Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 66

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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 66

Lisianthus grew close to people easily if he set his mind to it. Even now, even to a princess he had despised as an unwanted child.
‘The way she was swinging that sword last time—completely reckless. I had to go. I asked Father for permission.’
He had seen them holding hands gently, ostensibly for treatment, Titania and Lisianthus with their fingers intertwined.
When had they grown so close?
He couldn’t bring himself to ask. Someone—something—was scraping at his rusted heart with an iron nail. *I’ll protect her. I’ll follow and protect her.* Lisianthus’s words wouldn’t leave his ears.
Raymond was far stronger himself.
He was far better at responding to emergencies. He was her betrothed.
Yet only Lisianthus could follow her directly and shield her.
“Still, looking at the current situation, it’s fortunate he’s there. Whatever those fools at the Southern Temple are scheming, or whoever’s caused trouble—we can’t know for certain. But having someone of Lisianthus’s caliber nearby means we can at least rest a little easier, no matter what happens.”
“…….”
“And the Communication Orbs that Miss Bibi sent in such quantities—that was a stroke of genius, wasn’t it, Young Duke?”
His throat tightened suddenly.
The world before his eyes turned black. His head throbbed. It was as if someone had thrust an insect into his ear. *Scratch, scratch, scratch*—tearing at his memories as if excavating them. No—as if exposing them.
It felt like someone was washing away the black ink poured to obscure layers of emotion and memory, then slowly revealing what lay beneath once more.
What was this?
What scene was this?
His heart thundered in his chest.
‘Raymond’ was not supposed to know this memory.
-I’m sorry.
Someone was pleading. Tears flowed without cease, and green eyes became like marsh moss submerged in a valley stream—once they caught your gaze, they would not let go. Damp and suffocating, dragging at your ankles like a swamp. No matter how hard you struggled, there was no escape.
-You want to kill me, don’t you? Yes, I understand. But please, let me live. I have something I must do. If I could just do that one thing….
Parched lips curved into a twisted smile.
Lips crusted with dried blood.
In attempting to smile, the corners of her mouth only distorted further. Hair that had once been silken now lay scattered on the floor like straw.
-You can cut off my arms. You can cut off my legs. Do whatever you wish. I will take Bibi’s place….
Take her place?
In what?
-Bibi will recover.
The woman looked like a beaten dog.
A dog that had been struck by everyone, cowering and watching for signs, yet her eyes burned with desperation. With bony arms she struggled to grip the man before her, trembling with the certainty of rejection. And yet, as though it were inevitable, as though she could not abandon this even if struck down, even if cast out.
-I know you won’t believe me. I know you think what I’m saying is absurd. But you love Bibi….
From her throat poured a voice like molten lava, a temperature neither she nor anyone could contain.
-Trust you with what?
-…….
Her gaunt frame shrank inward.
-You said you loved me, then fed poison to my sister, and when everything fell to ruin you vanished. Now you return with promises of saving my sister? And you want me to let you live because of that?
-…….
-……Liar.
His insides felt as though they would turn inside out. His trembling limbs seemed so withered they might snap entirely.
Where was this rage coming from? He wanted to throttle the truth out of her, to tear the truth from her throat. Yet if his hands so much as touched that fragile neck, he feared her already faint breath would extinguish in that instant.
If she died, would it not truly be the end?
Of everything.
-That too was a lie, then? Your love for me?
The woman’s green eyes cracked like shattering porcelain. *Crunch.* Something that had flickered with light slowly, infinitely slowly, faded away.
Like warmth draining from a life already dead.
Like a hope never truly harbored from the start, the woman released the hem of the man’s garment, which she had clung to like a lifeline.
It was only the lightest of movements, barely audible, yet the man suddenly became aware that he himself had drawn a sharp, involuntary breath.
That within the tangle of what he had taken to be mere rage, something other than hatred had been burning.
-Yes.
Her voice was oddly clear.
-It wasn’t love.
Like a ghost tearing itself apart and casting its fragments into the river of the underworld, like a spirit that scattered past and present and future with a careless gesture.
Strangely, he disliked even that.
Each time he heard that voice, even the last measure of reason that had remained calm seemed shattered by a stone someone hurled.
In the end, only shards would remain.
-So please, truly, you can believe what I’m telling you….
Because I have nothing left to lose.
Not even love.
It was strange.
Her face was composed.
And yet she seemed, faintly, to smile.
In that final moment, the voice he heard sounded only like weeping.
So much so that his own breath caught.

“Young Duke?”
“…….”
Raymond released his fist, where blood had begun to seep through the skin from the force of his grip. Cassian was watching him with alarm.
“It’s nothing….”
…It couldn’t be nothing.
Raymond was not a fool.
It was only that the more he deduced, the more wretched he became. Or rather, because he understood nothing. He felt as though he were going mad.
One day, Titania had changed, and a new member named Bibi had joined the household. Titania no longer clung to Raymond….
After the day she had nearly died.
Titania would laugh and joke that perhaps her former self had died and been reborn anew, but there was no way that was something she could say so carelessly.
There was something—something he didn’t know. Yet he could not dare to claim certainty about anything. He could only speculate by instinct.
The woman in that vision was not ‘someone.’ She was Titania. And perhaps Raymond himself.
The scenes in the vision were nowhere near pleasant.
Titania is of royal blood. The sight of her in such misery, begging him to let her live for Bibi’s sake, the suggestion that something had happened to Bibi’s welfare—none of it made sense. Nothing fit together.
A simple dream? A phantom?
Could a mere vision truly scrape at his heart like this, as though revisiting some past reality he had lived?
To the point of suffocation, without knowing why?
Raymond was certain of one thing.
Whatever he had seen, it was no mere imagination.

* * *

At much the same moment, in a spacious chamber at the Temple Outskirts.
Though the doors and windows were all shut, dozens of candles burned inside, bright as midday. Because orders had been given that no one was to approach this place, the area around the chamber lay in silence.
“The Empress Consort is gravely displeased.”
Gregory’s expression was pained.
A knight as imposing in frame as he was openly frowning—anyone with a weak spirit would have lost their nerve instantly.
Yet the figure before him showed no concern. Rather, as though this were no matter at all, he clicked his tongue.
“And what would you have me do about that?”
Cronen tucked a handful of incense into the Incense Burner before him.
A faint spark caught the incense and burst into flame. Cronen savored the scent at his nostrils, then sank half-reclined into his chair.
This was a posture far removed from the composed, unassuming demeanor he displayed in public—infinitely lazy and arrogant.
Gregory clenched his jaw at the sight of it, as though he himself had been insulted.
When Cronen had brought Prince Brian before, he had bowed with such deference his head nearly touched the floor.
And now this display of rudeness!
No matter that Cronen held effective authority in this place, Gregory moved by the Empress Consort’s secret directive in person—he should not be treated so cavalierly. Yet Gregory suppressed his rising fury and spoke.
“She ordered you to make a show of strength this time. That sword is absolutely not a Sacred Sword. She says it may be magic worked through an alliance with the Castrain Family. If you could uncover the secret and humiliate them thoroughly, she would reward you handsomely….”
“Did she not make unreasonable demands even at the last Dedication Ceremony?”
Cronen’s expression soured. Gregory, understanding something of his reasons, felt his own insides burning.

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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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