Grant me Your Grace Chapter 93

One floor up, a spacious hallway stretched out again. 

 

Unlike the floor I had been on, this one had several rooms.

 

Could I check each one? If I were caught, it would be over right then and there.

 

After a moment’s hesitation, Dahlia made up her mind and moved forward. Whether she was caught here or there, she’d have to risk her life either way. 

 

Rather than poking around half-heartedly and achieving nothing, she wanted to do everything she could.

 

After all, her only goal was Hissin—that man alone.

 

Dahlia muffled her footsteps and opened the first door. 

 

Each piece of furniture, arranged like a modest sitting room, was draped with thin cloths. It seemed like the room hadn’t been used for a long time—thick layers of dust and cobwebs covered every corner. 

 

Scanning the darkened room with her eyes, Dahlia quietly closed the door.

 

The second and third rooms were much like the first. They were filled with furnishings that appeared barely used, all covered in white sheets.

 

Items that showed little sign of use, almost as good as new. 

 

An eerie sense of dissonance brushed against Dahlia’s chest, and she closed the doors even more quickly.

 

When she reached the fourth room, Dahlia found herself spellbound by a sight unlike any of the previous rooms, and she stepped inside as if drawn in. 

 

The walls were densely lined with all kinds of books—it looked almost like her own room back in the imperial palace.

 

Books in Baranese alongside countless foreign texts. 

 

These thousands of volumes were the only items here that bore any trace of human touch, unlike the untouched furnishings in the other rooms.

 

Among them, one book caught Dahlia’s eye.

 

〘Heaven Only Watches.〙

 

It was a book by Philocyphane—the philosopher she deeply admired, who had been branded a heretic and met a tragic fate in the land of Baran.

How could this book be here? 

 

As if entranced, Dahlia pulled it from the shelf. 

 

Opening it at random, a passage marked in ink by someone caught her eye:

 

“When it feels as though you have lost everything, look back… for the gift God has extended from behind you…”

 

Unconsciously, Dahlia murmured the words under her breath, then bit her lip hard. 

 

A shapeless surge of emotion pressed in, tightening her chest until it ached.

 

If the goddess were reaching out to her in this moment, it surely wasn’t a gift—but a terrible key to hell itself. 

 

Nothing else could explain why the path ahead felt so utterly, suffocatingly dark.

 

In this wretched abyss, the only gift left she could possibly welcome was death. 

 

To kill Hissin—the man who deceived her and brought Baran to ruin—with her own hands, and free herself from this terrifying existence…

 

Just as she closed the book and slid it back into place, preparing to slip out of the study—

 

“…Then shall we send the Moon Lions to retrieve her soon?”

 

Hovan’s voice drifted from somewhere nearby. 

 

Dahlia froze, holding her breath. She swallowed dryly and slowly edged toward the door, straining to listen.

 

“It won’t be easy… but we must do what we can.”

 

Hissin’s voice followed, piercing straight through her chest. He was right beyond the door. 

 

Without realizing, Dahlia’s breath hitched; she forced her lungs to release the little air left in them.

 

“We must find her. By any means necessary.”

 

Had they already discovered she was missing from her room? 

 

Dahlia’s breath trembled faintly. 

 

At any moment, the fierce Moon Lions might storm into the study where she stood hidden. 

 

Instinctively, she retreated deeper into the shadows, stepping back silently, waiting for Hissin and Hovan to pass.

 

However, at that moment, an unexpected conversation seized her attention.

 

“Not content with merely stealing the child, he went so far as to wipe out the entire clan… If Her Highness were to learn of this, the shock might be too much for her.”

 

That I would be shocked? 

 

Intrigued by Hovan’s pointed words, Dahlia momentarily forgot her fear and pressed her ear even closer to the door.

 

Hissin seemed to have halted in the hallway, for their voices now came from directly outside the study.

 

“If shock were the worst of it, that might actually be a blessing,” 

 

Hissin’s subdued voice carried through, each word settling like a weight upon Dahlia’s chest, pressing it down heavily.

 

“To spend a lifetime believing someone to be your parent, to offer them your blood and loyalty, only to discover they were the very enemy who oppressed your people for millennia and ultimately destroyed them… How could anyone endure such a truth?”

 

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump—

 

Her heart began to pound with a ferocity that dwarfed mere nervousness. 

 

Hissin’s words shattered into pieces, swirling chaotically before crashing down upon her mind all at once.

 

A stolen child. An enemy who slaughtered a clan. 

 

Parents who demanded blood tribute. 

 

These fragments tangled and scattered like sand, but as she desperately clutched at them, they coalesced into the face of a single man.

 

Khankundra. The Emperor of Baran. 

 

The ruthless father who had condemned her as a cursed princess, locking her deep within the palace, exploiting her sacred blood her entire life.

 

‘It can’t be… How could such a thing… It’s impossible…’

 

Her breath grew ragged. 

 

A dizzying wave of nausea rose, threatening to wrench a raw sound from her throat, and Dahlia swiftly clamped both hands over her mouth. Her eyes burned, and the blurred outlines in the dark swam and distorted.

 

“Then… would it not be wise to inform Her Highness of this truth? Her sense of betrayal toward Levitzenna must be profound…”

 

“Leave it be.”

 

A faint tremor passed through Dahlia’s damp, glistening eyes.

