#086. Even If the Price Is Your Life
Blanche, who had been bedridden for days, smiled calmly with an expression uncharacteristically serene.
“Who would dare trifle with the heavens?”
Smooth talker.
Melchizedek’s grip tightened on the curtain. His voice was low and pressing.
“When was it that Lady Starte tried to kill you?”
“Ten years ago.”
The fact that Blanche answered such questions so obediently only infuriated him further. Melchizedek stared into those pitch-black eyes, no different from his previous life, and pressed again.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You wouldn’t have cared, would you?”
The reply was instant. Taking advantage of Melchizedek’s brief pause, Blanche repeated, slowly and deliberately:
“Even if Blanche Roa Vandalouin had died then, it would have meant nothing to Your Majesty.”
He couldn’t refute it—because it was true. At the time, Melchizedek hadn’t even known that Blanche and Yi Baek-ryeon were the same person, nor had he any affection for her.
But still…
“You could have told me before causing this mess.”
At least before the attempted assassination incident. At least after he had proposed. At least sometime during the quiet days they had shared. She could have told him then—
That someone once wanted her dead, that she had harbored such a person within her palace, even building him a laboratory.
Before she sought her vengeance alone, stretching across ten long years, she could have given him a chance to do something for her.
“You never change, no matter how many times you’re reborn.”
Then as now, the thing he most desperately wanted was to protect her. She had no sense of self-preservation—so he had to watch over her, guard her, care for her.
He could never confess, never propose, never live by her side, but at least he could protect her, shield her from the storms of the world.
But neither Yi Baek-ryeon nor Blanche ever entrusted him with that role.
“Why should I change?”
It was an easy admission.
Though Melchizedek had already suspected it, hearing it aloud was something else entirely. The longing he had buried under anger surged up and overwhelmed him. He could not move.
Blanche, however, betrayed not the faintest hint of such longing. Calmly, she began to explain her scheme.
She wasn’t ignorant of how dangerous it would be if her charade were ever exposed.
Whether she relied on his protection, or whether she simply didn’t care what befell her, Melchizedek couldn’t tell.
“I didn’t die, and Lady Starte failed. As you know, this was neither revenge nor punishment. So, Your Majesty, surely there is no reason to be troubled.”
Her reasoning was flawless—so flawless it made him want to sneer just to break it.
“You make it sound as though, had she succeeded, you’d have come back as a ghost just to let me know.”
His hands clenched so hard the delicate silk curtain nearly tore.
Releasing it, Melchizedek dragged a chair forward and sat astride it, his pale hand resting on the backrest. Blanche glanced at the whitened knuckles and smiled faintly.
“As if I would allow some wandering spirit to cling to Your Majesty.”
Melchizedek exhaled a suppressed sigh.
“Why would someone so loyal commit such a deed?”
“What deed do you mean?”
“You nearly branded me as the fiancé who sent an assassin.”
She knew perfectly well what rumors could spread.
That was what Melchizedek could not understand most about this affair.
Everything else he could accept, but why choose a method that might spread whispers that he had wanted Blanche dead?
“Oh dear. Forgive this fool for not considering that. I shall atone with death—”
“Do you really want to speak of death after surviving by a thread?”
“It was my failing. Allow me to prostrate myself in apology.”
She certainly had a way with words. His nerves were fraying, but Melchizedek did not relent. Blanche even looked ready to climb from the bed and bow flat on the floor, but he waved her down and pressed again.
“I asked you why.”
For a moment, Blanche was silent. Then a painted smile spread across her face—a smile that sent a chill down his spine.
“Does Your Majesty still have lingering worries?”
“What?”
“You were troubled, weren’t you? Lady Starte and Lord Mastera. Now, with this, everything can be settled cleanly. Isn’t that a good thing?”
Melchizedek listened in silence as Blanche spun her scenario.
“There’s no need to worry about the poison found in the bedchamber. It was carried by a servant who aided the assassination attempt ten years ago, so of course he wouldn’t dare say I ordered it. That alone will condemn Lady Starte, and the double-suicide affair will be seen as a mere cover-up. Sympathy for her will vanish. If Lord Mastera remains stubborn, he’ll be branded an accomplice. If he chooses self-preservation, he’ll leave her. Either way, Your Majesty need not act as mediator in that tiresome triangle. All the blame will fall on them. Criticism of you and of me will disappear. Truly, isn’t that beneficial on every side?”
He wasn’t surprised. He had already guessed as much.
Of course—if she risked her life, it was always for him. She was the kind of person who would burn her own life away just to cut away his burdens.
“Even if the price is your life?”
“Your Majesty knows I wouldn’t make such a mistake. I calculated the dosage precisely. Even if I drank the entire cup, it wouldn’t have killed me.”
“That’s not the point!”
The roar he had been holding back burst free. Melchizedek rose and paced the room in agitation.
“To you, even your own life is just another tool? Don’t tell me you didn’t know what others would say about this! Everyone is saying you were never my companion but only a plaything. They’re saying your assassination was a show I staged to pressure my opposition. And still you—”
His voice choked on his own fury.
Why must you always act as if you are nothing? As if you’re just some tool to be used?
“Your Majesty.”
Her calm voice cut through his anger like glass. He fell silent at once, because even in the haze of rage, her voice reached him so clearly.
“…You may speak.”
Unlike his ragged tone, Blanche’s voice was steady.
“I fear Your Majesty’s health will suffer from needless worries. I beg you, please do not trouble yourself.”
Melchizedek shut his eyes tight. He didn’t want to see her lying prone, for it reminded him too much of Yi Baek-ryeon—the last sight he’d had of her, alive.
“Then make it so I have no cause for worry.”
For once, Blanche hesitated.
“…Please, do not concern yourself with trivial matters.”
“Are you calling your life—your very reputation—trivial?”
His voice was cold, beyond calm. Yet Blanche did not waver.
“You must see it that way.”
Lifting her head, Blanche’s black eyes met Melchizedek’s blue ones in the air between them. Unfathomable as ever.
“You must not be as you once were.”
That was all she said. Melchizedek opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out. His lips trembled, then closed again, quivering still.
“Now…”
The word fell broken, incomplete. Neither of them averted their gaze. In that unyielding stare, for the first time, Melchizedek read Blanche’s true intent.
It was a threat. Plain and undeniable.
If Blanche truly meant nothing to him, he would not be angry now. He would rejoice that a nuisance had been removed, that he had gained a weapon against his enemies.
But if she was precious to him—if he could not bear the thought of her life in peril—if he wanted an ending different from the last life…
Then he must not press her further. Because once before, she had already escaped him with real death.
Melchizedek understood what Blanche would never say aloud.
Her words were not lies—she had wanted to rid him of his burdens, to crush his foes as she had brought Marquis Chase to his knees.
But if Melchizedek had not been Ja Cheong-neung, she would never have chosen this path.
There was only one reason she had fabricated an assassination attempt: to make him recognize her as Yi Baek-ryeon, to force him to remember that death.
So that memory of their brutal parting would keep him from daring to hold on to her.
So that even if their engagement—already declared—was annulled, he would say nothing. No, more than that: so that he himself would be forced to break it off.
Blanche did not want marriage with him in this life, either. This time, instead of simply ignoring his proposal, she had chosen harsher means.
“You’re always the same.”
You never give me the one thing I want most.
Having once already lost the love of his life, Melchizedek could say nothing more than that.
