HDBMTD 69

~Chapter 69~

“Are you feeling okay, Rina?”

“Thanks to you, yes. The hospital was a mess with emergency patients, but since I was treated as a victim, I even got a day off. I’m probably the healthiest healer here.”

“That’s a relief.”

The last time I’d seen Rina, she’d been lying in the hospital corridor after the phantom ghost’s attack. It seemed she had no lasting aftereffects. Relieved, I asked about another concern.

“How are the villagers who were brought to the hospital?”

“Fortunately, most of them have been discharged. There are only a handful worse off than you, Your Highness.”

“That’s really good to hear.”

“That means your condition is one of the worst, though. You keep worrying about others…”

She looked at me with pity.

“It’s not that bad. I even heard I might be discharged soon.”

“That was before you overexerted yourself. You inhaled smoke while you weren’t fully recovered, and it severely damaged your airway. Your shoulder was also dislocated. With injuries like these, you must have been in terrible pain—yet you didn’t come straight to the hospital. Don’t tell me you can’t feel pain?”

“…”

My silence made her eyes sharpen.

“There are psychic-type Eshafés who habitually block pain entirely, ignoring the fact that it’s a signal to protect the body. Don’t tell me you’re one of them…”

“It was… an urgent situation.”

“I’m reporting all of this to the Duke.”

“Rina…”

“Looking at me like that won’t help. You need someone to stop you from reckless behavior.”

Just then, someone knocked on the door.

When it opened, Rina muttered, “Perfect timing. Someone who can stop you.”

I took a breath and looked up.

It was Nocturne.

Rina really did report to Nocturne. I could tell from the way his expression darkened while listening to her.

Had I really managed to purge his madness yesterday?

I remembered refusing his kiss and only holding him. I suddenly worried whether that had been enough.

He walked toward my bed. I glanced at his eyes, then quickly looked down.

At least they’re black…
But I was sure I saw a faint blue flicker.

Standing by my bed, Nocturne spoke.

“How’s your body?”

“I’m fine now.”

“In that case, I’d like to revisit yesterday’s conversation. I wasn’t in my right mind then.”

“Ah…”

I nodded and asked, “Who came with you?”

I’d expected his aide, but instead it was a familiar doctor—the same one who had helped with my counseling here before. Nocturne explained he wasn’t from this hospital; he had invited him personally.

“This is Dr. Wood, a mental health specialist. He’ll just observe from the side and won’t hear our conversation, so don’t mind him.”

Dr. Wood greeted me politely, then sat at a comfortable distance. He put a small device in his ear and gestured—it seemed to be a sound-blocking artifact, meaning he wouldn’t hear us.

I wondered why we needed a psychiatrist for this talk, but looking at Nocturne’s expression, I didn’t ask.

Nocturne sat beside my bed and, after a moment of silence, spoke.

“One thing I want to say—if something like this happens again…”

His gaze sank deeply, as if recalling yesterday. I tensed instinctively.

“Don’t try to handle it alone. Tell me.”

I blinked at his controlled tone.

Judging by his face, I’d expected something like, If this happens again, I’ll lock you up and never let you see daylight.
But what came out was a reasonable request.

He seemed to choose each word carefully—maybe the doctor had coached him beforehand.

“I’m sorry for worrying you.”

He let out a long sigh.
“It wasn’t just worry. When I found you there…”

By “there,” he meant the burning building where I had saved Kane.

“You used your ability even though it worsens your condition, sneaking into the Cambiata’s base.”

“…What?”

“I heard from Tita that you nearly died from blood loss breaking my brainwashing. Jason told me about the infiltration.”

“….”

Apparently no one around me could keep their mouths shut. Tita, Jason…

“What were you thinking…”

He rubbed his face in exasperation. My conscience ached.

“You said you’d only become my pair if I called you Vis.”

“Yes… I thought about it for a long time before deciding.”

“I’m curious what that long thinking involved,” he said, but didn’t push further.

“I’ve been putting this off because of your condition, but now I need to tell you the truth.”

He looked at me with dark eyes.
“I’m reaching my limit.”

“What truth?”

After a pause, he said:

“‘Vis’ is not your name.”

When I frowned, he pulled a few photos from an envelope.

“This is the woman you claimed was you, right?”

It was the face from the Cambiata lab documents. I nodded.
“Yes, that’s right.”

“But her name isn’t Vis.”

He explained calmly.
“Her name is Ragey Barnett. Inside Cambiata she used another code name, but it was completely different from ‘Vis.’ You must have mistaken something written in a report—‘Vis’ wasn’t a name.”

His gaze locked onto me.

“‘Vis’ is Cambiata slang meaning ‘failure.’”

“What?”

“You seem surprised. You call yourself Cambiata, but don’t even know their slang?”

“…”

“And you claim to have Cambiata memories without even knowing your own name?”

His voice dropped lower.
“You’ve lied to me more than once.”

I bit my lip, avoiding his eyes.

‘Vis’ meant failure…
Faced with the harsh truth, I mostly felt embarrassed.

“This name is all I have left.”

All my confident statements about “Vis” being my name replayed in my head, and shame followed.

If I’ve recovered so many Cambiata memories, why didn’t I remember such basic slang?

Only now did I realize:
“Then the reason you never called my name until now… was it because—”

“…”

From his silence, I could read the answer.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to acknowledge me—it was that he couldn’t call me a failure.

Not knowing he was protecting me, I had stubbornly demanded he call my name. It was both embarrassing and guilt-inducing.

With everything exposed, denial was pointless. I should start by apologizing.

I’d lied because I thought claiming to be a perfect Cambiata would be cleaner—but from his side, it must have felt like a betrayal.

“I…”

“I should apologize.”

He cut me off, and I looked at him in surprise.

“You made that choice that day because of me, didn’t you?”

By “that choice,” he meant when I drank the poison. He had clearly taken my drunken words to heart.

I quickly spoke.
“No, I’m the one who should apologize. If I were in your place—”

I stopped before finishing “I’d be disgusted by someone like me.”

But he seemed to read my thoughts and sighed deeply.

“When I first saw you at the palace, I did feel a sense of rejection.”

He spoke calmly.
“Yes, I thought you were a cheap imitation of the original. Everything was similar but with a strange wrongness.”

“That’s because I’m not the real thing,” I said plainly.

He studied me for a moment, then spoke.

“But now it’s different.”

His voice carried certainty.

“When I saw you again at the lab, that rejection vanished. In fact, I thought the exact opposite.”

“Opposite?”

Nocturne looked me over slowly.
“If Aria had miraculously survived, she would look exactly like you.”