Throughout the entire journey south, the ghost of a dead woman lingered around him.

Whenever he opened his eyes, she was sitting by the sunlit window, quietly humming to herself.

As soon as he stirred, she turned her head and smiled sweetly at him.

“Kenneth. Did you sleep well?”

“……”

“Will you have time to eat with me today? I’d really like to visit the dining with you…”

The vision burrowed deep into his guilt, babbling of every kindness he’d never shown Ariana while she lived.
‘I’m losing my mind. I really should switch medications.’

“…All right, then. Let’s go.”

But the woman’s brilliant smile was too beautiful, so he gave up. He couldn’t bring himself to erase her sunlit eyes, rosy cheeks and delicately upturned lips, especially as they seemed so real.

If there were any benefits to madness, he would embrace it a little longer.

He ordered two meals. Watching ‘Ariana’ chat happily and eat with such an appetite pleased him so much that rumours spread through the express train in no time: the duke had gone mad.

He let the gossip run unchecked. Why would he look away from Ariana when she blushed and smiled so sweetly?

Besides, once the south revealed the worst m*rder case in imperial history, talk of his insanity would die down quickly.

***

‘Never let your guard down, even when things are going well.’

The Byron father and daughter, as well as the Imperial House of Claude, would later come to regret forgetting this rule.

So, when Kenneth arrived unannounced at the Byron family annex, it was the Count who was most flustered.

“Absolutely not! Your Grace, this is most improper — what on earth…!”

When the Duke’s escorts forced the doors open, Theodora burst out, shrieking:

“Kenneth, what are you doing? On what grounds?”

He had no hard proof, of course.

However, a tenacious female reporter from Protector had been digging into the matter relentlessly, and news of her findings reached him the moment he stepped off the train.

Young women who had come to the city in search of work started disappearing.

The constables dismissed these disappearances, claiming that the maids had most likely started working as prostitutes. However, Kenneth had long suspected the Byron family.

Now, he was determined to expose all their secrets.

Whenever he visited the area, he made a point of avoiding Hotel Blaise, simply because it was more convenient to stay at the family’s main estate.

But who could have imagined that there was something rotting in the basement?

Dripping with booze, blood and filth?

“Oh, Kenneth. Took you long enough to find me.”

Andrew raised a stick-thin hand, his bloodshot eyes dull and glassy.

He looked half-dead, like some consumptive wretch, shrunk from cheap liquor and decay.

At his feet lay several crumpled bodies, soaked in blood.

Grinning with his pale, sickly face, Andrew continued talking.

He’d tried to return to the capital more than once, only for Kenneth to block him at every turn.

Even the emperor, after seeing the state of his eldest son, had finally given up.

The Crown had no intention of bearing the burden of human refuse.

“Heh… Father gave up on me, but you managed to track me down.”

“……”

“Get me out of this hellhole, Kenneth. I’m sick to death of being locked up down here.”

H*ll? At least the man who said those words was still alive. But what about Ariana? And what about the pit near the Windbreak Forest where women who looked like her had been buried?

When the terrible truth came to light, all those who had come to sneer at the duke for supposedly losing his mind fell silent, overcome with emotion.

As Kenneth stared blankly into the open pit, he heard Ariana whisper at his side:

“It seems I might have ended up in that h*ll too, Kenneth.”

The apparition gazed at him.

“Thanks to you pulling me off the scaffold, I didn’t die there.”

“……”

“But looking back… perhaps that wasn’t the best outcome either. I died anyway, didn’t I?”

She was just an illusion; nothing more than a side effect of the stimulants. Yet, the moment tears welled in her beautiful blue eyes, he found himself unable to breathe.

A sharp crack split through his chest.

Was Ariana’s fate truly limited to two outcomes: s*icide within the walls of the ducal estate, or a miserable death at the hands of Andrew?

Kenneth couldn’t bear it. He buried his face in his hands.

This moment was nothing short of h*ll. Through his fingers, he caught a glimpse of a small building atop a gentle hill.

Saint Colette’s Cathedral, standing just as it always had, its back turned to the sea.

***

The duke stormed into Saint Colette’s, nearly tearing the doors off their hinges as he burst inside.

Startled priests moved to intervene, but Kenneth was unstoppable, even in his drug-fuelled delirium.

