Chapter 5.2

When she woke again, the pain was gone.

Rosaline blinked up at the canopy over her bed. It was the same one she always saw in the mornings.

The familiarity of it nearly made her believe everything had just been a nightmare, but the memories were too vivid. The violently stopped carriage. The hand that had yanked her out by the arm. The strange man’s face when she awoke in that unfamiliar room…

It couldn’t have been a dream.

Where was her sister?

She shot upright in bed.

“Aria?”

“Rose!”

Her sister appeared from beyond the canopy, rushing over from the chair where she’d been sitting.

Rosaline’s eyes widened at the sight of her. She looked fine. Clean. Untouched.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Rosaline reached out, feeling her sister’s gaunt arms and hollow cheeks with her hands.

“I-I was so terrified something might have happened to you…”

Even when she first woke in that strange place, Aria had been her first thought.

Thankfully, she seemed mostly unharmed, save for faint rope marks around her wrists. Rosaline noticed she had similar marks on her own wrists. They must have formed when they were tied up.

Aria pulled her into a hug.

“Rose, I’m so sorry. I was the one who asked to go out…”

Her voice trembled with guilt. Rosaline shook her head.

“It’s not your fault.”

They hadn’t known anything would happen. The blame wasn’t hers.

It wasn’t right for the victim to feel guilty when someone else had committed the crime.

Afterward, the family’s physician came to examine Rosaline.

“I’ll leave the medicine for your wrists with the maid.”

The moment the physical examination was over, Aria dismissed him.

Once they were alone, Aria filled Rosaline in on what had happened while she was unconscious.

The Imperial Mage had broken the spell and rescued her, but the kidnapper had already escaped through a secret passage.

“I already gave my statement, but the palace will probably send someone to ask you about the kidnapper’s appearance.”

Aria went on, recounting how the whole house had erupted in panic after their disappearance; how the knight assigned to guard them now knelt in disgrace before the mansion’s gates; how their parents were racing home the instant word reached them.

Rosaline listened quietly, but eventually, she noticed the fatigue on Aria’s face.

“That’s enough for now. Go and rest.”

“I’m fine, Rose. I can—”

“Please.”

Her sister’s heart condition always got worse when she pushed herself.

Even speaking for too long usually exhausted her.

Aria didn’t protest further, pulling the bell rope. Rosaline watched as the maid helped her sister up and led her to the door. Right before the door closed, Aria stole a fleeting glance back at the room, as if memorizing it.

Alone once again, Rosaline was just about to lie back down when a rustling sound came from beneath the canopy. Startled, she looked down, and her eyes widened in alarm.

“Were you waiting there this entire time?”

Synox stepped into view, saying nothing as he approached. Rosaline gazed up at him, his face looking somewhat stiff and unreadable.

Suddenly, the last moment of their secret tryst flashed before her.

“This has to be the last time.”

She bit the inside of her lip. If she could have followed her heart, she would’ve asked Synox, What did that mean? Were you ending things? Were you going to propose to my sister? Pretend none of this ever happened between us?

But she wasn’t strong enough to hear the answer, so she asked something else.

“I heard thanks to you, Lord Synox, my sister’s illness can be cured.”

“It’s true.”

“Thank you.”

Synox stared down at her in silence. His gaze felt like a question. Did she really mean it? Or deep down, had she hoped Aria wouldn’t be cured?

Even though Rosaline had always wanted Aria to get better, something inside her stung. After all, she had used her body to keep a man who loved her sister. She had never truly been free of guilt.

She dropped her gaze, trying to banish the thought, then paused before asking,

“Did you… kiss me while I was unconscious?”

It was a genuine question, but the moment she asked it aloud, she felt ridiculous.

Why would he kiss her when she wasn’t even awake?

Blushing, she stammered, “I just… I had a dream. A very vivid one. You kissed me, and it felt so real…”

“It wasn’t a dream.”

“…What?”

“I kissed you.”

She hadn’t misheard.

Startled, she looked up at him to see he was still watching her with that same unreadable face.

She stammered, “W-why?”

“Because it was necessary.”

His voice was flat, and in that moment, she remembered when he last had spoken to her in that same manner, wearing the very same expression he had the day she confessed to him.

He had stared at her with that impenetrable expression that felt like it could pierce through her skin, right before delivering a line that split her heart in two.

Without breaking his steady gaze on her trembling figure, Synox said,

“And from now on, even more will be needed.”