RAMHM Chapter 75

I Want to Be Your Hell

Novian's laughter—low, rolling through the bedroom as he stared at me the way one might gaze at a painting on a wall—settled like sediment.

"Did you steal a letter somewhere?"

"......"

"How many butlers or maids did you torment?"

"......"

"Or did you see Adrienne's ghost with that damned sorcery of yours?"

Novian lunged at me with terrifying speed, gripping my shoulders and shaking. Murderous intent. The killing intent to twist my neck and end me—it poured from his bloodshot eyes straight into me.

"...Sorcery?"

"Yes, damn it. You were a sorceress. A barbaric sorceress from a barbaric country. You summoned Adrienne's ghost too, didn't you? You summoned her to drive me mad. Whispered that I should actually love a disgusting liar like you?"

"What nonsense are you spouting?"

At the word 'nonsense,' Novian's brow crumpled violently. He looked offended. Even as I mocked him, my heart went cold. Novian—barely different from when he'd been drugged—shocked me with every word he spat. Still, he finally seemed to be spilling the things I'd been so desperate to know.

"Did you summon Adrienne's soul? So that—so that you'd call me Noah. Noah..."

Ah. So it wasn't 'nonsense' that tormented him—it was 'Noah.' I twisted my shoulders trying to escape from Novian's unhinged grip, but his hands wouldn't budge.

"...So Bliea was a sorceress."

"Stop it, stop! Stop acting! Just how long..."

"Did you love me at all, Noah?"

"Stop it!"

The force felt like it would crush me. My shoulders seemed ready to crumble, but I didn't back down.

"Why did you lie and say you were 'An' when you knew the person I'd exchanged hearts with since childhood was Rhodness? How could such a coincidence exist? Since 'An' from Rhodness's nickname Rhoan was also in your name, I—having never seen his face—was easy to fool, wasn't I? Is that why you forbade me from using the nickname 'An' anymore?"

Novian's face, flushed crimson with rage, went pale.

"If you didn't even love me, why did you marry me? Ah, for the Crown Prince's sake? You wanted to give the eastern forces to the Crown Prince?"

I slipped from his grip in an instant. Novian had pushed me away himself, his face struck as if by lightning.

"You—what are you?"

"But why did you say you loved me? You only needed to deceive me while treating me reasonably well. So why did you do it? What you wanted—our marriage alone—was enough even without my love. So why bother with such pointless actions?"

"Just what are you? What the hell are you!"

"Adrienne."

The sneer had long since vanished from Novian's stone-rigid lips. He stared at me vacantly—as if looking at Adrienne's corpse he'd just finished burying.

"I'm Adrienne."

"That's impossible."

Novian shook his head, denying reality.

"Adrienne is dead."

"Yes."

"Then how can you be Adrienne?"

"Why did you kill me?"

Novian's ragged breathing stopped abruptly. Why he deceived me, why he took Bliea as his mistress—I was full of questions, but having pushed my body into the ground today, I couldn't bear my curiosity about this one thing most of all.

"Pretending to be Rhodness, luring me into marriage. Whispering pointless words of love. Sharing hearts, sharing kisses..."

I took one step toward Novian. And he stepped back exactly that much. His eyes shook mercilessly as they fixed on me—then he blinked, terribly slowly.

Even if he hated to admit it, he had no choice but to acknowledge it. Unless she was Adrienne herself, even Bliea couldn't possibly know the facts spilling from my mouth.

"After doing all that...... why did you kill me?"

And with those words, Novian Trovika collapsed. Falling to his knees with a thud, Novian writhed like someone retching, wailing. Sometimes he scratched the floor, muttering. Because of the drug. The side effects were too severe. Even in his lucid moments, he seemed to be mumbling that he saw hallucinations.

"Answer me."

He raised his head with eyes as clouded as those countless nights when he'd come to me drugged.

"Why are you doing this to me? I gave you everything you wanted. I said I'd give you the Grand Duchess position."

I didn't answer.

"Just asking you to be my refuge—somewhere I could rest easy. Is that really such a difficult thing?"

"You stole everything from me first."

"......I did? What did I steal? Taking someone lowly like you and making you a Grand Duchess—just what..."

Novian crawled toward me, grinding his hands into the floor as if to pulverize them.

"Adrienne Pirreta loved you. So very much. Cursing her body that weakened day by day. Shuddering at how she could barely swallow a sip of water with her own body."

"I loved you too."

He forced it out—forced it through what seemed like a strangled throat. Fat tears dripped down his sunken cheeks.

"Do you think even now I'm lying?"

"......Wasn't everything a lie?"

The emotions piled layer upon layer inside me also came flooding out.

"You didn't fall for me at first sight, didn't really want me when you married me."

Novian, trembling as he listened to my words, laughed through tears.

"......You're right."

My strength drained away—gone. Hearing it directly was so different from suspecting it. Fresh tears threatened to spill when he choked out a laugh and continued.

"At first, yes."

He crawled to me on his knees and looked up at me. I clenched my jaw tight, determined not to cry.

"At first, yes. I didn't love Adrienne."

He was looking at the past me precisely through Bliea's face.

"And while I was with her, I fell completely in love."

His face looked like he was dreaming.

"My wife gradually colored my world. Brighter and brighter. More and more beautiful."

"......"

