Chapter 209 Rest (2/2)

“Ah…” Suddenly, she had a headache, and she staggered back with a sound of pain. Ishakan caught her, embracing her as she gasped. The pain throbbed, so excruciating that it was hard to breathe. Cold sweat poured down her forehead.

Something was pounding on a door in the deepest part of her mind, a phantom echo of a sound that knocked against her ears, and then faded. Slowly, the intense pain in her head diminished.

“That’s enough for now.” Ishakan nodded to Baroness Cinael as he hugged the trembling Leah. The Baroness’s eyes were red with tears. “I will pay you for this with gratitude.”

“I will not accept it,” she refused flatly, wiping the corners of her eyes with her handkerchief. She looked at Leah, and Leah forgot her torment for a moment at the sight of the affection in the other woman’s eyes.

“I’m not an ungrateful person,” the Baroness said. “You trusted me when no one else did. That moment is engraved in my heart and I treasure it to this day.”

Her voice trembled as she looked at Leah, her mistress, who was being manipulated so cruelly by the stepbrother and stepmother she hated so much. And now she couldn’t even remember that she hated them.

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“If I can help you even a little…” Baroness Cinael whispered. More tears fell. She could not hold them back. “…I would be honored, Princess.”

And she burst into tears. Leah’s heart shuddered as she watched the noblewoman sob, her shoulders shaking. She didn’t even know that woman’s face, which made the intensity of the stranger’s feelings even more shocking.

Eventually, the Baroness departed, and Leah sat in pensive silence. Ishakan said nothing.

“I don’t understand,” Leah finally murmured, distressed. “I don’t understand…what the hell is happening? I don’t understand anything.”

Her mind was in chaos. She felt as if it might explode, and she looked at Ishakan, despairing. She thought he would urge her to remember again, but instead he said the opposite.

“That’s enough for today.” He hugged her tightly. “You need your rest. It seems like you haven’t even been able to sleep properly lately.”

He was right. She had been so hungry lately, she couldn’t sleep. That nap she had had in his arms was the most pleasant rest she had had in a while. But it was easy enough to rest now, and she calmly allowed him to lift her into his arms.