His bloodshot, teal eyes locked onto the woman seated alone in the front pew near the altar.

Despite the commotion around her, she didn’t move — she didn’t even glance up from her prayers.

Even as he approached, she remained still.

Kenneth forced everyone else back and stood before her, his chest heaving and his breath coming in ragged gasps like a dying beast barely clinging to life.

“Change the deal.”

“…How would I have it changed?”

“Please… send Ariana back to before she had the child. Before she married me.”

“……”

“No—even earlier is fine. Any time before she knew me, before she ever met me…!”

Kenneth crushed Andrew’s face beneath his boot after the man laughed at the news of Ariana’s s*icide.

Kenneth slammed his boot down on Andrew’s face, grinding it into the floor—unable to contain his fury after the man dared to laugh at the news of Ariana’s s*icide.

Andrew had only tormented that fragile woman because Kenneth had shown an interest in her. He claimed that he had been wary of her ever since Kenneth, who was thirteen at the time, started visiting the estate just to catch a glimpse of her.

At the time, Ariana was ten.

When the truth hit him, Kenneth broke down.

He discarded all the dignity he had once held as duke.

In a blind frenzy, he ran to the cathedral, grabbed the saint by the sleeves and begged with all his heart.

“If you want a vow, I’ll make it. If you want payment—take it. I’ll give you everything!”

He was ready to give up the entire Clifford fortune and lay it at Saint Colette’s feet, including all their coastal estates and continental holdings.

He would endure any harsher terms if only one thing could be changed.

“I will never face Ariana again, so please, I’m begging you!”

Let her go back to a time that has nothing to do with him.

With her memories intact, she would surely avoid Kenneth and survive.

But the saint crushed that hope with calm, merciless finality.

“You already know it’s impossible, Kenneth.”

“W-why—?”

“Ariana took her own life because of you.”

The saint rose, eyes level with his.

“Because I was forbidden from intervening directly, she must meet you—and give birth to Beatrice.”

“Ha…”

“Only Beatrice is entitled to the miracle of time being rewound.”

Revulsion rocked him; his vision swam. When he came to, he was on his knees, laughing like a lunatic.

“Ha… ha…”

Not only had he ruined Ariana’s life, he had also sealed off every path to a better future.

Now, she was destined to bear the child of the man who had driven her to attempt s*icide.

He knew what would happen next.

In every timeline, Kenneth Clifford was destined to be cruel to Ariana throughout their marriage.

Only her death would make him come to his senses.

Half out of his mind, he let out a bitter cackle.

“This deal was a gamble from the very beginning.”

“…”

“Isn’t that right? All your talk of war and minimizing casualties—just a façade, wasn’t it?”

Had the saint told him from the outset that Kenneth Clifford was the cause of Ariana’s misfortune and had to be eliminated, he would never have agreed to it.

Instead, the saint gave him a greater cause — something grander to cling to.

Desperate for answers, Kenneth followed that path without hesitation. In doing so, he came to understand it all — painfully and thoroughly.

The saint looked down at him, still on his knees, with an emotionless face and a quiet, unreadable voice.

“f you choose to see this as punishment, then so be it. But Kenneth, true love is proven when you’re willing to let go.”

At this absurd remark, Kenneth closed his tired eyes. He had seen the lowest depths of h*ll, and now even his exhaustion felt worn through. Yet the saint pushed him forward with cruel persistence.

“Don’t forget—our deal is still in motion.”

“……”

“Beatrice’s third birthday hasn’t come yet.”

“If you’re about to start lecturing me about the war again, don’t bother.”

Kenneth spoke with the hollow calm of someone who had already seen the outcome.

Once Andrew’s atrocities had been fully revealed, the royalist faction, already in a frenzy over mobilisation, would begin to crumble.

Once that fervour had died down, all Kenneth would have to do was expose the sorry state of the Imperial Navy.

But the saint only shook her head quietly.

“No, you’ve blocked the Empire’s plans this time, but another threat will emerge.”

“What?”

“Sadly, Ariana won’t be alive to see it.”

In the dimly lit, sepia-shadowed room, the only things that glowed faintly were the stained-glass windows and the saint’s pale eyes.

“Endure—for the woman you love. Even as your body fails and your mind begins to fade, you will carry every last moment in your eyes…and die with them.”