Thud, the sound of the door closing was heard. The pitch-black before her eyes darkened even more.

Amaryllis remained motionless on the floor for a long time. No thoughts came to her blackened mind.

Only the stories she had heard, Bastian. Only Amaryllis’s terrible reality echoed chaotically.

After a long while…

Amaryllis suddenly trembled and murmured. Toward someone already gone.

“Madame Marguerite.”

I acknowledge it.

“You…… have won.”

Ah, Valentine de le Blumir.

The winner of this war is you.

“Aha, ahaha, ahahahaha……”

The laughter of a deranged person emptily covered the vacant room.

For a time, she had deluded herself that she had defeated that woman. She thought her glory (Bastien)¹T/N: this is the point i realized i spelled a name wrong again… ˙◠˙Valentine was also supposed to be Valentin, FYI would gain life, receive a name, and safely command the world.

But now. The mark of the victor had forever faded away.

Amaryllis struggled with her legs. The mermaid’s legs, useless for anything. The expensive price for being unable to approach what she thought would be an eternal mark of victory.

Her aged face twisted in agony.

Amaryllis, struggling in place, walked on the floor using both arms, crawling. Falling, rolling, even with all her nails broken, she stubbornly moved forward. Covered in sweat, she barely left the room. She tumbled down the stairs and finally reached the garden.

Only moonlight still reigned peacefully in the world. A faint light rippled on the pond.

Amaryllis quietly gazed at the pond. Thanks to the rain that had poured all day, the water level had risen. Unlike her heart filled with defeat, the scene was surprisingly serene and peaceful.

Suddenly, a wind blew. A withered cyclamen floated on the black waves. Her aged gaze trembled.

“Bastian……”

She called out desperately. The name that never returned to her side no matter how much she wailed during the past year.

The debris of her shattered heart bloomed after a long time of hoping, looking, wanting, and wishing for someone.

“How could this happen…… How……”

No matter how much she denied and wanted to look away, some things remained unchanged.

Cassian, who had thrown away Bastian, would love the child soon to be born.

He would kiss the crown of its head even in private. Late at night, he would lend his arm to the bedside of a child whining from being unable to sleep, and before the child fell asleep, he would insert a bookmarked ribbon into the fairy tale book he had been reading. He would scold the child throwing tantrums, striving mightily to guide them on the right path.

Like that, they would spend the ordinary, everyday happiness that Amaryllis had so desperately wanted.

The image of Cassian being happy with Madame Marguerite easily appeared before her eyes. That happiness, which she absolutely could not stand to see, had never been Amaryllis’s from the beginning. It must have been natural.

That was the dream her loved one had wanted. The dreamlike picture that cold person had desperately desired. Finally, that man had obtained that woman.

The moon of that year.

Facing the white, shattering moonlight, Amaryllis let out a hollow laugh. The sunlight she could never reach distorted like an illusion.

She remembered the day she stood beside the one she so desperately wanted to possess. Holding hands side by side, receiving a name, reciting marriage vows before God in that sacred moment…

‘Who else but you could be my Empress.’

Now she clearly understood what those carefully chosen words meant. That single sentence was the grave of sighs where all of Amaryllis’s desires were buried.

Looking back, it was such a cruel time. A time so full of excitement that she couldn’t even guess, and therefore all the more brutal,

The moon of that year—

“Worse than dogs…… you, never……”

Amaryllis, spitting out an eerie curse, bit her lip. Her broken fingertips carved a bloody curse into the wet ground.

The withered cyclamen sank to the bottom of the water, embracing the moon. Even the slightest impact caused ripples. Amaryllis’s gaze trembled.

Soon the waves subsided. Her own image was reflected in the black pond.

Hair turned white. A face aged beyond recognition. Cheeks full of wrinkles.

The daffodil captured its reflection on the water’s surface. She was blinded by that ugly beauty, that irreversible ecstasy.

Tears dripped from her empty eyes. She reached out to grasp the water’s surface. Ripples tickling her hand. The distant water music echoed softly.

