1.

Cleve stared blankly at the roaring blaze. Thinking the fire might not have spread far yet, she rushed to the well and hauled up water.

Splash. Splash.

No matter how much she threw, the house already swallowed by the flames only spat back more fire.

She had to get it under control, even a little. Growing frantic, Cleve kept running back and forth between the well and the burning house.

“Hah, haah.”

Black smoke rolled in on the wind and swallowed her whole. She broke into a coughing fit, gasping for air.

“Ugh!”

She quickly soaked her handkerchief and pressed it over her mouth and nose, scanning the area. A fire this massive, and not a single soul in sight.

The flames devoured the house like a dragon breathing fire, thrashing and twisting in the wind.

Cleve threw her hands over her face. The heat was so intense it felt like her whole body would blister.

The enormous blaze opened its maw and finally consumed the small house entirely. Then, as if that weren’t enough, it swelled larger and larger, hungry to burn everything around it too.

“What do I do…… No!”

She made a reckless lunge toward the house, already beyond saving. Her mother’s keepsakes were still inside. She had to get them out, no matter what.

One step, then another.

“Hhk, please……”

Everything is disappearing.

It can’t disappear. Please, please.

Cleve tried to dodge something massive falling toward her and tumbled backward.

“Aah!”

She screamed, trembling, and stared at the charred beam that had crashed down right in front of her feet.

“No……”

Cleve shook her head, pawing at the ground. She slammed her palms hard against her legs, which had gone limp with the release of tension.

“No, no, no…… Get up. I have to get up!”

She had stopped by the cathedral again today, as she always did, to confess her sins. She had been on her way back from begging forgiveness for the wrong she could never wash clean.

If only she hadn’t gone to the cathedral. If only she hadn’t knelt there asking to be forgiven. Could she have stopped this?

‘It was something that could never be forgiven.’

So this is the punishment I get.

Everything she had ever dreamed of turned to ash and vanished. Her small hopes, the freedom she had wanted so desperately, gone in an instant.

“……No.”

Cleve floundered in the depths of despair.

She told herself to get up, to move, to do something, anything. But her legs refused to listen.

She ended up crawling forward on her hands and knees.

‘Not the house. Not my house……’

Through blurred vision, she saw a pair of feet blocking her path.

Cleve wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand and slowly raised her head.

Even through the acrid smoke, faint traces of a grassy scent drifted to her. A familiar smell, one she had never wanted to encounter again. Cleve’s body went rigid.

“Cleve.”

That voice, still as sweet and gentle as ever. Her expression crumpled all at once.

It’s you. It was you all along.

She understood in an instant who had set all of this in motion.

“It’s time to come home.”

The wind caught the flames and drove them further. Despair crashed over her entire body, leaving no room for even the smallest hope.

“How can you be this……”

Cruel. This heartless. That was why she could never bring herself to love him.

He had never once been sincere with her. If he had always intended to crush her like this, then everything had been a lie from the start.

She had finally gotten free…… and it ends like this!

The man crouched down to meet her eyes where she had sunk to the ground.

Thwack.

Cleve knocked his hand away.

“I’m not going back. So just let me go.”

“And where would you go? You have nowhere.”

She had. She had somewhere, and he had taken it from her. Cleve held back her tears and glared at him.

She wanted to curse him, to pour every ounce of hatred and contempt she had into the words.

“I hate you. Eldrich, I hate you so much it makes me sick.”

“Strange. Did you ever actually like me? I was the one who got played by a false heart.”

Cleve forced herself to her feet. She tried to step past him and walk toward the smoldering ruins.

“I’ll build it again. Again.”

And if she couldn’t, she was better off dying here. She had no desire to go back to the way things were. Being together again would be hell for both of them.

Hobble, hobble.

Cleve pushed herself upright and walked toward the house.

“Hm. Wherever you go, I’ll tear it all down.”

The voice came from behind her. Cleve’s face went pale. She stopped and spun around.

“……Eldrich!”

“Come home. To your home. To our home.”

Cleve ground her teeth. This bond between them was relentless to the point of cruelty.

“Don’t come near me. I’ll die right here.”

“That’s fine. Then I’ll just hold your corpse and carry on.”

Cleve shook her head, unable to make sense of him, and took another step. Her foot caught on something and she pitched forward.

“Oh, careful.”

Eldrich was already in front of her. He had tripped her, no question.

Cleve grabbed a fistful of grass and tried to scramble up. But he stood in her way, smiling faintly, and lifted her off the ground.

“Let go, let go of me, ugh, please, put me down……! I don’t want to go.”

“No, that won’t do. Cleve, I spent a year searching for you. I can’t have that come to nothing.”

Eldrich’s crimson eyes held her completely. Something unreadable churned inside them, a storm of emotion directed entirely at her.

“Cleve, you’d better stay still. My patience isn’t what it used to be.”

Despair closed in around her.

❀❀❀

Cleve Chartres.

There was no one in the kingdom who didn’t know her name. Stunning looks, a figure that drew every eye, graceful in every movement. Her sense of style was so refined she could have been said to set the trends herself.

But none of that was why she was famous.

It was the marriages.

This was already her fourth.

When she became the wife of her first husband, Count Anthony Deric, she received the count’s trading company as her marriage settlement.

Anthony Deric had been violent from before the wedding. Unable to endure it any longer, Cleve locked the bedroom door on their wedding night. She fell asleep trembling with fear, and the next morning he was found dead, his fingers severed, every drop of blood drained from his body.

When she became the wife of her second husband, Baron Gilbert Edgar, she received a villa and land in the barony.

Baron Edgar had a history with women. On their wedding night, he brought a dog collar to the bedroom, demanding something outrageous from her. He said he needed to see her submit to him, and he choked her with it until she lost consciousness.

The next morning, he was found dead, suffocated with his airway blocked.

When she became the wife of her third husband, Viscount Peter Seregei, she received a mine registered in the viscount’s name.

On their wedding night, the viscount said he needed to cleanse himself before coming to her, went to wash up, and vanished without a trace.

Cleve had lost her husband before married life had even begun. It had happened three times now, and people pointed at her and called her cursed.

And so, today, the fourth wedding of Cleve Chartres.

Cleve had no desire to be married. Perhaps that was why she stood at the altar with an expression utterly unbefitting a bride, blank and indifferent. No excitement, no anticipation, just a statue standing motionless in the cathedral.

“Isn’t she something? The nerve of her.”

“Still, she’s remarkable every time you see her. That’s why men keep throwing their lives away over that face, isn’t it.”

“It’s horrifying. I truly cannot understand it. The Chartres marquisate may be one of the most distinguished houses in the kingdom, but to think Duke Eldrich would……”

“A man is a man at the end of the day, I suppose. To reward someone who led us to victory in war with this, His Highness really has gone too far.”

Whispers floated from every direction. Cleve let out a quiet sigh.

She didn’t understand it either. Why he had chosen to become her husband. No matter how she turned it over in her mind, she couldn’t find a reason.

“Sorry for the delay. I only just returned.”

The man’s voice as he entered the hall drew every gaze toward the door.