For the heart - Chapter 81

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 81

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Casian held Nina so that her chest touched his.

He spread his hands wide against her back, and rubbed his cheek against hers as she rested her head on his shoulder.

Thanks to Tila continuously filling it with warm water, all the bloody water had drained away, leaving only steaming warm, clean water filling the bathtub.

“Nina….”

Casian quietly called Nina’s name.

“It’s strange. Even when I lose consciousness, I can hear your voice calling me. If I keep following that voice, I eventually come to my senses. Only then do I realize that the terrible pain has disappeared.”

These were words Nina had once said to him.

“Nina, follow my voice. Please….”

* * *

Casian looked at Nina’s shoulder, which had almost completely healed, then closed his eyes.

Seven hours had already passed since he began channeling his healing power.

Even so, her body was still cold.

This was definitely different from before, when her body temperature would return quickly once he channeled his healing power.

Even warming her body with the bathtub’s water temperature seemed insufficient.

Still, what was fortunate was that Nina’s breath, which had been faint, was now steadily tickling the side of his neck.

“Nina….”

Casian gently pressed his cheek against Nina’s again and whispered her name.

Then Nina’s long eyelashes trembled slightly.

“Casian….”

“Nina!”

Casian quickly lifted his head to look at Nina.

Her eyes were still closed, but her voice calling him was clear.

“I’m here. The healing is complete too. There’s no problem at all….”

Casian couldn’t finish his words and quietly stroked her back. Just the fact that Nina had awakened made him breathe easier.

Nina smiled faintly at the warmth conveyed by his touch.

“I heard your voice calling me.”

“I was worried you might not hear it. I called many times, continuously.”

“…Thank you.”

Nina’s words of gratitude contained countless meanings.

In that moment when her flickering, fading consciousness finally slipped away, Nina felt ‘death’ for the first time.

Not because of pain, but because of the sensation that everything was over. Along with the certainty that she could never return again.

What held onto her life was Casian’s healing power, faintly connected.

Each time she heard his voice calling her name, her severing senses reconnected, and light seeped into the darkening space.

If he had given up, she truly would have stopped breathing.

Nina recalled Casian, who had appeared alone in the town square where everyone else stood frozen, before she lost consciousness.

Those desperate eyes as he used himself as bait, throwing stones.

“Weren’t you… afraid?”

“Of what?”

“Nairak.”

“What’s there to fear from a monster that couldn’t even fly properly after Your Highness already stuck a sword in it? What I was afraid of was….”

Myself, unable to heal you.

Watching you suffer in pain.

When Casian didn’t continue, Nina slowly lifted her head from his shoulder. Then she raised her hands to cup both his cheeks.

His red eyes slowly took her in. A deep light rippled in her blue eyes, as if she had come back to life.

“I’m curious….”

“About what?”

“You didn’t tell me. The reason you came to find me during the Festival of Lights.”

“….”

“Is coming out to the town square today for the same reason?”

As Nina wandered between life and death, that was what she regretted most.

She didn’t even think about her disappeared heart or the Former Emperor’s whereabouts.

If she could live, if she could sink into the darkness of death and meet Casian again, the first thing she wanted to ask was this.

That reason she still hadn’t heard.

Casian grasped Nina’s hand that was caressing his cheek and turned his head to bury his face in her palm.

As he slowly closed his eyes and inhaled, his bare chest swelled thickly.

With each breath, her body temperature, her scent, her skin all rushed toward him.

Only now, after confirming Nina’s vitality, did he feel that they were intimately touching.

As the sensation of his soft lips rubbing against her palm became more vivid, Nina felt as if her breathing was becoming labored.

His prominent nose bridge cut diagonally across her entire palm, then his long eyelashes slowly lifted.

His red eyes, deeply sunken, held her gaze.

“I thought it was different… but perhaps it wasn’t.”

“Tell me. What kind of feelings they were.”

Casian looked at her for a moment, then raised his hand to cup her cheek.

His thumb slowly stroked her now-warmed skin.

Her eyes, nose, lips, then her eyes again.

His fingertips touched everything as if confirming it all.

An emotion he had never believed in for even a moment was now blooming in an undeniable form.

Nina rushed toward him again and again, finally coloring him entirely in blue light.

The low voice of a man completely conquered by the existence called Nina Arsed flowed out.

“I love you, Nina.”

It was a confession lower than breath, deeper than prayer.

Nina looked into his red eyes while resting her hand on his shoulder.

Her nonexistent heart pounded. Blood rushed fiercely through her entire body as the shell that had been firmly hardened all this time quietly began to collapse.

“Even if I’m not… a noble being?”

Casian smiled faintly at Nina’s quiet question.

Where could there be a more noble being than the princess before him who had thrown herself away to protect her people?

“From the beginning until now, the only noble being to me has been you, Princess.”

Nina drew in a breath.

Even knowing his words were sincere, she wanted to confirm it a little more.

She wanted to know if the desperate breath that called for her and his warmth as he struggled to save her were the same as what she had felt.

Like a child opening her eyes to ‘love’ for the first time.

“Did you… wish for me not to die?”

“Even if it cost me my entire life. I wished for you to live.”

Tears welled up in Nina’s eyes.

It had been days of throwing away her life for others, having to throw it away again and again.

To her, who had lived carrying her unending life like a burden, someone was saying they ‘wished for her to live even if it cost them their entire life.’

Those words were unbearably warm.

“I always wished to die. This immortal body that wouldn’t die no matter what was terrible and so painful.”

It had been days of living as a war weapon like a murderer.

Though it was a life according to divine oracle, she had never been happy with that life for even a single moment.

She had lived pretending not to feel anything, but what accumulated layer by layer beneath was guilt, self-loathing, and endless pain.

Long tears streamed down her white cheeks.

As if understanding her, he nodded and cupped her dampening cheeks, wiping them away.

“But now I don’t want to die anymore. I want to live… a little longer.”

Nina said this with a trembling voice.

The moment those words flowed from her lips, she heard the sound of something that had been sleeping deep in her heart for so long finally awakening.

Even after passing through countless battlefields and witnessing thousands of deaths, she had never once wanted to live.

Because her life had been ‘orders’ and ‘divine oracle’ all this time.

It was like an infinite punishment she couldn’t abandon even if she wanted to.

But now, at least in Casian’s embrace, all those chains had loosened.

Each time his breath touched her, each time his warmth seeped in, the world that had been covered in death and pain gradually regained its color.

Nina raised her hands to cup his face. Her reflection wavered in his red eyes.

In those eyes that had endlessly saved her, she felt ‘existence’ rather than just ‘being alive’ for the first time.

Nina slowly wrapped both arms around his neck.

Casian’s eyes trembled slightly as he watched her.

“Casian, call my name.”

“…Nina.”

“Once more.”

“Nina. Nina. Nina.”

His low, soft voice called her name as if he could call it countless times.

Nina smiled quietly at her name tickling her ears, closed her eyes, and gently lowered her lips.

Their touching lips slowly opened and closed, moistening each other’s souls.

Hot steam rose above the bathtub.

The touching warmth and heartbeats spread through each other as their two worlds quietly merged into one.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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