Time of the Blind Beast - Chapter 96

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Some dreams are better left uninterrupted.

Lisanne abruptly opened her eyes. She blinked her burning eyelids once, then quickly shut them again in alarm at the sudden surge of confusion. Something felt strange. Everything was so strange that it frightened her.

She was someone who could no longer open her eyes and see the world. Someone who shouldn’t be seeing. That was how it ought to be, unless there truly was another world after death.

She needed to sleep again.

To sleep forever.

She closed her eyes and urged unconsciousness to return, but the ominous thumping of her heartbeat echoed in her ears, and Lisanne could not hold out long. She slowly opened her eyes.

Her vision was faintly bright. It wasn’t sunlight. The only light present was a gentle glow that didn’t irritate her eyes, making it impossible to tell if it was day or night.

With her blurred vision, Lisanne gauged her surroundings.

A hurting body was familiar to her.

So was a filthy environment.

She was used to cramped spaces with barely enough room to lie down, to chaos tangled with curses, orders, and arguments, to the stench of all manner of filth decaying and festering in one place, to biting cold that felt like it would tear her flesh.

But she was not used to clean rooms with high ceilings.

She was not used to warm and fluffy bedding.

She was not used to the silence that gently soothed the ears.

She was not used to the peaceful warmth from the steady crackling of a fire. Perhaps once she had been, but not anymore.

Could it be that she had just dreamed a long dream?

But the memory of being carried by guards as she left the detention center was so vivid. The scorn and malice of citizens who cursed, yanked her hair, struck her, and kicked her were still so clear—was it all truly a dream…?

Lisanne lifted her wrist close to her face to check. The rope that had bound her wrists was covered with barbs. Sure enough, red scratches, as if scraped by a thorn bush, bloomed on her skin. As she groped around her neck, she could also feel the mark left by the noose that had strangled her.

Then it all really happened.

Creeeak…

Suddenly, the sound of a door opening and closing echoed faintly. The high ceiling gave some indication, but the sense of distance in that sound suggested just how vast the room was.

Could there be a sleeping baby somewhere in this room?

That was how cautious the presence felt. The soft, deliberate steps resembled the careful tread of someone trying not to wake a sleeping child.

Lisanne turned her head toward the sound. She lacked the strength to support her head properly, and even such a small movement drained her energy.

Suddenly, the footsteps approaching the bed stopped. As the steady sound ceased, a strange tension filled the air.

The change came in an instant. With long strides, someone crossed the room quickly.

Lisanne, blinking, met the hurried steps approaching her, the tall figure whose size made it hard to take in at once, the uniform tailored perfectly to that build, the chest rising and falling with ragged breaths, and the deep navy gaze that scanned her face.

In that moment, she was certain.

This was not reality.

It couldn’t be real.

It wasn’t reality.

It was an extension of fantasy.

Ezekiel Valdemaira… that man, with a sharply gaunt face as if he hadn’t slept in days, with an impatient expression, could not possibly be looking at her.

“…Rose.”

Lisanne couldn’t believe her ears. That discarded name, that name that should have died, was spoken.

Her breath caught tight in her chest.

She didn’t know where the strength came from. Lisanne pushed herself up with her elbows and bolted upright. A crushing terror spurred her unresponsive limbs.

Ezekiel caught her in his arms as she toppled off the bed, unable to keep her balance.

“Rose!”

No.

She was not Rose.

He must not call her Rose.

With what resolve had she abandoned that name and run?

There was no Rose anymore.

She shook her head wildly. Her blurred vision spun, and she shut her eyes to reject it completely.

I’m not Rose. You’ve mistaken me for someone else.

Not even knowing where she was, or where else she could go, she struggled to escape his embrace.

“Breathe. Slowly.”

Until he spoke, Lisanne hadn’t realized how fast her breathing was. Her heart couldn’t keep up, and the pressure in her chest was unbearable. The room spun with dizziness.

His hand swept down her back at regular intervals, guiding her to breathe slowly.

