1.
It was a wedding that lacked nothing, yet everything about it felt misplaced. The engagement ring, the wedding band, the tiara resting upon her brow, the ancient jewels—even the groom himself. Truthfully, she had no right to stand in the bride’s place at all. She was merely a placeholder, a shadow occupying a space that did not belong to her.
“Here.”
Ever since leaving Krain, Kaella had tried to return the engagement ring, a piece she hadn’t dared to wear even once.
“This… why?”
Hyperion felt his breath hitch, the words barely scraping past his throat. He had given it to her with the unequivocal declaration that it belonged to her; why was she pushing it back?
“Because I received one already…”
Or perhaps one was simply enough. Seeing her glance at him—a look of genuine confusion, as if she couldn’t fathom his distress—Hyperion couldn’t even manage a sigh. She hunched her shoulders, an instinctive flinch as if she’d committed a crime, and he dared not frighten her further.
Ever since her collapse, Kaella had ceased to treat him as the brother she had known in childhood. She now addressed him solely as the Grand Duke of Lyussenford. Since waking from her long illness, she had grown increasingly formal, drawing invisible lines to wall off her emotions. To think that the only sentiment she showed him now was wariness—a fragile, fearful caution—made Hyperion feel a deep, rotting sense of self-loathing.
“Be—no, Kaella.”
He shook his head.
“No. It’s all yours. I told you, you don’t have to return it.”
To the woman who had been imprisoned in the North Tower and starved, Lyussenford was a barren, hostile land. She had to endure the constant, disdainful glares of the nobles who visited under the guise of the Tur Berry. If she didn’t, she would face the indignity of the fruit that caused her body to swell hideously, or be crushed by the weight of their unreasonable, coercive demands.
How terrified she must have been. Surrounded by the people of Lyussenford—large in stature and thunderous in voice—Kaella had surely been forced to endure every slight. At the last banquet, she must have been too frightened to refuse, swept along by the mob until she consumed the Tur Berry against her will. There was no way she had eaten it of her own volition.
“Keep this one. As it is.”
He took the engagement ring from the box and slipped it onto her finger. She had lost so much weight that the band hung loosely against her skin.
“The new one is simply a gift from a husband to his wife.”
He slid a brilliant diamond onto her other thin finger. As he held her hand—devoid of color and warmth, just like the hand of the Kaella who had died in his memory—Hyperion’s brow furrowed involuntarily.
“Wear them often. If you lose them, it’s fine. I’ll just buy you more.”
He remembered how she had once searched for a lost ring, digging through the snow with bare, reddened hands until she wept. He should have helped her then; he had been an accomplice in his own silence, letting her suffer only to find it later in secret. He should have been there.
“If the rings keep increasing, how…”
The words, *“What kind of insane idiot would take back an engagement ring meant for one’s mother?”* hovered on his tongue, but he swallowed them. ‘Idiot’ was too vulgar a word for Kaella’s ears. He knew exactly why she acted this way.
“……I am sorry that I am so flawed compared to you.”
He was constantly haunted by the fact that he was a broken man, one who had maintained an official relationship with another woman.
“No, that’s not it.”
Kaella reflexively denied it, a habit born of survival.
“No, it is. Don’t pretend otherwise when everyone else can see it so clearly. You know it too.”
She clamped her mouth shut.
“Since I am a husband with so many defects, shouldn’t I at least provide you with things like this?”
His large, calloused hand still gripped her skeletal one. It was a jarring, peculiar sight to Kaella.
“It suits you well.”
Compared to the long, slender hands of Beatrice, hers were pitifully small. Kaella, who had lived suppressed by the reputation of the ‘Flower of Society’—Lady Lavalle, whose hands were as flawless as her poise—looked at the massive diamond on her own scarred, ugly hand and thought:
*‘It would have shone brighter on Lady Lavalle’s hand.’*
Holding the hand of the Grand Duchess—who felt less beautiful, less worthy than her rival—the Grand Duke spoke again, his voice steady and clear.
