Acidity of Regret Ch 1
- Dec 13, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: Dec 16, 2025
Hot, ragged breaths burst between her lips. The frantic gasps were the cost of running without a single break since she had fled the castle.
Because she had never made a habit of physical conditioning, her thighs were rigid, screaming as if they would tear, and her knees throbbed with a searing, buckling pain.
Her bare soles, long since free of the discarded shoes, were a mess of scraped, pricked, and bleeding wounds. But she could spare no glance for her injuries.
Her vision was a kaleidoscope of tightly packed trees. The lush, overgrown leaves lashed mercilessly at her face, yet Vanessa dared not stop.
She couldn’t afford even a moment to stand still and scan her surroundings. She had to follow her feet, wherever they might lead—anywhere, as long as it was away.
[Vanessa] “Hah, hah…”
Her panting was coarse, like a hound suffering from dehydration after days without a sip of water.
The sound ratcheted up her anxiety, however, because she knew the pursuers could close in behind her at any second.
If she stopped, even for the briefest moment, Declan’s knights would surely seize her.
Somewhere along the chase, she had tossed away her wig, and now a sliver of moonlight illuminated her disheveled blonde hair.
The strands whipped across her face, stinging her eyes. Brushing them aside carelessly, Vanessa recalled something from long ago.
To be precise, the words of her father, whom she had adored so much.
—You must be wary of the Vinkart family.
It was the first time her usually doting father had spoken in such a low, gravelly voice.
—They are cold-blooded creatures, without compassion or tears. Since their schism, when they were all but banished from the imperial family, they have lived with a frozen, chilling resentment in their hearts.
—That grudge became their driving force, gnawing at the blood and flesh of others to carve out the barren northern lands, and it is by that ruthless effort that their house continues to survive.”
At the time, she hadn't understood. She hadn’t grasped the true meaning behind her father’s words, nor the gravity of the warning they implied.
Looking back now, her father hadn't been wrong about a single thing. Her crime was her failure to heed the warning about the Vinkarts, blinded by curiosity.
Her failure to regard the man who inherited that castle with the necessary caution.
All of it had culminated in her current misfortune.
Thinking of her dead father, her eyes welled up with stinging heat. Her already compromised vision blurred further, and she no longer knew where she was running.
Still, Vanessa ran.
She had no other choice. If she stopped now, if she surrendered here...
Neigh—!
Vanessa, who had been focused solely on the path ahead as if there were no other option, froze.
A colossal horse materialized from the gloom, blocking her route. She had anticipated their pursuit, but not this soon.
Before she could even catch her breath, someone dismounted with a heavy thud.
Gasping, she stumbled backward. She darted a glance around, hoping to pivot and bolt in another direction.
But before she could execute the move, knights, already perilously close, emerged from all sides, surrounding her.
Declan's subordinate took a single step closer.
[Knight] "It is time to return, Your Grace."
Vanessa flinched, shrinking her shoulders.
These men usually rode in full military gear—helmets and breastplates—but now they were in light clothing.
It was a clear, humiliating signal: capturing Vanessa was hardly a task worthy of their serious effort.
A fresh wave of powerlessness washed over her, and she bit her lips.
[Vanessa] "No, I don't want to."
[Knight] "Where do you intend to run to from here? You have neither possessions nor a destination, Your Grace."
Shiron, Declan's most trusted knight, muttered the rebuttal in a demanding tone. The way he spoke sounded mocking.
She couldn't tell if that was simply due to her own plummeting self-esteem or if Shiron truly held her in contempt. To her, the latter felt far more plausible.
[Vanessa] "That is none of your concern. I—I do not want to be here."
[Knight] "Only our Lord can determine your whereabouts, Your Grace. Since I have received no instruction from him to let you go, I cannot oblige."
Shiron regarded the tearful Vanessa with an expressionless face. No, beneath the apparent detachment, there was a chilling, coldness that felt like rime ice.
Vanessa clenched her hands tightly. Talking to him felt like arguing with a stone wall.
Whenever she faced these knights, who slavishly obeyed their master, her husband, she always felt suffocated.
[Knight] "Let us return. Our Lord will soon be back at the castle."
Vanessa's life-or-death attempt to flee was nothing more than a childish whim to them.
No matter how much she pleaded or cried out, they would act like obdurate blockheads, pretending not to hear, pretending not to see.
Could she do it?
With them closing in from all sides, could she possibly escape?
Dismally, her hope scattered into dust motes. A despair as black as the night itself swallowed her whole.
The expectation that she might escape cooled into a terrifying certainty of failure.
Her chest, once inflated with desperate resolve, now throbbed with a sharp, wrenching ache.
Tears threatened to spill, and she lowered her head. Interpreting this as capitulation, Shiron lumbered closer.
The moment he reached out a hand—
[Vanessa] "No! I said no!"
She twisted away in a final act of resistance, frantically squeezing through a small gap.
However, anticipating the reaction, the knights crossed their formidable swords, barring her path.
She had to halt, lest she be sliced by those razor-sharp blades.
While she hesitated, Shiron offered a curt, almost dismissive word of apology, one that sounded more like a mandate, and securely seated her on the horse.
It was only then that Shiron noticed her raw, wounded feet.
