What Remains in the Damaged Place - Chapter 65

Is this what it feels like to be consumed by utter shock?

The woman’s pupils were clouded, like someone who believed their neck was about to be severed at any moment.

But upon closer inspection, it became clear that it wasn’t just due to fear or tears.

Her irises were strangely distorted with two colors, as if something foreign had been injected into them, like dye seeping over the original hue.

Valderion noticed the artificial tint was pink and clicked his tongue softly.

Releasing her slender chin, he stepped back a few paces.

As expected, the woman, likely blinded, fumbled helplessly on the floor, unable to move forward. Her sobbing echoed through the room, chilling his eardrums with its pitiful cadence.

What made his head throb wasn’t just the sorrow emanating from the woman before him; it was that this wasn’t the first he’d seen today.

He had passed five women on his way to Dylan. Their appearances were strikingly similar to the first: their clothes in tatters, as if they had narrowly escaped some terrible ordeal, their hair either absurdly curled or unevenly hacked away.

And all of them had lost their sight.

Two things were certain.

All the women had silver hair, and all had irises tinted with a natural-looking pink pigment.

‘He’s completely lost it.’

Filled with an indescribable unease, Valderion made his way to the window.

There was Dylan, lounging lazily on a curved windowsill lined with plush cushions. The air around him seemed heavy and stagnant, and a cigar hung loosely from his lips.

“What exactly are you doing here?” Valderion asked as he approached, his voice low but sharp.

Dylan exhaled a long puff of smoke, the acrid scent filling the air and making it feel even more oppressive.

Dylan, who had been gazing out the window like an old man who had seen it all, slowly turned to face him.

“Today is the emperor’s funeral,” Valderion reminded him.

“…”

“You, as the crown prince, should understand what it means for you to be absent like this, how it looks to those below.”

At the very least, Dylan should have been among the other family members, pretending to shed a few ceremonial tears.

Valderion didn’t even expect tears—just for Dylan to quietly stay in place. Even the others, despite whatever distant relationship they had with their father, were still maintaining their post, holding vigil for only a few days. Yet this wastrel couldn’t even endure the second day of the funeral and had fled the ceremony.

Dylan showed no sign of taking Valderion’s words to heart. Instead, he laughed softly, still staring out the window.

“Sometimes, Rion, I think…”

“…”

“The daughter of Marquis Blewit was once a candidate for crown princess, wasn’t she?”

Dylan carelessly stubbed out his cigar on the windowsill, the motion chaotic and reckless. He then casually dropped it, swinging his legs down from the ledge.

“What if…”

“…”

“What if Lirette’s father hadn’t acted so rashly? Do you think she would have become my wife?”

His gaze, usually dull, was piercing and unsettlingly clear, not at all like someone who had been indulging in vices.

Valderion recalled the women he had encountered on his way here—silver hair, and irises that resembled rose quartz. No matter which way he looked at it, they were poor imitations of Lirette.

And the only one capable of such disturbing and destructive behavior was…

“An irrelevant fantasy,” Valderion cut him off coldly.

Dylan let out a weak chuckle, as if he had expected that response.

“I suppose it is.”

His once defiant and provocative posture slackened as he leaned forward, pressing his body against the cold glass. His half-lidded eyes drooped lazily as he settled into a slouch.

“Do you think I deserve to be emperor?”

It seemed like a question for reflection, but it was so devoid of any depth, so drained of color, that it felt more like a question born from sheer boredom. Watching Dylan, who seemed ensnared by a deep sense of apathy, made Valderion’s skull throb.

“It’s not a matter of whether you deserve it or not. By blood, you’re destined for the throne.”

“And you’ll make sure I get there.”

Dylan spoke as if reciting something already written in stone, his voice dull and monotonous. He crossed his legs slowly, his darkening eyes sinking into a shadowy gloom as though they were about to be submerged under murky water.

“But I’m not sure, Rion.”

“…”

“Life is utterly dull.”

Dylan ran a hand through his disheveled golden hair, his fingers trembling slightly. Likely a symptom of withdrawal from the drugs he had taken earlier, the effects of addiction crept in unabated.

But Dylan showed no sign of being bothered by it. Even the side effects of the drugs had become something he had grown used to.

