Time of the Blind Beast - Chapter 71

Chapter 11: Every Night Feels Like a Nightmare

“Uncle, the soldiers will be coming here soon. If they ask about my whereabouts, give them this address. I don’t want you to get into trouble for hiding me. Just say you had no idea I came here after committing such a heinous crime. That’s the only way you’ll stay safe.”

“Child, I really don’t know if this is the right decision. Wouldn’t it be better for you to hide as well?”

“Even if I hide, I won’t last long. I already missed several stagecoaches on my way here. Descriptions of me and my parents have been widely circulated at every crowded intersection. It seems deliberate—to make people scrutinize one another. I’m sure some witnesses have seen and remembered me. If the entire family gets dragged down because of me… it’s better that I, the one who committed the worst crime, get caught.”

“The worst crime… even so, child, to call it the worst…”

“It is the worst. The opponent is the Valdemaira family.”

“You’ve gotten tangled with the last people you ever should have. Valdemaira—how do you even begin to fix this? What did your parents say? What’s their plan?”

“They decided to stay in hiding for a while longer and then move to the countryside when the time is right. The fewer people there are, the slower the rumors spread.”

“How did you persuade them? They’re not the kind to leave their beloved daughter alone in danger.”

“I told my parents that I’d gotten a live-in tutor position thanks to the principal’s recommendation.”

“……”

“I said it’s a small town, so communication might be difficult for a while, but that also makes it safer. I gave them all kinds of excuses, but honestly, I’m not sure how much they believed me. Still, they’ll at least hide carefully for a few months. If I can just buy that much time… it’ll be fine. It will be fine.”

“But if you get caught like this, what then? Do you have a plan for yourself? What exactly will be fine?”

She just, just thought it would be fine.

At the very least, if she were punished first among the family, perhaps her parents would receive more lenient treatment later. After all, in terms of severity, stealing a master’s belongings couldn’t compare to an attempted assassination.

So…

“She’s not moving… is she dead?”

“If she were dead, they’d have buried her already…”

Someone rolled her to the side and yanked away the tattered blanket wrapped around her body. The last bit of warmth was stolen away, and the chill of the stone floor struck her cheek. Only then did she groggily open her eyes.

Where am I…?

She blinked over a dozen times until her vision began to focus and the surroundings slowly came into view.

The damp air, the foul stench, a hand-sized patch of light on the stone floor, people of all ages in wretched condition, and iron bars slicing through her vertical field of view…

She was still feverish, gasping out hot breaths. She’d only heard of it in rumors, but she thought she knew where this was.

A detention center.

A place where those mentally unstable or commoners guilty of serious crimes awaited judgment.

…They threw me in a detention center because I’m a felon.

She keenly felt the power of the Valdemaira family. However long she’d been unconscious, when she woke, she was already a criminal behind bars. And since she’d harmed a member of the Valdemaira bloodline, no one would bat an eye if she died here, unnoticed. Even the criminals who’d made a scene outside would cluck their tongues and say she must be insane once they heard the reason she was brought in.

What a tremendous thing she’d done.

She’d known that already, but the reality hit harder now.

Maybe it was the aftereffects of the poison—her limbs had no strength. She’d thrown it all up, but the damage wasn’t gone. Worst of all, her throat hurt unbearably from having ingested and then expelled the poison. It was the kind of pain that made her want to rip her insides out.

As soon as she registered the pain, a coughing fit burst forth. As she writhed and coughed, the moment she reflexively swallowed, she wished she could faint again. It felt as if all the mucous membranes inside her throat had been scraped raw, sending searing pain through her. Even the sound of her cough was far harsher than any bout of severe cold.

A sudden sense of dread crept in.

She barely managed to pull one arm over and touched her throat. She tried to make a sound by vibrating her vocal cords, but all she got was a throbbing pain that brought tears to her eyes. The irritated, damaged membranes stung again with the taste of blood. She hunched her shoulders and waited for the pain that had seized her whole body to subside. Just that alone drained all her energy.

“We’ll be clearing out a corpse soon.”

Someone muttered.

Instead of moving her head, she slowly rolled her eyes and scanned the faces of the other detainees. All of them stared at her with half-lidded, vacant eyes like dead fish. None of them had the strength to care for themselves; they drooped like wet paper.

As her gaze shifted gradually, she locked eyes with the man who had taken her blanket earlier. He was now covering himself with the filthy, bloodstained cloth she had vomited on and turned his head away as if he didn’t know her.

The soldiers must have been too repulsed to touch her bloody, vomit-covered body and had just wrapped her in the blanket and tossed her aside. But here in the detention center, even such a dirty, worn-out blanket seemed to be a precious commodity. He clearly had no intention of returning it. She looked at him for a moment and then closed her eyes again. She hadn’t expected to get it back anyway.

There were so many places that hurt, she couldn’t tell where it hurt the most. Her breathing grew shallower.

While serving Ezekiel, she had thought she’d taken good care of his heart. But now, having experienced the poison herself, she felt even more remorseful. The poison’s effects were far beyond anything she’d imagined.

She now understood why he had burned with hatred for her every single day. She had taken the poison by her own hand and was in such agony she couldn’t blame anyone else. Yet he had not only lost his sight because of someone else but had also endured double and triple the suffering. How much must he have hated her?

“We still have some unfinished business, don’t we?”

Yes, those words made sense.

Would the pain subside first, or would she be executed before that?

Just imagining it was terrifying. It seemed better to stop breathing quietly in her sleep.

But unfortunately, such luck was not granted to her. She lost consciousness from the pain, and then came back to her senses because of the pain. Whether it was a nap or a fainting spell, the symptoms repeated in short intervals. It was painful enough to die, but not quite deadly enough to kill her, apparently.

She pressed her face against the cold stone floor and gasped for air. The winter season helped a little. The chill slightly numbed her senses and temporarily dulled the pain.

Of course, that effect didn’t last long. As the cold faded, the fireball inside her slowly reared its head. Her throat hurt, but strangely, her stomach throbbed even more.

What is this? What’s wrong?

Startled by the sudden stomachache, she groped around and pressed her belly. Then she flinched and pulled her hand away at the intense, cramping pain near her lower abdomen.

She ended up curling up, clutching her stomach with both arms.

It’s probably nothing.

She had to think that way. Ezekiel hadn’t just lost his sight—he had suffered from pain for a long time. Even though she had vomited up the poison, there was no way the damage would stop at just her throat.

Besides, even if she was in pain here in the detention center, there was nothing anyone could do. What doctor would treat a convict brought in for committing a crime? And her condition wasn’t necessarily worse than the others here.

From what she could see, most of the detainees were already sick or injured. Many had lost limbs, and the elderly, weak in stamina, looked visibly ill from the harsh environment.

“What could a young lady like that have done to end up in a detention center?”

“Isn’t it obvious? She was probably the mistress of some powerful man. Some women think their looks will carry them far, but when they fall out of favor, they end up dragged in here half-dead.”

She let the baseless gossip pass in one ear and out the other. It was nonsense, but it was better that way. Being thought of as a discarded mistress of a powerful man was far more ordinary and safe than being known as someone who harmed a war hero who defended the nation.

But even that silence she had hoped for didn’t last long.

Footsteps approached—step, step—beyond the iron bars and stopped right in front of her bowed head. She raised her head to check who had come.

And froze.

It was Ezekiel.