It was Kaella. Even in the shadows, with her hood pulled low, Peon recognized the line of her back instantly.
Perhaps it was the power thrumming in his blood—a sensation he’d only come to understand after his own death and return. Or perhaps it was something baser: a lingering, sinful attachment that refused to die.
It was shameful, truly, how easily he identified her. He, who throughout their marriage had remained so indifferent that he couldn’t even recall her face or her habits, now felt her presence like a physical pull. It was an instinct so potent it made him nauseated. Kaella, who had died with her eyes wide open, haunted his every thought. Even now, as the man who had brought about that end, he couldn’t regain his composure.
‘The night air is cold.’
When she—who had only recently regained consciousness—suddenly boarded a hired carriage, Peon felt a sharp, dizzying vertigo. No one from the townhouse had accompanied the Young Lady. She had simply melted into the stream of departing servants, the maids and gardeners of the wealthy district. When he rushed to track her, he found her drifting toward the city’s most treacherous districts without a moment’s hesitation.
He knew it the instant he saw her. She was running away. She was fleeing, soot smeared across her pale skin. But she didn’t understand. No matter how prosperous Krain, the capital of the Lyussenford Empire, might be, there were corners of this city where one died the moment they stepped into the shadows. He had to stop her.
“This is a place where people disappear overnight without a whisper. You cannot go.”
Peon knew well enough why she was there. Beneath that worn, oversized maid’s coat, she was surely carrying jewels or gold coins. It was a perilous choice for a woman who lacked any experience with the world’s rot. It was too dangerous.
In the pale moonlight, her eyes were the only thing that stood out. Kaella sucked in a sharp breath upon recognizing him, then glared with a ferocity that caught him off guard.
“Then you can guide me yourself.”
She didn’t ask why he was there or how he had trailed her. It was, in a way, a very efficient Lyussenford style.
He should have ordered her to return. He should have been firm with the Young Lady, who held her head high even in her disheveled state. But the words stuck in his throat.
If she returned, it meant marriage. He knew the Grand Duchess who had perished before the regression and this current Young Lady were distinct, separate souls. Yet, even with that knowledge, he couldn’t bring himself to ask for it. He couldn’t force her into this, despite the political, economic, and diplomatic webs binding them, despite the precarious life of Duke Ostain hanging in the balance.
“You’re more than capable of providing an escort, aren’t you? Even if I am not Lady Lavalle.”
To Peon, women other than Beatrice were hardly worth noting, and Kaella, in particular, was an afterthought, regardless of her status as the Young Lady of Ostain. Knowing full well he wouldn’t actually escort her to freedom, Kaella spoke through gritted teeth.
It was a foolish display. He was the target of her venting, yet he didn’t even understand the reason behind her rage. He hadn’t done anything to her yet.
Kaella, who had never mocked or ridiculed others, managed to choke back her anger before it spilled onto him. If she allowed herself to say more, some deep-seated, painful attachment might be laid bare. She couldn’t allow that. She turned sharply and began to walk again, deeper into the dangerous street.
“Ka—!”
*Kaella* would be reckless in these alleys. *Young Lady* would be worse. Always wary of listening ears, Peon swallowed his frustration and followed. His stride was long; he could match her hurried pace with little effort.
But what could he say? His tongue, so silver-plated before the Emperor or Beatrice, froze in her presence. How could he stop the woman who was willing to risk her life just to escape marriage to him?
Above all, Peon understood her. The young lady raised in the warm, precious light of the South did not belong here—not with a man as flawed as him, and certainly not in the cold, exclusionary North. That was why, no matter how much her impulsive actions embarrassed him, he couldn’t force her to stop. He just couldn’t.
A towering man in common clothes, a long sword concealed at his side, following a woman in a hooded coat. Dangerous, predatory eyes clung to them from the shadows.
“It is too dangerous.”
“Did you try proposing again?”
Kaella snapped her gaze up at him.
“You were rejected, weren’t you? Yes, I thought so.”
