Chapter 391: Thanks to You
Drip… drip.
It felt as if she had returned to the damp, cold dungeon of the House of Nightingales. There was no cold wind, yet her body felt as if it were being pierced through by the chill.
Evelia sat limply on the freezing cement floor. No one had physically abused her, but black iron chains bound her wrists and ankles. The heavy metal made her arms ache constantly, and her once smooth skin was now covered in bruises.
She was in the exact same position she had been when they brought her here, still wearing the same white dress, though it was now almost gray, with faint traces of blood from the earlier battle.
This high-end gown now looked no different from something pulled from a pile of rags.
Just like the dress, Evelia herself had become worn and tattered.
Her long hair hung in disarray before her face, her body slumping forward with no strength, like a wind-up doll that had long since lost its spring. Her trembling lips seemed to be murmuring something, but her mind was lost in her own world.
Once, because Armand had said he liked it, Evelia had treasured her pink hair, even asking the maids for tips on how to take care of it. Now, none of that mattered to her anymore.
“…Red Crow?”
A gentle female voice fell softly, sounding out of place in this darkness and dampness.
“I doubt she can hear you now. What are you here for, observing my medical results? Blue Sparrow, well? Are you satisfied?”
“I remember you’re not exactly a psychiatrist or a psychologist.”
“No, no, no—when the people need me, I can be any kind of doctor. I treat everyone, not just a single case.”
White Dove stood behind Blue Sparrow, watching the self-righteous nun-like woman crouch down and brush aside a few strands of hair covering Evelia’s face.
Beneath the hair, her golden eyes were still open, but lifeless. It was as if she was merely keeping her eyes open, her gaze completely unfocused. Just like Armand had once been, “sleeping with his eyes open.”
Evelia stared blankly ahead, her eyes reflecting nothing, their golden color now clouded and dull, like a pool of murky water.
Clang.
Blue Sparrow stepped forward half a step, accidentally kicking an empty bottle. More bottles clinked against each other, and in an instant, the small dark room was filled with noise.
Yet even with such a loud, jarring sound, Evelia only blinked twice, showing no intention of responding, as if the people in front of her simply weren’t worth her attention.
“Don’t look at me like that, I only gave her a few bottles of hallucinogens.”
When Blue Sparrow turned toward him, White Dove shrugged casually.
The floor was littered with empty bottles, making the place look like the shabby den of a drunk. The labels on the bottles all read hallucinogen, followed by a serial number. Evelia was slumped in the middle of them.
“……”
“Of course, she took them willingly. I didn’t pinch her nose and force her to drink. She took every dose herself. Don’t be fooled by her appearance. Inside, she’s thrilled. Blue Sparrow, you really should stop frowning. Ever since we came back, you’ve looked like you’re about to fall into depression. Want a bottle yourself? Life is full of ups and downs, after all. As a doctor, it’s my job to make patients happy.”
Whenever it came to such things, White Dove was always unusually excited. From his earlier laziness, his speech now became shockingly fast.
“I don’t need it.”
Blue Sparrow looked at the bottles on the floor. Amid the empty drug containers were a few bottles of life-sustaining nutrient solution. It seemed Evelia hadn’t eaten a single bite of real food during this time, surviving only on those nutrient drinks.
This was the second week since she had been brought back. Although no one had done anything to physically harm her appearance, she still looked like a completely different person, dejected and unkempt.
No one outside knew that the once-famous “Red Crow” was imprisoned here. They only heard rumors that White Dove had brought back a pitiful madwoman, someone who constantly muttered a certain person’s name and sometimes made gestures or smiled at empty air, as if chatting with someone unseen.
Because of that great fire, the news lately had been lively, full of reports about the blaze. Many small, previously unnoticed “events” had been dragged into the spotlight.
The fire was the main headline, and the injuries of the two princes and the old King became the focus.
After investigation, it was found that the ones who injured the Second Prince and the King were not “people,” but animals from the New Year’s circus, animals that had escaped their cages during the sudden fire.
As for how the King and Second Prince had been located so precisely, some speculated it was because of a bottle of wine personally brewed by the Crown Princess. It was said to contain something that attracted wolves.
