TINOT 18

Chapter: 18

Thud, thud—

The sharp, grating sound of pounding footsteps made her head throb.

Having just woken up, Lisithea chewed and swallowed a painkiller without even drinking water.

“Please go back. You didn’t even make an appointment. What do you think you’re doing?!”

“Move! How dare a mere maid block my way?”

The man barging in and Marie’s desperate attempts to stop him tangled together in a chaotic uproar.

Lisithea rose from her seat, straightened her clothes, opened the door, and leaned against the frame.

“Joel Spencer. Do you even know where you are, causing a scene like this?”

“Lisithea! You—you!”

Joel, who had looked ready to grab Marie in his fury, spotted Lisithea and strode toward her.

The moment he reached out to seize her wrist—

Lisithea twisted her shoulder to evade him and struck his wrist hard with the fan in her other hand.

“Ah! Are you crazy?”

Clutching his wrist, Joel looked up at her, his face flushed red.

It was laughable.

A man who could barely manage his own limbs, yet quick to lash out with his hands whenever his temper flared.

“Was that not enough? Do you need something broken before you come to your senses?”

“Y-you, Lisithea, you…!”

“Miss!”

“Marie, go rest. He’s not a guest. There’s no need to treat him as one.”

After soothing the worried maid and sending her away, Lisithea glanced down at Joel, who was groaning and holding his wrist, with cold disdain.

“Well? If you have something to say, say it and leave. It’ll be difficult for you to see my face after today.”

She turned and seated herself on the sofa, gesturing to the seat opposite her with her chin.

“Sit.”

The moment Joel sat down, he pulled documents from his coat and threw them at her.

“Lisithea Aster. What the hell is this?”

She glanced down at the papers and sneered.

“Can’t you read? Did you come here for me to read it for you?”

It was the same annulment approval document she had received.

The only difference was that the Spencer ducal house had apparently received theirs today.

Her mockery made Joel’s face flush as if it would burst.

“Don’t be ridiculous! The Spencer house rejected the annulment—how could it possibly be approved?!”

“That’s the law. When the interests and opinions of both parties conflict, a judge determines right and wrong. The document in front of you is the result.”

“I failed in my duty of good faith in the engagement? Anyone can slap that kind of vague nonsense onto anything!”

The duty of good faith was an abstract principle in contracts—that one must not betray the other party’s trust.

As Joel said, it was a clause that could be applied almost anywhere.

He just hadn’t expected that such an abstract principle would be turned against him.

What filled the empty spaces between those words was power. The Spencers were usually the ones wielding the blade.

This time, however, they were the ones stabbed by that blunt sword.

“It depends on who says it. When someone insignificant like you says it, it’s just barking. When the Chief Justice says it, it becomes a binding judgment.”

“Barking? Again with the dog—Lisithea, every time you open your mouth you call me a dog or say I’m spouting crap. I won’t tolerate it anymore.”

“Then don’t. Please. Don’t tolerate it—just accept the annulment.”

“Annulment? Fine, annulment…”

Lisithea’s relentless sarcasm made Joel’s head spin.

If it were up to his temper, he would have shouted a hundred, a thousand times, Fine! Let it be annulled!

But if he did, he might be cast out of his family.

Barely swallowing his rage, he glared at her.

“Be honest. This is an engagement between Spencer and Aster. And it’s annulled in just one month? Who would believe that? How did you do it? Who did you sweet-talk?”

He was right—this was absurd.

Unless both sides agreed, noble engagements could take years to dissolve if one party objected.

Lisithea stared at him in silence before curling one corner of her lips.

“Did your grandfather send you? To find out what happened?”

Her gaze flicked briefly to the end of his eyebrow.

Though cleverly hidden by his hair, there was a cut there—clearly from being struck by something sharp.

The Duke of Spencer must have thrown something in anger when the engagement was broken.

“And did your grandfather tell you to storm in here, yell at me, and throw a tantrum?”

Of course he hadn’t.

“Cry and beg if you must. Cling to her skirts. Use that head on your shoulders for once!”

The duke had raged, ordering him to coax Lisithea into revealing what had happened.

Lisithea gave a knowing smile.

“I didn’t think so. The Duke of Spencer wouldn’t have said that. If you go back empty-handed, will you be alright?”