Amaryllis approached the moon sleeping quietly on the water’s surface once more. But her broken nails only scratched at the moon’s shadow in vain. The sound of water merely rippled chaotically, never to be caught.

Splash! A loud noise rang out. The inverted body embraced the water’s surface.

She felt her body submerging in water. Falling straight into the deep sea. She didn’t want to leave this place that wrapped around her body comfortably like amniotic fluid.

When she opened her mouth, bubbling, empty foam rose to the distant surface. She took a deep breath. Her broken nose stung sharply. Water filled her lungs. A cyclamen that had sunk with the small recoil flickered before her blurry eyes.

Amaryllis reached out toward the cyclamen breaking apart in the waves. That small flower, seemingly within grasp, yet beyond reach.

If we cannot be together in life, then we must be together in death.

Bastian. My glory.

Mother will come.

To your side.

Red lilies bloomed profusely near the pond. It was the time when summer approached.

Soon, black stillness colored Amaryllis’s vision. The rest that welcomed her was narrow and dark.

Amaryllis crawled along that black path with her broken fingertips, crawling, crawling, and crawling more. Then at some moment, in the darkness where she walked entirely alone…

Suddenly appearing, the black demon harboring the gloom of the abyss curled its lips upward in red. A voice that sent chills down her spine was heard.

—Welcome to h*ll.

“H*ll, you say?”

She asked back in a stupid voice. Amaryllis soon realized the meaning of those words.

Since an innocent child’s soul could not have fallen into h*ll…

Even in death, they could not meet…..

The soul that fell into h*ll alone finally knew its time to bloom. But that season was the merciless despair that buried all of Amaryllis’s sins.

* * *

Early morning, a maid heading to the mansion for cleaning screamed. A white-haired corpse was floating in the pond. The bloated body could not even be described as a good sight by any stretch of imagination.

On the damp ground, an eerie last will was written.

—I curse you.

Like my glory, your bloodline will not survive safely.

People who came running at the scream pulled out the corpse with its eyes rolled back. For someone who had once been in the position of Empress, it was too shabby an end.

“What a disgustingly persistent woman.”

Truly a person consistent to the very end.

That damned woman knew too well. That hurting my child would bring a more unbearable pain than hurting me.

White fingertips instinctively embraced her lower abdomen. Valentine felt she could finally offer a small tribute to the child who had departed.

‘Though we may never meet again, you who had no sin, whose only fault was coming to me, may you be happy in a painless heaven.’

Hoping that my and Cassian’s sins will not become your burden.

Valentine, who had been about to turn away coldly, hesitated for a moment. The white hair rippling chaotically on the water’s surface…

Something suddenly came to mind. A small murmur squeezed through her lips.

“……Doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.”

“Hamlet?”

“Yes.”

Valentine nodded, then sensed something odd. Her face turned slightly.

“But you know it too. I didn’t know you’d be interested in human literature.”

The demon, as always, gave no answer. It was quite strange. Did this demon simply know about all things in the world?

Not expecting an answer, Valentine continued.

“It reminds me of Ophelia.”

Countess Sienne, who had arrived belatedly, collapsed on the spot. Amaryllis’s siblings, supporting their fainted mother, burst into tears.

“Well, perhaps she’s too ugly to be called Ophelia who drowned.”

Though both died insane, submerged in water. Hamlet’s Ophelia was the pinnacle of beauty, dazzling even in the moment of death. Someone like Amaryllis, floating on the pond in such a miserable state, could hardly be compared.

Letting out a small laugh, Valentine also spat out a small curse.

“You too, leave your moment eternally in a painting.”

That sinful soul would fall into h*ll and suffer eternal torment. Though she planned to mock her again when they eventually met, matters of the living were different.

“Just as I left a half-n*ked portrait.”

Like Ophelia, may she become fodder for countless painters for ages to come. While Ophelia received praise for eternal beauty, Amaryllis would remain in her current ugly form. As the winter lily of Sehera.

Valentine, without much lingering attachment, turned around coldly. The last remaining person flickered before her eyes. Violet eyes wrapped in madness curved slightly askew.

Now, it’s time to hunt the red dragon.

5. Amaryllis de la Sienne – End