268

Blinding fury surged within Inés, her anger suddenly shifting in nature. This had nothing to do with herself or the echoes of her past life.

She felt an overwhelming impulse to rise and leave the chapel, regardless of the many eyes watching them. If she stayed and allowed her gaze to meet Oscar's for a moment longer or listened to another of his words, she feared she might lose control and lunge at him, just as she had done in another lifetime. Her fingers tightened on the bible she was holding, nails pressing into its leather surface before she forced herself to release it.

I cannot let something so trivial ruin everything, she reminded herself, trying her very best to keep her face composed. It was obvious Oscar sought to provoke her, to break the carefully constructed facade she had built. He wanted her to lose control.

Instead, she responded as any dutiful wife would. "I try not to dwell on such bleak thoughts."

Oscar studied her face, clearly dissatisfied with her measured reply. He pressed on, his voice, devoid of malice but thick with insinuation, "But he is a soldier."

"Indeed. My husband is a loyal subject of His Majesty. But he is not like those men of Mendoza who only seek their own comfort and safety, which makes him far stronger. I trust that his strength will sustain him."

Oscar's lips twitched faintly. "A perspective common to those who live in peaceful lands." He was implicating that all soldiers must give off that impression, and that strength was no shield against death for them.

"As his kin, you must know better than anyone, Your Highness, that my husband is a particularly outstanding soldier."

"Naturally. We are Admiral Calderon's grandsons, after all."

"Yes, and of all the admiral's descendants, none embody his legacy more than my husband."

"I cannot deny that. Cárcel is my greatest source of pride. He has already achieved many glorious exploits in a single battle."

"But we are all mere mortals, and we cannot be certain of what will transpire." Inés gave him a thin smile that barely masked her contempt, as if to suggest he had no right to even assume anything. "In the end, all we can do is place our faith in God."

The fact that she had been ungracious and brusque to everyone for a while served her well now. There was no need for her to be friendly and feign ignorance to extend false kindness to someone as revolting as Oscar.

"All we can do is place our faith God, you say..." he murmured.

"Yes," she replied, her voice firm. "Because in God's eyes, those who pray for my husband's safety and those who wish for his ruin are all equal. But I will pray with more fervor than any who seek his fall. And I will endure."

A frail smile played on Oscar's lips. "Am I, too, just another one you must endure in your life?"

Inés felt her patience fray once again, but she managed to remain composed. "What would you wish to be, Your Highness?"

"Someone you do not merely endure." His tone was almost tender.

She dropped her expression entirely to hold back a bitter laugh. The mere act of breathing the same air as him was torment enough, and yet he had the audacity to wish for more. She was tolerating his presence now only for the sake of her husband, who wasn't present.

"Then I suppose I will need a life that has no need for prayer," she replied coolly.

"That will be difficult for as long as your husband remains a soldier. He will need quite a lot of prayer. Would you not agree?"

She answered with silence, narrowing her eyes.

"It is hardly surprising," Oscar continued, his voice slipping into an air of detached reflection. "Soldiers on the battlefield live with death at their heels. I am astonished, not as the crown prince, but as a fellow man, that they continue to fight for the empire and honor despite knowing full well they may not live to see another day. Just look at the seasoned officers who have survived battle after battle. They carry on as if they are invincible, even though their survival so far does not guarantee continued fortune. Ah, perhaps they've simply ceased to care. Experience does not make men braver-it makes them cautious. True wisdom lies in learning how to protect oneself when confronted with repeated danger."

"Are you speaking from personal experience, Your Highness?"

Oscar chuckled softly without amusement. "The admiral always said that a hero must be ignorant of fear. That the more one knows, the more courage is demanded of them. Of course, I will never be a hero like they are, Inés."

He was referring to Cárcel and his grandfather, his emphasis on the word deliberate, and Inés knew it well. It was no secret that he had always envied Cárcel's likeness to Admiral Calderon. She had known it all her life. However...

"After losing one of his legs and spending his twilight years in peace," he continued, "the admiral often lamented not dying an honorable death out on the battlefield. He said, even if given the chance to turn back time, he would make the same decisions to protect the Armada Imperio Ortega from descending into chaos in the midst of battle. But he couldn't bear the fact that he could no longer protect even himself. After a lifetime of battle, he was reduced to being dependent on a servant to rise from bed each morning, and that reality tormented him. His honor and reputation extended beyond Ortega. No one could deny his honorable reputation, and yet he spoke as though he felt dishonored for failing to meet death on the battlefield. And your husband is much like him in ways that should give you pause."

Inés did her best to suppress the disgust that threatened to break free as she watched the crown prince speak with apparent concern for Cárcel.

Then she recalled what Isabella had told her. "When Prince Oscar presented the report, His Majesty was so enraged that he threw a paperweight at him, and demanded that the pirates' stronghold in the Las Sandiago Archipelago be destroyed. So, a new admiral was assigned the role, and the captain recommended several outstanding officers to His Majesty, including Cárcel. The plan is to promote him to field officer right before the operation and have him command the fourth fleet."

The raid on the Las Sandiago Archipelago, predicted to occur in the coming late summer or early fall, was still happening much sooner than she remembered. This meant that Oscar knew something. He kept mentioning Cárcel's potential death and making her imagine it because of this. That she needed to be careful, since her husband was so much like Admiral Calderon Escalante. Because he knew that Cárcel would have to face the upcoming battle. Oscar might have even had a hand in making it happen sooner.

