Chapter 21
The maid left.
To fetch the branding irons.
Even though terror at her return made me want to run, Kaelan held me tightly.
“Are you scared?”
…
I couldn't answer his question.
“It’ll be over soon.”
‘Soon? How painful will it be?’
But I couldn't ask him.
Because I didn't think I'd get a proper answer.
I thought of the paper knife on the table.
My only hope of escaping this place.
I tried to endure my fear by thinking only of that.
Footsteps.
The maid was coming back.
I would endure it.
There was nothing I could do but steel myself.
Kaelan was examining the branding iron the maid had brought him.
“Hmm. It’s been well maintained, Mary.”
“Yes, Young Master.”
“Hold the canvas so it doesn’t move.”
He dragged me to the middle of the room and handed me to the maid named Mary.
Canvas.
He wasn't even treating me like a dog now.
He was looking at me merely as an object.
Mary approached.
“…I’m sorry.”
With that soft murmur, Mary's hand gripped my shoulder.
Her hand was trembling.
Kaelan slowly stripped off my dress.
Cold air touched my bare skin.
I felt Mary's gaze.
On my back, waist, and thighs.
A body wearing not even underwear, covered in red traces left by sex.
Shame overwhelmed me at the thought of Mary seeing that body.
But my shame was buried beneath the terror of what was about to happen.
Mary's grip tightened further.
“I didn't see anything.”
“Shh. You have to be quiet while we're working. Mistakes won't be tolerated.”
A whisper.
I felt grateful.
At the same time, I felt sorry that she, who looked younger than I, had to see something like this.
A fireplace stood beside where I had been dragged.
He placed several branding irons, each with a differently shaped and sized tip, inside the fireplace.
Each shape entered my field of vision.
Every one of them would leave a mark on my body, stroke by stroke.
A cold sensation.
A pen touched my skin.
With each stroke made by his careful hand, I could feel the anguish of a condemned prisoner spending each day awaiting execution.
I wished it would pass quickly, but the ticking of the clock sounded painfully slow.
The first stroke.
A semicircle.
The second stroke.
A circle with a tail.
Ca?
What he was writing was the alphabet.
Caelan
He was carving his own name into my body.
A mark declaring me his property.
The fact that I was completely subordinate to someone else.
The fact that proof of it would remain on my body forever disgusted me.
A trace that would remain even after I became a corpse.
A single tear fell.
The pen continued moving over my body, which was held still beneath Mary's hands.
C
a
e
Contrary to my silent prayer that he stop, his hand was careful yet unhesitating.
l
a
n
A man's name had been completed across my collarbone.
The future in which it would be engraved forever was right before me.
“Ella. If you move, it'll be da capo. So stay still.”
His words still included terms I couldn't understand.
But I understood that if my movement disturbed the letters, he would treat the wound and start again.
When he picked up one of the branding irons, I held my breath.
The man before me was no longer the person who had treated me like a dog moments before.
In his eyes, nothing existed but me, the flame in his hand, and the perfect letters about to be drawn on my skin.
The room was filled only with the sound of firewood burning.
Kaelan, who had been studying the branding iron, touched it to his own finger.
With a sound like wet meat being placed on a hot pan, the nauseating smell of burning protein filled the air.
My eyes widened uncontrollably.
He had injured himself without hesitation.
Yet his expression did not change in the slightest.
“Hmm.”
He merely let out a dissatisfied groan and put it back in the fire.
He was completely insane.
Could he not feel pain?
If not…
Was he enduring pain for the sake of art?
If he could be that cruel to himself for the sake of art,
then how much crueler could he be to me?
Blisters had formed on Kaelan's finger.
Now it was my turn.
“Perfect.”
A few seconds later, the branding iron was taken out again.
It began to approach slowly.
Slowly, precisely.
Its tip had been sharpened as thin as a needle, glowing like the evening sunset, but hotter than the sunset ever could be.
As the iron drew near, the heat that seemed to caress my skin made my despair-filled heart race wildly.
My breath stopped, and every muscle in my body contracted with a silent scream.
