Queen of Revenge - Chapter 105

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 105
“…Do I really need to finish them off?”
The ripples I’d been desperately trying to ignore in my heart suddenly surged into waves.
I barely managed to suppress the rising emotions.
“Keep your voice down. The Queen’s eyes and ears are likely observing us even now. And I’ve told you—I dislike informal speech.”
“You’re not uninterested, are you?”
“If you’re going to be this uncooperative—.”
“Why I trampled Levia. Why I asked the Queen of Elovis for you. You don’t want to know? Truly?”
Kairon pressed me with barely contained impatience.
I clenched my fists tightly.
An invisible leash kept slipping through my fingers. It was like sharing a vessel with a savage beast. Tension coiled from my lower back to the nape of my neck.
“That’s why I asked. What did my neck feel like to you?”
I looked him directly in the eye.
This was the first time I’d broached this subject with anyone directly. My voice trembled slightly.
“I want to know if you really ordered Catherine to cut my throat.”
“I never did.”
“I also want to know if you truly didn’t understand what your words could do to me.”
“Iolet, I….”
“Of course, if that answer just now was sincere, then you didn’t know, so it happened. I understand. There are no more questions I can ask, and no more answers you can give me beyond this.”
I had no way of knowing whether time reversed immediately after my death, or if there was some gap before it wound backward.
Did Catherine really send my head to Kalande? Who knows.
Did Kairon really receive it? Who knows.
What did he think when he saw that gruesome remains? Who knows….
Did it matter? Nothing would change anyway.
“Perhaps your intentions or sincerity don’t matter much, Commander. You could casually demand someone or dismiss them on a whim, but powerless as I was, your single word cost me my head. Whether you witnessed it or not, I couldn’t say.”
Of course, Kairon wasn’t directly responsible for her death.
Even without Kairon, Catherine would have put her on the Execution Platform, and perhaps Kairon never even demanded my head in the first place.
So the responsibility was too ambiguous to be angry, yet too terrible to pretend indifference. The more I spoke of this, the messier it became.
I tried to steady myself.
“Since I haven’t mentioned that I’ve returned through time, I don’t intend to blame you for not telling me. I hid my regression simply because I didn’t want to speak of how I died. Beheading isn’t a pleasant memory, after all.”
The moment I mentioned beheading, Kairon’s complexion visibly paled.
“If you had no malicious intent, then that’s enough. But I want to know why you didn’t tell me beforehand. As I said, knowing the future is a tremendous advantage. Was there a reason to hide it?”
His jaw, which had been clenched shut, tightened imperceptibly. The thick knuckles of his fingers pressing against my shoulder turned white.
I waited for his response, but Kairon didn’t open his mouth. He only repeated the motion of biting the inside of his lip and releasing it.
No answer came. Disappointment spread across my face.
‘I’d rather he made excuses.’
Said he was sorry, or refuted it—claimed it wasn’t his fault.
That would have been easier.
Then at least I could have blamed him, accused him of how my death came because of him, of how he could stand before me with such an unbothered face all this time.
Kairon muttered something in a strained voice.
“…Later.”
“….”
“Later…. When I’m ready, then.”
It was a promise without a date. How unlike the man who always delivered clear, decisive answers.
As Kairon Winterbark washed his face with one hand, invisible cracks appeared across his features. Iolet exhaled softly.
Watching his face cloud with conflicting emotions, unable to settle on any single expression, I felt my resolve weaken.
‘I’m the one who died, so why does he look more tormented than I do….’
Unable to be honest, yet I couldn’t even bring myself to be angry.
Save for the sound of water lapping against the boat’s hull, silence settled over us for a long while.
Kairon stared at me with the vacant gaze of someone who had lost his voice, then whispered his question.
“So, have you come to hate me now?”
Iolet’s eyelashes trembled slightly.
“…There’s no question of liking or hating. We’re not divorcing immediately, after all.”
Apparently he hadn’t expected the word divorce to surface, for shock registered plainly in his eyes.
“Divorce? That’s not it, Iolet. Divorce is….”
