“I’m fine, thanks to you. ……Please, come inside.”

“Then I’ll impose for a moment.”

As Killian passed beside her, a scent that was both heavy and clean tickled the tip of her nose. The words seemed contradictory, but there was no other way to describe Killian’s natural scent.

The two of them sat across from each other on the sofa. The moment they stilled, a faint tension crept up the back of her neck.

Ines studied the backs of her hands resting neatly on her thighs, then slowly lifted her head. She flinched without meaning to. Their eyes had met.

She reflexively dropped her gaze, then quickly realized that might come across as rude and looked back up at Killian. Fortunately, his deep, composed eyes held no sign of displeasure.

“I’m glad you’re better. The fever was so severe I was quite worried.”

Killian watched Ines move her lips and smiled faintly, then spoke with warmth.

Her heart could not help but flutter at the low, gentle voice saying he had been worried, but the thought of the trouble she had caused him made it sink with a cold ache.

Ines steadied her wavering gaze and opened her mouth.

“I’m sorry for causing trouble the moment I arrived. I don’t usually fall this ill, so I didn’t think to be careful……”

She had gotten that far when he cut in.

“There is nothing to apologize for.”

Killian, whose eyes had been gradually hardening, interrupted her mid-sentence. She looked up in surprise to find his face carrying a complicated expression. Why was he making that face?

“Grand Duke, I……”

Ines, at a loss, opened her mouth but could not continue. She did not know what had put him in this mood.

Killian watched her in silence for a moment, then let out something between a sigh and a laugh.

“Please do not apologize for something that was not your fault.”

“Ah……”

“Or do I perhaps look like someone heartless enough to accept an apology from a person who has been ill and suffering?”

That would be a problem. The question that was not quite a question, added on at the end, was unmistakably gentle teasing. Ines’s gaze trembled slightly. Then her eyes fell, and in them was a longing so deep that anyone looking directly at her would have recognized it immediately.

He did not call her by name, nor did he tenderly brush her cheek, yet the warmth she had loved and could not help but love was still there, unchanged.

“……Thank you.”

Ines gathered her emotions and offered her thanks with a practiced lift of the corners of her mouth. The very slight tremor at the end of that smile was noticed only by Killian.

Killian did not let the silence linger.

“We’ll need to reschedule the wedding. Would five days from now be all right?”

The wedding. At the word that was familiar yet somehow still strange, Ines bit her lip lightly, then nodded.

“Whenever is fine.”

“I would prefer to tell you to rest a little longer, but…… the priest’s party seems quite impatient.”

“Ah…… I suppose having the schedule pushed back would not sit well with them.”

The priest. Ines swallowed the spike of hostility and responded agreeably.

Killian’s gaze briefly passed over her eyes. She worried she had let her feelings show, but those blue eyes moved away quickly.

“Then the wedding will be in five days.”

“If they’re in a hurry, it can be sooner.”

“No. There is no such urgency.”

Killian refused with a decisiveness that left no room for argument.

“But the priest……”

“Their convenience does not outweigh Your Highness’s recovery.”

Any will to press the point was washed away by his voice. She had no particular desire to argue against words Killian had said for her sake, just to move the schedule up for the priest’s benefit.

Even if she had not known it, the fact that the priest had harmed Killian remained true.

“I’ll take my leave now.”

Killian did not linger. It was a pity, but she had no right to keep him, and no grounds to do so, so Ines calmly rose as he did.

Killian had been walking at her pace for the short distance to the door when he stopped two steps short of it. Ines naturally stopped as well and looked up at him. He seemed uncharacteristically hesitant.

Perhaps there was something more he wanted to say.

“……Grand Duke?”

At Ines’s call, Killian gave a low hum and slowly opened his mouth.

“There is one thing…… I would like to ask.”

“What is it?”

Was it about the imperial soldiers? Or the imperial house? Whatever it was, if he wanted to know, Ines wanted to answer.

The reflexive eagerness that had slipped out before she could think made her feel slightly awkward, so she added a small smile. Killian looked at her quietly, then asked in a tone that was light yet somehow serious.

“Have we perhaps met before?”

……Oh. Ines’s eyes gave a small ripple. This was not something she could answer honestly. But that lasted only an instant.

“Let me think. Not that I can recall.”

Ines answered naturally, before the silence could grow uncomfortable.

“……Is that so.”

The gaze that settled on her felt oddly heavy, and Ines made a point of smiling lightly.

“We may have crossed paths at an imperial banquet.”

Killian was quiet for a moment at the added remark, then gave a short laugh.

“That may well be.”

He murmured with a trace of amusement, then gave a slight bow of his head. That seemed to be all he had wanted to ask.

“Then I’ll take my leave. Your body hasn’t fully recovered yet, so please rest well.”

“……Thank you for your concern.”

“Think nothing of it.”

Killian left as promptly as though he had never stayed at all.

In the space he had passed through, only a faint trace of his scent remained to prove he had been there.

Thud.

“Haah……”

After a few steps, Ines leaned against the wall and let out a long breath. The tightly wound thread of tension loosened just slightly.

This was only the second time she had faced Killian since returning to the past. Of course she could not help but be tense.

If she let her guard down even a little, she might end up shedding tears right in front of him.

On the first day she arrived at Rupert, freezing up at the sight of him and nearly calling his name had been enough of a mistake. Once was plenty.

‘……I can’t let him find anything strange.’

Ines knew her position in Rupert well.

A Grand Duchess who was not welcome.

In truth, that was only natural. What person from the North would welcome the daughter of that detestable Emperor becoming Grand Duchess through a marriage that was as good as forced?

Even so, the people of Rupert had not treated Ines poorly. If anything, they had been attentive to a fault.

But being treated well and having a wall between them were two different things. Ines, having already lived through this time once, understood that very well.

Given all of that, what she needed most right now was Killian’s trust.

‘I’ve already brought up the matter of the imperial soldiers, so if I wait, something will come of it one way or another……’

Ines thought briefly about the sorcery, then recalled the question Killian had asked just before leaving.

‘Have we perhaps met before?’

It was an ordinary question, not particularly strange. The only issue was that Ines could not answer it honestly.

‘……I hope it wasn’t obvious.’

Her eyes had seemed to waver for an instant, but she did not think she had reacted strangely enough to raise suspicion. What nagged at her slightly was the thought that Killian might have remembered something.

She felt a cold spreading through her fingertips.

She had wept from the loneliness of being the only one who remembered a time that no longer existed, and yet the moment the thought arose that Killian might have recalled something, a terrible fear came crashing over her.

“……Ha ha.”

Ines let out a hollow laugh.

She knew the reason for her fear well enough.

This terror was rooted in the sins she had committed.

It was the fear born of the heavy guilt of having been too ignorant and foolish to prevent Rupert from being consumed by fire, of having failed in the end to protect him, his child, or anything at all.

The fear that Killian might remember the past and learn what she had done, and hate her for it, and she would never be able to see him again.

From beginning to end, it was an emotion steeped entirely in selfishness.

“Truly hopeless, aren’t I……”

Even so, Ines still wanted Killian never to know, not until the very end. Even if it meant burning her own life away, she would protect him and everything he loved…… so please, let him never learn of her sins.

Being hated by him was a hundred, a thousand times worse than trembling alone in the grip of memories no one else shared.

“……I’m sorry, Killian.”

Because I, this foolish and selfish person, love you……

Behind quietly lowered eyelids, silent tears fell.