CH 138

“Towel.”

“Here.”

A clean towel was soaked in warm water to first wipe off the blood. Azela’s body flinched each time the blood was wiped away. She let out a small, flinching moan through her open teeth, but she didn’t seem to have come to her senses yet.

When the towel that had wiped the blood was removed, her attendants quickly replaced it with a new one. The doctor lifted a cloth soaked in antiseptic and applied it slowly to the wound.

“Uht…”

Azela’s eyes, which had been closed, opened as she struggled in pain. As she rolled her eyes, she soon had a grasp of what was going on. When the smell of the disinfectant reached her nose, she understood at once what they were doing, so she did not move.

With her eyes tightly closed again and her right hand clenched, she simply endured the pain.

“You’re good at holding it in, but I have to suture it up from now on. Will you be okay?”

Seeing her fist clenched tightly, the doctor comforted her and asked. Even if Azela said it wasn’t okay, there was no other way because they couldn’t leave the wound open.

As Azela nodded, the doctor put a clean towel over her mouth.

“If you bite it, it will help.”

It was unknown if it would really help, but at the doctor’s words, Azela nodded her head and held the towel to her mouth.

After removing the cloth attached to her back, the stitching began. Even though she bit hard on the towel as the pain pierced the raw flesh, her moans leaked from her attempts to endure the pain. She endured as hard as she could, not knowing when the treatment would end because of the long wound.

Tears flowed from Azela’s eyes again.

“We are almost done.”

This was already the third time.

A few minutes after Azela held the towel over her mouth, the cuts on her back and on her shoulder were sutured. She was holding up so very well that it could be considered too strong. Even though the strength even made the doctors lose their words, the treatment was not over yet.

“Do you feel something in your left hand?”

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“…Yes.”

“I don’t know whether to say good or bad.”

The doctor made a joke and laughed. It was because the back of her left hand was quite scarred and in poor condition because she had been stabbed by her sword several times. It didn’t seem strange if the nerves were cut off.

“Duke Ferial. If you intend to stay here, could you help me?”

“What can I do?”

Perhaps he had waited for the doctor’s call for help, Zagnac stepped out immediately. He hurriedly approached Azela’s side and looked at her with worried eyes.

As usual, she would have smiled and said it was okay because she was worried about him, but she didn’t seem to have the energy to do so.

“She can move her body, so please hold onto Lady Vellista so that she cannot move. If she moves her body, the suture may go wrong, so you have to hold on tight.”

Nodding his head, Zagnac sat on the edge of the bed and held Azela tightly with both hands. Her slender body, which had always been confident, was trembling. The white towel in her mouth was stained red. She bit so hard that her bruised gums seemed to be bleeding.

“I’m sorry.”

Zagnac apologized in a low voice, thinking it was all his fault.

If he hadn’t invited Livia, or if he hadn’t let her out in the hall… no, if he hadn’t been at odds with the Emperor… No, if he hadn’t brought her as his escort knight. If only she hadn’t made a pact with him, the devil.

“…I’m sorry.”

The guilt that once bloomed grew bigger and bigger. Hearing the repeated apologies, Azela turned her head to look at him. He seemed to be in pain even though she was the one in pain. In that short period of time, he suffered so much that he looked bad.

Even though she had to say she was okay to comfort him, her mouth couldn’t open.

“Let’s begin.”

Along with the doctor’s words, disinfectant was poured onto the back of his left hand. The doctor’s opinion was that it was useless to attach a cloth because the wound was so large and deep.

As the disinfectant was poured, Azela clenched her towel and bowed her head.

“Uuuuhhh!!”

Still, the pain did not go away. It was incomparably greater than the pain she felt in her back and shoulders. She knew in her head that she shouldn’t struggle, but her body moved without her knowledge. All Zagnac could do was to hold onto Azela so that she could not move.

“Huu…”

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Azela struggled against the pain, causing the towel to fall from her mouth to the floor.

A sob, weighed down by the pain, spread between her parted lips. It was even harder for Zagnac to see her like that, as she had never said anything weak since her divorce.

“Give her the towel. If she bites her tongue the wrong way, she gets hurt.”

At the doctor’s words, Zagnac rolled up his sleeves and held his arm between Azela’s lips. After the disinfection was over and the pain piercing the raw flesh continued, she bit his arm hard, before she had time to come to her senses.

Azela’s screams continued in the bedroom for a long time. By the time the treatment, which had been going on for a long time, was over, she had fallen asleep, passing out from the pain.

“You need to disinfect and change the bandage twice a day until the wound is healed. She can take the medicine after three meals a day.”

“…Good work.”

“I’ll stop by in two weeks to see how it goes. Until the wound has healed normally, do not apply force to the wound. Like her left hand if possible.”

“Yes.”

“That hand…”

The doctor looked at Zagnac’s arm, which was bleeding from Azela’s bite, and held out his hand, wanting to treat him.

“No, this is fine. I’ll figure it out. Good work, you may go.”

Zagnac’s gaze was fixed on Azela as he waved his hand. Due to his determination, the doctors took their tools as they had no choice.

As the doctors had finished their precautions, they left the bedroom.

By the time they left, he was still perched on the bed, with Azela’s head resting on his lap, carefully stroking her hair. Through the open door, he could see Livia’s face waiting outside. She was looking at Azela, who was sleeping with Zagnac.

After hearing that the treatment had gone well, Livia took one last look at Azela and quietly closed the bedroom door before leaving the Ferial residence.

It wasn’t until four days later that Azela opened her eyes. Seeing Azela not opening her eyes, Zagnac called the doctor dozens of times a day. Although he knew best that she wasn’t dead, he was scared like a human being.

“It is because the fatigue has accumulated, and the medicine she is taking has a sleeping effect. The wound is healing well, so there are no problems at present.”

The doctor who was called to his fuss gave the same answer dozens of times a day.

Despite the reassuring words, Zagnac was not reassured. He had to see her blue eyes, but he felt that her thirst would be quenched only by being immersed in that. During the four days Azela didn’t open her eyes, Livia visited Ferial residence every day.

“Miss Vellista… I guess I shouldn’t have asked a stupid question.”

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Livia smiled bitterly as she saw Zagnac, who was gradually becoming more depressed since the last visit. Since he never took a step from Azela’s bedroom, she always had to visit the bedroom instead. Livia stared at Azela, who was always lying still in the bed, and at Zagnac, who always showed his back to her, then came back.

However, the day of her last visit before Azela woke up was different.

“I’ve been thinking about it.”

“….”

“If it were an assassin who was aiming for you, when Miss Vellista was injured, it would have been quicker to kill her and come to you, but why didn’t the assassin do that? Why did he continue to confront Miss Vellista? Why did he torment Miss Vellista so much?”

Livia let out a small breath. Her shoulders twitched.

“He must have been aiming for Miss Vellista from the beginning. I think so. If that’s the case…”

“….”

“…I think I know who instigated it.”