Beast of the Frozen Night

After pouring everything out, Anne immediately ran to the garden. She didn’t even notice the maids greeting her as they met her along the way.

She wondered what kind of face he would have when she said she remembered everything. However, the face that she saw was completely different from what she expected. The blank face she saw for the first time…

A burning fire rose from her chest. Anne couldn’t walk to the greenhouse and sat down in the forest under the thick trees. The wind that just came was cooling her flushed face as she held back her crying, but it couldn’t even wash her hot heart.

“Why…”

She thought it would be better if she vomited it all up, she thought that she would feel relieved if she uttered all the things that had been lingering in her throat all along… Not at all. It made her heart ache too.

Her face, which had been resolute, trying not to cry, collapsed. Anne burst into tears. Her tears dripped onto the cold stone floor.

Anne’s heart ached so much that she could not hold back any more.

11. Flowers rot, but resentment does not.

Dark clouds had set in early in the morning, and then it started to drizzle. It snowed every time the gray clouds covered the Grand Duke’s castle, so it was a new feeling when it rained.

Spring rain, early summer rain, whatever it was called, Anne never stopped admiring the changes of nature. The woman who was inspired by the change of seasons was no longer there. The smell of the pouring rain was stale, and the high humidity made her whole body sticky.

“Angroanne.”

“Get out.”

With the Grand Duke’s call, Anne did not even turn her head and gave a brief glance.

It was not long before the Grand Duke showed his face again. His face looked like he had aged ten years overnight. The rough skin and the dark shadows around his eyes told her that she had stayed up all night.

There were many emotions on his face that were staring straight at her. Confusion, self-reproach, regret, guilt and similar things were clearly visible even with her eyes.

But it wasn’t like she had any pity for him. Anne’s inside was so dry that she couldn’t even have pity on him, and it had been a long time since she had closed her heart.

“I have something to say.”

Hesitating, he stopped talking. He bit his chapped lips again and again and managed to open them.

“You might not want to hear it, but… You misunderstood something.”

His heavy voice trembled weakly.

Anne, without looking at him properly, buried one cheek in her arm against the railing of the window. Everything bothered her. Even if he begged for forgiveness, it was not worth reconsidering.

“Yesterday, when I asked you to explain, you gave no answer… It seems like you have made up an excuse overnight.”

“…”

He breathed heavily for a moment at her sharp tongue. It almost seemed like they would redo the conversation they had yesterday. Her reaction was not unreasonable.

“I can’t believe that your memories came back yesterday… I have something I haven’t said yet.”

“It must be very unfair that I got my memory back. Because everything you did was exposed.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

Seeing her trying not to show her face properly, Daymond let out a long sigh.

“I don’t have anything to excuse… I didn’t know that the child was mine. I thought you betrayed me.”

Was it so? She thought he had come to prevent an illegitimate child from being born, but she had other suspicions.

Anne’s head, which had been pointed like a spear, slowly returned to his face.

“Betrayed… That’s why you also doubted the seed in my stomach. Because I am an unfaithful woman.”

She finally understood why he was so terribly suspicious of blood yesterday. He couldn’t believe the woman who once blossomed the flower of doubt in him. It was only now that she understood what he meant by mocking her as an untrustworthy person.

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth right away? If you said it even then . . .”

“If I did, would you have let my child go because it was an illegitimate child?”

“Absolutely not.”

His face hardened and firmly dismissed it, but she had already tried to tell him the truth. And his reaction to the word child was vehement rejection.

Anne closed her eyes at the blurry afterimage before her eyes.

“Whether you knew it or not, that doesn’t excuse you for what you’ve done.”

He didn’t know it was his bloodline. It was a misunderstanding. He thought he was abandoned. Even so, where was the man who chased after her and wielded a sword?

Whatever the reason, what he did was unforgivable. As Anne reflected on her past, tears welled up in her eyes and soon started to flow down her pale cheeks. Even so, when she thought of the small life that she has never seen, she should never accept whatever feelings she felt for him for a moment.

“What’s the point of coming here now? In the end, the child and I both died at your hands.”

Each of Anne’s words flew like a dagger and pierced the Grand Duke’s chest. Her cold tone of voice was full of hatred toward him.

But this time he had nothing to say.