After that, it was just like the first time.

He didn’t know how the time had passed. Or whether time had passed at all. Everything had moved so fast. It had all happened and gone before he could do anything — before he could even try.

Something had gone wrong. Where had it gone wrong?

Yes — from the moment she drank that poison…… there had been nothing he could do.

“Your Highness!”

Rafez turned his head. Mollys came running and stopped in front of the iron bars.

“Mollys.”

“A message has been sent to the Grand Duchy — he will come up as soon as he receives it. But the trial is soon——”

What was the rush? How could anything be called clear-cut in a case where the truth couldn’t even be established?

Then again — who could have known it would come to this, being dragged away and locked behind bars. It should have been closed as a s*icide. But with the swift maneuvering of House Lennon and the Imperial family, it had been turned into a m*rder charge.

It still felt as though Lacy were right before his eyes — bleeding, dying.

And the ducal house and the Imperial family, who ought to be grieving, were pinning a m*rder charge on him and pressing ahead with punishment?

“……Put the head maid on the stand as a witness. She’ll testify that the poison was Lacy’s own belonging.”

“About that…… she’s gone, Your Highness.”

“What?”

“When I went to the estate, she had already disappeared. Everyone is terrified — the atmosphere at the estate is a shambles.”

Glen had served since the time of the former Grand Duke. Most of the estate’s servants had.

For someone like that to simply vanish. Had she fled on her own? That seemed unlikely.

“Tell Viscount Rowen to gather our allies among the nobility.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

He had to stay calm and think, now more than ever. He had to do something.

What was it they wanted? What had Lacy been trying to achieve — enough to drink poison with her own hands?

“I don’t know when I’ll be able to come again. The guards are strict — they won’t let anyone through.”

Rafez gave a grim nod at the bleak reality of it.

“Take care of yourself.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Mollys bowed and forced himself to walk away, each step reluctant.

Stay calm and think? As if that were possible.

The first time, and now again — coming back like this.

The circumstances had changed, and yet there was still nothing he could do.

When he had first found her body, the thought of s*icide hadn’t even crossed his mind. The poison hadn’t been discovered then, and the window had been wide open — he had assumed someone had come in from outside.

But he had been arrested on the spot, before he could find out anything at all.

“To think it was s*icide……”

His wife had suddenly drunk poison, vomited blood before his eyes, and died just like that.

And before he could make sense of any of it — before he could even form a coherent thought — Imperial knights had come storming in.

The arrest warrant they thrust at him. The Emperor’s seal stamped on it, plain for all to see.

Strange. The way they had come storming in with an arrest warrant already prepared — as though they had been waiting for Lacy to die.

The more he thought about it, the stranger it all became. Everything was wrong. There wasn’t a single thing that wasn’t.

What did they want? What had Lacy wanted?

Rafez laughed.

If she had wanted something badly enough to stake her life on it — what would that be? It could only be one thing. The death of her enemy.

You drink the poison, and I’m the one who dies for it.

“You did it…… a proper marriage…… Your Highness.”

While he had been going on about marriage, they had been digging a trap and waiting for him to fall in.

How pathetic he must have looked to her.

* * *

The following day.

Rafez had not slept. It wasn’t a situation that allowed for sleep — but more than that, he couldn’t bring himself to close his eyes even for a moment. Every time he did, that blood…… seemed to writhe and crawl. The blood——

The image of her face — contorted in agony as she vomited blood — came into sharp relief behind his eyelids.

It wasn’t as though he had never witnessed another person’s death or suffering. He was a war hero, was he not?

He had spent long years on the northern battlefields.

Blood? That had never troubled him. He couldn’t even begin to count how many men he had killed with these hands.

Enemy commanders who had taken blades to the stomach, vomiting blood as they sank to their knees.

He remembered every one of them, vividly, without exception. And yet not once had any of them haunted him or visited him in nightmares.

They had been enemies. To them, he had been an enemy in turn. It was kill or be killed.

That was what a battlefield was. Even if he hadn’t made them his enemies — the moment they stood across from each other, they became men who had no choice but to kill one another.

Sitting here locked away like this, all manner of thoughts find their way in.

Just then, knights approached, unlocked the cell, and opened the door. They began to drag him away.

Up from the dungeon, toward the courtroom.

Rafez already knew what awaited him. He had lived through this once before.

