There is no such thing as eternal love in this world.

Isabelle only realized that when she was on the brink of death.

It happened when she was twenty-two.

***

One day, her husband returned from the grand cathedral in the capital and said to her,

“I’ve been assigned to deliver the opening address at this year’s Holy Festival.”

The Holy Festival was an event held by the Empire’s state religion, the Church of Peace. It lasted seven days and seven nights, and began with a priest’s ceremonial address. This time, that role had been entrusted to her husband, Tenetta.

Though Tenetta was the Grand Duke of Achilleton, he had long ago received a divine oracle and held the rank of a priest. Because of that, there were times when he had to carry out duties befitting his position.

Standing behind Isabelle, Tenetta gathered a strand of her long, glossy black hair into his hand. He pressed a soft kiss to its end.

“So I’ll have to spend a night at the cathedral… will that be all right with you?”

The priest chosen to give the festival address was required to spend the night before the ceremony in the empty cathedral, purifying both body and mind. If the priest had a spouse, the spouse would take part in the ritual as well.

Isabelle nodded without hesitation.

“Of course.”

It was an answer she could only give because she had no idea what would take place inside the cathedral.

The night before the festival, Isabelle was sitting on the bed in the cathedral’s chamber, preparing for the ceremony, when she felt a strange, unsettling sensation creeping through her body. She looked up at her husband as he entered the room, having just finished bathing.

“Dear… something feels wrong with my body.”

She had never been particularly healthy, and it had become a habit for her to tell her husband whenever something felt even slightly off.

Tenetta, who knew her body more intimately than she did herself, would always offer a fitting remedy.

Drying his pearl-like silver hair with a towel, Tenetta shook off the remaining moisture before sitting beside her.

As he turned to face her, his robe loosened, revealing a body sculpted with imposing, refined muscle.

His face was as delicate and beautiful as that of an angel, yet across his ivory chest lay a large scar. It curved sharply and wild, like the white fang of a beast—a scar whose origin Isabelle had never been told.

Tenetta only ever revealed just enough of his deeper, darker self to stir her heart, concealing the rest. He was so skilled at it that Isabelle had always mistaken it for the thrilling tension unique to love.

The years he had spent as a knight remained in his rough, calloused palms. He took hold of her slender wrist, gently pressing and examining it before reaching a conclusion.

“It’s a paralytic poison.”

“What are you saying?”

“Was it the wine?”

The man’s cold blue gaze shifted toward the two pure gold goblets resting on the bedside table. One of them was slightly emptied—because Isabelle had taken a sip the moment she entered the room.

Only then did she understand what her husband meant.

The color drained from her face.

“A doctor—we need to call a doctor…”

As she hurriedly tried to rise, Tenetta seized her wrist firmly.

“It’s too late. Even if we treat it now, it will leave permanent damage.”

His pleasant, gentle voice continued, calm and measured.

“They say a body stiffened by paralytic poison feels like being burned forever… a wound that never heals.”

“……”

“They say it’s so painful… your tears would never dry.”

Tenetta raised the hand that wasn’t holding her wrist and reached toward her face. The calloused hand Isabelle had secretly found so attractive brushed lightly beneath her eyes—as though wiping away tears that had yet to fall.

“I don’t want to see you suffer like that.”

“Th-then… what should I do?”

Until that very moment, Isabelle had relied on her husband completely. Her voice trembled as she spoke.

Five years older than her, and carrying a maturity that seemed far beyond even that, Tenetta’s brow furrowed slightly.

In his blue eyes, Isabelle saw what she believed was concern—a quiet, aching pity directed solely at her.

“Don’t worry.”

Still holding Isabelle’s wrist, he suddenly pulled her toward him. In an instant, she was dragged into his arms.

Isabelle trembled violently. She had been startled by the sudden roughness—so unlike him.

The man gently patted her fragile back.

“Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. If you breathe slowly… before you even realize it, it will all be over.”

At the same time, his hand began to slide slowly up along her spine.

He had never said it outright, but she knew—those large hands had likely taken lives before.

And the moment she realized that their final destination was her neck, Isabelle froze in horror.

“Y-you…!”

This madman.

She shoved hard against his chest and sprang up from the bed. Her slippers, half-slipped off, were hastily forced back onto her feet as she bolted out of the room.

Just before twisting her neck, Tenetta noticed the shift and watched her fleeing figure in silence—then slowly rose to follow.

The cathedral corridors, not a single candle lit, were shrouded in darkness. All the servants who would have lit the halls had left before sunset.

Running frantically through the silent corridors—so still it felt as though not even a mouse lived there—Isabelle’s thoughts raced.

‘I need to get outside first. If I can just make it out, I can ask for help…’

But what if he caught her before that?

‘What will happen to me then?’

‘Is that… really my husband?’

The situation was so unreal that even such a question surfaced in her mind.

The husband Isabelle knew had been perfect. A holy knight of Pax, protector of peace.
The Grand Duke of Achilleton, of noble blood second only to the imperial family.

And above all—

“I love you, Isabelle. I would do anything for you.”

It had been a love marriage. He had been endlessly gentle, devoted beyond measure.

And yet—

That man… was a lunatic?

Reaching the end of the cathedral corridor, Isabelle came to an abrupt halt. Right before her stretched a dizzying flight of stairs—so vast it made her head spin just to look at it. It was the staircase that led to the cathedral’s main entrance.

“They say it’s so long, if you climb all the way up, you’ll reach heaven.”

The joke Tenetta had made earlier that very day came back to her. Just as before, she hadn’t even made it halfway before losing her breath and he had simply swept her into his arms, carrying her up the steps with ease.

