Back in his room, Rafez retrieved the letter he had hidden among his papers.

It had arrived from the Grand Duchy a few days ago — a letter from the Dowager Grand Duchess. Alongside her concern for her son, she had written of her worry for Lacy as well, in her role as Grand Duchess.

Had word of the capital’s situation reached her all the way out there?

“If only I had read this letter even a little sooner.”

It was a letter he had ignored at first.

Yes — at first.

* * *

Clatter. Clatter.

Inside the darkened carriage, filled with nothing but the rattling of wheels, Lacy sat with her breath held still.

Today was the night of the Imperial Ball. The one thing different from usual: Rafez had gotten into the carriage with her.

She couldn’t begin to predict what he would do next.

“I want to try doing this properly, starting now. This thing called marriage.”

That day, Lacy had been caught off guard by those words — she hadn’t been able to hide the unease on her face.

“……If I made you uncomfortable, I’m sorry.”

Rafez had turned and left the room.

It was the first time she’d ever had a conversation like that with him. To hear him say we are husband and wife — and mean it — was something she truly never could have imagined. The two of them acted as a couple only at balls and official functions; at the estate, they were on worse terms than the servants they passed every day.

So why the sudden change?

She had assumed he would never seek her out again after that — but that had been nothing more than wishful thinking on her part.

And the shock of his words had never quite left her. Looking at his face now, she could almost hear them tolling in her ears again.

“The air’s grown cold. Are you not chilly?”

Rafez was the first to break the silence.

“……I’m fine.”

“Now that I think of it — why haven’t you had a new dress made? I heard you haven’t ordered a single one since you came to the Grand Ducal house after our marriage.”

“I didn’t see the need. Is there something wrong with the dress I’m wearing?”

“No, that’s not what I meant. But I hope you haven’t forgotten that you are the Grand Duchess now. Wherever you go, all eyes will be on you.”

“……I know. I haven’t forgotten.”

The wine-red dress shimmered even in the darkness.

The only time Rafez ever saw Lacy dressed like this was on ball nights. Then again, outside of balls, they had rarely seen each other’s faces at all.

This was the first time they had sat across from each other for so long inside a carriage.

The black hair and black eyes — hallmarks of House Lennon — suited the red dress particularly well. Though she would likely have looked just as striking in anything.

She’s beautiful.

Beautiful?

Rafez was startled by his own thought. Then, almost immediately, he accepted it. Lacy was renowned as one of the great beauties of the empire — that had been the public justification the Emperor gave for arranging their marriage.

Of course she was beautiful.

Thinking back on it now, he recalled that the first time they had met, he had studied those dark eyes just the same.

“It suits you. That dress. Whatever you wear……I think it would suit you just as well.”

When Lacy looked up and met his gaze directly, Rafez turned away, fixing his eyes on the window.

He didn’t understand why he found it so difficult to hold her gaze.

No — in truth, he knew the answer. He simply didn’t want to face it. That image that kept rising up every time he looked at her.

* * *

It was the day he returned from a long three-day trip away.

“Welcome back, Your Highness.”

Rafez had come home late at night, his body worn through.

It had been a day soured by trivial matters that had dragged on far longer than they should have.

“You must have had a time of it. Three days with me away from the estate — was everything all right?”

“Yes, Your Highness. It rained in the capital all three days, so there were no visitors to the estate.”

Mollys followed behind Rafez as he climbed the stairs to the second floor.

“And the Grand Duchess?”

“She hasn’t left her room once.”

“Is that so?”

Rafez paused mid-step in the second-floor corridor, as though something had just come to him.

It was nothing unusual for Lacy to shut herself away in her room. That was simply how things were.

And yet.

Your Highness.

The voice he had heard in last night’s dream.

A woman’s voice. Familiar in a way that felt unfamiliar — and yet he was certain he had heard it before.

“Is something the matter, Your Highness?”

Mollys asked, watching Rafez stand motionless where he had stopped. But instead of answering, Rafez started walking again.

Slowly. Without urgency.

“Your Highness?”

That low, composed voice that had called out to him — it had been hers.

It had been some time since he had heard her speak, but that much he could still recall.

Lacy. Why did you call my name?

The room Lacy occupied was the largest guest room, at the very end of the corridor.

In the unhurried time it took him to walk there, had his mind changed, he would simply have turned back. There had been more than a few times he had done exactly that.

But this time, his mind did not change — and so he arrived at Lacy’s door.

