“I loved you, Aprilis.”

In the northern part of the frigid empire, on land where traces of death had not yet fully departed, Rhys looked up at her husband in front of the massive castle of Sylvester territory.

“So let me make this clear. You were the one who broke our relationship first. I had intended to be your husband until the end.”

“Are you planning to abandon me here?”

A pitiful voice crawled along the ground, circling around Calles’s feet. He knelt down and gently lifted his wife’s face.

The face that should have been shining brilliantly like the high reputation of Agente no longer showed the beautiful and noble princess. The purple eyes that once shone like jewels had long lost their light, and her once rosy cheeks were now sunken, making her look like a corpse.

“…Don’t go, Calles.”

“If you had clung to me this desperately earlier, I might have at least pitied you.”

Calles stood up and dusted off his legs. The movement caused Rhys to collapse back onto the ground.

Looking down at her, the corner of Calles’s mouth twitched. The woman he had once sacrificed everything to possess had become someone who would fall with just a kick from him.

“Now you will disappear from my life, and only the name of Agente will remain with me.”

“Ah…”

As Rhys finally lowered her head at her husband’s cutting words, a bleak wind blew from Sylvester Castle.

The man who appeared with the snow falling from the trees was Theophane Sylvester, the lord of this northern territory. When Calles recognized him and nodded slightly, Theophane gritted his teeth as he planted his partially immobile leg on the ground.

“Sylvester Castle is still majestic. Even though this land is now as quiet as death.”

“Calles Nektor, how dare you…”

“How dare I? What language to use toward someone who will soon become the heir of Agente.”

Calles smiled with interest as he looked at the loser of the long war.

“Since it would be a shame to leave without a gift, let me give you one.”

Theophane followed Calles’s finger with his gaze. There lay a woman face down on the cold ground.

The face visible through the silver hair spread across the floor was in no condition to be called a gift.

“Originally, she would have been handed over to court and executed. As you well know, my wife is a person of Agente, so she’s a perfect gift for you, isn’t she?”

Family, territory, honor. Theophane had lost everything to Agente.

All he had gained was a long war and the scars left on his body.

Giving him a woman from such a family as a gift was clearly mockery, and Calles made no attempt to hide the fact that he was enjoying this moment.

Theophane, who had maintained silence in the face of the mockery, stepped onto the snow.

“Please, Calles. I shouldn’t be here.”

Rhys once again grabbed Calles’s leg. A gaze colder than before returned to her.

“Didn’t you always say you wanted to leave your room? Now nothing is holding you back, so live as you wish.”

When the cruel voice finally settled everything and left, what stood before Rhys’s eyes were the feet of someone else.

The beautiful princess of Agente, the family with the highest honor in the empire, and the wife of Count Calles. Rhys’s life, which had lacked nothing, plummeted after she fell ill with an unknown disease two years into her marriage with Calles.

The couple had been matched through a political marriage but were an exceptionally close couple. Until their marriage, Calles had acted sweetly, as if he had been born to meet Rhys, and after marriage, he was a good husband.

Perhaps that’s why Rhys never imagined she would live a life confined to a room, dying alone from illness. She was neglected by her husband, and her family merely observed her situation.

Calles’s expression never changed even as he watched his wife confined to a room, sick and dying.

No, rather, he looked at her as if that was what he had wanted from the beginning.

When she finally came to her senses, it was after she had gone mad and rushed at Calles with a knife.

In the end, she failed to kill him, but Rhys was abandoned on charges of attempting to m*rder her husband.

“……”

Rhys rolled her eyes, holding onto her breath that seemed ready to stop at any moment.

She felt someone entering the dark room.

After Calles left, Theophane had brought her inside Sylvester Castle.

Perhaps he thought it better to deal with her quietly. It wouldn’t be strange for the princess of
Agente to die here in any manner.

“Sylvester was completely defeated. In the end, even His Majesty the Emperor turned his back on them forever.”

Rhys recalled what her father had once said about him.

“Theophane Sylvester was ultimately just a child who couldn’t escape the past. Everything was too much for a child.”

Rhys’s father, the lord of Agente, was cold to everyone, but he was especially cruel to Sylvester. It wasn’t difficult to guess that this hatred would be directed at Rhys.

