The night in the fading autumn season was chilly.

Somewhere in the garden, far from the noisy banquet hall.

With his cravat slightly loosened and both hands shoved into his pockets, he leaned against the wall in a slouched posture.

Like a picture deliberately drawn in that very spot, the man stood there. He looked no different from a thug lurking in an alleyway, yet there was something about Grand Duke Cassion Pathsbender’s aura that could never be dismissed so lightly.

“Hoo.”

A faint puff of smoke spread from the cigarette held between his lips.

As his previously closed eyelids lifted, golden eyes emerged beneath them—like a full moon breaking through a halo of clouds.

“Hoo.”

A faint puff of smoke spread from the cigarette loosely held between his lips. Golden eyes emerged beneath his once-closed lids—like a full moon breaking through a halo of clouds.

The wind, carrying the chill of nightfall, rustled his jet-black hair.

From the sharp line of his jaw down to his long legs, his figure was tall and elegant.

He looked like the masterpiece of a renowned sculptor—as if golden champagne had been poured into the thick, dark fog of night to mold him.

Had the young ladies at the banquet seen him, they would have offered up their very souls. But the man himself remained indifferent.

He was merely trying to pass the time by breathing a bit of that boredom into his smoke.

And then.

Step. Step.

Footsteps echoed through the silence.

A flicker of sharp tension flashed in his indifferent gaze. Golden irises rolled in the air like marbles, sliding toward the sound.

From afar, the darkness blanketing the garden began to stir, splitting open.

“She really came?”

Fearless.

The words, crushed against red lips, were rather savage. But the approaching figure showed no sign of hesitation in her steps, as if entirely unfazed. 

Between the veil of darkness, a pair of eyes burned like blue flames, revealing their vivid color. Irynsis, locking eyes with Cassion, smiled and greeted him.

“Hey?”

Her tone was light, as though addressing an old friend. Cassion let out a scoff. She was the only one who ever treated him this way. 

From the very first moment they met.

***

Life is sh*t.

Even more so when you’re forced to relive that same shitty life over and over again.

A dark, narrow space. Beyond the faint glow of candlelight, messy cobwebs spread in all directions.

Like a tightening net, warning her she could never escape this life.

The relic within her—Luminare—had apparently dragged time back once again.

“Damn you, Luminare.”

The damp, musty air of the underground. Dust falling little by little from the cracked ceiling. A sight far too familiar.

The moment Irynsis took in the basement of Cambria, where she’d been imprisoned every single day, she let out a raw string of curses, completely unfiltered.

‘I thought I was almost there.’

She had finally found a lead on the ‘mission’ that forced her into this wretched cycle of regression.

She had been overjoyed, thinking that now—finally—she could die.

But she’d wandered too long trying to reach that point.

Time was always in short supply for the terminally ill.

The relic within her had drained the last remnants of her life, and her thirtieth birthday—the point at which her life rewound—had come swiftly.

And so, she had returned to this hell once more.

Her fourth regression.

Her fifth life.

Splash—!

Cold water slammed into her face.

Though she’d grown used to this ice-cold welcome that came with each repeated life, it didn’t make the disgust any easier to bear.

“If your eyes are open, get up.”

A voice laced with irritation—one she never wanted to hear again.

The same dull, predictable flow of time choked her throat.

As she barely managed to lift her upper body, she saw a woman with thick, wavy brown hair.

Pinned up neatly with ornaments, the hair looked ready to tumble down like a waterfall at any moment. Beneath it, eyes like red rubies glared at her, brimming with hostility and contempt.

“Lomia.”

Lomia Cambria.

The daughter of the Marquis of Cambria. In the era of plague, the saintess—the only hope and salvation.

But when Irynsis called her name, what returned was not a benevolent response, but the sting of a sharp slap across her cheek.

Smack—!

“I told you to be respectful when no one’s around!”

The burning slap sent Irynsis, who had half-risen, crashing back to the floor.

People praised Lomia, saying she treated her newly gained sister.

An older one at that, from a lowly foreign background—with all the love befitting a saintess.

But that was only what they said before they saw the inside of Cambria’s walls.

‘Take this girl’s leash.’

The Marquis of Cambria had whispered those words as he handed Irynsis over to Lomia.

‘She’s your shadow.’

She was to be your stepping stone, your dog.

To the princess of Cambria, Irynsis was nothing more than a lowly beast. Trained so thoroughly that she could neither bite the hand of her master nor dare to run away. 

A perfect shadow to glorify Lomia in every way—that was what Irynsis had been molded into.

“You tried to escape from the Crown Prince’s palace? You filthy thing, just being summoned for a single day should’ve been an honor!”

At the merciless shriek, Irynsis let out a hollow laugh.

Damn the Crown Prince, Damn this life.

Somewhere along the way, her existence had gone terribly wrong. There was no point in reciting where or how it had all turned to rot.

Even death—so often hailed as equal and merciful, something some even wished for as rest—had never once been granted to her.

Whenever death came for her at thirty, it always dragged her back to the most miserable moment of her life.

