What If She Dies Like This?
The rain hammering down on her body felt like violence itself.
When he came back to his senses, he was already walking toward her, tilting the umbrella over her. The rain he failed to block still slashed across Kalen’s shoulder.
“Why didn’t you wait inside the mansion?”
Was it the shock? The panic? His throat burned as if he had swallowed live coals.
“I thought you wouldn’t see me.”
Canna’s frail voice drove into his heart like a dagger.
Yes.
That had been exactly his intention.
“So you waited out here?”
“If I didn’t do at least this… I was afraid I’d never get to meet you.”
Canna’s powerless whisper ended in a faint smile. She looked as though the rainwater might dissolve her where she stood.
“Kalen, I have something to say…”
At that instant her body swayed. Kalen caught her collapsing shoulders and held her upright.
“…!”
The shock hit him like a hammer to the skull.
Dear God.
Canna’s body was ice-cold.
“Cough!”
She coughed then, and something was wrong.
Amid the chaotic storm of scents—thick grass, wet earth, flesh, sweat, rain—an intense metallic tang suddenly stabbed through everything else.
This smell…
No.
It couldn’t be. It mustn’t be.
Denying it without even knowing what he was denying, Kalen yanked her closer by the shoulder.
“…!”
His eyes flew wide. The corners of her mouth were slick with blood.
In the next breath Canna crumpled. Kalen caught her reflexively in his arms.
She was terrifyingly light.
Horribly cold.
Like a corpse whose soul had already fled. The moment the thought formed, a wave of pure dread rang through him like a warning bell.
Bang!
“Call the physician right now!”
He had no memory of running back to the mansion. Had that roar been his own voice?
“Kalen? What in the world is happening?”
“I said call the physician! Now!”
Chloe asked something, but he neither heard nor saw her. At Kalen’s razor-edged command the physician arrived within moments.
“How is she? Is my sister all right?”
“……”
The physician said nothing. The shadow in his eyes was so heavy that Kalen’s heart plummeted.
“Why aren’t you answering?”
“Well… that is…”
“Speak plainly.”
“Her pulse… is barely detectable.”
The physician’s words came in broken fragments through the white noise filling Kalen’s skull—weak breathing, faint pulse, severe fever.
Kalen’s face hardened into something frighteningly cold. While his mind spiraled into chaos, his expression had never been calmer.
“So what is the conclusion?”
“She is critically ill.”
The physician sighed and shook his head.
“I’m sorry, but… you should prepare yourself.”
“Nonsense.”
Swallowing the urge to seize the man by the collar and hurl him aside, Kalen ordered coldly, “That’s enough. Get out. And bring another physician.”
Yet every doctor who came gave the same verdict.
Her condition is grave. The fever is especially dangerous. If it does not break, she will die.
When the fourth physician delivered the identical diagnosis, Kalen finally exploded.
“That’s impossible! My sister only got caught in the rain! Bring another—”
That was when it happened.
“Cough—cough!”
Canna, who had been unconscious as if dead, began coughing violently. Then she retched up a mouthful of blood. Her entire body started convulsing.
“Lord Kalen, please step back!”
The physician rushed in, examined her, shoved a handkerchief into her mouth, and turned her onto her side.
Thankfully, the seizure passed after only a few seconds.
But in that brief span Kalen felt as if he had plunged straight into hell. His palms, his forehead, his whole body were soaked in cold sweat.
“She has stabilized. High fevers can trigger seizures; it appears that is what occurred.”
Kalen had lost all words. Seeing his devastated expression, the physician offered cautious advice.
“I will prepare medicine. Make certain she takes it every hour on the hour. Wipe away her sweat regularly, change her clothes, and…”
The physician continued with several more instructions before leaving.
“…I will do it myself.”
When the maid Leah tried to administer the medicine after the doctor departed, Kalen spoke in a hoarse voice.
“I will look after my sister. Leave us.”
Leah obeyed without protest.
With a soft click the door closed, sealing the room. Only then did Kalen walk slowly to the bed and gaze down at Canna.
