1.

Sunlight pouring through the window tickled her eyelids. Ines stirred slightly, then opened her eyes.

“……”

She blinked a few times and her hazy vision cleared. A white ceiling, dark brown pillars, beige window frames, all of it familiar and yet strange.

‘Where have I seen this……’

She was slowly taking it all in when a scene suddenly flashed before her eyes.

‘Ki… Killian……’

‘Killian, come back to me. Please……’

‘Aah……!’

Eyes red with weeping, hands trembling so badly it was horrifying, Killian growing cold in her arms, the Emperor laughing like a madman.

Ines shot upright.

“Ugh……!”

A splitting headache hit at the same time a flood of memories crashed in all at once.

‘Le, Leila, sister……’

‘Oh my, look at this one. Who’s your sister? Just because they call you a princess, I suppose you’ve forgotten your mother was a lowly maid.’

The mockery that had begun before she even understood the world.

‘God, this is so irritating. Why did I have to end up posted to some backwater palace……’

‘Tell me about it. The girls serving the other princesses are living well.’

‘What does it matter that she’s a princess? She’s only half. She’s fallen out of favor with the First Imperial Consort, so the palace budget is practically nothing. Oh, my miserable life!’

The servants who had looked down on Ines.

‘D*mn, so that’s why that high-and-mighty father of his went after a commoner maid.’

The Second Prince, looking Ines over with gleaming eyes.

And then,

‘I am Killian Rupert.’

The day she first met him.

Killian Rupert, who had welcomed her kindly even though a marriage forced by imperial decree could not have pleased him.

Her one and only husband. The first person she had ever loved. The man who lost everything because of her, and in the end lost even his life……

“Hah……!”

Ines wrenched herself free from the swamp of memories with a ragged breath.

Rustle.

The blanket crumpled under her fist, which she had clenched without thinking.

Only after a long while of struggling did her breathing finally return to her.

Ines slowly raised her head. She looked around the room at a measured pace. The interior was familiar and yet strange at the same time.

The Second Princess’s palace, where she had spent twenty-two years of her life and had not set foot in for the past several years.

“How……”

This was impossible.

Ines remembered clearly the moment her breath had left her.

In excruciating agony, her abdomen had been cut open. The child she had not even managed to tell him about had been taken from her, and then she had lost that child too. She had wailed until at some point the flame of her life went out.

The moment her breath had ceased had been, unexpectedly, quite peaceful.

Yes. She had clearly felt herself stop breathing……

Rustle.

Without thinking, Ines touched her stomach. The belly that had been round and swollen until just before her death was flat. There was no pain.

There was something else strange. The princess’s palace where she had lived had burned to ruins two years after her marriage to Killian. So the situation before her now made no sense at all.

“……What is this, what’s going on……”

Just then, a commotion rose outside.

Before long, someone knocked at the door.

“Your Highness, I’ll be coming in for a moment.”

The person who entered without waiting for Ines’s permission was a brown-haired maid. The memory of her came back a little slowly.

Her name was Jena, if she recalled correctly……

“His Majesty the Emperor has commanded you to attend the luncheon. You need to get up and prepare now.”

The maid rattled off what she had to say, then frowned at the sight of Ines sitting there blankly. But rather than do as the maid said, Ines opened her mouth.

“What is today’s date?”

“Pardon? Why would you suddenly……”

“I asked you a question.”

The voice that came out sounded, even to Ines’s own ears, somewhat cold. The maid seemed to sense it too, and after blinking a few times, answered in a flustered tone.

“It’s the twentieth of March.”

“The year?”

“……990.”

The maid still looked bewildered. But Ines had no attention to spare for that.

‘990……’

Ines had died in 995. That meant the present was five years before her death.

“……This is impossible.”

Ines scrambled out of bed. She forgot to put on her slippers and ran to the mirror. Reflected back at her was a woman with an overall paleness to her coloring.

Platinum blonde hair, a face so pale it was almost white, grey-green eyes……

The woman in the mirror was unmistakably her, but she looked a little younger than she remembered, and far more miserable.

The nails of her tightly clenched fist dug into her palm. The sharp sting was too vivid to be a dream.

In that moment, Ines had no choice but to accept it.

She had returned to the past, five years ago.

* * *

Ines was helped into her clothes by a maid who was more deferential than usual, and all the while she turned the situation over in her mind.

She had returned to the past.

The most straightforward way to describe it, though it was the kind of thing most people would tilt their heads at.

But Ines could not deny it.

If she had not returned to the past, there was no other explanation for why every memory was this vivid.

“……I’m finished.”

The maid, who had completed her work, bowed and stepped back, leaving Ines alone in the mirror.

Her own young face, dreary and damp with misery.

From the moment she had understood that she had returned to the past, one thought had been pressing heavily on her mind. She turned it over again now.

This was a chance.

‘……A chance to protect him.’

The green eyes, like a forest clearing through fog, sharpened into clarity. Eyes that held hope and resolve instead of gloom shone more brilliantly than they ever had.

Ines did not know what principle had brought this about. So she could only fix her gaze on the one thing she was certain of.

The Rupert estate consumed by flames. The countless innocent lives lost. Killian, who had not blamed her even after learning everything.

And……

Ines curled her hand into a fist, stopping herself from reaching for her flat stomach.

“Your Highness, We really must go now.”

As the maid’s voice began to take on a thin edge of irritation again, Ines turned and made her vow.

She would not squander this miraculous second chance.

This time, she would never let the things she loved crumble.

* * *

Because Ines’s palace sat on the outer edge of the imperial grounds, it was quite a walk to the dining hall. As she made her way there in silence, the memories of this period gradually grew sharper.

Ines was ignorant and foolish, but her memory was second to none.

So she also remembered what kind of day today was.

In the spring of the year Ines turned twenty-two, the Emperor had moved to arrange her marriage to Killian. Today was the day that decree would be conveyed to her.

‘Killian……’

Ines mouthed his name silently. A sensation like her heart being squeezed came over her.

If she simply did nothing and let things run their course, the situation would unfold exactly as it had before. The North was about two weeks away, so she would come face to face with Killian in less than a month.

But was it right to go back to Killian’s side again?

‘Ki… Killian, I…… I’m s… sorry. I really am……’

Did she have the right to stand beside the man who had lost everything because of her?

Ines’s expression gradually darkened.

It had been barely an hour since something unbelievable had happened, so her thoughts had not yet reached this far.

Everything had been the result of the Emperor’s scheming, but Ines had played her part too, as a pawn in Rupert’s downfall. Because she, in her stupidity, had been blinded by the warmth of family and moved exactly as the Emperor intended, Killian had died and Rupert had fallen.

Deep regret and guilt came flooding in.

But what made her feel even more wretched was that despite all of it, she missed him terribly. She wanted to see him alive and breathing, just once more.

‘Ines.’

She wanted to hear him say her name one more time. If she could have that, she would gladly endure any death, no matter how horrible.

‘……No.’

What if she died right now?

Dig. The nails of her clenched fist pressed painfully into her palm.

If she died right now, the marriage would come to nothing, and the Emperor would never be able to reach Rupert through marriage again. Marrying her half-sister Leila to Killian would be out of the question.

What Rupert had gained from this marriage was the return of the exclusive mana stone distribution rights the imperial house had all but seized by force, pushing its authority to the limit, along with full autonomy over the North.