“Do you think things will change if I take the throne?”

“…”

“No… I’m quite pessimistic about that, unfortunately.”

The throne wasn’t a place to measure enjoyment, but Dylan spoke with a deadly seriousness, as if discussing an important matter that weighed on his very existence.

“Lirette…”

At the mention of that name, which Valderion had been dreading, his brow barely twitched.

“Lirette wasn’t around back then, and I wasn’t like this.”

“…”

“That’s why I started playing these pointless games with those girls.”

Dylan’s expression twisted, as if dealing with something that wasn’t going his way.

“But it’s no use.”

He shook his head, his elegant, golden hair swaying gently in the air like silk.

“They can’t replace Lirette.”

“…”

“Their eyes… they’re different. The way they look at me…”

His voice was a low, eerie murmur.

It was like the ramblings of someone who had been obsessing over something for so long that they’d gone mad, the kind of madness that seeps into someone who has long desired something they could never truly have. Despite his languid boredom with life, the way he repeatedly fixated on Lirette was tinged with disturbing intensity.

That was what made it so unsettling.

Only when it came to Lirette’s absence did Dylan show no signs of boredom or indifference.

It was as if she alone could bring him joy in his otherwise monotonous, decaying life.

“Lirette…”

Dylan, muttering incoherently in a voice so low it was almost inaudible, suddenly lifted his head.

“Do you think things would be different if Lirette came back to me?”

A flicker of something strange glimmered in his previously dull gray-blue eyes.

The corners of his mouth, which had been set in a straight line, twisted into an unsettling grin, as though he had reached some kind of euphoric high just by imagining it. It was the first time Valderion had ever felt so chilled by someone’s smile.

Valderion regarded him with cold, steady eyes.

“What do you think?” Dylan pressed, fixating on Valderion’s lack of response.

Valderion rubbed his forehead, as though faced with a tiresome issue.

“If you really want my answer…”

“…”

“Well… I’d say it’s impossible.”

Though he seemed to hesitate, his response left no room for interpretation or false hope.

“Yeah, I suppose it is.”

Dylan responded with a deflated tone, as though he had already anticipated the answer.

He slouched once more against the window, his posture dissolving into a lazy sprawl of arrogant indifference. But then, all of a sudden, his eyes snapped open wide.

“What if I just took her?”

The crazed gleam, which had seemed to fade, flared back to life in his eyes.

Valderion, in stark contrast to Dylan’s rising intensity, remained calm and composed—almost eerily still.

Whether it was a boast or a warning, the weight of Dylan’s words hung heavily in the air, taut as if the very atmosphere was being pulled from both sides.

Valderion was the one to break the silence.

“Didn’t you say you didn’t want to make enemies with me?”

Dylan curved one corner of his mouth into a bitter smirk, like someone teetering on the edge of frostbite.

“Thoughts change with time.”

“Not exactly reassuring words.”

“Haha… don’t look so serious. I’m only joking.”

Despite the tension in the room, Dylan casually dismissed it with a laugh, as though he was oblivious to the icy atmosphere that lingered.

“You know I can’t afford to let her be sent back just like that.”

Did he really know that? Valderion doubted it.

Dylan shrugged his shoulders in an exaggerated, careless gesture as if the entire conversation had been a passing joke. He picked up a cigar from the nearby table and brought it to his lips.

“Let’s smoke this and then return to the funeral.”

Though still feeling unsettled, Valderion reluctantly nodded and turned to leave.

But before he could take more than a few steps, Dylan called out.

“Hey, Rion. You know something?”

“…”

“Before His Majesty passed away, he used to summon me to his chambers from time to time.”

The sudden remark stopped Valderion in his tracks.

Dylan took a long drag from the cigar, exhaling a cloud of smoke as he spoke in a hazy, cryptic tone.

“I wasn’t the only one. He summoned my other siblings, too, one by one. Do you know why?”

The deep sigh that followed felt particularly heavy.

“He said he was having dreams.”

“…”

“Dreams of my younger brother, Lagael… the one who’s dead.”

Finally, Valderion turned to face him.

Dylan, still holding the cigar, smiled faintly, his expression carrying an eerie, ambiguous meaning.