He clicked his tongue, a sound only he could hear. He knew his master would become enraged if even a speck of dust harmed his wife.
Before Shiron could turn the horse, Vanessa looked back in the direction she had been running.
Seated higher, her line of sight was clearer, and she could see a distant light flickering.
If only she had reached that border... perhaps...
Her fleeting hope flared like a dying ember, only to be violently extinguished as her view snapped away.
It was not her will.
Clip, clop. Clip, clop.
In stark contrast to the distant light, the path she was now forced down was one of impenetrable darkness.
Just like her life.
A short time later.
A gate leading into the Grand Duchy, following the route of the moonlit Chimre River, swung open. A black warhorse burst through, faster than the wind.
The fact that his entourage had yet to reach the gate indicated the Grand Duke’s extreme haste.
He rode non-stop to the castle, utterly ignoring the gatekeepers who scrambled to open the main entrance for him.
He finally halted directly in front of the castle's main doors.
Despite his immense height, his movements as he dismounted were sharp and lean.
He tossed the reins to a frantic groom and shot through the castle hall.
Disregarding the line of knights who bowed in greeting, he didn’t pause for breath and reached the third floor.
Shiron, the knight standing sentinel outside the couple’s chamber, spotted his Lord approaching and bowed with his usual impassive face.
[Shiron] "Welcome back, my Lord."
[Declan] "The physician?."
[Shiron] "He is inside."
He strode into the bedchamber.
The room was exceedingly dim, illuminated by a single lamp, but he moved through the space with the confidence of familiarity.
Vanessa, seated on the draped bed while her wounded feet were being treated, trembled when she saw him enter, radiating a frigid, icy presence.
[Declan] "Is it serious?"
The grave, heavy voice strained the air.
The physician swallowed hard, instantly tense in the presence of the castle's master.
[Physician] "No, Your Grace. Aside from minor abrasions on her feet, Her Grace is safe."
Vanessa kept her eyes fixed stubbornly on the feet the physician was treating, her expression grim.
She simply did not want to face him. Perhaps she lacked the courage to look into those terrible, ominous eyes.
To her, he had somehow morphed into the Grim Reaper, leading her to her doom.
She desperately wished the physician would linger, but the physician, intimidated by the Grand Duke's sheer presence, rushed out of the room without a backward glance.
Vanessa pulled down the skirt of her dress, which had ridden up to her knees, and turned her head away.
The Grand Duke, who had been leaning against a table with unnerving patience, now approached and gripped her chin, forcing her face up. His enormous body filled her line of vision.
Once, she had found stability in his proximity; now, she felt nothing but a choking suffocation.
[Declan] "Vanessa."
At the low call, her fingertips curled inward. She twisted her head away, avoiding his lips as they drew close, as if for a kiss.
This rejection was not new, and Declan ignored it, sliding his mouth down to the nape of her neck.
[Declan] "I wonder if I have to tie you down to stop these little games."
Resting his forehead on her shoulder, Declan deliberately wrapped his hand around her ankle. The pressure fell exactly on her injured area, and her composure shattered.
A faint whimper escaped her, but he did not ease up. Instead, he crushed the spot, as if to make a point.
[Vanessa] "Games…"
Pain distorted her features, but the green in her eyes was terribly empty.
Conversely, the pupils of Declan, who gazed down at her, grew increasingly sharp and edged.
She managed to meet his gaze and twisted her mouth into a sneer.
[Vanessa] "It seems you see my actions as nothing but a game."
[Declan] "What else could it be?"
[Vanessa] "..."
[Declan] "What do you possibly intend to do by running from me, you who possess nothing and can do nothing?"
The Grand Duke's voice was calm, yet that very placidity tore painfully at her heart. His words struck her with the harsh, undeniable truth of her situation.
Her crushing despair swiftly curdled into fury and resentment directed at him. She grimaced and shoved at his chest.
[Vanessa] "Who is it that reduced me to this state?"
[Declan] "..."
[Vanessa] "It’s you. You are the one who did this to me!"
Declan, who hadn't reacted when she was silently grieving, now turned into a savage beast when she resisted. His presence intensified menacingly.
[Declan] "You haven't been listening lately."
He grabbed both her hands that were pushing at his chest and held them fast. Then, with one hand, he covered her flat stomach.
[Declan] "Perhaps a baby will change things."
[Vanessa] "..."
[Declan] "When a child who looks exactly like us arrives, perhaps these insolent thoughts will finally subside."
Her delicate shoulders flinched noticeably.
Though he should not know, Declan spoke as if he saw straight through her.
Vanessa had to struggle relentlessly to conceal the truth.
If he were to catch her.
If he were to discover that his child was already growing in her womb...
A surge of nausea made her want to vomit.
She longed to escape this hellish place immediately. But her instinct already knew the chilling truth.
Her attempt to escape him had failed, and the next one would surely fail, too.
Silent tears streamed down her cheeks. Declan used a long finger to brush the tear away.
[Declan] "You will never leave this place without my permission."
She let her gaze drift calmly over his shoulder.
The full moon outside the window shone brightly tonight. Staring past him at the moonlight, the green in her eyes slowly gave way to utter defeat.
How did it come to this?
She remembered the day, long ago, when this tragic relationship began.
Comments