MCDITE

8

Did I fall into the ice cold bone hell in midsummer?

Adele was cold. “Wow.”

When she woke up, she saw a bumpy stone floor.

How long the hell was she lying in a cold seat, she felt aches and pains while getting the body up.

"This is..."

She had lived as a law-abiding citizen without doing anything bad. A place where she thought that she would never have come in.

Prison. Black iron bars were embedded in the stone floor at regular intervals.

Adele got up and shook the grate. It was so hard that it did not budge even when she was hanging on it.

"Sigh." Adele walked on the bumpy floor.

"Ouch." Her feet hurt.

She was barefoot, probably her shoes had come off when dragged.

The white skin was scratched, bruised, and bleeding.

Seeing the wound, Adele calmed down.

'Is it today? Or tomorrow?'

Considering that the hospitality was so harsh, it seemed that her utility value was exhausted.

When she resigned, no more tears came out.

Adele squatted down.

It was too cold since the cold coming up from the stone floor.

'I'm sure he's not thinking of keeping me alive for a long time.'

In the prison there were neither a bed nor a pillow nor a blanket. She curled up small and wrapped her arms around her legs.

She didn't feel better.

'Is there any way to escape from here?'

There is no way to take Leo out anyway.

Right now, she didn't even know where Leo was staying in this vast palace.

She felt like her body was getting stiff because she was trembling too much in the cold stone.

In contrast, her head became clearer.

Emperor Albrecht. Van Helm von Albrecht.

Van. “He was Van.”

There was a reason she couldn't find him even though she tried so hard.

The information was wrong from the start.

He never called himself a knight.

“My knighthood was tainted, and there is no one in the world who wants me to live.”

She remembered what he said.

So, she vaguely considered him a knight.

“…Van." Adele muttered his name quietly.

Raising Leo alone, Adele would habitually talk to herself by calling his name.

Whenever Leo slept, he patted the sleeping child and Adele called the man.

"Van, today Leo called me Mama.”

“Van, do you know it's baby food? I’ve been practicing little by little before the baby can eat, but today Leo ate baby food for the first time.”

“Van, Leo walked.”

When she called the name out loud, the loneliness of raising a child alone passed away.

She thought he would be somewhere.

"Van, today Leo asked about his Dad.”

“Van, I'm having a hard time.”

The man who disappeared after sharing one night. It was a short meeting.

Was it too short to be glorified, leaving only what is good for Adele's memory?

Adele waited for him.

She wanted to meet her handsome man again, and she missed his arms that held her tight that night.

"Where are you now? Van..."

“....I miss you.”

Adele loved him absurdly.

Beautiful and poor man. Even though she couldn't meet and see him, her heart deepened.

The child that he left for her, Leo. She hoped that the child would be able to meet his dad someday, as if it were fate.

She wondered if he was already dead, as she couldn't find him even after searching.

However, she wanted to believe that he was alive somewhere because he couldn't find him or hear the news that the man named Van was dead.

It was a vain hope.

'I shouldn't have met him in the first place.'

It was a belated regret. Had it not been, this would not have happened.

For the first time, Adele regretted refusing her mother's offer of luck in the shadow of the Marquis.

Had it been, it would not have been painful as her heart had been torn like this.

Tears struck Adele's cheek.

How long would she be confined?

A handful of sun went down with a single fist in the prison.

'The sun is passing.'

Adele thought of Leo.

'If I ask him to see the child one more time before I die, will he not listen?'

Her hair was messed up, and her clothes were torn in several places because of how she was dragged.

“Damn.”

Tears poured out of her heart.

Rattle.

Step step. Step step. That way.

A door opened in the distance, and someone stepped inside and heard the sound of footsteps.

Adele, frightened, went to the corner and curled up.

It was an instinct that came out of trouble because there was no place to hide.

Several of men stood in front of her prison.

After passing through them, Van approached the grate.

Woodduck.

As Van grabbed the grate with his hand, the grate bent like a pint, without having to open the door.

Seeing the power, Adele was frightened.

Cuts, poisoning, strangulation.

She imagined an ordinary death.

'I'll just die in that hand.'

Whatever she imagined, it was more.

Adele was tired of hoping.

Van raised Adele.

Adele wanted to avoid him, but she was lifted up like a paper doll.

“Adele.”

The emperor's eyes were harsh.

He seemed livid.

“This is a misunderstanding.”