After falling ill and being confined to her room, Calles enjoyed looking down at her weakened state. Rhys had felt hatred in that gaze. Hatred toward a wife who was born with everything that a man without noble roots couldn’t possess.

How would Theophane’s hatred approach her? Rhys trembled with familiar fear.

It would be better to die immediately by his hand, without having to feel this fear.

But Theophane did not kill her.

“Princess.”

Instead, he came to bring her food when it was time.

“Are you asleep?”

In the deep dawn, he came to check if she was breathing.

“Here’s your medicine. Take it.”

He fed her different herbs each time and watched over her as she slept.

What kind of revenge was this?

For a long time, Rhys had been devastated in both body and mind. She could understand the inner thoughts of someone equally devastated, but she couldn’t read the intentions of Theophane who was caring for her.

When she felt that she truly had only days left to live, Rhys grabbed him and asked:

“Why are you leaving me alone?”

It wouldn’t have been difficult to push away her bloodless, bony, cold hand. However, Theophane silently stopped and looked at Rhys.

“Do what you want with me. I may not be my father, but you can at least use me as a substitute. Look, I’m already broken beyond repair.”

Her voice, gripped by extreme anxiety, trembled ridiculously.

“You can kill me right now. Yes, please just kill me now.”

“I won’t do that.”

“Why… Why on earth not!”

In response to her question, blue eyes gazed deeply at Rhys.

“I feel sorry for you.”

At his answer, her mind seemed to go blank. What was she trying to say to him? After opening and closing her mouth for a while, Rhys finally made a sound.

“Sorry for me? What does that mean? To you, I’m someone who deserves to die, aren’t I?”

It was a question that had been churning inside her many times, unable to come out.

“A living person has no reason to die.”

Theophane’s returning voice sounded as if it was soaked in sadness, or as if he was deep in thought. But at least, there was no hatred or resentment toward Rhys in it.

To Theophane, Rhys seemed to be just a living person.

Realizing this fact, the anxiety and fear that had plagued her began to wash away little by little.

“So please take care of yourself for now.”

…Perhaps she wanted to breathe easily, leaning on this unfamiliar warmth.

Days passed with the view outside the window filled with raging snowstorms. Feeling the intensified cold in the already frigid northern land, Rhys wrapped her worn shawl tighter.

Even breathing once was now difficult. The shadow cast on her face reflected in the window was not that of a living person.

“I brought this for you today.”

As always, the door to the room opened, and soon something was thrust before Rhys’s eyes. Though her vision was blurry and she couldn’t see clearly, Rhys immediately recognized it as a flower by its fragrance.

“This flower…”

“You said you liked crocuses the most… So.”

Instead of continuing, Theophane placed a small purple flower bud on Rhys’s hand.

Rhys recalled that once, when she was suffering to the point of not being able to distinguish between dreams and reality, she had mentioned this fact to Theophane who was by her side, almost like sleep-talking. Had he remembered that and brought this flower that was difficult to find in the snowstorm? Her throat tightened at this warmth so different from the weather.

“Th-thank…”

But Rhys’s body had reached its limit to the point where even finishing the words “thank you” was difficult. Theophane let Rhys lean against his arm as she struggled to control her body due to constant painful coughing.

It was a quiet and warm embrace.

When she was called the princess of Agente, Rhys’s world consisted entirely of what her father had achieved and possessed, and after marriage, it was just the room where she was confined.

She knew no other world.

Looking at the solemn face of the man holding her, Rhys shed tears. She wanted to call his name one last time.

“Theophane.”

If she had lived a courageous and wise life.

If only she had met Theophane earlier.

If she had been his wife instead of Calles’s.

…What kind of life would it have been?

The last thing that permeated Rhys’s breath, stained with regret, was the scent of flowers.

***

Blink.

Bright light poured through her half-opened eyelids.

‘Where was this?’

Before she could fully judge, a familiar voice woke Rhys’s ears.

“Rhys, are you alright?”

“…Ugh.”

Her head felt like it was splitting. Rhys looked up at the figure flickering before her blurry vision.

“Did you feel dizzy again? You almost got seriously hurt just now.”

It didn’t take long to recognize who he was. The familiar red hair and black eyes. The gentle voice she had heard long ago, directed at only one person.

“Cal…les?”

Rhys opened her eyes in the arms she had desperately wanted to escape from.