I Grabbed the Tyrant’s Heart - Chapter 189
“What do you mean?”
“Even as a professor at the Concium, outside of it, Blest is nothing.”
Weathering chuckled, but I realized it wasn’t out of amusement. He wanted to attain a status similar to mine, a Lady of Hardland, by becoming a senior wizard.
There was a reason this man, who disliked standing out, had become a prominent figure in society.
I couldn’t even insincerely wish him to find someone nice, fearing it might sound like I was mocking him.
“I should go now.”
“Alright.”
Weathering leaned against the window, casting his gaze outside, and I turned to leave.
Through the closing door, a very faint murmur escaped him, audible only to me.
“Why don’t you ask why I like you…”
Thud.
The heavy door closed, and I leaned against it for a moment.
It was only after hearing him say it that I realized I hadn’t been curious at all.
For the rest of the year, I had no encounters with Weathering.
* * *
After practicing by inserting my magic into dozens of fist-sized stones, I moved on to Kirapt’s hearts that Tess had given me after succeeding with the stones.
“I broke another one.”
After shattering about thirty of these treasures, far more valuable than ordinary magic stones, I stopped. I kept the fragments, thinking they might be useful for something.
They might be broken but they still contained some of my magic.
Aside from this, I continued my studies in magic.
I sparred with Tess and checked off each of the ‘100 places he wanted to visit,’ one by one.
“Haa…”
I cracked the window slightly, and my breath fogged in the air.
“Isn’t it cold, Euseniel?”
“Just chilly.”
Letting the outside air into the room, Tess, who had been lying on the bed, sat up.
“It smells like winter.”
“Is it your first winter in Alin in a while?”
“Yes.”
It was different from Varen, where it was always winter. There, the constant cold made it hard to feel the change in seasons. But in Alin, which experienced brief periods of spring, summer, and fall, the presence of winter was more pronounced.
As I grew up always on the go, I never had the time to truly savor the seasons. It was only this time that I fully realized fall had passed and winter had arrived.
“Ah…”
One by one, flakes began to fall from the dark, endless sky, lighting up the void in brilliant white.
“It’s snowing, Tess.”
I reached out my hand, feeling the cold touch on my palm.
“Come, let’s watch it together.”
“What if someone sees me out here?”
“We’ll manage.”
Tess approached, wrapped from the waist down in a sheet. As he hugged me from behind, I could feel his solid chest against my back. The petals touching my neck created a frictional heat.
The cold and the heat expanded their territories until they collided, and I had to endure the full impact of their mingling.
His muscled arms lightly, yet inescapably, encircled my upper body, and I willingly let myself be trapped.
“Do you remember the first day I came to this room? You panicked and hid me because you were afraid someone might see?”
Of course. I was terrified that a passing maid or servant might see. Secretly, I was thrilled by the sight of his long legs showing beneath the curtain.
“I felt a bit hurt back then.”
“You know you’re mean, right?”
“Me?”
His voice carried a trace of bewilderment as I gripped his hair, which seemed forged from darkness.
“You always bring up something guilt-inducing just when I’m about to forget. Like that time you ran away from me, making it impossible for me to refuse because of the guilt.”
“Right.”
“What?”
I was flabbergasted that Tess readily admitted it when he could’ve just denied.
“I just wanted to occupy your thoughts, however small they might be. I hoped your mind would be so filled with me that you’d see only me.”
“…”
“But now Euseniel does see me.”
A crescent moon’s curve of his eyes, his lips bent seductively. Unable to find somewhere else to look, I turned away, but his large hand caught and held my chin.
“When Euseniel holds my hand and walks with me, when you don’t refuse my kisses, and sometimes even touch me first…”
As Tess’s body pressed closely against mine, warmth seemed to radiate from the contact points, making me flinch slightly. Tess smiled, his lips parting just a bit, like a large flower blooming alone in the dark night, mesmerizing his counterpart.
I managed to gather my breath and snapped back at him.
“It’s not like you have a good personality anyway.”
“So, you don’t like that?”
His voice was tinged with laughter, and it irritated me that I couldn’t simply respond with a ‘yes’.
“You don’t like it, Euseniel?”
When I didn’t answer, Tess began to tickle my ear.
“Oh, it seems like you do dislike it. That won’t do…”
His whispers were soft, and the subtle strokes on my belly soaked with the night air seemed determined not to stop until I gave an answer.
“Alright. I like it!”
A satisfied chuckle followed my surrender.
“You really are terrible.”
I threw in one last jab, but it seemed to have no effect on Tess, because he was already leisurely biting my lips.