The man who had once been my kind and loving husband lay before me. I remembered his soft brown hair and gentle face, which had always carried a warm smile.

“Ah…”

Any lingering hope that the mayor had deceived me, and that a different body had been buried in his place, disappeared.

“Why are you here? Why?”

As I stroked Carlos’s cheek, I could feel Edwin and the other workers behind me staring at me uneasily.

Decay had already set in, filling the air with a sickening stench and forcing the others to turn away.

But I didn’t care.

I buried my face in his chest and wept.

“You promised… you promised you’d protect me forever. Why did you have to go first?”

Looking at his pale, lifeless face shattered what little composure I had left.

All the grief I had held back broke loose in an uncontrollable wave.

“What am I supposed to do now that you’re gone? Carlos, please, say something!”

Edwin, unable to watch any longer, pulled at my shoulder.

“Ms Sarah, that’s enough.”

But I shook him off and clung even tighter to the cold body that no longer held a trace of warmth.

I didn’t believe for a second that his death had been a mere carriage accident, as the mayor claimed.

Not when every trace of Carlos had been wiped from the memories of those who had known him.

“Who did this to you? Who could have done something like this?”

KWA-KA-BOOM!

Thunder crashed, splitting the sky as if echoing my anguish.

The rain poured down harder, soaking my hair and clothes until they clung to my skin.

Tears mingled with the rain, trickling down my jaw and falling silently to the ground.

My eyes burned red, as if they might bleed.

I etched every detail of my husband’s face into my memory — each eyelash, each line — so that I would never forget him.

“Don’t worry.”

I stroked Carlos’s pale cheek and bit my lip so hard that it started to bleed.

“I’ll make them pay, the ones who took you and Father from me.”

I would find them. Even if I had to scour the entire world.

Rain mixed with the blood trickling from my lip as I stared fiercely into the empty air.

“Even if it costs me the last year of my life, I swear it.”

** ❋❋❋ ❋❋❋**

KWA-KA-BOOM!

With a thunderous crack of lightning, two silhouettes appeared in the blackened branches above.

While the hired men dug up and covered the grave again, the two figures watched from beneath the downpour, silent as shadows.

Hidden so completely that they seemed to be part of the trees themselves, one of them spoke in a bitter tone.

“I didn’t think she’d actually go as far as digging up the grave. Good thing we prepared in advance.”

The voice belonged to El, who had cast an illusion over the corpse.

Although he was responsible for intelligence, El was also an esper specializing in illusions.

He had crafted the artefact that had enabled Kay to impersonate Carlos, and he had conjured the false body lying in the coffin.

Beside El stood a broad-shouldered man twice his size, wearing a mask. His presence was silent yet commanding.

Cautiously glancing at him, El let out a small sigh.

“The little kitten’s bolder than I thought. Are you really just going to let her go?”

Kay didn’t answer. He only stared down at Sarah, who stood motionless in front of the grave.

She looked fragile, as though she might crumble if anyone touched her.

And yet, the look in her eyes was unfamiliar even to him, the man who had once held her close for a year and a half.

Kay told himself it was just an illusion, and a temporary one at that.

On the surface, she looked no different to the woman he had known — Marc Lamont’s daughter, whom he and her father had been charged with protecting and controlling.

But when she clung to his corpse, weeping as though her heart were being torn apart, he felt a tightening in his chest as though an invisible hand had seized it.

He had spent two years near her: a year and a half pretending to be her husband and, before that, months winning her father’s trust.

It was only natural that something had taken root in him.

At least, that was what he told himself as he forced the feeling down and turned away.

However, it was the man beside her that truly caught his attention.

Unlike the hired laborers, that man stood naturally at her side, as though he belonged there.

If his memory served him correctly, he was the son of a villager who barely visited home due to work commitments in the capital.

So why was he now standing so protectively next to her?

Kay scoffed silently at his own thoughts.

He had told El not to concern himself with past missions, yet here he was, doing exactly that.

His expression hardened.

