Those around her praised Amy’s thoughtfulness. They sobbed, calling her a kind young lady. 

They murmured that she not only forgave the person who tried to kill her but was also leading her to a better path. That she was protecting her despite the danger.

Even with Rosana right in front of them, the maids didn’t stop whispering. The corners of Rosana’s mouth twisted upward. Why was there a precondition that she had to apologize? 

Rosana didn’t understand. Not before, and not now.

Rosana grasped Amy’s hands in return. Not to agree, but to remove her hands.

“Yes, I understand how you feel.”

Amy was worried about Rosana, who was getting married in a situation no different from being a hostage, wrapped in the fine-sounding justification of a political marriage. 

Rosana understood Amy’s thoughts well. Unlike Amy, Rosana had watched her from birth until now. A sneer formed at Rosana’s lips at such naive thinking.

“Sister! If that’s the case…!”

Amy smiled brightly. But when Rosana released her hands, she tilted her head in confusion. Rosana asked calmly.

“But Amy, who are we going to apologize to? Is there someone I can ask to call off the marriage?”

“T-to His Highness! He… was very angry when he heard the news this time. If you apologize, sister, I’ll speak well on your behalf!”

Rosana couldn’t hide her bitter laugh. That news was about trying to kill Amy. The poisoning incident that everyone whispered about before she could even lift a finger.

Rosana stared intently at Amy. Amy thought Rosana had been selected as the political marriage candidate because she tried to kill her. So she hoped things might change if they calmed the Crown Prince’s anger.

Regardless of the rumors, Rosana was Amy’s real older sister. How long did she have to apologize for things she didn’t do and worry herself sick?

“To His Highness? I have to apologize?”

“Uh…”

Amy seemed quite surprised, not expecting her to question it. A sneer hung at the corners of Rosana’s mouth. Amy continued carefully. The sight looked detestable.

“You don’t want the marriage. If you apologize for everything that’s happened, he might see things differently. It’s been decided, but he’ll try! The ducal family needs to be maintained too. Sister… you worked so hard.”

But Amy’s words didn’t touch Rosana’s heart at all. Rather, only mockery emerged. What was the point of speaking? They wouldn’t listen anyway.

Her mouth clamped shut. Behind Amy’s words lay the assumption that Rosana had attempted poisoning. Even though she’d said it wasn’t true.

Rosana rubbed her brow at the sudden fatigue. Amy’s naive thinking was absurd. Poisoning… That might be part of it. But could personal feelings interfere in matters between nations?

“You didn’t tell Mother, did you?”

“…No. Mother only told me not to meet you… But your marriage partner is that warmonger Emperor. Rumor has it he killed several wives and they’re all covering it up. If something happens to you… I…”

Tears welled up in Amy’s eyes. As tears flowed down her cheeks, the surrounding maids made a huge fuss, telling her not to cry. A comedy. A comedy that was a tragedy to them. Was she strange for feeling even this scene was like a play?

Rosana watched Amy quietly with a face devoid of any emotion. Then she raised her hand with a small smile and wiped away her tears.

Even Amy’s falling tears looked poignant. Like someone who needed protection. Amy, thinking she’d agreed with her opinion, smiled brightly, but her face stiffened at Rosana’s next words.

“Amy. I’m satisfied.”

“What? With this marriage…?”

Amy looked up at Rosana with wavering eyes. There wasn’t a trace of falsehood in her. It was a satisfying marriage. In that she was escaping this place. The moment a long-held wish was being fulfilled.

Rather, Amy was an unwelcome guest. She was interfering, blocking the escape hole for Rosana who had suffered and been wronged for so long.

Rosana tucked Amy’s lush blonde hair—like her own—behind her ear and examined Amy carefully. They really looked alike. But different. 

Though they were twins. Though they looked so similar. She once thought… that their lives were reversed just because she was Rosana and you were Amy.

Rosana spoke as calmly as possible. While ignoring the seething anger hidden within. She spoke with defiance mixed in. Words empowered by the word “last,” words that wouldn’t reach anyone.

“As your older sister, as an obstacle, as a medium to fulfill your love.”

“S-sister?”

“Don’t you think I did well? Then you have an obligation to let me go. If your ending is truly marrying the Crown Prince and my ending is being taken as a hostage and marrying, then I can gladly accept it. And I’ll escape this horrible place.”

It was a bleak, choked voice filled with all her past sorrows. Amy asked back, saying she didn’t understand.

“Wh-what are you talking about?”

Rosana covered her mouth with her hand and laughed in short bursts. She hadn’t understood a single thing she’d said. The dumbfounded looks on Amy’s and the maids’ faces were amusing.

It was always like this. Whenever she said anything even slightly outside their standards, they’d ask back with faces saying they knew nothing. Continuously, while saying the same thing hundreds, thousands of times. So she’d stopped.

Surely tomorrow, today’s words would be cleanly forgotten and she’d become either a pitiful person forced into a political marriage, or someone being punished for their conduct. One of the two. She predicted most would consider her the latter.

Rosana’s deep laughter scattered into the air. She hoped the reason her arms trembled wasn’t fear but exhilaration.

Amy flinched at the glimpse of madness in Rosana’s eyes and stepped back. Rosana didn’t hold her back. She wished she’d step back a little more. A child precious unlike herself. A child who couldn’t understand her pain. A child loved by everyone…

How futile.

Amy spoke with a defiant voice.

“I-it’s a marriage without love!!!”

