Chapter 20
Footsteps.
Kaelan would return.
There was no time.
Fortunately, the only things that had changed in the room were my position and the paper knife.
I hurriedly set down the paper knife I had been holding.
As soon as I reached the front of the bed, Kaelan opened the door and came in.
He was carrying a tray.
A smell reached me.
Food.
My stomach growled at once.
‘I’m hungry.’
Only then did I realize that I hadn’t eaten anything from last night’s dinner through this morning.
My mouth began to water.
Had I forgotten my hunger because of the tension?
Dishes I had never seen before.
The food on the tray was absolutely nothing a commoner could ever eat.
They were dishes only wealthy nobles could hope to enjoy.
An unfamiliar roasted bird decorated with beautiful feathers. Pure-white flour bread. A grilled fish I had never seen in fresh water.
They were foods I had never eaten in either my previous life or this one.
I wondered if he might let me have whatever was left.
The fact that he had brought the food directly to my room instead of eating it in the dining room gave me reason to expect it.
But if it was Kaelan—if it was that unpredictable man—I had no idea what he might do.
He might simply want to watch my face change from anticipation to disappointment as he ate right in front of me, or he might ruin the food and watch me eat it.
If he went even further, he might have mixed something into the food.
A sleeping potion, or something even stranger.
It felt as though yesterday’s memories, that horrific pain, were rising again.
Fingers burrowing into my mucous membranes.
A cord digging into my flesh.
Half my vision disappearing.
The pain of my ankle bone shattering.
The ankle that had been perfectly healed and should not have hurt anymore throbbed dully.
“Ella. Come here.”
Kaelan called me from the chair in front of the table.
How am I supposed to get there?
His command left me flustered.
Because of the chain, I could move only about four meters.
I could reach the table, but getting to the chair was impossible.
“Lord Kaelan, I can’t make it that far because of this.”
I answered reflexively and shook the chain around my neck.
“Hmm... so that’s how it is.”
A smile spread across his face.
Kaelan stroked his chin.
My heart felt as though it would stop.
‘I made a mistake!’
I had given him proof that I had measured the length of the chain.
Proof that I had searched the room.
‘…What should I say?’
An excuse? Should I pretend I didn’t know?
No matter which choice I made, I could see no good outcome.
As the silence continued, my anxiety grew.
Was he going to inflict another kind of pain on me?
My hand was trembling faintly.
When I looked ahead, Kaelan was smiling as though he were enjoying this moment.
As though my anxiety amused him.
“What.”
Kaelan finally spoke.
Every nerve in my body turned toward him.
“In that case…”
Time seemed to pass even more slowly.
I was afraid of the fate that awaited me.
“I’ll loosen it for a while.”
His answer—that he would loosen it—left me bewildered.
Click.
He rose from the chair and approached me, then unlocked the collar around my neck.
The collar slipped from my neck and fell to the floor.
I couldn’t believe it.
The collar had come off far too easily.
This was definitely a trap.
Even as I repeated that to myself, my neck felt astonishingly light.
Kaelan’s hand seized my wrist.
My body was dragged along helplessly.
“Wait. I can walk on my own.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
He released my wrist, strode away, and sat in the chair.
“Then climb up here. Yourself. On your own two feet.”
My steps halted at the hand pointing to his knee.
On his lap?
Shame rose once again.
When I was young, Mother and Father had often sat me on their laps, but after I had become capable of expressing my own will, I had never sat on anyone’s lap again.
To sit on someone else’s lap as a grown adult.
And to surrender control of my own body to someone else.
It was unacceptable.
A dog.
He was treating me like a dog.
Putting a collar on me and keeping me confined in his arms.
But I was afraid of what would happen if I refused.
I had never actively refused him before, so the fact that I could not predict his reaction frightened me even more.
What if he did something even more horrific than yesterday?
What if he went further than my ankle this time?
If that happened, I didn’t think I could endure it.
If the pain continued, I felt as though I would abandon everything and jump out the window.
I slowly stepped forward.
No, I tried to step forward.
But my feet would not obey me.
“Ella?”
At his voice, my body flinched reflexively.
I have to move.
I slowly stretched out my trembling legs.
One step.
Two steps.
Five steps.
In front of Kaelan.
Now I had to climb up.
But my hands, my legs, my entire body were trembling.
I reached for Kaelan’s shoulder.
I placed one leg on his lap.
The moment I sat down, I felt as though I would burst into tears.
Was it because I had lived in a woman’s body for so long?
My emotions had become far too sensitive.
Even so, unlike this morning, some of the rationality I had honed as a soldier was still functioning perfectly.
The window visible over his shoulder.
The distance from here was roughly three steps.
It would take about two seconds to jump.
But his reaction would be faster than that.
I needed a more certain opportunity.
“Good.”
Even so, his hand stroking my head was utterly humiliating.
I could not understand myself, with my reason and emotions acting separately.
Kaelan picked up the fork and knife with a satisfied look.
The roasted bird coming apart.
The angle of the wrist gripping the knife.
The tendons standing out whenever he moved the fork.
