Chapter 131

“What did you just say?” Elise’s voice faltered, her carefully maintained silence of the past three days momentarily forgotten. The shock in her eyes mirrored the disbelief she felt.

“What do you mean by taking it away? Don’t tell me…” Her voice trailed off, a dreadful suspicion forming in her mind.

“It’s exactly as you think.” Rezette’s voice was cold, devoid of any emotion.

A wave of nausea washed over Elise. The realization hit her like a tidal wave, leaving her breathless.

“You’re insane…” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

“The world often sees me that way,” Rezette replied, a hint of a smirk playing on his lips. “You simply weren’t aware.”

“How could you even think such a thing? Your own child!”

“You refused to acknowledge the child as mine, and now it seems you’ve changed your mind.”

Elise recoiled, her heart pounding in her chest. “Stop twisting words! Let go of me!”

Finally, she broke free, her breath ragged. “Is this why you came? Wasn’t there a reason, something you needed?”

“Just say you came because you needed an heir. That would be a less cruel reason.” Her voice, a mere whisper, was filled with both despair and defiance.

“Whether I have an heir or not, it doesn’t matter to me. Frankly, it’d be better if I didn’t.”

“So you came to kill the child because you don’t need it anymore…?” Elise’s voice quivered with anger and disbelief.

“But you are different,” Rezette interrupted mercilessly, his words slicing through her like a blade. “You’re not something I can take or leave. You must remain by my side.”

“No!”

For the first time, Elise fully understood the danger that had been simmering beneath his composed exterior. Over the past few days, she had sensed it instinctively but couldn’t name it. Now, she knew.

It was murderous intent.

Rezette didn’t merely view the child as unwanted or expendable—his indifference went far beyond that. His feelings were infinitely darker, more terrifying.

Elise’s chest tightened as raw fear took hold of her.

“You called it our child. You wanted it, too! You didn’t hold me without knowing this could happen!”

“I didn’t.”

The atmosphere shifted in an instant. Elise, trembling with fury and heartbreak, found herself facing Rezette’s unshaken, icy calm.

“If I had known you’d react like this, I would never have done something so foolish.”

“What’s wrong with me now?!” Elise’s voice cracked as she glared at him, her hands clenched into trembling fists. “You always look at me like that—as if I’m incapable, as if my thoughts mean nothing to you!”

“Because that’s the truth.”

Rezette’s jaw tightened, his composed facade fracturing ever so slightly. Elise froze, stunned into silence, as he ran a hand roughly through his hair, his movements sharp with frustration.

“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath, his voice low and biting. “What the hell is the problem?”

The question hung in the air, heavy and ambiguous. Was it directed at her, at her stubbornness, or at something deeper, something unresolved within himself? His piercing gaze didn’t clarify—it only made her confusion and dread grow.

Rezette’s gaze fell to Elise’s ankle, faintly visible beneath the hem of her chemise. The bruise was still there, its presence haunting him like a ghost he couldn’t exorcise.

She couldn’t possibly understand how much that mark tormented him.

Rezette knew too well how even the smallest injury lingered on her fragile body, tormenting her for weeks. Her delicate, brittle frame seemed like it could shatter with the faintest pressure. Her skin, so pale and sensitive, held bruises far longer than it should. And then there was her shoulder—a constant reminder of the past. The vivid scar from an old wound she’d inflicted upon herself, carving into her flesh with a dagger during a moment of despair.

During her time in Rotiara, her health had improved, almost miraculously. Though she had moments of frailty, she had never been as weak as she was now. Now, even the faint thrum of her pulse felt elusive, as though her life were slipping through his fingers.

The mistake had been believing that her recovery would last—that as long as she stayed by his side, she would remain safe, strong, whole.

But the truth was inescapable: when something siphoned too much of her magic, her body inevitably crumbled.

For the past three days, every glance at her unhealed wounds felt like a dagger twisting in Rezette’s chest, driving him closer to the edge of madness. He had never wanted this. When he desired a child, he had never imagined it would cost her so much.

Even when he closed his eyes, even when he turned away, he saw the bruises marring her slender neck, the scratches marking her small hands. They clung to him, vivid and unrelenting, an unshakable reminder of his failure to protect her.

Now, the thought of her belly swelling with his child filled him with nothing but dread.

It was unbearable—unforgivable—that only a month ago, he had willingly done this to her. Over and over, he had planted his seed, believing it was for a greater purpose.

A purpose that now felt monstrous.

All of it had been for one thing: to strip away the magic entwined in her very being. To him, it had seemed necessary. Rational.

But now, as he looked at her fragile, broken form, he couldn’t escape the truth.

He hadn’t created life within her.

He had planted a monster.

“This is only the beginning,” Rezette muttered, his voice barely audible over the storm raging in his mind.

No one knew this better than he did. He remembered every agonizing second of his own birth. The dragon blood coursing through his veins denied him the mercy of forgetting.

He hadn’t been born fully human. His first memories were of a scene that resembled hell itself: the acrid stench of blood, the endless crimson pooling between a woman’s split stomach and thighs, the translucent amniotic sac clinging stubbornly to his body like an unyielding shroud…

And the lifeless eyes of a dead woman.

Rezette’s jaw tightened as he murmured numbly, “I miscalculated, Elise.”

It felt as if he were waking from a long, bitter dream. One he’d foolishly let himself believe was real.

Three months and ten days had passed since the night Genovia’s schemes ensnared him and drove him to take Elise. Those months had been sweet, yes, but fleeting—a cruel delusion.

“I was reckless.”

Now, under the harsh glare of reality, he was forced to confront the truth. How easily he’d succumbed to base desire, how utterly he’d let himself be consumed by her.