Amy’s cry echoed in the room. Rosana’s laughter gradually grew quieter at the inexplicable sense of emptiness and futility. She only smiled a distorted smile, finding Amy’s words absurd.

A marriage without love? She actually welcomed it. Love and such… she’d let it go. Whether romantic love or familial love.

“…Amy, you’re the one who took my love. And my love has been gone for a long time.”

Everyone said Rosana loved the Crown Prince. That person loved her younger sister Amy. It was a small revenge. A petty desire for her to suffer even a little.

‘I’m really… quite terrible too.’

Amy’s mouth kept moving but in the end, she couldn’t say anything. She thought she’d feel better if she spoke the words she’d kept bottled up, but her insides didn’t feel relieved at all. 

Rather, they felt even more bloated. She’d ended up acknowledging the Rosana they’d created.

Rosana rose from the sofa and issued an order to leave. She had no intention of continuing this meaningless war of words.

“Get out.”

Amy glanced back, but Rosana didn’t turn around, and she left dejectedly. After they left, they chattered outside loud enough to be heard.

The maids said she only suffered losses for worrying, that His Highness loved the young lady so how could the young lady have stolen him? That she came to comfort her but only got scolded. 

They poured out curses, saying if she didn’t have a kind heart, she wouldn’t be loved there either.

Because these were familiar words, Rosana didn’t budge. She looked at Emma, who always stood silently by her side.

“Emma. Finally, it’s tomorrow. Don’t follow me.”

“What are you saying!! I’ll follow you to the end, my lady! Our lady… to get married like being sold off. His Highness is so heartless too. Though you’re more beautiful, my lady… to break your heart like this…”

Emma, who had quietly listened when Rosana talked with Amy and was ignored by the maids, now pretended to be sad and wiped away tears.

“Emma. Don’t make me say the same thing. I clearly ordered you to stay here, and I’ve never loved His Highness.”

But Emma didn’t back down easily. A person might bend their beliefs when someone speaks and persuades them, but Emma chattered on like only what she thought was the truth.

Emma rushed at Rosana like she’d devour her and firmly grasped Rosana’s shoulders. She gripped Rosana’s shoulders with tremendous force that caused pain through the voluminous dress. 

Her eyebrows furrowed as Emma’s nails dug into Rosana’s shoulders. A small groan mixed with pain leaked out, but Emma either didn’t hear it or just rattled on with her own story.

“Don’t hide it from me! I know everything about you, my lady. You liked His Highness, didn’t you? You loved him, didn’t you? Didn’t you love His Highness enough to want to kill Miss Amy! I’ve been watching you continuously, longer than anyone!”

“…”

“And who else would serve you besides me? The Madam entrusted you to me too!!”

Rosana looked coldly at Emma, who brought up the Madam, the Duchess. After all the words had already been spoken, her opinion meant nothing.

She won’t let go of my leash until the very end. She’s going to see this through.

“The Emperor of Diovaha is famous for being cruel. You could die. I don’t want to see you die.”

I don’t want to see myself wither away once more by your side. So don’t follow me. But it didn’t work on Emma.

“It’s fine!! I’ll be with you forever, my lady.”

“…Is that so?”

Emma pitifully lamented Rosana’s situation and shed tears. Rosana’s gaze looking down at such an Emma was only cold. Rosana thought those tears were crocodile tears.

In the end, Emma would follow. Nothing she decided had ever changed. Rosana quietly turned away from Emma.

Time flowed quickly, and finally the day of departure arrived.

* * *

Several men swung their swords before a black viscous mass. The large clumped mass was fast and solid, unlike its appearance. It was difficult to approach easily because of the tentacles that extended freely.

The squishy-looking tentacles deflected the knights’ swords quickly like spears. Unlike their blunt appearance, they inflicted wounds like being cut by a sharp blade.

“Move aside.”

A man with blue hair firmly gripped his sword and slipped through an opening. It happened in an instant. With fl*id swordplay, he cut off the tentacles wandering through the air here and there, and the liquid mass that lost its weapons couldn’t even resist.

When the man aimed for that gap and pierced the core hidden inside its body, it crumbled with a hiss and the black liquid mass crumbled away without form.

When he swung his sword once more, the black liquid on the blade fell away. A blue light briefly appeared on his sword before disappearing. The knights looked at the blue light faintly enveloping the sword with admiring eyes.

That was sword energy, wielded only by those who reached the pinnacle of swordsmanship. But that was only for a moment—the battle wasn’t over yet. They had to face another strange creature.

When everyone was barely maintaining formation and catching their ragged breaths, the blue-haired man, not even out of breath, urged the knights on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion.

“Get up. There might be more.”

The eyes of the knights, who had just been looking respectful, changed instantly. Respect turned to shock and fear.

“We got them all!”

“That’s right. We can’t even see any more, so what else is there to do?”

The knights’ grumbling sounds were sucked in the moment the man raised his sword. Then they calmly dusted off their bottoms and stood up.

Then one man spoke.

“Your Majesty.”

“What is it?”

“Is it alright for you to be here? It’s today.”

“Today?”

The blue-haired man raised an eyebrow crookedly. Then the man beside him sighed deeply and spoke. He didn’t think he didn’t know. He just didn’t like it. As proof, he clicked his tongue and sheathed the sword he was holding.

“Didn’t you send the Commander?”

“…”

“I mean Her Majesty the Empress.”

“…Ha, what Empress.”