He was right-handed, but there was no hesitation in the movements of his left hand either.
Suppressing my emotions, I slowly observed him.
An opponent I could never defeat in a head-on fight.
Could I aim for his neck the moment he let his guard down?
He raised a forkful of the meat.
“Here.”
The fork moved toward my mouth.
His movement made it seem as though he intended to feed me himself.
Bewilderment bloomed in the middle of my shame.
“I can eat by myself.”
“No. I’m going to feed you.”
When I turned my head away, the fork followed.
“But—”
“Ella. This isn’t a suggestion.”
The fork was thrust toward my mouth once again.
I didn’t want to open my mouth.
But I had no choice.
The fork entered my slightly open mouth.
The food touched my tongue, and I tasted it.
A gentle, rich flavor from spices I had never tasted before.
It was the most delicious food I had ever eaten.
My mouth watered, and my stomach growled.
The small amount of food in my stomach only made my hunger worse.
“Good. Like that.”
His voice was full of laughter.
The food came toward my mouth again.
Bread.
I opened my mouth once more.
Like a dog accepting food.
I rationalized that I had to eat if I wanted to escape, that I needed the strength.
The pure-white bread I was tasting for the first time was soft.
A texture no commoner could ever experience.
I simply chewed.
Even in that humiliating situation, the food remained delicious, heedless of my feelings.
I gripped the hem of my dress tightly with both hands.
I felt I had to suppress my tears somehow.
“Is it good?”
“…Yes.”
My voice was thick with tears.
“Hmm.”
I mechanically opened my mouth when the fish approached it.
It was tender, with none of the usual fishy smell.
On the battlefield, I had eaten hard bread and rotten meat on my own.
When I was young, I had eaten simple meals filled with love with my family.
But now I was eating food I had never tasted in my life like a dog.
As though I were accepting food from someone’s hand.
Tears I had failed to hold back ran down my face.
“Ella. Art is about showing many different forms. Many different emotions. That’s why your tears are beautiful.”
Words from someone who did not even treat a human being as a living creature.
Rage surged through me at the way he viewed me as nothing more than an object created by someone else’s hands.
But my mouth continued chewing without pause.
I chewed and swallowed.
It felt strange to see myself submitting even as I felt anger.
One piece, then another.
Kaelan continued feeding me.
Gently, slowly.
“You eat well. What a good girl.”
He spoke as though he were training a dog.
I tightened my grip on the dress even further.
“Are you angry?”
“...No.”
“Liar.”
His eyes were fixed on my fist.
He had noticed.
I hurriedly opened my fist and hid my hand beneath the table.
But his eyes remained fixed on the spot where my hand had been.
“...There’s a scratch.”
His humiliatingly gentle manner twisted in an instant.
His tone was still gentle, but the atmosphere around him reminded me of yesterday.
Following his gaze, my eyes moved downward.
A small red mark remained on my dress.
A bloodstain.
Only then did I remember cutting my hand on the paper knife earlier.
“Th-that’s...”
Kaelan’s hand guided mine.
“I like freedom. Oppressed art isn’t true art.”
A jolt of pain.
His thumb was stroking mine.
Something was wrong.
I had to get out of this situation by any means necessary.
An alarm bell rang in my mind, telling me that nothing good would come of staying here.
“But after I gave you freedom, someone marred my artwork.”
“…Then wasn’t what you did yesterday a flaw too?”
My timid act of defiance did not even have a chance to spread its wings.
“A flaw made by the owner of a work of art isn’t a flaw. It’s the addition of another value, another form of expression.”
It was certain.
This man was insane.
“You still think you belong to yourself.”
His fingers tapped the table as though delivering a death sentence.
“Should I brand you with a mark declaring you mine, so you never forget?”
“I... What do you mean, a brand?”
“That would surely be beautiful too. Surely.”
With those words, he pulled the cord connected to the ceiling.
Not long after he pulled it, a knock sounded at the door.
“Come in.”
“Yes, Lord Kaelan.”
The servant who entered the room was a young-looking girl.
When her eyes met mine, she hurriedly lowered them as though she had seen something she shouldn’t have.
“Bring the branding irons. The ones I used last time.”
After saying that, he began caressing my cheek.
My heart stopped.
‘What is he going to use the branding irons for? …Fire?’
Brand.
He was saying that he would brand my body like livestock.
I wanted to deny it.
“...Understood.”
But the pity and compassion in the maid’s eyes as she withdrew made even denial meaningless.
Kaelan was holding me tightly, making even an attempt to escape impossible.
“I’ll carve a beautiful mark into you. You can look forward to it.”
Look forward to it?
At his announcement of something I could never look forward to, a small act of defiance escaped me.
“…I don’t like it.”
A small voice.
“Hmm?”
“…I don’t like it.”
A louder voice.
“I said I don’t like it!”
I shouted.
“Oh. Resistance.”
Kaelan laughed.
“Good. That’s beautiful too. As expected, I can’t yield you to anyone.”
Despair washed over me at the sight of him enjoying even my resistance.
Removed the translator draft’s duplicated closing sentence and retained the single source closing line.