She had to get past those stairs to escape the cathedral.

Swallowing dryly, Isabelle stared down at the endless descent, now swallowed by darkness, like a bottomless pit.

“Isabelle.”

The heavy sound of footsteps drew closer.

“That’s dangerous. Come this way.”

She turned around. A few steps behind her, Tenetta had stopped—his hand extended toward her.

“Come.”

His voice was gentle, coaxing—and all the more chilling because of it.

Even now, he offered no explanation. Not a single word about what he had just tried to do. He must have already realized why she had run.

And yet—

“No.”

Shaking her head, Isabelle steeled herself and took a step onto the staircase.

What she hadn’t expected was how quickly the poison had spread through her body.

Her legs stiffened.

She staggered.

That single misstep became something she could no longer recover from.

As the horrifying sensation of falling swallowed her whole, her deep green eyes flew wide open.

“Isabelle!”

Seeing her husband—his face drained of all color—frantically reaching out toward her, Isabelle fell from the staircase that was said to lead to heaven.

Her neck snapped.
She died instantly.

Her breath had been cut off in a single moment, yet when she opened her eyes again, it was not in heaven, but on earth.

In her old room at Attley Castle, from before her marriage.

In the body of her nineteen-year-old self.

***

“Your Highness.”

At the sound of someone calling from outside the room, eyes shaped like almonds twitched faintly. Within them, blue irises wandered aimlessly, clouded as though veiled in mist.

A canopy of deep blue velvet, embroidered with gold thread, hung within his line of sight, but the young man’s gaze searched instead for a woman who was no longer there.

“No.”

Disheveled black hair spilling over a white nightgown. Deep green eyes, glistening with moisture, glaring up at him. The betrayal and shock brimming within them.

He remembered it all—even the way her fragile body had twisted as it fell beyond saving.

His brow tightened.

A face so flawless it could be called a mistake of the gods distorted with emotion.

A young knight’s voice called out to him again.

“Your Highness, are you awake?”

Aaron, the knight who had been raising his voice outside for some time now, let out a heavy sigh.

For the past month, the twenty-four-year-old Grand Duke had locked himself inside that room.

Because of it, his vassals—who were desperate to see him married quickly to secure the family line under the Empire’s inheritance laws—were being worn thin with anxiety.

No matter whose heart burned like dry straw beneath a wildfire, the grand Achilleton estate remained impeccably maintained.

But even the finest steward could not receive guests in place of his absent master.

That was why Baren, the estate’s head steward, had no choice but to reveal the Grand Duke’s absence to Aaron.

Aaron changed the way he addressed the man and called out again.

“Commander.”

Three months ago, a devastating plague wiped out the entire Achilleton family, leaving him as the sole heir to the title of Grand Duke.

Yet the young man in the room was still better known as the commander of Aaron’s knight order than as a noble.

Within the Empire’s state religion, the Church of Peace, there were two holy knight orders: Dawn and Dusk.

Aaron served in the Dusk Order as vice commander, while the newly appointed Grand Duke had once led the Dawn Order as its commander.

Still, the man inside gave no response.

After a brief pause, Aaron turned his gaze towards the steward of the Achilleton estate.

“He hasn’t gone somewhere, has he?”

“He is inside.”

At Baren’s firm answer, Aaron frowned.

Their commander could be ruthless, but at heart he was a man with an easy, almost disarming cheerfulness.

Admittedly, however, that warmth tended to disappear the moment he cut off someone’s head — and that was sometimes problematic.

Then again, it was far rarer to find someone without such a trait among the ranks of Dusk.

Unlike Dawn, where noble blood was required just to be considered, Dusk accepted anyone — even illegitimate children and criminals — as long as they proved their worth.

Letting out a quiet breath, Aaron cleared his throat and finally got to the point.

“I’ve brought news regarding the target you ordered us to watch.”

Still, only silence answered him.

Just as Aaron was about to sigh in disappointment, the tightly shut door creaked open.

A thick, acrid smoke seeped through the gap, the sharp, unmistakable scent of hallucinogens.

Aaron coughed awkwardly, while Baren lowered his head with the composure of a seasoned steward, pretending not to notice his master’s decadence.

From the narrow opening, a hand reached out.

Aaron placed the prepared document into it.

Blue eyes—still lingering on the illusion of a woman just moments before—now scanned the report.

It contained a month’s worth of records on a young noblewoman from a provincial family.

“…That woman… is getting married?”

The white muscle visible through his parted robe tensed slightly, making the blade-like scar stand out even more.

From the man’s low, heavy voice, Aaron sensed his displeasure.

It was an emotion he could not understand.

As far as he knew, his superior had no direct or indirect connection to the woman mentioned in the report.

And yet—

A month ago, the man had stormed into Aaron’s office, tossed down the woman’s personal information, and ordered him to place her under surveillance.

“I don’t need to know everything. Only report when she does something specific.”

So, in place of the man who had not taken a single step outside the estate, Aaron had been observing her.

At last, he had caught what could be called that “specific action,” and compiled the report.

Knuckles protruding, fingers hardened with calluses tapped impatiently against the paper.

At the end of it was the address of a small provincial cathedral the place where her wedding was to be held.

“…I’ll have to go there myself.”

“If you intend to leave, shall I have Dusk prepare—”

“No.”

Though his complexion had grown pale from months of seclusion, the man had not lost his striking beauty.

A flicker of anger passed over his face like a spasm.

At last, the haze cleared from his piercing blue eyes, and they gleamed sharply.

“I’ll take the family’s knights.”