“She will have fallen asleep by now, at this hour. Perhaps it would be better to come back tomorrow morning……”

Mollys spoke with evident unease, but Rafez’s resolve held.

“A brief look at her sleeping face will do. I haven’t heard anything about her being a restless sleeper.”

In the end, Mollys opened the door.

Creak——

In the dead of night, the sound of the door opening cut through the silence — and for no particular reason, it sent a chill down his spine.

The room was pitch dark, without so much as a single candle lit. And strangely, the room felt utterly abandoned — not a trace of warmth anywhere. The cold air, and a night breeze drifting in from somewhere, was enough to make one’s skin crawl.

“……A light.”

Rafez held out his hand to Mollys, his expression hard.

Something was wrong. How could anyone sleep in a room this cold?

“Here, Your Highness.”

Mollys, too, had gone tense, pressing a candlestick into Rafez’s outstretched hand.

Whoosh——

He stepped into the room with the candlestick raised, and the flame shuddered in the rushing air.

When the light fell on the window, it was wide open — the curtains billowing and snapping in the cold wind.

“Why wasn’t the window latched? It should have been locked shut.”

“……I’m sorry, Your Highness.”

Rafez turned with the candlestick and made his way toward the bed.

Lacy was lying there.

“Ha.”

At the sight of her, apparently asleep, Rafez let out a quiet breath of relief.

“How anyone could sleep in this cold is beyond me.”

“My thoughts exactly, Your Highness.”

Click. Mollys hurried to shut the window.

While he did, Rafez stood and gazed at her in silence.

She looked utterly at peace — sleeping as though she hadn’t a care in the world.

Her face, white as a blank sheet of paper, almost gave the impression of a ghost lying there.

“I heard she doesn’t sleep deeply — but for someone like that, she’s remarkably still. Not even the sound of breathing.”

Not even the sound of breathing.

With the window shut, even the sound of the wind was gone. The room fell utterly silent.

Thud. Thud.

The beating of Rafez’s own heart was loud enough to hear.

“……What did I just say?”

“Pardon? Ah — that the Grand Duchess was sleeping soundly……”

“No. Not that part.”

“That there was no sound of breathing……?”

Rafez passed the candlestick to Mollys and quietly reached out his hand toward Lacy’s face — more precisely, toward her nose.

“……”

“What is it, Your Highness?”

Nothing.

He felt nothing.

Not even the faintest trace of her breath.

“Lacy.”

He called her name. She didn’t so much as stir.

It was nothing like the surveillance reports that said she woke at the slightest sound — even footsteps.

“Lacy, wake up. Lacy!”

No matter how hard Rafez shook her, she would not wake. She only moved as he moved her, limp and yielding.

Rafez threw back the covers, sat on the edge of the bed, and lifted her body halfway into his arms.

She was heavy. Like a dead person.

Rafez had seen countless corpses on the battlefield. He knew this feeling — this horrifying, skin-crawling sensation of lifting the dead — knew it with a vividness that bordered on madness.

“Lacy, Lacy!”

No. It can’t be. He kept calling her name, over and over, as though the words alone could make it untrue.

But what greeted him instead of an answer was the blood seeping from her lips.

Dark, crimson blood — flowing from her mouth in a steady stream. It traced down her chin, down her throat, pooling in the hollow of her collarbone before soaking into her white chemise gown, then spreading onto Rafez’s hands and clothes, staining them a deep, dark red.

“What — how did this — what is——”

“I — I’ll go fetch someone at once, Your Highness.”

Mollys, who had been frozen in place, finally broke — trembling violently as he stumbled out the door.

“Ha — hah……”

Rafez’s breathing turned ragged.

The blood soaking his hands. He couldn’t think straight. It wasn’t as though he had never seen something like this before — and yet Rafez could not breathe.

Eeee—— A piercing ring tore through his ears. His heart hammered as if it would burst. His breath came shorter and shorter. His stomach lurched, and he felt as though the blood were rushing backward through his own veins.

“Why — who — hah — why on earth would——”

He tried to move her blood-soaked body with trembling hands, desperate to find where she was wounded — but it was impossible to tell.

Who had done this to her.

The strength drained from his body all at once. He no longer had the will to even lift a finger. He could only sit there, staring at her where she rested against his chest, her head fallen against him.

“……Ha.”

A laugh escaped him.

It wasn’t funny. There was nothing to laugh at.

The laugh came anyway. At this situation.

The fact that he had never once held her in his arms — not even once — and now, here she was. Dead. A body cradled against his chest.

The sheer absurdity of it.