I, the Female Lead, Ruined the Original Chapter 159

Though Melda’s words were directed at Selleana, the voice carried enough to reach Rakrensius’s ears with crystalline clarity.

 

“And then, she disappeared. Being someone who was always elusive, we thought she might have gone on another journey. But a few months later, someone who had taken a wrong turn by sea discovered this place.”

 

“Ah…” Selleana’s voice was soft, like a breath against the stillness.

 

“But you seemed to have guessed it already? You don’t seem too surprised.”

 

“…I heard about it in Nepelsian. They said the knights visited once more.”

 

“Ah… Yes, that’s right.” The woman’s voice carried a note of remembrance. “Even after Collin left, people from Nepelsian occasionally came to ask about Titi. But once they found out what happened to Titi, a bunch of soldiers came swarming in.”

 

“I’m sorry. The village is so quiet… they must have caused a scene, weren’t they? The people from Nepelsian can be a bit arrogant.”

 

[You’re the one who boasts the most around here.]

 

Melda, unable to hear Di’s rebuke, chuckled softly—a sound like rustling autumn leaves.

 

“But as you can see, they left without being able to do anything. We wanted to somehow take care of it and give her a proper resting place, but we were told to leave it be, and truly, we couldn’t move her, so we just left it.”

 

“So, she’s in the same state as when you first found her?”

 

“Yes. She’s wearing the same clothes she had on the day she came to our house.” Melda’s eyes trembled slightly as she gazed toward the boat, like ripples across a still pond. For her, it was a memory of bidding farewell to a neighbor she had lived beside for many seasons.

 

In essence, Tirtayana, sensing her own mortality approaching like winter’s first frost, had left a brief request with the village chief’s family before taking a boat to a secluded place to lay herself to rest. Collin. Hoping—vaguely, desperately—for the day her son would return.

 

Rakrensius, who had been leaning against the boat’s weathered wood, shifted his posture, the movement almost imperceptible. Even after Melda and her son returned to the village first, the two of them remained there, as still as stones against the changing sky.

 

As the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the heavens in hues of amber and gold, Rakrensius detached himself from the boat and sat down, his gaze drawn to the vast, open sea—that endless expanse of possibility and loss. Only then did Selleana quietly approach him and sit close by. She rested her head gently on his shoulder, her warmth a silent comfort as they shared the same vista, the same breath of salt-tinged air. To an outsider, it might have seemed as though she was leaning on Rakrensius for support, but in truth, she was the pillar holding him upright in his grief.

 

Meanwhile, the sky transformed tirelessly above them. The sun surrendered to the night, and the moon rose like a silver sentinel. The clouds dispersed completely, leaving the sky awash with the fiery colors of dusk, soon yielding to a deep, velvety blue that seemed to cradle the emerging stars. Until then, no one moved. No one spoke. Even the sword Selleana had laid beside her simply gazed at the surrounding landscape in reverent silence.

 

Rakrensius finally broke the stillness when a crescent moon, as thin and delicate as a fingernail paring, appeared above the horizon. “My mother cast a spell here.” His voice, unused for so long, emerged rough-edged and raw, like a blade pulled from its scabbard after years of disuse.

 

Perhaps because there was no artificial light to compete with the capital—countless stars scattered across the dark sky, their light softly illuminating the scales of the night sea. The sky and the sea sparkled in unison, a tapestry of light and shadow. As the moonlight shimmered across the water, the boat where Tirtayana lay sleeping rocked gently as if cradled by invisible hands.

 

“It was a spell to preserve this state until I arrived here. But… it was designed to break naturally the moment I die.”

 

“The way you remember your mother, just as she was?” Selleana’s question came cautiously like one approaching a wounded creature.

 

At her words, Rakrensius nodded slowly, the movement barely perceptible in the dim light.

 

Selleana found his hand resting on his knee and enfolded it on her own, her touch warm against his skin grown cold with grief. “She wanted to welcome you as she was in life.”

 

“…” His silence spoke volumes.

 

“And she considered the possibility that you might not be able to come.” Selleana’s words gave voice to the thoughts he couldn’t bear to articulate.

 

As she captured exactly what lay heavy in his heart, Rakrensius nodded again, the gesture a confirmation of shared understanding. The man’s throat worked with difficulty, muscles tight as he fought to swallow his tears. Though the moisture gathering in his eyes didn’t spill over his cheeks, he maintained rigid control. If he spoke wrongly, if he allowed even the smallest crack in his composure, he might collapse into uncontrollable sobs.

 

Selleana, sitting beside him like a guardian angel, couldn’t possibly be blind to his struggle. No… she had to know. She had been the closest person to Rakrensius for years now, practically his only family in a world that had taken so much from him.

 

The man was barely containing the tide of regret that threatened to drown him. Selleana felt his emotions as if they were her own, her heart beating in time with his sorrow, as much as she loved Rakrensius—completely, irrevocably, with every fiber of her being.

 

After speaking with Melda, Selleana learned that Tirtayana had passed away less than a year after Rakrensius was taken away. He had suspected as much—Tashur III’s words had confirmed it—yet knowledge and acceptance were different creatures entirely. The reality struck him like winter’s first bitter frost—seeing his mother’s body preserved exactly as it had been at her passing, hearing Melda’s testimony from lips that had long ago accepted the death of a neighbor. These truths landed heavier than any spell he had ever cast.

 

Rakrensius had been taken to the imperial palace in the early spring of the imperial year 738. Tirtayana had drawn her final breath in late autumn of that same year as the leaves fell and the world prepared for sleep. Her face bore the unmistakable marks of illness—body wasted thin as a winter reed, skin pale as fresh snow, drained of life’s blood. And yet, she looked so young—exactly as Rakrensius remembered her thirteen years ago, like a portrait frozen in time.

