Time of the Blind Beast - Chapter 126

Lisanne, who had been lying on Ezekiel’s chest to check if his heart was beating, suddenly sprang up.

“Your voice…”

“You can hear it?”

“…Call me again.”

“Ezekiel.”

“Again.”

“Ezekiel.”

He slowly blinked his eyelids.

“…Am I dreaming? Or am I hearing things again? Because I wanted so badly to hear your voice.”

“It’s not a dream. It’s not an illusion, not a hallucination. This is real. You can keep hearing it. I’ll call you as much as you want. So just stay awake.”

She, too, had to stay alert. Lisanne steadied her heart. Now that his consciousness had returned, there was no more time to waste.

She tore her clothing and tightly bound Ezekiel’s wound to stop the bleeding.

“I’ll find the school somehow and bring back people who can help… Just wait here a little longer.”

Carrying a trace of fear, Lisanne repeated her words, “Don’t you dare die.”

“…Don’t worry. I finally heard your answer that you’ll marry me. I can’t die now, it’d be too unfair,” Ezekiel promised.

Throwing aside her shoes, her skirt torn to shreds so that even her thighs were bared, Lisanne ran toward the dark mountain path, then turned back.

Ezekiel nodded.

That brief motion was both comfort and encouragement. The mountain no longer looked dark, no longer felt frightening.

Lisanne ran up the mountain path.

Retracing her memory in haste, she hurried back along the path. It hadn’t been long when Lisanne froze at the sound of footsteps approaching.

At this hour, who could it be?

Could there still be surviving spies?

Lisanne, pale with fear, scanned her surroundings. If she encountered spies from Davis again, this time she intended to return straight to Ezekiel’s side and die with him. They weren’t far apart, so at least that final wish could be fulfilled.

But the voice that reached her ears came from an unexpected figure.

“Ro— no, Miss?”

The soldiers she knew well stood before her. Especially the man in front, Montcalm, to whom she had sent letters on Ezekiel’s behalf several times.

“How are you here…?”

So taken aback by the unexpected people before her, her words came out halting. Lisanne stammered to continue.

“The King’s Army… how are you here…?”

The situation was baffling for both sides, but there was no time to exchange detailed accounts.

“The Major judged that the spies might try to cross the border, so he dispatched men to keep watch over key points. Then, hearing gunfire just now, we followed the sound,” Montcalm answered in his typically steady tone.

“Miss, why are you here?” Feder asked.

It was phrased as a question, but from Lisanne’s ghostlike appearance, wandering the mountains at night, the men already sensed that something grave had happened.

“There’s no time to explain. This way. We have to get him to a doctor quickly.”

“Our Major is here?”

“He was badly wounded fighting the spies.”

At Lisanne’s first words, the subordinates raised no further objections. Following her lead, the men ran swiftly along the mountain path. Barefoot and exhausted, she couldn’t keep up, so Montcalm asked her pardon and lifted her onto his back.

Even when Ezekiel saw his men rushing toward him, led by Lisanne, he wasn’t particularly surprised. It was his men who were astonished.

“My God, what kind of state are you in?”

At the sight of Ezekiel’s battered body, Feder couldn’t contain his shock.

“You shook us off when we clung to your trouser leg to stop you, and now here you are, half-dead alone?”

“Feder, watch your tongue to the Major.” Montcalm sternly rebuked him.

“When else would we ever dare defy orders if not now, when your armband is off?”

Despite his insolent words, it was still Feder who hurriedly poured the emergency medicine he carried over Ezekiel’s stab and gunshot wounds.

“So just come back now. Once you return, we’ll accept whatever punishment you see fit.”

“I forced my way out. How can I return now to the place I kicked away with my own feet.”

“Then you shouldn’t have gone and made yourself a hero. There were bodies all over the path here.”

Montcalm added, “You know better than anyone the fearsome weight of the name Ezekiel Valdemaira. And now you’ve gone and singlehandedly slaughtered spies. What sense does that make? All you need to do is act as if none of this happened and return.”

With lips pale from blood loss, Ezekiel gave a faint laugh. “If my wife permits it, I’ll consider it.”

Wife.

At the title he chose, Lisanne’s chest swelled with emotion.

She fought down the sob rising in her throat. As if he understood her feelings, Ezekiel stretched out his hand, searching for her. Lisanne quickly placed her own hand over his.

“In this state I can’t bring myself to propose, but wait a little. I’ll put the ring on your hand myself.”

Feeling his fingers persistently seeking her left ring finger, Lisanne smiled with all her strength to reassure him.

“I’ll wait.”