But that bottle had been destroyed in the fire, so the truth couldn’t be confirmed for now. Still, the Crown Princess was placed under house arrest due to the negative public opinion during such a tense situation.
As a related measure, the injured old King also required the Crown Prince to “fully cooperate” with the investigation.
Since the knight order was no longer under the Crown Prince’s control, the investigators gave him almost no “special treatment.”
As for the Second Prince, he was still recovering from his burns. Although he had regained consciousness, his facial disfigurement and other burn injuries would be very hard to heal completely.
Of course, the royal family had ointments that could remove scars, but for such large-scale burns, recovery would take a long time.
Because he was in recovery, the Second Prince appeared in public far less often, and news about him also became much less frequent.
On Evelia’s first day of imprisonment here, even though she had been crushed by Armand’s death, she refused White Dove’s hallucinogens. Her rational mind told her this wasn’t something she should touch.
White Dove was a deceitful man, and whatever was in his little bottles wasn’t anything good. The so-called “sweet water of happiness” he spoke of was certainly not true “happiness” or “sweet water.”
White Dove didn’t force her, but every day he would bring the latest newspapers to her dark cell so she could “keep up with current events.” If Evelia didn’t want to read them, he would “thoughtfully” read them aloud to her.
Each day, White Dove would tell her what he wanted her to know. He always held a newspaper, but the stories he told weren’t necessarily what was actually printed there.
He told her about Carle’s disappearance, and how a few days later, his wife and daughter also went missing. He told her that not long after that, Anna’s clothing shop exploded. Armand’s manor had been seized, and the old butler who managed it was taken away and still hadn’t been released…
As time passed, and as White Dove spoke one hopeless piece of news after another, Evelia felt the people around her being stripped away one by one. Those few people she had worked so hard to know, whom she had thought of as friends, were leaving her one after another due to various “accidents.”
And in the end… all of it was somehow tied to her existence.
The cruelest part was that… all of this had been meant to happen. These were the kinds of things she was supposed to do as Red Crow.
Because she existed, the Second Prince really did manage to bring down the knight order’s influence. It wasn’t what she wanted. But in the end, she had still achieved the mission’s goal.
One day, White Dove took Evelia outside.
That day, unusually, White Dove wasn’t wearing his white coat, but was dressed entirely in black.
He brought Evelia, still bound with heavy chains, to a high vantage point. Though Evelia had the strength to break them, by now she had already been crushed by countless events and was only one straw away from total collapse.
“Look, Red Crow. Today is the funeral.”
His black clothing had been prepared for this day.
He pointed to the distance, letting Evelia see the funeral for all the victims of the fire. In the most prominent position was Armand.
Though he had failed in his duty, he had died protecting the Crown Prince, so he was still buried with the honors of a knight order captain, laid to rest in the same cemetery where his father might truly be buried.
Inside the white coffin, Armand lay quietly. Perhaps as a message, several blue roses, flowers grown only in Armand’s manor, had been placed beside him. Such roses should have long since withered in the cold, but these had been specially treated to keep blooming.
But Evelia no longer cared for such details. She only watched as Armand’s coffin was closed with a click, the white lid blending into the still-unmelted snow. To the sound of the priest’s eulogy, the coffin was lowered into the dark earth to the tune of mourning music.
Evelia could no longer watch. The moment of his death had been one emotional blow; watching his burial was another.
And now, she could only watch from far away. She couldn’t get close, couldn’t see him one last time, couldn’t say goodbye, couldn’t let her tears fall on his coffin.
She could only suffer from a distance.
She wanted to close her eyes, but White Dove crouched beside her, patting her shoulder, making her keep looking at the scene. He cupped his hands around her ears so she could hear the funeral music and the mourners’ cries even more clearly.
“Enjoy the sound, Red Crow. This is what you deserve. Because of you, we’ve won a complete victory. Cyan Hawk has taken the position of knight order leader according to His Highness’s plan, most of the soldiers have been replaced with our people, and the old King will soon be stripped of power. This is the glory you’ve brought us.”
Every word from White Dove struck the last of Evelia’s rational mind. His light, almost casual tone became the final straw that broke her spirit.
“Smile, Red Crow. Thanks to you… everyone’s dead.”