#14. It’s a Dream, a Nightmare

‘Why?’

What could be so terrifying?

Taran clutched his pounding heart and questioned himself.

But perhaps because he had just awakened, the moments that had been so vivid in his dream were rapidly evaporating.

“……No.”

Taran muttered without realizing it.

One of the attendants waiting beside him asked worriedly.

“Lord Taran, did you perhaps have a nightmare?”

“……Nightmare?”

A nightmare.

Blankly repeating those words, Taran broke into strange laughter.

“Hahaha!”

Yet oddly, it didn’t sound like laughter at all.

After letting out this laugh that seemed like a desperate denial of an unacceptable reality, Taran muttered as if he had lost his mind.

“Yes, it’s a dream. A terrible dream.”

“O-Of course.”

“Just a dream.”

But his muttering, meant to reassure himself, was trembling unstably.

At the same time, a transparent tear fell from Taran’s ice-blue eyes.

‘Gasp!’

Taran’s attendants were taken aback. Their master shedding tears!

‘He just woke up, so it’s merely a physiological reaction from dry eyes.’

‘Yes, or perhaps he took some medicine that didn’t agree with him before sleeping……!’

‘Or could it be contamination?’

The attendants exchanged speculative glances.

None of them truly believed that Taran was crying from emotional distress.

Such an innocent and tender heart couldn’t possibly remain in their master.

Moreover, the person in question seemed unaware that he had shed tears.

“Lord Taran.”

Concerned about his master’s abnormal state, an attendant urgently gestured to a servant to bring warm washing water.

“If you’re feeling unwell, perhaps you should wash your face……”

“……Right.”

Responding slowly, Taran plunged his head into the washing basin.

Splash— the water enveloped Taran’s head and body.

“Lord Taran!”

The lieutenant and attendants cried out in surprise, but their voices didn’t reach Taran, submerged underwater.

The painful dream that squeezed his heart still dominated his mind.

‘I should be glad to forget it.’

Taran grew strangely anxious, as if he had forgotten something he shouldn’t forget.

His unconscious, which he himself didn’t recognize and which hadn’t yet awakened, tickled his tongue.

Don’t forget.

You must remember, as if saying so……

‘Remember what?’

Taran questioned himself but didn’t know the answer. What shouldn’t he forget, and why?

All he could barely recall was a snowy field.

Falling white snow.

A girl sitting collapsed in the cruel waves of white, beautiful snow.

With long purple-blue hair and a large leather robe that seemed too big for her small body, slipping off to reveal her shoulders.

The features and appearance of the girl in his vague memory didn’t come back in detail.

All he could recall was a face as pale as if melting into the snow field. Large eyes distorted with tears. Lips parted in sorrow……

‘……She might die.’

Instinctively, Taran realized this statement was true. The girl was clearly ill.

Grrrr— Taran, who had submerged his face underwater, gritted his teeth.

Why?

He couldn’t understand the reason at all.

Why did he feel such strangely intense emotions for this unfamiliar being?

He could barely control the urge to run to her immediately, to embrace that fragile girl and wrap her in warmth.

But the owner of the body he was synchronized with was different.

He remained cold despite the girl’s desperate voice. No, beyond coldness, he felt an unbearable irritation.

It seemed overwhelming just to suppress the urge to cover her mouth. His fingers were dangerously clenching, as if about to cause violence.

‘No.’

You crazy bastard, don’t do it!

But contrary to his thoughts, his body moved on its own. His mouth, tasting blood, muttered something.

‘……Ah.’

The eyes staring at him widened, and the lower eyelids beneath long, delicate lashes reddened.

It was despair.

It was resignation.

‘Aaah……!’

A scream as if a person’s soul was completely crushed.

The eyes facing him slowly closed, and the body collapsed. And from the pale lips that had been clinging to him……

‘Black blood.’

In the dream, black streams of blood flowed madly from the girl’s closed eyes and resigned lips.

Puha!

Taran lifted his head. Water dripped from his upper body, and his blue-green hair was wet, sticking to his face.

His long, beautiful blue-green eyelashes were soaked, making him look as if he were crying, but beneath them, his ice-blue eyes……

‘Has our master truly gone mad?’

They looked half-crazed, worrying his attendants. What kind of nightmare could make him act like this?

But Taran didn’t know what his attendants were thinking. He didn’t care either.