“Don’t think about anything else right now. Just breathe slowly.”

Not think about anything else?

Was that even possible?

The last memory before losing consciousness was the gallows. The shock of her entire body hanging from a noose as the chair beneath her feet was kicked away still lingered vividly. Just before being strung up, she had heard the final word about her parents, who had been dragged to a northern detention center and whose fate remained unknown. It was then she fully realized how powerful this man’s family was. Destroying an entire family was as easy as crushing an ant underfoot.

And that wasn’t all.

In the detention center, though constantly starving, she could hardly swallow anything due to the burn inside her throat, and not long after being imprisoned, the child inside her died and she bled out several bowls’ worth of blood.

How could she possibly not think about anything, when the moment she regained consciousness, her mind was filled with scenes soaked in the smell of blood?

Being alive meant just that.

There was no freedom from thoughts or memories. Today came only after enduring every single one of those moments.

Since she had no recollection of anything after passing out from suffocation, it took her some time to grasp the reality of her situation. But as the unfamiliar room gradually came into focus, Lisanne began to recover a faint part of her memory.

It wasn’t an unknown place. She had once been in this room before. And if her guess was correct, this was not a place she should be.

Lying in the Valdemaira estate, and in his bedroom at that—how could that possibly make sense?

Her heartbeat surged rapidly. Alarmed by the unusual signs, Ezekiel quickly rang the bell. A summoned doctor rushed in.

“It looks like she woke up while I was briefly away, but she’s having trouble breathing.”

“Just a moment, miss. Please look at me.”

The doctor, having assessed Lisanne’s symptoms, pulled a large handkerchief from his coat. The moment it came over her mouth and nose, the black cloth the executioner had draped over her face came to mind. The very sight of it triggered a wave of suffocation. She had already experienced firsthand what it felt like to die under that cloth.

“Take that handkerchief away, now!”

Sensing the pallor spreading across Lisanne’s face, Ezekiel covered her mouth and nose with his large hand instead.

“Stay with me, Rose.”

The wrong name made her resist all the more.

“Lisanne.”

Ezekiel quickly corrected himself.

“…Lisanne, don’t lose consciousness. You’ve been unconscious for two days.”

His improvised method worked, and her breathing gradually returned.

As soon as she barely managed to regain her senses, Lisanne shoved his chest away. He supported her head and laid her back on the bed before letting her push him off with her feeble strength. But no sooner had his hand left her than she tried again to roll off the bed.

Even though he had changed his mind and saved her, she felt no relief at surviving. Rather, the fear and guilt loomed even larger.

“I heard your neck was injured. May I examine it, miss?”

The doctor tactlessly interjected. Though Ezekiel had intended to let the doctor examine her eventually, this was not the time. He held the unmoving Lisanne close and dismissed the doctor with a glance. The doctor withdrew.

Ezekiel held her partially slumped body steady and looked down at her back. Fearing the chill of the detention center had seeped into her bones, he had heated the room and dressed her in a thick, warm winter coat. It had belonged to his mother. Daughters had always been rare in House Valdemaira, so there were no women’s clothes left unless they were hers.

The mother he remembered had always had a small appetite, little drive, and a languid manner. She was so frail people wondered how she had managed to bear and deliver a child. Even her clothes hung loosely on Lisanne.

Lisanne’s frail body, like a winter tree, suddenly stilled. Following her abrupt stillness, Ezekiel shifted his gaze. She was blankly staring at the rifle propped up next to the bed.

“It’s not there to hurt you. It’s just a habit of mine,” he explained, feeling a bitter taste in his mouth.

Perhaps it had triggered memories of when he’d led subordinates with rifles to raid the inn. Or maybe she was haunted by the nightmare of being forced into this bedroom under Akenaus’s coercion. Ezekiel gently tried to soothe her, hoping she wouldn’t be afraid.

But suddenly, another possibility came to him.

As he slowly stroked her dry back, he asked, “Do you want to shoot?”

After the question, Ezekiel added flatly, “Then go ahead. Shoot. It’s all right.”