 

“Wouldn’t having someone to hate, someone you yearn to kill, make the will to live burn just a little brighter?”

 

“Lord Levitzenna…”

 

“And if that’s what it takes for her to remember me…” 

 

A rueful, almost imperceptible smile colored his low murmur. It was the kind of bleak, self-mocking laugh one wishes they had never heard. 

 

“Well, that wouldn’t be such a terrible way to live.”

 

For however little time I might have left.

 

The man who had carved himself apart countless times, reducing himself to ruins, only to finally shackle himself within this cruel destiny.

 

“Over twenty years have passed, so distinguishing the remains will not be easy. I heard the Emperor had their hearts ripped out. Focus on recovering any skeletons with damaged breastbones. Even now, giving them a proper burial might ease some of their lingering resentment.”

 

“Understood.”

 

Soon, Hovan retreated the way he had come. 

 

Hissin’s footsteps, moving in the opposite direction, also gradually faded into the encompassing silence.

 

“…Haa.”

 

Finally, with all signs of their presence gone, Dahlia released the breath she had been holding. 

 

The suppressed confusion, forced back alongside her breath, now stabbed painfully at her eyes and throat.

 

What in the world did all of that mean? Was the emperor not her father? 

 

Then… did the Emperor forcibly take her from her real parents and raise her as a princess?

 

And the Divine Power? 

 

The sacred power said to descend upon Baran’s imperial lineage… why did it manifest in her, if she wasn’t even of their blood?

 

Questions with no possible answers piled chaotically in her heart, crushing down. 

 

Forcing air into her constricted lungs, Dahlia struggled with all her might to cling to her last shreds of reason.

 

Thud—

 

A door closed softly, not far away. 

 

Seizing the silence, Dahlia slipped quietly from the study. As she moved, listening intently at each door, she spotted one from which a sliver of light seeped out.

 

Hissin is in there.

 

Still fighting the dizzying swirl of chaos in her mind, she forced herself into a cold clarity and approached the room. 

 

Pressing her ear silently against the wood, she heard the faint rustle of fabric, the sound of clothes shifting.

 

Then, even the dim light vanished. This must be Hissin’s bedchamber.

 

Dahlia waited with a patience born of desperation, letting ample time bleed into the stillness. 

 

As her breaths thickened in the hallway, fear and doubt swelled in tandem, but she clenched her trembling heart again and again, waiting for the moment.

 

Finally, at the far end of that long stretch of time, when everything had dissolved into the night’s deep silence, she carefully took hold of the door handle.

 

Creeeak… 

 

The soft groan of wood against wood sounded thunderous in her ears. She slipped into the space where Hissin slept, muffling even the sound of her own breath into the darkness.

 

Moving slowly inside, Dahlia drew from the folds of her dress a long, sharp shard of glass. 

 

It came from a plate she had secretly shattered earlier in the day—a hidden weapon she had carried close ever since.

 

Clutching the shard with both hands, she approached Hissin’s bed. Whether from the exhaustion of the day, he had fallen swiftly asleep and lay utterly still.

 

Even in the dark, the lines of his profile were sharp, more defined than in her last memory. 

 

He had stubbornly insisted on feeding her, obsessing over her meals, yet his own cheeks had hollowed, the sharp planes of his face carved deeper by weariness.

 

For a fleeting moment, her heart softened. But she quickly tightened her grip on the glass. 

 

What does it matter if he’s gone hungry? I’m here to end his life.

 

Dahlia strained her eyes, focusing, and raised both arms high. Her gaze was fixed precisely on Hissin’s heart.

 

Drive this shard deep into that heart. 

 

Steal his last breath, so swiftly and irrevocably that even my own blood cannot bring him back. 

 

And then… I shall slip the noose around my own neck and follow him into the dark.

 

Her upraised arms trembled, the tight grip causing them to shake in minute waves. She took another swallow of air, gathering her strength to strike—but in that very instant…

 

“…!”

 

A hot tear, welling in her wide, desperate eyes, splashed soundlessly onto the floor. 

 

As her blurred vision cleared again, she saw Hissin lying there, eyes closed, utterly unaware.

 

‘I must do it. Drive vengeance into that heart. Kill the man who deceived me, who shattered everything I had.’ 

 

Then, with my own death, I can repay the debt of sin I carry for him.

 

That’s the only way this cruel fate can end.

 

Yet she found she simply couldn’t. She couldn’t bear the thought of her own hand forcing the blade into Hissin’s heart. 

 

She yearned endlessly for his death, yet was equally powerless to let him go. 

 

The questions swirling in her mind kept conjuring haunting what-ifs, and Dahlia, her arms still raised high, could only weep helpless, silent tears.

 

Then, from the darkness, a pair of crimson eyes slid open.

“Ack—!”

 

In one fluid motion, Hissin’s arm snaked around her waist and pulled her down, seating her atop him. 

 

Then, with his other hand, he seized the arm she had been unable to lower and pressed the glass shard firmly against his own chest.

 

“Kill me.”

 

The deep pressure was immediate; a bloom of crimson seeped through the fabric beneath the glass.

 

“That’s why you came, isn’t it?”

 

Hissin’s lips curved in a fluid, almost graceful line as he tightened his grip on her hand, forcing it firmer against him.

 

“Don’t hesitate. Plunge it straight into the heart.”

 

Do it. Only then… can you finally break free from me.