Only then did Ezekiel, who had endured and endured, finally lose consciousness.

As she was carried down the mountain on the back of one of Ezekiel’s men, Lisanne touched the finger he had gripped until he fainted. On her fourth finger remained a ring of his blood, encircling it.

It was the most cruel engagement ring in the world.

***

The subordinates who carried Ezekiel and Lisanne down to the civilian houses of Cielsa immediately searched for and brought a doctor. Roused forcibly in the middle of the night by soldiers, the doctor rushed in a panic when he heard that the patient in need of urgent surgery was none other than Ezekiel Valdemaira.

Unlike Lisanne, who only showed bruises, scrapes, and a touch of hypothermia but no serious injuries, Ezekiel, who was gravely wounded, underwent surgery in a makeshift treatment room. The doctor cut open his forearm and thigh to remove the bullets embedded inside, then packed the wounds with crushed yarrow to stop the bleeding, wrapping them tightly as he clicked his tongue.

“Any ordinary man, struck by both blades and bullets, wouldn’t have even been able to move his limbs, collapsing and fainting right away. Dying wouldn’t have been strange either. And yet Major Ezekiel fought to the very end and defeated the spies with this body?”

There wasn’t a single part of Ezekiel’s body left unscarred. His entire frame was wrapped in thick bandages. He didn’t regain consciousness, and despite the subordinates’ attempts to dissuade her, Lisanne stayed awake all night by his side.

“In the mountains, he still talked quite a lot and was holding on well. Why is he still unconscious?”

“The doctor believes the Major forced himself to stay conscious to keep you from worrying. He must have pushed his body beyond its limits.”

That composure he had shown was nothing more than sheer willpower, squeezed out until the very end.

As Lisanne grew paler with each passing moment, Montcalm tried to console her.

“Don’t worry. There are days when even we forget that he is human. But honestly, I believe he will recover no matter what, if only to marry you, Miss.”

Even as they comforted Lisanne, the soldiers of the 37th Regiment arranged carriages to transport Ezekiel to Claris. In a rural place like Cielsa, even with a doctor summoned, treatment had its limits. Derosa, where Madam Serva had once scoured every resource to find skilled doctors, was much the same. Only the Valdemaira family estate, with several renowned doctors of its own, could provide proper care.

Montcalm gave another reason why Ezekiel had to be moved to Claris.

“When word of the Major’s condition reaches the royal family, they will act for the honor of House Valdemaira. The royal court physician will surely be sent. Instead of waiting for news to be delivered and for the physician to arrive, moving to Claris first will save precious time.”

Lisanne had no choice but to agree with Montcalm’s judgment.

One carriage was prepared as a sickroom for the patient, another for Lisanne, and a third for the doctor who would accompany them to Claris and monitor Ezekiel’s condition. Lisanne wished to ride in the same carriage to tend to him herself, but at the doctor’s advice that she might disturb the patient’s stability, she had to yield.

Ezekiel, still unconscious, was carefully placed into the carriage.

“My God, what is he holding so tightly that even in his faint he won’t unclench his fist?”

Clicking his tongue, Feder helped lift Ezekiel’s entire bed into the carriage.

About to board her own assigned carriage, Lisanne froze for a moment. She already knew what was hidden inside his tightly closed palm.

Sitting alone in her carriage, she wept quietly where no one could see.

The journey consumed more spirit than strength. Lisanne begged the doctor and soldiers to wake her at any hour if Ezekiel showed even the slightest sign of consciousness. She even rushed over herself to check his condition whenever the carriage briefly stopped, but the hoped-for news never came.

Would there be any change once they entered the Valdemaira estate?

But… would she even be allowed to enter that mansion?

In truth, Lisanne was not a welcome guest there. Until now, she had lived safely only under Ezekiel’s protection, but she couldn’t avoid responsibility for the fact that he had been gravely wounded twice.

Could she even cross the threshold of House Valdemaira?

Most likely, before she even reached the gates of that mansion, she and her family—who had shamelessly relied on Ezekiel’s authority to remain in the annex—would be cast out.

Truthfully, her family living in the annex had already overstayed their welcome. Their ruined house, their poverty, their age making it difficult to find new work—these worries might weigh on them, but Lisanne could support them herself now that her voice had returned.

But Ezekiel…

Even if she had to beg and plead, she wanted to take responsibility and nurse him back to health. Nothing else mattered.

Lost in thoughts of the looming future, Lisanne only belatedly realized that her carriage had veered off course, heading far from the other two.

“Wait. Where is this carriage going?”

The three carriages were supposed to travel in line, but when she opened the window and looked out, she found hers alone, isolated.