“No matter how beautiful you are, I should have restrained myself… until the end.”

He exhaled shakily, the bitter taste of regret lingering on his tongue.

“I even warned you—with my own mouth—that marrying me would be worse than death.”

His words from that time echoed in his mind, mocking him.

“And you should know this: no matter how much time you think you’ve gained—be it days or months—you’ll come to realize that dying quickly and cleanly would’ve been the better choice.”

The Rezette of that time had been wiser.

But lust, dressed in the guise of affection, had turned him into a fool. He had been no better than the wretched dragonkin who succumbed to primal urges, ravaging humans for their own selfish gratification.

“I didn’t realize there would come a day when I’d have to choose between the two. That was my mistake.”

Rezette’s expression hardened, his resolve sharpening like the edge of a blade.

If it ever came to that choice, he would abandon the child without hesitation to save Elise.

It wasn’t too late. Not yet. He would plead with her, just this once, to trust him—to listen to him.

Every time she gagged or dry-heaved, panic clawed at his chest, consuming him. It was as though the entire world was on the brink of collapse, teetering on the edge of disaster.

If something went wrong in a single moment… if her breath stopped forever…

There would be no going back.

“As you said, we’re simply going back to how things were. In time, you’ll see it’s nothing more than—”

“No.”

Elise’s voice cut through his words, sharp and unwavering, but her gaze spoke of something entirely different—something resolute, a world apart from his.

“The weight of a life isn’t something you can brush off as a simple mistake. If you chose to create it, you’re responsible for it, no matter the consequences!”

She shoved him away, her fury radiating like a storm. Her cheeks flushed with anger, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.

“I don’t know what you think, but from start to finish, this contract was my choice. I’m a royal. I have a duty to take responsibility for the words I speak and the actions I choose!”

She drew a trembling breath, steadying herself.

“If you don’t need this child, then abandon us,” Elise continued, her voice cracking with emotion. “Consider it an act of mercy for a contract that should never have existed. I’ll raise this child on my own. I won’t die by your side. Isn’t that enough…?”

Her desperate cries softened with each word, morphing into quiet pleading. Rezette clenched his jaw, biting hard on the inside of his lip, his anger simmering just beneath the surface.

And then she said it.

“Your mother must have been like me.”

His vision blurred, a haze of red clouding his thoughts.

“Why do you think she didn’t get rid of you before you grew? It must’ve been because you were precious to her. That’s why she gave birth to you, isn’t it?”

Rezette let out a low laugh, a hollow, bitter sound that carried no warmth. It wasn’t amusement but a mix of adoration for her innocence and disdain for her ignorance.

“As if that could ever be the case,” he said, his tone laced with quiet mockery.

“How can you be so certain?” Elise pressed, her voice trembling.

“Are you seriously suggesting someone could feel maternal love for a child conceived through assault?”

His words were sharp and merciless. From the moment he’d first opened his eyes in that thin, suffocating amniotic sac, to the years he spent with his mother, Rezette had never known warmth or affection.

“She hated me,” he continued, his voice low and unsteady, though he maintained a detached facade. “I grew inside her, feeding on her hatred and loathing, like a parasite.”

Emilia had been an unfortunate woman. Once a favored concubine of the Emperor of Van Yela, she had dreamed of a life filled with splendor, of glory in the imperial palace as the mother of a prince.

That dream shattered the day she encountered a dragon in human form during a chance outing near the capital’s forest.

Rezette’s lips curled into a bitter smile. “She bore me, not because she wanted to, but because she had no choice. And for that, she cursed me with every breath until her last.”

“Why won’t you just die? Please, just die already. You can hear me, can’t you? You monster… Why do I have to endure this?”

“The reason I tore through the womb of the woman who bore me was simple. I wanted to see the face of the human who hated me so much.”

Rezette’s voice was void of emotion, yet every word carried a crushing weight.

Emilia, his mother, had sobbed uncontrollably for months, her anguish pouring out in waves. She would pound her swollen belly with clenched fists, her cries echoing through the cold chambers she was confined to. She tried every means imaginable to rid herself of the horrific thing growing inside her.

One day, she cursed Sameshita, the dragon who had forced this burden upon her. Another day, she collapsed into inconsolable weeping, her tears soaking the silk sheets beneath her. And on yet another, she endured another assault from the mad dragon who claimed her as his possession.

But no matter how deep her despair, she never chose to end her own life. That, if nothing else, proved her stubborn will to survive.

In the end, however, Emilia could not escape her fate. Death claimed her, leaving behind only the evidence of her existence: a child born from despair and hatred.

It was only years later, after Rezette had learned the human language and emotions, that he began to comprehend the cold void inside his chest whenever he thought of her.

The source of his unshakable self-loathing had been sown the moment he entered this world.

“If I regret anything in my life,” Rezette said, his gaze distant, “it’s that I was ever born. Elise, there are lives in this world that would be better off never existing.”

His words struck her like a blow, leaving her momentarily breathless.

“…Does that answer your question?” he asked, his tone sharp and final.

Elise opened her mouth to respond, but no sound came. Her lips trembled as she tried to speak, her expression caught between defiance and despair.

“In the end,” Rezette continued, his voice softening into something dangerously close to pity, “you’ll be no different from my mother. There will come a day when you curse me for this—when you regret it with every fiber of your being.”

He took a step closer, his eyes piercing through her like cold steel.

“Elise, I’m not talking about some distant future.”

Her knees felt weak. She shook her head in protest, but the motion lacked conviction. She licked her dry lips, searching for words to refute him, but none came.

In the end, all she could do was close her eyes tightly, shutting out the harsh truth of his words.

For the first time, Elise truly felt the depth of Rezette Kyrstan’s emptiness.