Chapter 46
Siella felt horrible as she continued to Kyle’s ramblings one after another, each one just plain awful. She kept thinking how she could take that vial from Kyle and chase him away. Her self-defense dagger was tucked away inside the padded pocket of her underskirt. Fortunately, Kyle hadn’t noticed it yet.
She thought, if there is an opening, it would be possible to attack Kyle with the dagger and take the vial if I timed it right. Then I could run straight to where Nina is lying, give her the antidote, then….
‘But the question is, how do I get out of here with Nina?’
Kyle is still a noble so killing him was out of question, as murdering a noble is a capital offense. If I wanted to live freely in the future, unfortunately, I couldn’t kill Kyle with my own hands. The best option was to injure him and escape from here with Nina.
Siella clenched her hands. She began to wonder where she should stab Kyle. Fortunately, that thought didn’t last long.
‘His leg.’
Let’s stab him on his leg. Kyle wouldn’t be able to catch up to me easily if I ran away after that. And come to think of it, it would be a good thing if Kyle ended up a cripple for the rest of his life.
To make sure that she wouldn’t make any mistake, Siella played out the scenario in her head over and over again, where she stabbed his leg, grabbed the vial and ran away.
“Your mind is wondering.”
She suddenly heard Kyle mutter. Startled, Siella looked up, her face pale. Kyle curiously looked at her and tilted his head.
“You can still afford to think about anything else when I am in front of you?”
Siella swallowed dryly as Kyle’s gaze turned vicious. She’d have to stall him, somehow catch him off guard until she sees an opening. With her mind racing, Siella stared at him, trying to look nonchalant and asked him.
“So what have you been up to?”
“Are you asking because you don’t know? You’re just indifferent, aren’t you?”
“…”
“Well, this is a good thing.”
Kyle smiled, instantly feeling better about the fact that it was Siella who asked him the first question and unusually curious.
“Hmm, where should I start…”
Siella stared at Kyle, not wanting to miss a single moment of Kyle’s gesture of touching the corners of his mouth. She was planning to take action and run away as soon as she found an opportunity.
“Alright then, let’s start talking about when I went to the island. I was really angry at you when I was first thrown to that island.”
“…”
“But after a while, I calmed down a little bit, and realized something.”
“Like what?”
“Like, maybe I had been a little too hard on you… and then I realized that you must have your own struggles.”
Trying to act like it doesn’t bother her and act nonchalant was more difficult than she expected. This was even more so since it was an attempt to carry on a conversation with a person who she wanted to kill and trying to lower down his guard.
Siella echoed Kyle’s sentiments, trying to push down the horrible feeling that was making her teeth chatter.
“And?”
“Well, so… I’ve been thinking about that and decided that if I ever see you again, I’m going to be really nice to you.” Kyle showed a languid smile, not sure whether he realized how devastated Siella was feeling, “Come with me, Siella.”
“…”
“Or I can just live here.”
Siella eventually couldn’t bear it anymore and her expression was distorted. Kyle burst out laughing as if it was really funny. After a few moments of laughing out loud as he threw his head back, Kyle finally stopped and said, “Why? Are you going to tell me not to spout nonsense again? I‘m serious.”
“…”
“I mean it.”
Kyle’s voice trailed off, as if he was a child throwing a tantrum or trying to act cute. “Why don’t you understand my sincerity?” He added, leaning over to where Siella was sitting. “Hmm? When will you know?”
“…”
“When exactly will you understand?”
At that moment, Siella thought that if she couldn’t kill Kyle, she would rather stab herself on her neck and die in front of him. It was only for a moment, but Siella was surprised that such violent impulses remained within her – she already realized that she was a broken person beyond repair.
It was only for Nina’s sake that she managed to quell the impulse that had started to fire up inside her. She is doing this to save Nina, who was wounded protecting her. Siella inhaled and exhaled big breaths. After that, her voice sounded calmer than she expected.
“If you just hand it over to me now, I might understand it.”
“…”
At her unexpected words, Kyle’s face stiffened as soon as Siella finished speaking. Kyle was speechless for a moment, but he managed to open his mouth and mutter something to himself.
“My Siella has changed a lot since I last saw her.”
“…”
“Now that you’re all grown up, you know how to make a deal for yourself.” Kyle laughed in disbelief, then looked at Siella as if he could see right through her and said, “But I don’t like it when you act cheap like that.”
Siella choked at Kyle’s words, but she managed to pull the corners of her mouth up into a smile.
“Is that so? I guess you didn’t know from before – that this was the reason I was almost sold as the third wife of Count Shedland.”
“…”
“Everyone treats me carelessly like an object so I am just trying to match that. What’s the problem with that?”
“You,” Kyle finally had enough of Siella’s open scrutiny and stood up from his seat, “Shut up.”
Kyle quickly crossed the table and grabbed Siella by her shoulders.
“I’ve been trying to be nice to you since earlier, but it seems like you’re taking liberties with me….”
Siella just looked up at Kyle, who was looking down at her with his most amused expression on his face. Kyle said through gritted teeth, “There is a limit to what I can tolerate.”
Siella could see Kyle’s shallow sense of reasoning, wavering precariously on the edge of breaking.
“Alright? Just be obedient when I am being nice to you, if you don’t want to get into more trouble here.”
“…”
“What if I get really angry and kill your loyal guard?”
Siella made no reply. He told her to shut her mouth so she did. But Siella’s attitude seemed to fuel Kyle’s anger even more.
“You’re doing that again, just keeping your mouth shut and looking at me like an inanimate object…!”
It was literally a split second later that Kyle’s hands were clasped around Siella’s slender neck. She had no time to escape as he became violent in the blink of an eye. If things continue like this, Siella thought, I could really die, pinned down like this.
Then, despite her panic, her body moved of its own accord. Siella lifted the hem of her skirt and fumbled around to pull out the dagger in her inner pocket. She just swung it back and forth without looking. The next moment, the large hand close to Siella’s eyes moved away.
“Ha… haha….”
A laugh burst out from Kyle, who had one hand around the nape of his neck, next to her protruding cheekbones.
“Tss….”
Siella blinked her eyes rapidly. Her vision that had blurred due to fear gradually became clearer. She could see red blood dripping from between Kyle’s fingers as he held his neck. Although her hands were trembling, she kept her tight grip on the dagger and quickly got up from her seat, stumbling backward.
Flash! There was a bolt of lightning. A light flashed in Kyle’s eyes at that moment. He, who had been laughing ferociously, stopped and looked at Siella.
“You’ve really lost your mind.”
(T/N: Oh, are you telling that to yourself?)