His beautiful sister.
His pale sister.
His corpse-like sister…
A sharp pain stabbed through one corner of his heart. The agony drove him to his knees beside the bed, clutching his chest.
What if—just what if—
What if she really dies like this?
If she dies now. If she truly dies.
“Kalen, I have something to say…”
She had told him she had something to say.
She had said there were words she needed to give him.
That was why she had come looking for him day after day. Even when he refused to meet her. Even when he turned her away at the door.
“Kalen, I have something to say…”
She had kept coming because she had something to tell him.
What was it?
What had she wanted so desperately to say?
Only now, far too late, did the question burn inside him with agonizing urgency.
What words could have made her stand for hours in a torrential downpour?
To the point that it came to this… to the brink of death?
What could possibly have been so important?
And how hard would it have been, really, to simply listen?
Because of me.
His breath suddenly choked off. It felt as if invisible hands were strangling him.
Because I refused to listen.
So she had thrown herself into the freezing rain and waited.
And the result? Canna was sick. Suffering. Perhaps—truly perhaps—dying.
What made it even worse was how familiar the scene felt.
The Canna in his memories had always been in pain, always sad, always struggling, always tormented. From childhood until now, as an adult.
All along, his sister had only ever known pain.
And damn him, he was still the perpetrator. Just as he had always been.
I did this to her.
Kalen bent double, covering his face with both hands.
It’s all my fault.
A memory rose unbidden.
“Brother, did you know? I drove Sister Canna out of the house.”
Childhood. When he had been foolish and heartless.
“I told the knights not to open the door for her. So she’s probably pacing outside the mansion, waiting.”
Kalen had barely listened to Isabel. He turned a page in his book and answered.
“Go away, Isabel. I’m reading.”
“Ugh, you’re no fun. I finally chased her out and you don’t even care?”
“Shut up. Go play somewhere else.”
After driving Isabel away he had lost himself in his book. He read straight through until evening, when the sound of rain finally reached him.
“……”
It was pouring.
“She’s still waiting outside for them to open the door.”
Isabel’s earlier words brushed past his mind, but he ignored them. He let it go. He didn’t care what happened to her.
In fact, if she had gone somewhere else as Isabel suggested, it might even have been better.
Ten-year-old Kalen had thought so without a shred of guilt.
He had not considered where a young girl with no guardian might end up, or what kind of life she would be forced to live.
He had forgotten all about it until that evening, when his mother, seated at dinner, ordered a knight:
“His Grace will return soon. Bring Canna inside before he arrives.”
A short while later Kalen watched the knight carry in a fainted Canna on his back.
Her lips were blue from standing so long in the cold.
Exactly as they were now.
“……”
Kalen stared down at her with a face gone pitch black.
It was the same.
Nothing had changed.
He had told himself it was different now, that he had simply been too young and foolish back then, that he hadn’t understood what he was doing.
But what exactly had changed?
Canna was still in pain, just like before. Still drenched in rain and suffering.
“I have something to say.”
“I waited.”
“I thought you wouldn’t see me.”
Self-loathing burned through his skull.
She had already endured so much recently. She was the one who had nearly been hunted like an animal by that mad prince.
Had the fear of losing control in front of her really been that terrifying?
The fear of becoming someone other than himself?
What does any of that matter?
When he considered all the things he had done to her, her coldness was nothing. He should have been grateful that she had changed her mind and come to him at all, even this late.
If he had only listened, none of this would have happened.
“I’m sorry…”
Kalen carefully took Canna’s hand.
It was so small and slender it seemed it would snap with the slightest pressure. She was unbearably fragile. She had done nothing wrong.
Yet the one who always suffered was her.
The pain and the torment had always, always been Canna’s burden.
“I’m sorry.”
He bent lower, resting his forehead against the back of her hand.
Before this hand, he was undeniably a sinner.
“I was wrong.”
So please, open your eyes.
Wake up and hear me beg.
“Please punish me, Sister…”