Her taunt, disguised as concern, drained the color from Joel’s face.

“Don’t you dare come back empty-handed! Get out! Now!”

Just recalling the duke’s furious face made his knees tremble.

Watching him, Lisithea suddenly picked up a bird-shaped crystal ornament from the table and began tossing it lightly in her hand.

“If you’re hit again in the same place, it’ll hurt, won’t it?”

Each time the crystal left her hand, Joel flinched in fear.

“You almost became a knight… That’s violence.”

“That’s why I didn’t become one. Couldn’t fix this temper.”

Though in truth, she had abandoned it after that dream two months before her knighting ceremony, when her body had been left in ruins.

“Wow, that’s amazing! Lisithea, try cutting this too. Are you going to be a knight someday?”

Not all her memories with Joel Spencer were unpleasant.

Most of the few things she could call memories from her childhood involved him.

Perhaps that was why she couldn’t tolerate this—because he had even stolen those scant memories from her.

With a faint sneer, Lisithea extended the bird-shaped ornament toward him.

It bore the Spencer family crest—one of her engagement gifts.

“Joel Spencer. Our engagement is over. There’s no other reason. Just as it says there. You broke my trust. I cannot remain engaged to someone who betrayed my good faith.”

As if she had finished everything she had to say, she rose from her seat.

Her cold, unyielding attitude twisted Joel’s insides.

He grabbed the ornament tightly.

He was sick of it.

Her stubbornness, never yielding on anything. The way she would point out and try to correct every single thing she disliked.

“What trust? Because I didn’t crawl around like a dog, watching your every expression? That’s what you call faith? You just wanted obedient livestock!”

Joel shouted hoarsely at her.

If he was at fault, so was she.

If she hadn’t constantly tightened the leash around him, things wouldn’t have ended like this.

As he panted, Lisithea smiled as if she had been waiting for that.

“Then you should’ve behaved better. And say it properly. Did I demand annulment because of your swinging elbows when you walk, your ridiculous outfits, your crooked tie? No. Don’t blame others.”

The habit of bumping her with his elbow while walking.

Wearing whatever he felt like, regardless of the agreed dress code.

The crooked ties and dangling accessories she found distasteful—she endured them.

Of those, she hadn’t even pointed out one in ten.

And yet he acted as though he alone had endured something. It was laughable. She hadn’t annulled it for that.

“Still don’t get it? Your greed ruined everything. You didn’t have the ability to handle it, yet you didn’t want to let go of the Cullinan mine I own, or Lillian Rose the mage. Your filthy greed brought this upon you.”

“Filthy? You think your words are absolute? I had my reasons too!”

Joel sprang to his feet, eyes blazing.

Now he even resented his grandfather.

When the duke insisted that Spencer desperately needed a mage and told him to hold on to her at all costs—what about then? Now he berated him for foolishly losing Lisithea.

He had only done as he was told.

“I don’t care about your reasons. They’re obvious. Your grandfather ordered it.”

At her indifferent reply, Joel bit his lip hard, as if struck at the core.

Watching him, Lisithea found herself genuinely curious.

When exactly does the love between Joel Spencer and Lillian Rose begin? Do they even love each other?

For now, both seemed far more concerned with their own interests.

Well, one didn’t necessarily have to love a person. The benefits one gained from them could be lovely enough.

Shrugging, Lisithea picked up the document he had thrown.

She neatly folded the annulment approval and tucked it back into his coat.

“Go back. By now, the Duke of Spencer must have grasped what happened.”

By now, through the servants of the Aster household, word of Lisithea receiving a proposal would have spread throughout the capital.

The old duke would be more than capable of piecing together the situation from that alone.

“W-what? What does that—?”

Before he could finish his foolish question, Lisithea pushed him out of the room.

Standing in the doorway, she whispered,

“Tell him this. I chose Joel Spencer because I wanted to—and I discarded him because I no longer needed him.”

Joel and the Spencers had not chosen Lisithea.

Joel had only been able to become her fiancé because she had wanted him.

“So now, disappear from my sight.”

With that, she slammed the door shut.

She thought she heard Joel shouting something, but it didn’t matter.

It was nothing she needed to hear anyway.