Nodding to herself as if the answer had been obvious, she pushed forward. Her body was still weak from her recent collapse; she was staggering, yet she forced her legs to move with a stubborn, frantic energy.
Peon couldn’t stop her. He could feel the sheer, iron-clad weight of her will, and he knew he had no right to crush it. It felt as though he were being dragged toward hell, his limbs bound, forced to follow. Kaella suddenly stopped and looked up at him.
“Why did you love so weakly?”
Kaella, who had played the role of Grand Duchess until the end, enduring humiliation and her husband’s frost without breaking, truly could not fathom it.
“Why did you make such a scene that all of Krania knew of it, yet maintain such a mediocre romance?”
If one had to make a spectacle of love, she was certain she could have performed it better than anyone. Was it because she had been too naive? It was a love that hadn’t fully turned to hatred even after she heard he played a part in her father’s death. She had loved Peon with every fiber of her being, a heart she had guarded until the very last moment.
And yet, that strong, faithful heart had been ignored for such a cowardly, tepid romance. Kaella felt a sudden, crushing sense of injustice.
“……I am sorry.”
The question held a thousand meanings, but that was all he could offer. Kaella seemed to interpret his apology as a precursor to forcing the marriage upon her. She walked away even faster.
Peon was trapped in thought. Should he let her go? But if it weren’t a marriage approved by the Empire, the House of Ostain would be torn apart for humiliating the Emperor. And before that, Kaella would be caught and ruined.
If the Emperor were even remotely sane, Peon wouldn’t be agonizing over this. He hoped she would simply marry Prince Elkanan of Kerujan and vanish. She had to leave Krania. By marriage or by flight, she had to go.
“When you get out, do you have a plan? What about an escort?”
Peon asked, his eyes scanning the shadows for thugs. The gates of Krain Castle were visible in the distance.
“Even if I had a plan, I wouldn’t tell Your Highness.”
A fair point. Only a fool would reveal their escape route to someone who seemed intent on obstructing them.
Peon had already surrendered the idea of catching her. If her safety could be guaranteed, he wanted her to have what she wanted. He was terrified for the Duke of Ostain, but he could pay for that protection with his own life. The past was dead, and he was a man living in the debris of his own guilt.
“You have to get out safely, don’t you?”
He cursed his own lack of eloquence. His heart felt heavy, vast, and overflowing, but the words to bridge the gap simply wouldn’t come. Kaella, eyes fixed on the horizon, stared forward, ignoring him.
“Ah……!”
Even with soot-smudged cheeks, she was beautiful. Her eyes, holding the cold clarity of a winter sky, were locked onto the gate, not onto him.
The gate to death stood before them. It was a gruesome checkpoint, heavily secured by the imperial order.
Instead of despairing, her face brightened with a dangerous, hopeful light. Peon, with senses sharper than hers, stopped her immediately.
“You cannot.”
“Let go of me.”
“Not now. Please. The Emperor’s administrator is right there, Kaella.”
He didn’t know why the man was there at this hour, but the administrator and his clerks knew their faces well. The guards accompanying them had turned the gate into a fortress.
“If not now……!”
If they waited, the gates would lock. The townhouse would realize she was gone, and the entire city would descend into chaos. If not now, the chance would vanish forever.
Kaella tried to push his arm away, but Peon held firm. The administrator was the Emperor’s shadow. To be caught here would be the end.
“Kaella, please!”
“Please, Your Highness. Please, please let me go.”
In the dark, foul-smelling alley, they wrestled. Kaella struggled, her fists beating against him, but he refused to let go.
“Not now. If you go now, the House of Ostain will be finished by morning.”
He whispered it with a chilling finality. She glanced toward the gate. An administrator was speaking with the gate officer—a young knight named Sir Isidore Daquitaine. Peon’s cousin. Nothing good would come of crossing him.
“I can go, there is a way……!”
But that way was a secret she couldn’t share. If she mentioned Isidore, he would be dragged into the abyss with her.
She couldn’t overcome Peon’s strength. It was the same familiar nightmare—everything being closed off, stolen away, disappearing before she could even reach for it. Frustration and despair washed over her; her wishes had never once come true, no matter how hard she tried.