“It is entirely yours.”
A lie. That couldn’t be true.
“Take it all. It’s all yours. Never give it back.”
His voice was a low, insistent anchor, and his hand enveloped hers completely, as if terrified she might pull away again. Even though she knew this moment was fleeting, hollow and meaningless, Kaella stared at her hands for a long time. Her small, worthless hands, completely swallowed within his, looked quite decent for the first time in years.
They didn’t seem so ugly, after all.
･ ｡ﾟ✧: *. ꕥ .* :✧ﾟ. ･
After finally persuading Kaella—or rather, imposing his will until she relented—and leaving the two rings securely on her fingers, Hyperion only smoothed his expression once the door had clicked shut behind him.
He knew. The woman behind that door was not the Kaella who had struggled to plant roots in this frozen land. She was not the person he had once known. She was the Lady Ostain who could leave Lyussenford at any moment, who would become a stranger to him the instant she saw an opening. She was not the woman who had cried in the snow, searching for a ring she couldn’t even remember receiving.
That ring had been the only thing he had ever given her. Or rather, the only symbol of a marriage that was miserable for its own reasons. Kaella had searched for it desperately. Either the marriage was important to her, or the ring itself was—it had to be one or the other. Or perhaps, God help him, both.
*“I will return it to you.”*
But the current Kaella showed no attachment to it. Returning it? A petty, small-minded thing to demand back after an engagement was broken, yet having treated her husband with such distance twice, Kaella was deadly serious.
*‘Was I mean to Be?’*
Hyperion retraced the past, agonizing over every detail. He knew nothing of women. He had tried so hard to avoid hurting Kaella this time, yet he feared he had made a mistake anyway.
Of course, he knew that his very existence—and the undeniable reality of a past that hadn’t changed even after he regressed through time—was an indelible flaw. That fact tormented him.
*‘But still…….’*
Still, it made no sense. The twenty-one-year-old newlywed, a sheltered noblewoman, had been polite and shy. She had been. Hyperion cursed himself for having so few memories of the beginning of their marriage, struggling to scrape together whatever scraps he could recall. He should have watched her more closely. He should have known what kind of person she was. He wracked his brain, hurling silent insults at himself for the sin of failing to understand her.
*“Even if Your Highness does not acknowledge it, I am the Grand Duchess. I will do what I must do.”*
No matter how thin his memories were, he could never forget that small, clear voice and the icy eyes that had locked onto his. Even when they were brimming with tears, she had faced him—the man who had ignored and avoided her.
But this time, had she even really looked at him?
Hyperion suddenly felt a chill and glanced back. But the door he had closed remained tightly shut.
He suppressed the urge to open it again and walked down the hallway. Spring would come to Lyussenford soon, but the wind remained biting, making him worry for Kaella’s health as it fluttered his cloak.
“Your Highness.”
His secretary, Lezen, approached cautiously and bowed. He had been hovering nearby for minutes, waiting for Hyperion to emerge, but had been ignored while the Grand Duke held Kaella’s hand.
Hyperion turned to him, struggling to shake off the lingering, cold sensation.
“May I approach to report?”
Hyperion gestured without a word. Lezen stepped into his space and whispered, his voice barely audible.
“It was gold, Your Highness.”
The second mine would overflow with gold. Hyperion nodded.
“What shall we do?”
“When the ore is processed, a few large chunks will emerge; bring them to me. Send only one of them to Krain.”
He intended to hide the precious diamonds entirely and send the gold—which, while incomparable to diamonds, was still high-status—to the Emperor to make a show of it. The Emperor would no longer know the true state of Lyussenford’s finances. Reports could be fabricated, and as for the Emperor’s spies?
“Yes, Your Highness. I shall obey, but… is it safe?”
