IDLYITL CH 2
- Feb 19
- 8 min read
Chapter 2
• ────── ✦ ────── •
She Was the Fool All Along
Since that, she was imprisoned without seeing a single ray of light.
How did it come to this? No, how did it happen?
Tears streamed down her gaunt cheeks, with new ones forming the moment the old ones dried. Every time she moved her scrawny arms, the handcuffs connected to the ceiling clattered.
The jailer had told her she had been in this cell for four months. It had been over a hundred days. Though she had been born and raised noble and tried her best to endure, life in prison was devouring her soul.
“Why did it turn out this way...?”
The pale blue moonlight seeped through the palm sized window, pooling on the hard stone floor like a puddle of light. Psyche muttered to herself as if she were losing her mind.
“Is my husband... going to be fine?”
For treason, her husband's family and even the elders were all arrested and interrogated. It was only a matter of time before her husband, who still at war, would also be arrested by the Imperial Guards. Or perhaps he had already been executed on the spot.
Psyche let out a hollow laugh with her blistered lips. To think she was worrying about her husband even in this situation.
He's the kind of man who doesn't need my concern at all.
The naive princess who married at twenty was now twenty-four. She had grown weary of the heartless husband who never replied to her letters from war. If she tried to get close, she got hurt; if she tried to lean on him, she fell. And when she fell, he simply walked away without ever looking back.
“Ha ha…”
Perhaps meeting him and marrying him was a mistake from the beginning. And it was true, her marriage to him had been a misfortune. The people were right and Psyche finally admitted it.
Holding up her numb left arm, she slowly leaned her back against the wall.
“…?”
“Gaahh!”
The scream thinned out, and the dark wooden door opened. A tall, black figure entered through the hallway.
“Who...?”
She stared at the man in the darkness with empty, hollow eyes. As the man took another step forward, the chilling moonlight illuminated his black armor and face. Psyche's eyes widened.
Thud.
The man dragging the warden’s lifeless body, fell onto the stone floor. Psyche recognized the man in armor.
“...Ikali?”
Shocked from not seeing her husband in four years, she simply stared at her husband. The prison warden’s dark, murky blood pooled in the cracks of the checkered stone floor.
Her face paled with fear as Psyche looked at her husband through the bars. He was heaving for breath and panting like a beast as though he ran from a long distance. The black armor encasing his sleek body was coated in the blood of an unknown person.
The helmet hid his entire face, but the pale blue eyes that showed through the gaps were unmistakably her husband's. Seeing him reeking of blood and gasping for breath, Psyche was terrified.
But at the same time, there was a strange sense of relief and inappropriate happiness.
Ah… He came to save me. He didn't forget me.
Psyche's eyes welled up with tears as she looked at her husband. Her dry lips stammered and called his name.
“Ikali. Ikali...”
I thought there was no hope left for my husband who hadn't given me a single glance in four years, but forgot his kindness from our childhood and just acted heartlessly. Maybe it wasn't entirely true. If that were to be true, I wouldn’t be this happy after seeing his face.
Because of that small flicker of hope, she couldn't stop herself from crying. Sorrow welled up, and her lips trembled.
“I-I was so scared. But you came, you didn't forget me, so... hic.”
Psyche's shoulders began to tremble as she burst into tears like a child. She expected her husband to walk over and pull her into his arms.
“...”
Meanwhile, Ikali stood there while his wife called for him incessantly. He bent down and took the keys hanging from the prison warden's belt.
He opened the iron-barred gate and stepped inside. Psyche thought he would comfort her. He should have told her how scared she must have been, and how well she had done while he was gone. No matter how cruel he was, seeing his wife who had suffered in prison, he should have comforted her tenderly. He should have held her tight for the hardships she endured because of him. And if she could escape this prison with him, all her waiting would be rewarded.
Treason? It was an absurd accusation.
Submerged in joy and remorse, Psyche lifted her tear-blurred eyes. What caught her eye then was a glittering blade.
Psyche was speechless for a moment. Her tears stopped and looked at her husband, stunned.
“What are you...?”
“There's no time.”
“Wait... what?”
Shing.
He drew the sword from its old scabbard with a chilling sound. The blade gleamed sharply in the moonlight. It wasn’t necessary to pull out a sword just to cut her handcuffs because the keys were in his hands. The hope in her moist eyes slowly began to fade and her face turned deathly pale.
“Tomorrow, the entire Demiosis family will be executed.”