There was no reason for the Emperor’s men to be at the gate at this hour. But because they were, her escape had withered before it could bloom. It was always like this.
The light faded from Kaella’s eyes. Her hope, tethered to her ties with Sir Daquitaine, had been severed by the higher authority of the imperial administrator. It was over. Her life was always this way.
The strength drained from her hands. Peon felt the fever rising in her body, a radiating, brittle heat.
“I—I will let you go later. I promise.”
He knew the words were hollow. They wouldn’t even reach her. But he begged, shielding her in the shadows of the alley, hiding her from the Emperor’s sight.
“You will be free. You will have absolutely nothing to do with Lyussenford. Just… please, I beg you, endure it a little longer.”
His heart felt as if it were being torn apart. He knew the truth: she had to be someone who had nothing to do with him. He forced her up as she slumped, his teeth gritting against the phantom pain of the future.
･ ｡ﾟ✧: *. ꕥ .* :✧ﾟ. ･
“Currently, His Majesty is pinning his hopes on you and me getting married.”
As they returned, the silence in the carriage was suffocating. Kaella did not cry; she had simply retreated into a void.
Having survived countless battlefields, Peon felt a cold shiver. Her attitude was that of someone who had already accepted their death.
He wanted to call off the marriage. He wanted it with a desperation that threatened to break him. But having returned only a few days ago, he held no real power. The Emperor was desperate to project the image of a “proper imperial family head,” and this marriage was his centerpiece. It was impossible to stop.
Kaella, who had worn a bridal veil with a ghost-white face before the regression, must have loathed it then just as much as she did now. He was the one droning on about reality, acting the part of the husband while she withered beside him. It was humiliating for a woman of her status.
“If this marriage does not go through, the Emperor will lose face. And you know where that anger will be directed.”
Was she even listening? Kaella, stunning even in her shabby disguise, seemed miles away. Her ears were closed to him, the light in her eyes extinguished.
“First, we must live, Young Lady. Kaella.”
He never wanted to see her die with her eyes open again.
“If you stay alive, if you divorce me and inherit the Duchy of Ostain, perhaps one day you might think it was good to survive.”
His heart burned, his blood feeling like ash as he spoke. He was begging her to please, please not die.
“Three years. Can’t you give me just three years?”
It was a maddeningly tight timeframe, but Peon dared to stake his life on the promise.
“After three years, I will divorce you. I will never harbor any greed for Ostain. I will sign whatever documents you require. Just three years. And after that…….”
After that, he had to cut himself out of her life entirely. He would never be able to truly let her go, and the thought was suffocating.
“After that, we go back to being strangers.”
Peon lowered his gaze. He had no right to look at her, no right to ask for anything, a man who felt such agonizing pain while speaking these words.
“Go back to the South.”
But Kaella wasn’t listening.
‘I…… I really am stupid. I can’t do anything properly.’
Foolish, clumsy, constantly stumbling.
Why couldn’t she just stay still? Why did she always have to reach forward, only to burden everyone around her?
Even if she tried until the day she died, she couldn’t keep up with the simplest of people. She was the one cleaning up messes, yet here she was, causing more.
What was a fool who couldn’t even manage the role of Grand Duchess supposed to do?
*If you don’t know anything, staying still is the way to help, Your Highness.*
Everything she did turned to ruin. How could a fool like her hope to succeed just because she tried a single deviation? She couldn’t even die correctly; she had to be helped by others to even reach that end.
Since she was a fool who couldn’t act, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even be silent—she should have just died quietly. Even if she returned, there was no future for her. After four years of labor, dying without a moment’s rest and never being recognized, what could she possibly change? She should just sit still.
A faint, ghostly smile touched the corners of her mouth.
‘What could I possibly do?’
She didn’t know if this was reality or madness.
Peon’s eyes were rimmed with pain as he watched her. She wasn’t listening. She was wandering through the darkness, lost.
The carriage returned, silent and heavy, to the townhouse of the House of Ostain.