The man stood rooted in front of the sofa, his lips pressed tight and expression hardened. His slightly overgrown blonde hair cast light gray shadows around his eyes.

His split scarlet lips quivered with apparent hesitation. Unable to hold back, Melissa cried out through her tears.

“If it’s not true, just say something, anything to deny it!”

Her desire to run to him and fall into his embrace if he would just deny it was as huge as a mountain. But contrary to Melissa’s wishes, the man who walked the long distance toward her cut her with sharp words.

“Yes, it’s true.”

Thud, her heart plummeted.

He pulled Melissa’s arm into his embrace as her legs nearly gave out. Though Melissa struggled to break free, he stood firm like a fortress wall without budging. Exhausted, she realized she couldn’t escape his strong arms and grew still.

Staying still felt like being slowly sucked underground into mud. The huge shock dominated Melissa’s entire body, leaving her powerless to do anything but cry.

“Wh-when, hic… until when.”

She struggled to speak through her tears, barely able to breathe.

“How long were you planning to keep this from me?”

“Calm down, Melissa.”

“Were you going to hide it forever? Why? Did you want to see me break down like this when I learned the truth? Did you want me to hurt, is that why…!”

“No. That’s not it at all.”

Reizen held tightly to Melissa who thrashed like someone having a seizure. He stroked her head and rubbed her back while answering in a low voice.

“I was going to tell you after this matter was finished.”

Melissa shook her head violently.

“No, you should have told me from the beginning! If you had…!”

“Would you have even looked at me then?”

Unlike the collapsing, crying Melissa, Reizen’s attitude remained consistent. It was frustrating how he maintained a face devoid of a smile and a calm voice while she felt like going mad.

“Would we have been able to live even briefly as husband and wife? You who already had no interest in someone like me, would I have even appeared in your eyes?”

Reizen cleared his muffled throat. Melissa’s hands clutched his collar tightly, trembling.

“You deceived me.”

“Think rationally. That’s why I saved you.”

“If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have had any reason to want to die!”

“No. It was something that would have happened someday, somehow.”

Melissa, gripping the man’s collar with both hands, raised her head in anger.

Reizen had Melissa sitting on his lap while he sat on the floor. Even with his collar firmly grabbed, he didn’t show even a hint of feeling threatened. He was a cruel man.

“Someone would have done it even if not me. And you… you would have died three years ago if not for me.”

He gently wrapped one hand around both of Melissa’s hands that were gripping his collar.

“So I don’t regret it. Even if I went back to the past, I would do the same thing. Ruining your family, and proving myself by setting this country right.”

“Reizen!”

“I was going to tell you after this matter was finished!”

His voice raised for the first time. His blue eyes looked at her face with clear conviction.

The gaze, devoid of any humor or jest and only serious, was frightening and unfamiliar. He didn’t seem like the Reizen that Melissa knew. The man, veins bulging in his neck, emphasized each word through gritted teeth.

“You said it yourself, that the judgment of irreversible wrongs like murder would be made by the law and the public.”

“That…”

“That’s why I’m trying to show you, like this. By changing the laws and creating a country where everyone can live well to gain acceptance.”

“Th-that… that, I… ah…”

That was an answer she had given when he asked about ‘unavoidable murder.’ If he had asked about how to be forgiven for the wounds he gave her, she would have given a different answer.

Melissa felt everything inside her crumble. The dazed woman’s gaze couldn’t settle in one place and wavered anxiously.

What pulled her back from her fading consciousness was Reizen’s voice.

“Melissa…”

Reizen’s blue eyes didn’t waver, and they were clear like crystal, seemingly seeing through Melissa’s thoughts.

“Just one day, if you had given me just one more day, no more, I would have repaid you with perfect results.”

Melissa’s face turned pale.

Unlike her, whose face was swollen from crying in shock, the man felt like an iron wall, like someone who had prepared for this for a long time.

Since when? When had he harbored such thoughts? Surely not from the beginning?

Suddenly, the incident with Mydos flashed through Melissa’s mind.

“How could I just stay in my room when Your Highness has been falsely accused of murder? I… I know better than anyone how terrible that is.”

When she went to check on Reizen because she was worried, he said this while asking her not to do anything.

“What if it wasn’t a false accusation? Would you still worry about me even if I were a murderer?”

Looking back, it was a strange question. The conversation that had circled around one point inexplicably now made sense when the blanks were filled in.

“Rael agreed to imprison you in Sorbet by framing you as a murderer. She was someone who didn’t care whether you lived or died. Can you still forgive that?”

“Not everyone can bravely refuse and stand up to injustice. There are situations where you have no choice…”

“If you had to kill someone because you had no choice, then. Does that mean there’s no sin?”

His particular interest in asking about Melissa’s thoughts on the scope of sin and forgiveness was in the same context.

The same went for the occasionally inexplicably twisted conversations they had.

“Weren’t you hoping I would die so the troublesome stigma would disappear?”

She had thought it nonsensical that Melissa, who had been waiting properly, would want her husband to die.

“That’s a relief. I thought you resented me.”

She couldn’t understand what there could possibly be to resent about someone who had saved her life.

“You know, Melissa. I worry about you too. That’s why I can’t tell you right now.”

She had wondered why he couldn’t tell her ‘right now.’

“Melissa. I wish you wouldn’t go anywhere.”

His anxious behavior had seemed strange, worrying she might disappear no matter how long she waited in place to give him faith.

‘Ah, so that’s what it was…’

It was because he had things that made him feel guilty.

The pale yellow filter over Melissa’s eyes peeled away one layer.

Though only one truth had been filled in for all her questions, it felt like dozens of incomplete puzzles had been solved at once.

‘From the beginning, I was just a puppet in his hands.’

Suddenly, a thin chill ran like electricity from Melissa’s toes to her crown. She felt like a lightning-struck tree, burned beyond blazing until only black char remained.

“Melissa.”

“Don’t call my name.”

She had no strength left even to cry.

“You… you were truly a terrible person.”

She could barely breathe.

As her throat tightened and dizziness hit, Melissa pressed her forehead against his chest while still gripping his collar.

“If that’s how it was, you should have apologized to me first instead of trying to prove yourself…”

Her voice of despair was faint, barely crawling out.

“Instead of deceiving me, you should have just let me die.”

It was a voice of complete resignation.

“Why did you save me?”

Though she wanted nothing more than to leave right then, she didn’t even have the strength for that. Her consciousness flickered dimly like a small flame about to go out.

Melissa’s eyelashes settled heavily, casting faint shadows along with her tears.

“I should have died three years ago without knowing anything.”

Though their hearts were so far apart, their bodies were close.

Reizen, who had Melissa sitting between his legs, would grip tightly to prevent her from escaping whenever she wiggled her hips trying to move even slightly.

The man’s hands gripping the woman’s arms tightened.

“Nothing would be different. Even if I died, I would have saved at least you.”

His heavy voice echoed like in a cave before disappearing into silence. Melissa lost consciousness right there.

* * *

Reizen, who left at dawn, urgently sent a trusted doctor from the capital. Emerson, who arrived early in the morning in the car Reizen had sent, entered with quick steps carrying her medical bag.

“Can we trust a doctor from the imperial court?”

“She’s one of our people, so don’t worry too much.”

The old butler nodded, meeting Mrs. Hover’s concerned eyes reassuringly.

Emerson headed to the second-floor bedroom guided by Mrs. Hover.

“I don’t have much time.”

The doctor spoke firmly before Melissa’s bedroom door opened.

“I’ll examine her and leave right away. My help will be desperately needed in the capital today.”

However, the examination and prescription that was supposed to be quick strangely dragged on.