That first moment when she defied the Crown Prince in a desperate attempt to save her only friend imprisoned alongside her.

The aftermath—brutal, merciless violence—led to her being carted off to Cambria, where she would finally wake.

Each time her rotten life reached its end, it would pull her back to this moment.

It was blatant mockery.

“You even dared to pay off the guard with something you stole from me?”

Lomia’s voice trembled with fury as her body shook. Watching her, Irynsis curved her lips into a crooked smile.

“Why can’t I steal?”

“What?”

“You stole what was mine, didn’t you?”

Lomia was momentarily speechless.

She stared at Irynsis with trembling eyes—eyes that met hers boldly, gleaming with a fierce light.

It was as if she had become a completely different person overnight. The girl who couldn’t even meet her gaze before.

“Did you eat something wrong?”

“Pretending you don’t know what I mean?”

Though in truth, she knew it all.

The name ‘saintess’ was everything to Lomia. And that was what made it all so laughable.

That name she treasured like her own life, was a tower built atop Irynsis’s blood and divine power, stolen day after day, while she was called nothing but lowly and vile.

“You stole what was mine and gained so much from it.  So what if I take a few of your trinkets?”

You’re nothing without me.

At those final words, Lomia’s face turned pale. Her clenched fists trembled with fury.

The moment her hand rose again, Irynsis suddenly planted strength into her legs.

“Argh!”

Contrary to her delicate appearance, the force of her shove was strong. Lomia crashed to the floor, staring up at her in disbelief, stammering.

“You, you!”

“Shut your mouth.”

Before Lomia could even move to retaliate, Irynsis was already standing outside the basement door.

Click.

The lock turned. Lomia scrambled to her feet and rushed toward the door, but it was already too late.

Irynsis dangled a key she must have stolen at some point, curling her lips into a smirk.

“Didn’t you once say it yourself? No one can hear you down here, so don’t waste your breath.”

“Are you insane?”

“I’ll return that advice to you.”

Leaving behind Lomia’s shrill screech, Irynsis tossed the key carelessly down the hallway and walked away.

There was no time.

Her memories overlapped with the worn record she’d stumbled upon at the end of her previous life.

To end this cursed cycle of regression, she needed to find relics other than Luminare.

Before her thirtieth birthday, the point Luminare used to reset time.

‘This time I can truly bring this hellish life to an end.’

With that thought, the bruises and blood staining her body didn’t hurt at all.

To find the relics, more than anything she needed that man.

If she could save the time she’d wasted fumbling toward him in her past life, she was sure she could succeed this time.

Her determined steps suddenly halted.

The moment he came to mind, her withered heart, worn from countless lives, dropped heavily.

All her lives had been filled with pain.

But there were some names that left deeper scars than others.

‘Did he die after I did?’

She hadn’t been able to cure his illness before she died, so he likely had.

The image of him gratefully accepting the handkerchief she had clumsily stitched with his name floated up in her mind, as if it were the most precious gift in the world.

‘Thank you, Nia.’

Even though it came from a girl whose real name he didn’t even know.
What a fool.

“Hoo.”

Letting out a long breath as if to shake off the thoughts, she gave her head a small shake.

One way or another, in this life, Irynsis would find the death she longed for. And that man, he would live the glorious life he was always meant to.

She would make sure of it.

‘Cassion Pathsbender.’

She had to find him.

***

“So damn sick of this.”

Kicking open the doors of the capital’s most prestigious social club, Cassion muttered irritably under his breath.

As the social season reached its peak, every club in the capital kept their doors open late into the night, filling the streets with light.

It was always a bustling time of year, but this season was especially lively because the elusive Grand Duke of Pathsbender had finally returned to the capital after a long absence from his estate.

Rumors buzzed with excitement, speculating that the Grand Duke, now well past the prime age for marriage, had come at last to choose a wife.

“Even knowing he’s defective, they’re still eager. Unbelievable.”

A sneer tugged at the corner of Cassion’s lips.

The pain from the plague, which gripped his chest without warning, regardless of time or place, had only been growing worse.

‘I need the saintess.’

But that was a problem without a solution.

To beg the saintess  was no different from handing his leash over to Cambria.

Irritation filled Cassion’s gaze.

Though he pretended otherwise, the emperor—paranoid and petty—would throw a fit the moment Cassion so much as stepped outside his territory. With the Grand Duke’s popularity and prestige, the emperor, ever wary, sharpened his thorns daily, afraid he might one day aim for the throne.

Add to that the Marquis of Cambria, ever at the emperor’s side, polishing those thorns to a deadly point, and it became a revolting sight indeed.

To beg those bastards for his life? He’d sooner die of the plague.

“Shall I call a carriage for you, Your Grace?”

The club’s doorman asked politely as Cassion rubbed the back of his neck.

Unfastening a couple of buttons on his shirt, he gave a brief nod.

Soon, a carriage that had been waiting nearby pulled up.

“What?”

Cassion, about to board with the simple thought of going home to rest, suddenly stopped in his tracks.

“Get in.”

It wasn’t empty. There was already someone inside.