“If emotion bleeds into our contract, it becomes problematic. The reason we didn’t explicitly state it in the agreement is because it’s too obvious a fact.”
Iolet drove the point home deliberately. The tension that had stretched taut between us evaporated without a trace.
“It’s the same now. You’ve already experienced the throne, so perhaps you harbor no ambition for it anymore, but such complacency becomes poison for me. So I’d appreciate it if you’d exercise restraint with your emotions. I’ll do the same.”
Kairon’s eyes drooped downward.
I wasn’t sure if such an adjective suited that man, but he looked exactly like a beast cast aside by its master, sullen and dejected.
“They say unrequited love is freedom….”
“Then don’t let it show.”
Even the corners of Kairon’s mouth turned downward.
As his voice faded, silence returned once more.
It was right to maintain distance from someone who couldn’t be honest. My mind understood this, but my heart bore considerable fatigue.
Perhaps because I’d grown attached to him without realizing it…. My chest stirred with a strange unease.
It was the moment Iolet closed her heavy eyelids.
Kairon spoke softly.
“I left something unclaimed from our last wager, Princess.”
His tone had returned to formality.
Iolet immediately understood which wager he meant.
On their wedding night at the Command Tower, they had made a bet: they would exchange questions, and whoever couldn’t answer would drain a cup of wine. Iolet had failed to answer two questions and left the debt unpaid. Now he was calling it in.
Iolet had no chance to escape; she was caught in the depths of his gaze.
“May I kiss you?”
His resolve came through unmistakably: even if she pushed him away, he would weave emotion into this relationship.
When Iolet tested him by keeping her lips sealed, Kairon grew somewhat anxious, scratching at the boat’s edge. Yet he didn’t rush to claim her lips first.
Iolet released a small sigh. Then she glanced sideways to check their surroundings.
All the boats that had been gliding past them had come to a complete stop.
The Nobles of Kalande aboard those vessels held their breath, watching intently. Though the distance was too great to hear their conversation, it was more than enough to sense the charged current flowing between them.
The Nobles of Kalande aboard the ship held their breath and watched this way. Though they were too far away to hear the conversation, it was close enough to notice the ominous atmosphere flowing between them.
‘What’s the point of deliberately leaving the Royal Palace for a date if it ends up like this….’
Iolet felt a twinge of self-mockery. My lips held little value anyway, so there was no reason to shy away from a strategic kiss.
The problem was that I now knew all too well what kind of kisser Kairon Winterbark was.
He would inevitably steel himself and cross the line I’d drawn, as if to prove a point.
Iolet hesitated for a long moment. But the longer the silence stretched, the more relentless the stares pricking at my cheeks became.
All eyes were upon us. When Kairon shook her slightly, his impatience evident, the words of refusal simply wouldn’t leave my lips.
“…Just not roughly, please.”
The moment Iolet murmured in resignation, Kairon cradled both my cheeks with my own hands.
Before I could even draw a breath, our lips met.
Kairon lingered on the surface of my lips before tilting his head and delving deeper.
The weight shifted to one side, and my stomach trembled softly.
With each exchange of lips and breath and saliva, Iolet’s cheeks flushed crimson. It was excessively hot and profound. My mind grew hazy, as though I were being inexorably drawn into a seething cauldron.
There are moments when one action speaks louder than a hundred words. Kairon chose this single kiss instead of a hundred excuses.
There could be no man in this world who would kiss a woman he once tried to kill with such desperation and fervor.
I could not mistake the will he sought to convey through this act.
I will not harm you.
Iolet’s shoulders, which had been rigidly tense all along, gradually relaxed.
Our lips met and parted countless times.
In the quiet night breeze that brushed against my ears, only the sound of lips touching and saliva mingling remained. It was sweet and scorching.
Each time our wet mucous membranes met and rubbed against each other, it was difficult to control the trembling of my body. Somewhere along the way, Kairon’s hands had come to support the back of my head and my lower back.
My heart raced as though it no longer belonged to me.
Thump, thump, thump….
Iolet closed my eyes, acutely aware of the gazes openly fixed upon us. The ring finger of my left hand, adorned with a wedding band, felt as though it were aflame.

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