After a short moment of silence, Inés replied, "My husband has a duty, and I suppose it is inevitable, as I chose to like a soldier. Though it would be hard for me not to like him now, no matter what he happened to be."

"It was difficult for me to stop liking you too, Inés."

She fell silent.

"I have wanted you ever since we were very young. Even I imagined that it was a childish obsession, but it wasn't. It took me a long time to face the fact that you got away so easily. So much so that I continued to visit you in Perez and bothered you. In fact, it might have taken much longer-"

"Your Highness." Inés closed the bible she was holding and placed it on her lap. "I am the wife of Cárcel Escalante. We made our vows in God's presence."

"I know."

"And you are insulting me before a servant of God."

"How could I ever insult you? I would never do such a thing."

"If you are trying to punish me for daring to reject you, the humiliation I suffered during the Formente Games was enough. Please stop this."

She was trying her very best to act simply as an insulted wife rejecting another man's advances, who had no other qualms with the man before her.

"It was Alicia Barca who suffered humiliation, not you."

"Do not trouble me any further either."

"You are the one punishing me, Inés. I had thought I would finally be able to watch you from afar, but..." Oscar's voice grew quiet and forlorn. "I have been suffering punishment for a very long time in Mendoza by being unable to see you."

He could not possibly remember. If he remembered the wife who blew open her head before him, he could never speak so ardently of his love for her. She never expected him to feel guilt, and she could see him being so brazen, but his eyes were so devoid of any shame that it was strange.

She would have understood what he was doing if this were the old Oscar. She would have been able to notice how little he cared despite knowing she despised him. But his blue eyes shone with an innocent glaze, as if he had no idea what effect his words might have on her. Perhaps it was a hare-brained idea altogether for her to imagine that anyone else in this world could be like her.

And yet, she had the strangest feeling that he remembered her from her past life.

"But it's all right. My patience goes beyond anything you could imagine," he added.

It felt as though the voice she knew from that life she had once considered her first was overlapping with the Oscar before her now. The voice who had once called her name so many times. The horrifying voice of Crown Prince Oscar.

His existence was nothing but revolting to her, even in this life, and she could not see a link between this life and her past life. Nothing good would come from unearthing that link and making it visible to him as well. There was no reason for her to make this link exist between them. It was clear that he was biding his time, and he was at least acting as such before her.

He wanted her to break out of her shell. If he really did remember, he would want to speak to her about the past. Inés found herself continuously assuming that he did actually remember the past. It was almost instinctual.

"But at times, I cannot stand the fact that you are with Cárcel. Please be understanding. Do not think that I do not respect your decision. It is just that I believe you deserve the best."

"Cárcel's side is the best place for me."

"You could have aimed higher."

"I was born in Perez and am now part of House Escalante. Did you think I wanted to aim even higher?"

"Are you really satisfied with belonging merely to Cárcel Escalante?"

"Cárcel belongs to me upon return."

Oscar reached out to her as if to express his longing for her. Inés slapped his hand away sharply so that no one could see.

He grimaced. "He never even knew how precious you are. I, on the other hand, have always wanted you..."

"And I used Cárcel Escalante at first simply because I despise you. I feel guilty for having done so, but now I know him better than anyone else in the world. We belong to each other. If I had been given the honor to be placed under you as your wife, Your Highness, I would have never been able to experience even a second of the fullness my husband gives me."

He sat there in silence for a while, as if stunned. "I should go and see Miguel now," he finally said after a while.

Without bothering to respond, Inés simply waited for him to leave her presence. But even after Oscar was gone, it was difficult for her to stay seated next to the seat he had been in.

He had asked her whether she was satisfied with being Cárcel Escalante's wife. Did he really dare to imagine that her belonging to Oscar had been better? Still? How could he still believe that, when he had watched with his own two eyes how the woman who had belonged to him had killed herself in such a gruesome manner despite all the riches and power she had been given? How could he still...

Inés felt like tearing the holy book into shreds, running after him and killing him. But she thought of Anastasio and persisted, even as her insides seemed to burn to ashes. The fact that Anastasio and other servants of God might be watching her from somewhere was horrifying.

Before she realized it herself, she had left the chapel and was hurrying along as if she were being chased. What could she do to live in a world without that monster? Just once. If only...

"Inés!" Hurried footsteps followed her along with an urgent call of her name.

Inés's expression changed immediately as she turned toward the welcome voice.

He threw his arms around her and drew her into a desperate embrace. "Inés, Inés..."

"What is it, Cárcel?"

This wasn't the same man who always wrapped her in the most careful hugs, just in case he might hurt her with his overwhelming strength. He was clinging onto her as if he had just pulled her, drowning, out of the water and was squeezing her with all his might as he breathed a long sigh.

"What on earth is going on, Cárcel?" she asked again.

"The crown prince... I heard that he had suddenly arrived, so I hurried to the chapel, but you... His Highness... Blast it, Inés, you weren't there, and I..." His voice trembled with breathless urgency, though his words failed to explain it.

Inés patted his back to help him calm down. "And? It's not as though I am a child who gets lost alone. What frightened you so?"

Cárcel slowly loosened his grip on her.

Inés's eyes widened when she finally noticed that he was completely pale. She raised a hand and placed it on his forehead to check for a fever even as her tone remained nonchalant. "His Highness said he would go and see Miguel. You will be able to see him soon without all this running around. I am sorry you hurried here for no reason."

"It wasn't because of His Highness. It was for you."

"Me?"

"Yes, you..." He let out a laugh that seemed directed at himself as he fell silent and drew a hand over his grimacing face.