The reason for leaving Carlos’s ‘body’ behind had been simple: to sever the little kitten’s attachment once and for all.

It was a cleaner, more reliable method than memory manipulation.

“This will make her let go.”

If the Sarah he knew still existed, she would let go.

She might grieve for a time — for both her father and her husband — but eventually she would accept it.

She would yield to her circumstances, live quietly, and fade away without incident.

With that cold conviction, Kay turned and melted into the darkness.

El glanced at Sarah one last time. She was standing pale and motionless before the grave. Then El followed Kay.

** ❋❋❋ ❋❋❋**

After returning to the cabin, I was no longer the listless, hollow person I had been.

Even now, when I woke up, there were moments when dreams and reality blurred together, but the fog was beginning to lift.

Whenever I felt myself faltering, I forced myself to stay mentally alert.

I still had a purpose: revenge.

I didn’t yet know where to begin or how to find the person who had killed my father and husband, but I was determined to take the first step.

I had already asked Edwin to help me gather information and promised him a generous reward.

It was a vague lead at best, and I knew there was little chance of hearing anything positive. However, doing nothing was not an option.

I stood up, rolled up my sleeves, and glanced around.

First, I needed to clean.

The cabin still looked as though time had stopped at the moment of my father’s death.

Until now, I had only wiped away the bloodstains; I hadn’t had the strength or willpower to do anything else.

Once, this place had been our warm, peaceful home, a haven for the two of us.

Now, I would clean it and sort through my father’s belongings to decide what to do next.

If I could set this place in order, perhaps I could finally organize my thoughts, too.

And so, I began to clean.

I threw away anything that was broken or beyond repair.

I dusted every corner and scrubbed every stain, as if tidying up the chaos in my heart itself.

Once the house was neat again, I turned to my father’s belongings.

There wasn’t much; he had led a modest life, devoting himself entirely to me.

Seeing how simple his life had been only made my chest ache more.

He should have allowed himself a little more comfort and kept a few things for himself.

If I had known how suddenly he would be taken from me, I would have given him better things and kept more of his possessions.

Now, all that remained were his worn clothes, a pair of cracked-soled boots and a few old books.

I folded the clothes neatly, the faint trace of his scent was still clinging to them. I polished the old boots until they gleamed.

So that, wherever he was going, he could walk tall with pride and dignity.

As I sorted through the remaining books, a piece of paper fell to the floor with a soft thud.

I hadn’t noticed it before, but it was yellowed with age. Puzzled, I opened it, and my body went rigid.

[To my beloved daughter, Sarah.]

It was a letter that my father had left for me.

[If you’ve found this letter, perhaps it means I am already gone from this world.]

My fingers trembled, but I didn’t even notice. What could this mean? Had he foreseen his own death? Who would kill him?

The answers came as I read on.

[There are so many things I could not tell you. They are truths that are too harsh for your tender heart, which is why I struggled every day with the decision of whether to tell you. Forgive me for delivering the truth by letter.]

What on earth had he been hiding from me?

[You may think of me as nothing more than a retired soldier of the Crown, but the truth is somewhat different.]

What followed was a series of revelations that I could hardly believe. My father is not an ordinary man, he possessed a special power. People like him were called Irregulars.

The imperial court had formed a secret corps made up of Irregulars, warriors who had sworn fealty to the Emperor and led the nation to victory in a long war.

However, when the war ended, the court began to fear the Irregulars’ overwhelming power. They eventually turned on the very soldiers who had been so faithful to them, hunting down the Irregulars they had once commanded.

Suddenly, the pieces of my childhood puzzle began to fall into place. I understood why we had always moved as if fleeing, and why my father had kept his distance from the capital and the court, he had been bracing himself for the day the crown’s dogs would come for him.

Edwin’s words echoed in my mind: “It might be that the culprit has enough influence to tamper with city hall records.”

A hollow laugh escaped me.

Now everything fit together.

Who could have murdered my father and forged the city records? Who could bribe the mayor and kill my innocent husband without hesitation?

All the evidence pointed to the imperial court.