When Iris turned around, he shrugged his shoulders and said,
“Yes, just like that.”
“Haha. Indeed.”
“What… did Janna do something wrong?”
Janna pouted her lips, looking awkward and uncomfortable as if they were laughing without her.
Moved by her cute expression, Iris bent down and gently tapped the tip of Janna’s nose.
“If you want it, I could buy it for you.”
Janna was clumsy at showing her feelings.
So Iris simply waited patiently.
“…I want it.”
Even if it took some time, until she said it like this.
Smiling brightly, Iris took her hand and led her to the counter.
When the bell above the door jingled, a woman who appeared to be the shop owner came out, wiping her hands on her apron.
Following the exchange of goods and money between them, Janna’s eyes darted like a cat’s.
“Here you go. Thank you.”
After finishing the payment, the owner smiled kindly and asked,
“Out shopping with your husband?”
That smile soon shifted to Janna, who was holding Iris’s hand.
“The child is adorable.”
It seemed she had mistaken Janna for the child of Cedric and Iris.
At those words, Janna swallowed hard.
She and her older sister Tania were children born to a woman Al Baizan had purchased from their father.
People called them illegitimate children.
So whenever they heard such words, Tania and Janna had to run away.
Because they were ashamed children.
Even now, she wanted to run away.
‘Why won’t she let go?’
Iris did not release her hand.
Instead, she held it tighter and answered warmly,
“That’s right. Isn’t she cute?”
Janna’s heart fell from the sky to the ground.
The painful wounds of the past had only scarred over, but Iris was applying balm over them.
And not just her.
“Here.”
Cedric also took the other hand Janna had left free.
They shared the soft cloud-like sweets from the street, and strolled the beautiful streets without doing anything else.
Sylvia and her sister also loved her.
They had even played together like this before.
‘But why does it feel different?’
These people are strangers.
Why are they treating me so well? There had been no one like this except Sylvia and Tania.
‘They don’t call me a demon.’
They even sang lullabies. Despite misunderstandings, they treated her as if nothing was wrong.
Since yesterday, a small space had formed in Janna’s heart, which had been filled with Sylvia and Tania.
It was just big enough for two more people, and that space was growing.
But time was not enough for Janna to be certain what this feeling was.
“We’re here.”
They had already arrived at the mansion.
Only now did Janna start clenching and unclenching her hands nervously. The feeling was strange.
“Oh, you’re back?”
Tania, who had been playing chess in the hall instead of resting in a comfortable chair, smiled brightly.
Opposite her, Yurian looked unsettled in contrast.
‘I failed to fulfill my duty as a knight.’
But fortunately, it seemed nothing had happened to the three.
That was a relief, yet inside Yurian’s heart, a crack had formed.
‘It was the same back then.’
It was okay for him not to be there.
Even the Duchess who gave him the chance…
‘Maybe it’s okay for me not to be there.’
It was a truth he didn’t want to accept.
In retrospect, it was foolish—she had given a chance, not acceptance.
He was still far from ready.
‘I promised to learn.’
His mind was already troubled. Unable to face the masters, Yurian looked back at Janna, whose eyes shone brightly, as Tania patted her head and Iris spoke to her.
“Yurian.”
Iris called hurriedly, but it seemed he didn’t hear.
As she was about to follow him, someone grabbed her shoulder.
It was Cedric.
“I’ll go.”
Iris looked at him, a little surprised.
He had never avoided Yurian before, but this was the first time he had stepped forward to speak like this.
‘Of course, they don’t like me much.’
A phrase from deep within her memories—the words Cedric once said—came to mind.
“Yurian.”
At Cedric’s call, Yurian stopped in his tracks.
He had thought he wouldn’t be able to meet Cedric’s gaze no matter who called, but hearing his name spoken like that, he had no choice but to turn his head.
“Yes, Master.”
Instead, Yurian bowed deeply.
Cedric, noble as ever, looked down at him and finally spoke words he hadn’t been able to say for a long time.
“I have forgotten.”
Yurian flinched.
Neither of them could deny what memory Cedric referred to when he said he had forgotten.
“Then you must forget too.”
He lifted his head to meet Cedric’s gaze.
Unlike his own confused expression, Cedric’s face remained unchanged.
If anything, he seemed to have foreseen this moment long ago.
Just as if he was done speaking, Cedric turned to leave, but Yurian couldn’t hold back any longer.
“How can you forget something like that?”
This was not forgiveness. Not something to be forgiven.
“I will never forget.”
Cedric stopped, like before.
But he did not look back.
His red eyes, darkened and sinking, traced back to the past.
When he first met Yurian, the latter had said to him,
“We’re about the same age. If you really want to put it that way, maybe we’re friends.”
“I accept that I lost because I was weak.”
He didn’t seem to care that he had lost to someone younger than himself.
“But even though you said you accepted it…”
Yurian also avoided Cedric, just like everyone else did.
There were things Cedric never wanted to ask, but at this moment, he turned back and said,
“Am I still your friend?”
When he first met Yurian, he said that to Cedric.
And so Cedric thought maybe this time it could be different.
“You resemble Violet.”
“But I can’t be with you.”
The one who saved him said this with a pained expression.
The only blood relative who had once opened their heart never sought him out or contacted him.
“Like your father, you’re the same.”
“You only give people false hope and leave wounds. Truly irresponsible.”
“Maybe your parents died because of you.”
He was not hurt by the cruel words of the murderer who killed his parents.
Because it was the truth.
His parents died protecting him.
All his kin had left.
But Leontheim had accepted him. At least at first.
Yet in the end, it was the same.
The knights, Yurian—everyone avoided him, just like always.
He must be a failed man. That was certain. But still—
“Cedric.”
The name he whispered shyly, as if embarrassed whenever he spoke it.
A beautiful person who seemed like they would never return to his life.
Someone who always forgot his own pain and only remembered the kindness others showed him.
After meeting Iris, Cedric didn’t want to think like that anymore.
“Not this person.”
Please don’t leave my side.
Please don’t be hurt by this shattered, terrible me.
I’ll give you my heart.
He could never confess this to Iris.
Afraid she would run away, having only just started to approach him.
If he had been the old Cedric, he wouldn’t have stopped Yurian.
He had abandoned the desire to rely on others—strangers were just strangers, who would leave someday.
But now there was someone he wanted to stay beside.
So he couldn’t help but ask what he truly didn’t want to know.
Cedric turned and said,
“Am I still your friend?”
Yurian stared at those trembling, pain-filled red eyes, feeling as if he couldn’t breathe.
Yes, he had told his former master those words.
At the time, he had foolishly believed it could be possible, unaware he would hit rock bottom like this.
Now he knew.
“No.”
He was far too worthless to be called a friend by that shining man.
At Yurian’s words, the last flicker of hope vanished from Cedric’s eyes.
He said no more, simply continuing on his way.
That proud figure held the same deep loneliness carved into it as when he was first seen.
It took great courage for Yurian to say those words.
But…
Was that courage really the right choice?
Yurian watched Cedric’s departing back endlessly, no longer certain.
The blizzard that had silenced the village finally settled down after two or three days.
“Hm. This looks good enough. The path will be icy, but Hellis wheels should be enough.”
Tania said after checking outside.
“…I see.”
Chapter 88