Lezen was loyal, but he could not mask his concern. It was his job to catalog every potential danger. To him, keeping the secret of the Kervan mine, where diamonds were pouring out in massive quantities, felt like courting death.
The Emperor had always shown a morbid obsession with Lyussenford. Messengers appeared or summons were issued to Krain before Hyperion could even file a report. Because of this, the people of Lyussenford lived in perpetual fear and hatred, believing the Emperor’s gaze never left them. He was a fearful, distant ruler who held their land on a leash, granting not a shred of freedom.
“Nothing will happen.”
Hyperion said it firmly. He was the only person in the Krania Empire who no longer feared the Emperor’s eyes. He had found something else, something far more fearful, to occupy his mind.
“Yes. Then I shall proceed. And about the fourth mine.”
Lezen lowered his voice further, to the point of being almost non-existent.
“Is it truly ‘that place’?”
A different kind of terror, one on a different dimension, appeared on the secretary’s face.
“Truly, Your Highness, if it is ‘that place,’ development is impossible. It would mean massive loss of life, and it violates the law of the land.”
“I have not yet given any orders regarding the fourth mine.”
“You said ‘yet,’ Your Highness. ‘Yet.’ That means the order is coming, and by the time you give it, it will already be too late.”
Lezen looked as though he had aged ten years.
“It is true that you only mentioned the location, but that alone has kept me from sleeping for days.”
Hyperion chuckled.
“As someone who is always concerned for the sound sleep of his subordinates, I assure you, there is no need to lose sleep, Lezen.”
“Since you are concerned for my sleep, could you perhaps be concerned for my liver as well, Your Highness?”
“Oh dear, do I need to grow you a new liver now, too?”
“Unfortunately, this is its maximum capacity. If you grow it any more, it will burst.”
The Grand Duke, barely listening, continued down the stairs toward the stables.
“Bring the horses.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
A knight moved immediately.
“Prepare the report for His Majesty the Emperor; I will write it as soon as I return, Lezen.”
“Are you traveling far?”
Hyperion looked down at his secretary.
“I must be considerate of your fragile liver. I am going to scout the territory of the Evil Dragon.”
It was a dangerous task, but one Hyperion had been performing himself for years; the secretary did not bother to stop him.
“Please travel safely.”
Because the Commander-in-Chief of Lyussenford never shied away from the menial tasks of his soldiers, morale was high. Hyperion passed the messy, thawing road and mounted his horse.
“No escort is needed. I will return shortly.”
Naturally, no escort was needed when entering the domain of the Evil Dragon. There could be no eyes to see what he did there.
He passed the thawed roads and headed toward the border, which remained frozen white. From that point on, the territory itself seemed to erase his tracks. No one would ever be able to find the Grand Duke. The hoofprints in the snow vanished behind him, but Hyperion didn’t care.
The deeper he went, the more the anxiety that had been gripping his heart grew. He had hidden it skillfully in front of Lezen, but he could no longer keep it contained.
Perhaps, could it be, by any chance?
The anxiety, like cold air flowing through his heart, was taking shape. He shouldn’t play the blind man. He shouldn’t, but he had never wanted to do so as desperately as he did now. He wanted to know nothing. He wanted to turn away.
His horse eventually stopped before a straight path where shadows and light were intertwined in a grotesque ripple. Hyperion tied his horse far away and walked slowly into the path that the shadows cleared as they slid aside.
In the domain of the Dragon of Light, a cold and heat that were unbearable for humans coexisted. It was a space where deep darkness and blinding light lived together. Hyperion walked through the dark, which was beginning to feel familiar. Neither the heat nor the cold could touch him now.
In the pitch-black void, golden, fragment-like lights flickered like fireflies. When his footsteps finally ceased in the deepest part of the cavern, a pair of golden eyes, far larger than the fireworks he had set off a few days prior, cut through the dark.
Hyperion opened his mouth, his voice tainted with sharp, self-reproach.
“Father.”