The branding iron touched my skin for the briefest moment, then lifted away.
But the pain was not brief.
It wasn't merely heat.
A white flash that seemed to pierce through my brain.
‘Please, don't move! If you move, he'll have to do it again!’
But, contrary to my plea, my body reacted.
My body trembled of its own accord.
I felt a powerful pressure on my shoulder.
Gratitude.
Gratitude toward Mary, who was holding my body in place, began to bloom.
But even after the branding iron lifted away, the pain continued.
The heat burrowed deep into my flesh, like a tree putting down roots.
An intense burning pain that seemed capable of incinerating every muscle and bone.
Instead of a scream, only breaths like a broken bellows escaped between my lips.
Mother and Alex came to mind.
Their bodies, burned completely black.
How much pain must they have suffered?
It must have been even more painful than what I was feeling now.
They must have screamed when they could no longer bear it.
Tears came.
Because I had failed to save them.
Because I hadn't even been able to ease their suffering.
I hated myself for not having been beside them while they were in pain.
But none of that changed the pain I was feeling now.
I, too, was simply continuing to burn.
It hurt so much.
Only now did I feel I understood how severe Mother's pain must have been.
I cried even harder.
Repeating apologies to the dead.
The long agony had etched only a single dot.
I couldn't even predict how many dots would be needed to draw a single stroke.
After being heated in the fire for several seconds, the branding iron approached the spot beside the first dot again.
But knowing that twisting my body would only force me to suffer the pain once more made me give up even resisting.
When the second dot was made, an even stronger pain crashed over me.
Branding irons of various sizes continued making dots in my skin.
…Three.
I counted.
I wanted to stop counting.
…Four.
Please stop.
…Five.
Why?
My mind began to waver.
Why was I counting?
But neither the pain nor the heat of the iron stopped.
They were creating a rhythm.
…Six.
The sound of iron being heated in the flames.
The presence of something approaching me.
A brief popping sound erupting from my skin.
…Seven.
Predictable pain.
But pain whose end I could not foresee was gradually destroying my mind.
…Eight.
Tears flowed.
…Nine.
Please.
…Ten.
The single digits had ended.
But there was no sign of it ending.
…Eleven.
As the pain pierced through my brain, my body no longer felt like my own.
All sensation vanished, and I floated through the sky.
…Twelve.
But the heat piercing my flesh again dragged me back to reality.
.
.
.
…Thirty-three.
I could no longer feel the passage of time.
I heard Kaelan's voice.
“The first stroke is perfect.”
Dozens of red dots joined together to complete a single stroke.
Only now was the first stroke complete.
Thirty-three dots for one stroke.
Caelan
Six strokes in total.
Roughly 165 remained.
Perhaps even more than that.
I couldn't endure it.
I was certain that I absolutely couldn't endure it.
But I couldn't escape.
I had to endure it.
The branding iron turned toward the fireplace again.
‘…It’s coming.’
I held my breath.
I would endure it, survive it, and get out alive.
I could see Kaelan's face as he concentrated.
And I would, without fail, take revenge on this man as well.
I quietly closed my eyes.
Only the smell of burning filled the room.
I couldn't tell how much time had passed with nothing but Kaelan's branding iron circling over my skin and the path it traced.
A cloth soaked in cold water touched the places the iron had swept across.
The violent sensation of fire and water meeting made the sensations that had sunk into slumber flare awake again.
Where the hellish heat had been, leaving only faint traces, only unfamiliar scars remained as part of my body.
He led me somewhere.
“Now, look in the mirror, Ella. What do you see?”
In the mirror stood a naked woman with navy-blue eyes and hair.
Clear red letters remained on her collarbone.
A stroke carved in flowing, elegant script.
𝓒𝓪𝓮𝓵𝓪𝓷
The shape of that name rose above my skin, forever impossible to erase.
He embraced me from behind.
“This is mine. Your body, too. Your face, too. Everything about you.”
Kaelan's lips touched my collarbone.
Lips pressed against the brand itself.
In the mirror, Ella was crying.