’ll tell you what happened.”

At those words, Briseyes slowly moved aside and said:

“You’ll be misunderstood if you’re here.”

“This is a private room, and no one can come to the private room corridor after 8 PM unless they press that button. Oh, but there are rounds at 11 PM?”

“How do you know all that?”

“When I heard you were hospitalized, I looked into at least that much.”

Briseyes sighed and turned over. He then lay down behind her and tried to stretch his arm. When his hand, which had been slowly creeping up, touched her waist, Briseyes warned him by hitting his hand with her book.

“Remove it.”

“Ah, that hurts. It hurts so much I’ve lost strength.”

He said this but still tried to embrace her waist. Briseyes turned around in surprise, and he seemed not to have expected this either, as he released his arms when she faced him.

“Ugh…!”

When he saw her eyes wide open in surprise, he twisted his body from the pressure he felt in his lower body and clenched his fist tightly.

“Why did you come up if you can’t handle it?”

“I’m, used to it now?”

“As if you could be.”

She mocked him like that and backed away a little. She wondered what danger there could be from someone wearing a chastity belt. Besides, the key to the chastity belt he wore was in the drawer in her room. She had felt uneasy when she put it in the second drawer by the bed, so she had moved it to the first drawer.

“Sit down and explain like you did earlier.”

She sat up straight, leaning the pillow against the bed frame. Since the IV had been moved to her right hand, her left hand was now free.

“Ugh… Ah…”

He took a deep breath while looking at her expression and then answered.

He raised his body to sit in the same position. The bed moving when he moved and the strange sound of metal friction that came with it made Briseyes strangely tense.

“If it hurts, just take it off.”

“I’m going to wear it until you personally remove it.”

“Would you personally remove it?”

“Yes, you will.”

He leaned his head on her shoulder, pretending to be relaxed with a pale face.

“You’re crazy.”

“Yes, that’s right. So I’ll just stay like this for a little while.”

Callisten took deep breaths as he leaned on her shoulder, still seeming to be in pain. Briseyes was about to push him away but didn’t because he had been well-behaved today, and she hadn’t yet asked about the former Grand Duchess Abenr.

When she opened her book again and looked at it, he smirked.

Briseyes’s eyes followed his to where there was another small note written.

「 The first flower I gave you. 」

“Why are there so many things about flowers these days?”

“That’s because we’re learning about each country’s national flowers in this chapter.”

Callisten said this and giggled.

“Don’t you like delphinium?”

“The flower meaning is creepy.”

“Why? Is ‘don’t hate me’ a creepy flower meaning?”

“It’s creepy when it comes from you.”

Briseyes remembered when Callisten had given her a bouquet of delphiniums. He had given her such a huge bouquet, as if asking her to understand his feelings.

“Just tell me about today’s lesson. Don’t say useless things.”

Although she had already absorbed all of today’s material, she said this when he looked at her.

“If not that, then explain what happened with my mother.”

“First of all, what happened earlier was my doing. Jeronis Abein said that for evidence to be valid, it needs to be witnessed by a third party. So many people needed to see it.”

“…That I was brought in with an allergic reaction because of my mother?”

“Yes, and there’s more.”

Callisten grabbed her hair with his hand and kissed it as if smelling its fragrance, making eye contact with her.

“The ward nurses said they saw bruise marks on your body when they changed your clothes.”

“That’s…”

“The bruise marks from when you fell down the stairs are all recorded in your medical records.”

“Did Ella see all the medical records too?”

Briseyes asked this out of concern for her maid, who was like a sister to her.

“Yes, so Ella has also decided. She said she’ll help you get divorced.”

“…Really?”

“Yes.”

Briseyes had thought Ella was busy with other things lately.

“It will be difficult to see Ella often. She’s pretending to serve you while gathering evidence with me.”

“That’s…”

“I’m collecting evidence on my end, and through Ella as well. Because many people would be suspicious if I moved.”

Briseyes felt strange that he really seemed to be helping with her divorce secretly from the Marquis Philia’s family.

“I see.”

At her words, he looked at her as if wanting praise. But since she didn’t trust him at all.

“Now go back. I don’t have anything else to ask you.”

“I’m going to sleep here tonight.”

“You said they do rounds at 11 PM.”

“I told them not to come?”

She sighed as soon as she heard his words. Perhaps because she had been eating her hospital meals well, she felt sleepy at 10 PM, which was now.

In reality, she had accumulated a lot of fatigue during her Academy life.

“I’m going to sleep. Leave on your own.”

“You’re going to sleep and leave me here?”

“Yes.”

She was so annoyed by how happy he was at those words that she pulled down her pillow and lay down.

“You trust me enough to sleep while I’m here?”

“Leave.”

Briseyes coldly said as she pulled up the sheet. He then crawled under the sheet and hugged her waist.

“Leave.”

“I, won’t go…”

He trembled again and tried hard not to let go of her. She closed her eyes as if giving up.

Callisten trembled as he embraced her body like a snare.

She felt strangely comfortable, perhaps because of his thick arm under her neck and the soft pillow touching her head. She relaxed while smelling the scent of ironed cloth that she had been familiar with since childhood coming from him.

“Bri, can’t you turn around and sleep?”

She looked at him, his voice trembling, and turned over.

“Be careful of the IV. It hurts if you touch it.”

“Yes, I’ll be careful.”

When she turned over, he was looking at Briseyes with a strange expression and smiling. With eyes that showed pain and ecstasy, and some kind of indescribable madness.

“Can I give you a goodnight kiss?”

“If you’re going to do that, leave.”

When she spoke without even opening her eyes, he touched her lips with his hand. When his thumb pressed firmly on her teeth, Briseyes resisted by biting his finger very hard.

At that moment, his hand went deeper, pressing her flesh and making Briseyes open her eyes.

She unwittingly met his eyes, filled with madness, which she thought she was used to but in reality had been trying to avoid because they were difficult to handle.