Black blood is the end for those who fail to purify contaminated magical power.

Only then did “he” urgently embrace the girl and shout something.

But the girl’s eyes never reflected him again, and after that, Taran couldn’t recall anything more about the dream.

‘And I think there was some pink-haired woman too……’

The more he tried to remember, the more it slipped away.

Finally, all that remained in his mind was the long hair fluttering in the snowy wind, the skin white to the point of pallor, and the large eyes that gazed at him in despair.

Endlessly recalling this, Taran unconsciously moved his lips.

“……Partanie.”

“Huh? Why the lady again?”

“What?”

Lady?

Taran, dripping wet, raised his head at his attendant’s voice.

The attendant looked at the dripping Taran, shook his head, and threw a towel that had lost its warmth onto Taran’s head.

Catching it reflexively, Taran finally realized he was soaked in cold water.

“What the hell.”

At the familiar curse, the attendants were relieved. Our master has come to his senses.

Taran roughly removed the wet shirt clinging to his muscular torso and threw it aside.

Getting up and immediately standing half-naked, cursing vulgarly, Taran looked more like a thug than the second son of the noble Dragonia Grand Duke. His attendants were even more relieved by this typical behavior.

“You just mentioned the lady’s name.”

The relatively respectful tone when referring to Partanie was because, although Taran’s faction and Penelope’s faction partially overlapped, they weren’t the same.

Not only did they serve different masters, but more importantly, their domains differed greatly.

‘Penelope aims for the household management of the Grand Duke’s castle.’

Traditionally, this was a right granted to the mistress and daughters of the Grand Duchy, so Partanie, who suddenly appeared as the daughter of the Grand Duke of Dragonia, could threaten Penelope by her mere existence.

That was why Penelope was so insanely hostile toward Partanie.

‘Ridiculous. She thinks she’s something special.’

Taran’s attendant sneered.

It was true that Penelope had a pretty face, so if by chance she truly caught the Grand Duke’s eye and became his concubine, it would be good or at least not bad for Taran, which was why they had left her alone.

But there should be limits.

No matter how much she was called a half-breed and not properly acknowledged, she was still the daughter brought by the Grand Duke of Dragonia himself.

To raise a hand against such a lady and call herself “madam.”

‘She’s insane.’

It seemed she had been causing endless trouble while they weren’t paying attention to the household affairs of the Grand Duchy.

But it was puzzling. How could someone like Penelope persecute the daughter brought by the Grand Duke of Dragonia?

Even if the Grand Duke had neglected her, this made no sense.

Unless someone was backing Penelope from behind……

“……Me?”

The attendant’s thoughts were interrupted by Taran’s voice.

What he faced was his master’s puzzled expression.

Whether from wiping off the water or coming to his senses, Taran seemed unable to remember what he had said.

“Ah…… No. I must have misheard.”

“Really?”

The attendant, instinctively judging that this conversation shouldn’t continue, changed the subject, but the name “Partanie” threw a stone into Taran’s sinking unconscious.

The silhouette of the dying girl in his dream overlapped with that of the youngest sister he had never particularly cared about.

“……No, it can’t be.”

Taran bit his lip.

There’s no way that woman on the verge of death could be Partanie.

The youngest daughter of Dragonia, who even received the noble name of “Par,” dying so miserably…..

‘It’s impossible.’

Taran clenched his fist, denying his dream.

Even while denying it, Taran couldn’t erase from his mind the purple-blue hair he had seen in his dream. As far as he knew, only one person had such a distinctive color.

With lips now bleeding from biting them so hard, Taran asked:

“Hey, where is she now?”

“She?”

“The youngest! Partanie!”

When Taran asked irritably, his attendants were puzzled.

“What? Why so suddenly, this is unlike you—”

“Damn it, are you going to keep asking questions? Just answer me!”

As if stung by the comment that it was unlike him, Taran exploded in anger.

‘But he never cared before?’

‘Didn’t he hate how she uselessly clung to him?’

‘With what happened last time too, why is he acting like this?’

Why was he behaving as if he would die if he didn’t see her right away?

The attendants exchanged glances, thinking their mad dog of a superior was even crazier today.

Then they suddenly realized,

With Taran and themselves busy investigating, and even Kalenso away, would Penelope have really remained idle during this time?

‘Surely not……’