For the heart - Chapter 9

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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 9

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Those damn bastards, worse than beasts. How could they do this to a person? If I die, I’ll become a vengeful ghost and haunt them!

Trembling and sobbing, Tila wiped away the blood from Nina’s hands, face, and body.

As if venting her rage, she also threw the blood-soaked, roughly torn battle uniform forcefully to the floor.

‘She has quite the temper.’

Though she didn’t specify the subject, Cassian knew the curses were directed at the Emperor, Empress, and the sorcerer known as one of Arsed’s most powerful figures.

He heard every single curse from outside the canopy draped over the bed.

“Come here, come here! Quickly help move our Princess to the bedroom!”

Earlier at the arena, Tila had even pushed away Desmorak who approached them and guided Cassian to the Satellite Palace.

She never dreamed that Cassian was the Prince of Montregger who had come as a hostage, thinking he was simply a healer.

When Cassian arrived at the Satellite Palace carrying Nina and following Tila, he was somewhat surprised.

Though it was called a satellite palace, it was too small and shabby to be the residence of the renowned Princess of Arsed.

It couldn’t even be compared to the Main Palace he had entered to have an audience with the Emperor, and compared to this, the Western Palace where he was staying felt luxuriously extravagant.

Even the bedroom they entered would have been mistaken for a man’s bedroom if he hadn’t known it was the Princess’s chamber.

And that of a knight with no material desires at that.

The room was that bare.

“Hey, now quickly heal our Princess. You said the healing wasn’t complete yet.”

Tila, who had changed Nina into comfortable pajamas, pulled back the canopy and urgently gestured to Cassian.

Nina lay covered with blankets, only her arms visible outside.

“Our Princess, looking at her like this, she seems to be sleeping so deeply. You can’t imagine how shocked I was when I heard the news.”

“….”

“Fighting that vicious thing with a body that had been aching all night, of course something would go wrong. I should have somehow stopped her. I should have just knocked her out with a frying pan. If I had, this wouldn’t have happened, sob.”

Listening to Tila’s sobbing voice, Cassian grasped Nina’s limp hand.

He channeled healing power into her, but no more would enter.

The claim that only the surface had healed was actually a lie.

He knew that Nina, who appeared to have fainted from her wounds, had simply fallen into a deep sleep.

When he ended up sitting next to Lillien, he inadvertently observed the Emperor, Empress, and Lillien, and they showed no disturbance at watching their daughter and sister being attacked by the demon.

Rather, they looked as if they were watching a very interesting match.

‘I thought the treatment wouldn’t be good from the moment they said they’d use the Princess as a war weapon… but this exceeds my imagination.’

The healers who should have treated her were desperate to escape, and Nina, who needed healing, couldn’t readily grasp a healer’s hand.

‘This is simply a good opportunity to make Nina Arsed my ally.’

His body had risen without him realizing it and moved toward Nina without hesitation, and Cassian thought this was a good opportunity presented to him.

The healing was completed in an instant, but he didn’t truthfully say that Nina was currently in a sleeping state.

If he told the truth, he had discerned that they were the type of people who would wake Nina even if it meant splashing water on her.

What she needed now was stability and rest.

Like the others, Tila also believed that Nina had fainted from extreme pain.

If Cassian’s hand holding Nina’s hand seemed about to let go even for a moment, she would glare with wide eyes, making silent threats.

Though it was a bit unfair, he silently continued to hold her hand.

‘I don’t know how she wields such a large sword with these small hands.’

Cassian looked down at Nina’s hand that he was holding.

Her fingers were long and slender, but her hands were small, and her palms and knuckles were covered with calluses.

‘Her sleeping face looks so young… just how long has she been holding a sword for her hands to be like this?’

Unlike what he had told Nina, Cassian had known from the beginning that she was the Princess of Arsed, Nina Arsed.

Unlike the other helmets scattered around, the small helmet that had fallen beside her had Arsed’s symbol, the chrysanthemum Selenia, carved in gold on the forehead area.

On Arsed’s battlefield, the only woman who would wear such a helmet would be the Princess known as the Knight Commander.

He briefly pondered whether to heal the enemy nation’s princess or not, but he had reached out his hand before making a choice.

It was because of those unfamiliar eyes that looked at him while enduring terrible pain.

‘Too empty.’

Cassian knew well what kind of faces the dying made when they met him, a healer.

Without exception, their eyes burned with longing for life. To a degree that felt desperate.

But Nina Arsed’s eyes were not like that.

Her blue pupils were shining, yet they were lonely and empty.

In that blue emptiness, his previously calm heart strangely stirred.

Because long ago, it was the same as his own eyes.

Perhaps because that left an impression, Cassian often thought of Nina afterward.

Though it was under dim moonlight, it was a moment when everything felt vivid.

Things like her golden hair bright as sunlight, her eyelashes that trembled as soon as he spread his healing power, and her hot breath that flowed out like a moan.

And even her foolish words.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have a heart.”

The Princess of the battlefield had said she had no heart as if she firmly believed it and had never once doubted it.

Cassian thought her head had gone strange from experiencing extreme pain.

But today he learned.

That her head wasn’t strange.

Inside the torn wound, within the broken ribs, what should definitely have been there was absent.

He had thought the phrase “with an empty place where her heart should be” in the oracle’s content was merely a metaphor for an immortal body.

But to actually have no heart…

It was so strange, and the thought that something was wrong kept nagging at Cassian’s nerves.

“Again… you guys. I thought it was a dream…”

Cassian raised his head at the voice that came like a small murmur.

* * *

Nina’s eyelids slowly opened and closed as if awakening from a very deep sleep.

“Your Highness! Are you finally coming to your senses?!”

“Yeah.”

“No, no! You must lie down more!”

“I’m fine. Tila, I’m hungry.”

“You’re hungry?! That won’t do. I understand!”

At the mention of being hungry, Tila rushed out of the bedroom.

Nothing was better than saying she was hungry to avoid Tila’s fussing.

Nina sat up and leaned her back against the headboard, then gently felt around her chest area with the hand Cassian had released.

She could feel that it was well sealed without any holes.

Nina closed her eyes as she let out a long, shallow breath.

“Are you alright?”

Though it was a simple and brief question, his voice was strangely tender and had an oddly ticklish vibration permeating it.

Moreover, this was already the second time.

Just as he had promised, he had healed her broken self again and was still alive.

‘Next time, and the time after that… will that man be able to stay alive?’

Nina momentarily saw Baraguz’s form spread before her eyes again, and instead of answering, she slowly lowered her chest while steadying her breath that threatened to become rough.

‘Even when the war ends, Father will use me as a tester for monster research.’

The fact that they could bring a captured Baraguz into the Imperial Palace must have been because the Emperor’s permission had been granted.

She had hoped that once the war ended, perhaps she too could live a somewhat normal life…

Today Nina had clearly realized that this painful life would never end.

His words had been right. Now the choice was hers to make.

Nina lifted her eyelids and met Cassian’s gaze as he looked at her.

“Is it still valid? The alliance you wanted to form with me.”

Cassian’s lips slowly curved upward in an arc, and his red eyes shone deeper than blood and hotter than fire.

A face that didn’t hide its ambition couldn’t be more beautiful than this.

It was the moment when the bowstring of his goal to become Arsed’s consort was drawn taut.

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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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