 

How young must Rakrensius have been to have regarded his youthful mother as his entire universe? What storms had raged in that small boy’s heart, torn from her side and delivered to a father he’d never known, leaving his dying mother behind like a forgotten promise? Did they truly need to take him away? Did it have to be then, when the thread of her life was already fraying?

 

“Sniff…” Suddenly, Selleana’s nose twitched with a sob that broke the night’s stillness.

 

“…Lea?” Rakrensius turned to her, his attention sharp as a blade. He embraced her quickly, his arms encircling her like protective wings. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

 

“What do you have to be sorry for?” she asked, voice trembling like a leaf in autumn wind.

 

“I’m sorry… for burdening you with such a sad story.”

 

“It’s your story, so why? It’s all precious.” Selleana tried to respond evenly, but each word emerged damp with tears, like stones lifted from a riverbed.

 

Her heart had begun to fill with sorrow the moment Rakrensius knelt before his mother’s body. The pain of young Rakrensius pierced her chest like a silver thorn and the sight of him grieving now pulled at her heart with invisible threads.

 

She loved Rakrensius, this man beside her, and every fragment of his past that had shaped him into who he was. Her sorrow multiplied a thousandfold, leaving her breathless as though caught in a winter gale.

 

“It’s just… the night sea feels so lonely,” she managed, forcing words past her grief, hoping he wouldn’t bear guilt for her tears. But the truth remained, immovable as stone. “Looking at this sea… it’s where she passed away, isn’t it?” Her voice was soft as moth wings against the darkness. “She must have hoped you’d find her, using her last strength to cast a spell.”

 

Selleana continued, her voice damp with emotion, like footprints in morning dew. “Back then… I wanted to hold you when you were lonely in the Western Palace.”

 

Rakrensius remained silent, his stillness speaking volumes.

 

“Mr. Sword was there, but it couldn’t hug you, right? Even though you knew I was there, and I visited the Western Palace garden so often, you couldn’t bring yourself to look at me.”

 

“That’s only natural. Even though you were treated well by the imperial family, if you had spoken with me, you would have been in danger too….”

 

“Every time I hear how lonely you are, I want to hug your younger self.” Her words tumbled forth like water breaking through ice. “Hold you tight and tell you that in a few years, you won’t be lonely anymore. You’ll have a lover and a best friend… and you’ll have a big family, with wonderful people at the Magic Tower, so just wait a little longer… I’m sorry to say this, but I want to whisper to you to hold on just a bit more.”

 

“Holding me now is more than enough.” Rakrensius tightened his arms around her as if she might dissolve into the night air.

 

In response, Selleana wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her face against his chest and sobbing without restraint, like a dam finally giving way to winter floods. Though it was Rakrensius who pulled Selleana into his embrace, in truth, it was he who was overwhelmed by the warmth of her heartfelt hug. Within Selleana’s arms, Rakrensius gradually felt her love—radiant and sustaining as the sun after endless night. Their breaths mingled together for a while, forming a single rhythm, like two streams joining to form a river.

 

“Let’s cut ties with the imperial family and live our own lives,” she murmured against his chest.

 

“Haha.” His laugh was soft, barely more than a breath.

 

“Darling, you came to Nepelsian solely to meet me. There’s nothing else to be grateful for.”

 

Rakrensius nodded in agreement, burying his head in the curve of Selleana’s neck, seeking sanctuary in her warmth. Though her playful complaints faded into silence, Selleana’s sobs continued unabated, like a song that refused to end.

 

Time passed, measured only by the stars’ slow dance across the heavens. As the crescent moon—having reached its zenith—began to tilt downward like a bow being lowered, Rakrensius rose from his spot.

 

The seal magic had preserved her body until Rakrensius’s arrival, but now the first whispers of decay were becoming apparent. Though darkness veiled these changes like a merciful shroud, the faint vitality that had lingered in the sealed state had vanished completely, unmistakable as footprints in fresh snow.

 

Rakrensius placed his hand upon the boat and began to chant, his voice rising and falling like distant waves against a shore. Layer upon layer, again and again, his words wove themselves into being. Colors of light—azure-like summer skies, amber-like autumn leaves, silver-like winter frost—enveloped Tirtayana and the boat, dancing across the water’s surface. The beauty of the descending light was so overwhelming that Selleana sobbed helplessly, her tears falling like stars into the dark sea below.

 

Though Rakrensius himself remained dry-eyed, Selleana felt a fleeting embarrassment at her own tears. But she decided, with quiet resolve, that she was crying on his behalf—for the man whose breath carried sorrow like winter carries silence, yet whose eyes never reddened with grief.

 

[You’re crying more now than Rakrensius did when he was thirteen.]

 

Di’s gentle teasing only intensified Selleana’s sobs, each one pulling from deeper within her chest.

 

If she, who merely loved Rakrensius, felt such heartache—sharp as a blade between her ribs—how much more sorrowful must Rakrensius himself have been? Especially as a thirteen-year-old boy, a child still learning the contours of the world.

 

Overwhelmed by unbearable sorrow and longing, yet unable to cry, he had suppressed his grief like embers buried beneath snow, afraid they might flare and consume everything around them. There had been no one to understand his sadness, and he feared that someone might mistakenly pity him and end up getting hurt—another loss he could not bear.

 

Meanwhile, Rakrensius’s incantation drew to a close. Tirtayana and her coffin, imbued with mysteries ancient as the stars, shone white under the crescent moon’s gaze as if illuminated from within.

 

“…Mother, it’s been a long time.”

 

Gazing down as if etching the scene into his memory—a final portrait to carry through the years ahead—Rakrensius reached out one last time, his fingers tracing the air between them.

 

“Rest in peace.”

 

With his final farewell, flames erupted within the boat.