"The world had never looked so beautiful."

He gripped my hand tightly. I didn't even think to pull away, just stared at his mouth. The mouth that had been laughing like a madman twisted.

"Why did I kill you, you ask."

"No. No, I—how could I kill Adrienne?"

He repeated the same words like a madman. Like his mouth that wouldn't stop, tears fell ceaselessly from his eyes.

"I did everything to keep Adrienne alive. To keep her by my side even a little longer!"

He grabbed my legs tight and shouted.

"But she died. She just left this world. Before I could even hold on. Just like that...... just like that......"

Then he buried his head in the voluminous dress, muttering like a lunatic.

"She wouldn't even allow me that brief time......"

And he began the familiar stories again.

"As if mocking me that she was never mine to begin with. She left me alone like that."

"......"

"What could I do? Nothing in this world was mine anyway. Since she was never mine, I couldn't even resent anyone."

I was tired of it. The tedious excuses. Whether drugged or not, it seemed there was nothing left to hear from him. Pyung—! Pyung—! Outside the window that had darkened without my noticing. At the light painting my vision red, I briefly turned my gaze outward.

"!"

Far in the distance, red fireworks embroidered the sky. I looked up at them like someone possessed. The signal flare marking the end had sounded.

"Adrienne was never mine, so I despaired every moment."

My heart—ready to burst—was briefly drowned out by Novian's plaintive voice.

"......Noah."

I opened my tightly sealed lips.

"There's something you don't know."

"......"

"Adrienne Pirreta was yours."

Novian—who'd stopped crying abruptly—lifted his face from where it had been rubbing against the dress hem, blank and dazed.

"Adrienne Pirreta truly loved you. Until the day before she died, she read newspapers trying to help you, searching for news of you. Worried you might be injured at the frontier, worried that news wouldn't even reach the Grand Ducal Estate for fear of upsetting her frail self......"

"......You......"

"So Adrienne Pirreta was yours. Even if nothing else in this world could be yours—until the moment before death. Adrienne Pirreta died thinking of herself as your wife, calling your name."

Novian's wet face twisted miserably for a moment.

"Her last small wish was that the face she could see at the end wouldn't be the damned maids but you. Do you know what I thought in that final moment as my breath was leaving?"

Remembering that foolish Adrienne from that day, tears flowed of their own accord.

"If I die, what will happen to Noah..."

"You—you dare......"

"I said I'd follow you in death—I prayed that wasn't sincere..."

Novian, who'd been shaking his head continuously, began choking out sobs from his throat. A sound rough and wet, as if blood might pour out.

"I hoped you'd push aside the image of your sick and withered wife, take a healthy new wife, and be happy."

Bang—! Bang—! The sound of fireworks created the illusion of drawing closer.

"That's what Adrienne Pirreta wished."

I sneered, swallowing the rising tears.

"If you hadn't deceived and manipulated me this much. I wouldn't have been able to let you go. If you hadn't killed me. If you hadn't killed me and then shamelessly scrambled to have this woman."

It was the truth. However it began. However my brilliant first love turned out. I had truly loved this man during those moments we shared. If he had—even once before I died—apologized to me or Rhodness, begged, whispered that he loved me. If he'd sincerely asked forgiveness, I wouldn't have come this far.

"If such a person wasn't yours, then whose was I?"

That's why it hurt and tormented me so much.

"Adrienne died with such thoughts until the very end, but she was someone else's from the start? So you suffered because you couldn't possess her?"

"I—I......"

"So now you can't have anything."

I pushed away Novian, who was still kneeling, clutching my skirt hem like a lifeline.

"You couldn't even protect what was yours."

He looked up at me, pushed away helplessly. Black hair disheveled and wet. His motionless wet pupils watched only my speaking lips.

"Pretty fireworks, aren't they?"

I pulled up the corners of my mouth, ignoring my thoroughly soaked face, and jerked my chin toward the outside.

"You'd better come to your senses, Novian."

And I gathered up the filthy scattered emotions and spat them out.

"Those fireworks signal that the Crown Prince has abandoned you."

The moment I finished speaking, the sound of armor clattering outside shattered the brief silence.

"The East won't support you. I sent letters. To Gregory and Bianca."

But Novian—as if he had no strength left to rise, as if he couldn't believe I had been his—began muttering.

"That you took a mistress before I even died, and that woman is now living in this house."

The clattering sound of iron armor was drawing terrifyingly close.

"Criminal Novian Trovika, submit to His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince's command!"

Men's thick voices flowed into the estate from outside, cutting through it.

"His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince, who needs the East's power, has finally decided to abandon you."

At the news of the Crown Prince's betrayal, Novian blinked slowly—as if struck in the head. The light vanished from his eyes. That I was Adrienne. That he'd been deceived by Bliea. Even the fact that the Crown Prince he'd trusted had betrayed him. Unable to believe any of it, I engraved the face of this mentally broken man clearly in my eyes.

"......Why."

Novian opened his mouth vacantly. Was he speaking to Bliea? Was he speaking to Adrienne? Whoever he was addressing no longer mattered.

"...Did you think I would become your refuge?"

I openly mocked him.

"Not a chance. I want to be your hell."

Just as you were to me. Having always smiled like Bliea in front of him, I could finally—only now—smile completely like myself.