“...”
“I won't be able to escape either. No one will escape a dog's death.
There was no life in his eyes, half-hidden by his helmet. His eyes were no different from an emotionless blade.
Why am I only realising this now?
“...This sword is the family's treasured blade that separates body and soul. With this sword, you can die without any pain. It’s much better than being executed in front of everyone.”
Psyche bit her lip, but she couldn't stop the tears that kept coming. How could a person be like that? How could he wear such a heartless expression toward a wife who had been imprisoned for over a hundred days because of him? How could he have no compassion or pity?
In her fury, she clutched the stone floor, but there was nothing to grab. Blood beaded from her broken fingernails. With a desolate heart, she barely managed to speak.
“After four years, is that really all you have to say to your wife?”
All this time, Psyche scoffed when everyone called her husband a monster.
There's no way someone so beautiful and kind could be a monster. There must have been a reason he killed his foster father and broke his stepbrother's leg. People just misunderstand him. He's a kind person. I know him...
She even called the people who bad-mouthed her husband fools. It was too late, the real fool was herself. Ikali stood still as if he were a stranger, and holding the sword as if as if he were judging her.
Overcome with anger,
“Monster.”
“...”
“You really are a monster.”
She wanted to at least wound his heart before she died. She wanted to hurl vulgar insults so offensive his face would flush and hurt his feelings. But even after she called him a monster, his eyes didn't change.
Instead, as if her insults had calmed him, he muttered indifferently.
“The Imperial Guards will be here soon. Then there'll be no more chances.”
He took a moment to catch his breath, then aimed the well-honed treasured sword at her neck.
He meant that separating her soul was better than being dragged to the execution stand and having her neck cut in front of the entire empire, just like those who would choose suicide rather than being beheaded and their heads displayed for all to see.
“...I'll follow you soon.”
Just as Ikali said, the sound of the Imperial Guards running was closing in. His rampage to get to the prison had been discovered.
She lowered her head in resignation. Ikali looked down at his wife, who lay as limp as a corpse.
“If we ever meet again, then...”
“...”
“Curse me, Psyche.”
I would have done that even without you saying it.
She couldn't utter the words in her heart. The family's treasured blade cut through her body.
• ───────── ☽༓☾ ───────── •
When she opened her eyes again, she saw the familiar ceiling of a room.
Startled, she tried to take a deep breath, but the corset around her waist prevented her from doing so. Psyche hurriedly tore off her dress and even threw the whalebone corset off the bed. She lay face down on the bed, gasping for breath. No matter how much air she inhaled, it was insufficient, as if her lungs had holes.
She was alive again. She buried her face in the bedsheets and wept loudly like a beast.
Just as her husband said, there was no pain when he cut her down with the treasured blade. Whether it was the power of the treasured blade or not, she had returned to the night she first married into the ducal household.
But the joy of being alive was brief. Psyche couldn't stop crying. Her body was whole, but her heart ached so much as if it had been torn to shreds.
Psyche clutched the blanket and cried for a long time.
• ───────── ☽༓☾ ───────── •
Since arriving in the empire, Psyche Dawson had not left her bedroom for three days.
Anna, the maid who had accompanied her from the royal palace, was sweating and muttering about her condition.
“Oh dear, this is a serious problem...”
Dresses and corsets were scattered on the floor by the bed.
Is the princess upset about her wedding night?
After all, for the entire journey from the kingdom to the ducal manor, the princess chattered endlessly about the duke she was about to see again.
It was only three days ago that she had been chirping like a young girl, wondering how handsome he had become and if he would remember her.
But the Duke didn't visit her on their wedding night, so she must be disappointed.
My poor princess.
Anna truly lamented.
“Oh no. What if something terrible really happened to her that she became like this?”
“That’s right. She hasn't eaten a single spoonful of soup in three days. At first, we could at least hear her crying, but now there's no sound at all... Is she really okay?”
“What a mess. It hasn’t even been that long since the wedding, oh dear...”
The maids who came with her from the royal palace, whispered. Anna looked at the locked door with concern. Since it was a half-hearted marriage without a wedding ceremony, she had somewhat expected this outcome, but still...
Anna sighed deeply and with a look of resolve.
“This won't do. I have to tell the duke. He needs to know what state the mistress is in. If we leave her like this...”
“That won't be necessary.”
The maids turned around in surprise. The door opened, and the princess was looking at them.
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