“A moment.”

Before he could enter the courtroom, someone stepped into his path.

It was none other than Duke Schkotz.

“I have something to discuss with the Grand Duke. Leave us.”

The knights looked briefly caught off guard, but they released Rafez and withdrew without protest.

“We meet again, Your Highness.”

“……So we do.”

What was his angle? Had he come to gloat?

“Why did you do it?”

Rafez said nothing, only held the Duke’s gaze. There was nothing to be read from his expression alone.

“The two of you made such a striking pair. Why would you make a choice like that?”

Was he being sincere?

Rafez was convinced that this entire affair had been orchestrated by the Imperial family and House Lennon.

Would someone as close to them as Duke Schkotz truly have known nothing of it?

“Now I won’t be able to see either of you again…… What a shame. Having an audience with you, Your Highness, was quite an entertaining affair.”

The knights reappeared — time, apparently, had run out — and seized Rafez.

“May your final journey be a peaceful one, Your Highness.”

Duke Schkotz offered his farewell and stepped back.

And the doors to the courtroom swung open.

* * *

“Your Highness.”

Rafez returned to the estate in silence, making straight for his room.

The Grand Ducal estate was utterly still. Only Mollys followed behind him.

Without sparing a glance at anyone, Rafez entered his room and sank into a chair.

“……You’ve been through a great deal, Your Highness.”

Mollys spoke carefully, watching Rafez’s expression.

“Please leave me.”

Rafez had no desire to say anything. He only wanted to sleep, if he could.

“There is something I must tell you, Your Highness.”

“What is it.”

“It’s…… the former Grand Duke collapsed upon hearing the news. The shock was too much for him.”

Mollys had turned it over in his mind countless times. Whether this was truly the right moment to deliver this news.

But no matter how he looked at it, a son could not be kept ignorant of his father’s condition. It would be an enormous burden on Rafez, who surely wanted nothing more than to stop thinking — but the situation was moving forward whether they wished it or not.

“……”

Rafez could say nothing. Everything was exactly as it had been the first time.

“Please don’t worry too much, Your Highness. Fortunately, he is receiving treatment at the Grand Duchy, and once it is complete, he has arranged to be moved to the villa.”

Mollys added hastily.

Rafez still said nothing.

The sentence handed down at trial was the stripping of his Grand Ducal title, the forfeiture of the Grand Duchy that came with it, and confinement to the estate.

As a result, Louis, who had been staying in the Grand Duchy, was also forced to relocate. Fortunately, House Felista had several villas outside the Grand Duchy, and Louis would be permitted to remain there for the duration of his treatment.

Was he supposed to be grateful to the Emperor for even that much?

“……Leave me.”

It was likely only because he had been a Grand Duke that he had escaped execution.

But a formal reprieve from death was one thing — confinement to the estate simply meant he could be killed informally at any time. If the Imperial family wished it, they could send an assassin, have him poisoned, cut off his food supply — any number of measures were well within their reach.

He knew this all too well. He had lived it before.

Rafez shook his head.

“……This is wrong. All of it is wrong.”

His wife suddenly dead by poison. Himself branded a murderer, stripped of his title, his house in ruins, and now his father collapsed on top of it all.

To spend the rest of his life branded in disgrace, locked away, not knowing when death might come?

Where had it all gone wrong?

Should he never have married into that enemy house to begin with? Should he have treated Lacy well from the start? Should he have searched her, taken the poison, and had her confined? Or should he never have returned to the capital after his victory in the war?

He had thought he would never have to live through this injustice a second time. Who could have known it would come to this again?

Yes — this was not the first time he had been through it.

One day, Lacy had been found dead. After that, he had been charged with m*rder and ended up exactly like this.

And a week into his confinement at the estate, his food supply had been cut off. A few days after that, assassins had come for him.

And he had died.

So how was he still alive?

Rafez shot to his feet and pulled open the drawer beside his desk. Inside was a dagger — ornate, set with jewels.

This dagger.

It was a relic he had claimed after his victory on the battlefield. At first, he had taken it for nothing more than an ornate decorative blade.

But then the assassins had come, and no matter how many he fought and killed, there was no end to it. Cut down five, and the next day five more would come.

Living like that — surrounded by the ever-mounting bodies — he had come to think that dying by his own hand was better than dying by someone else’s.

It had been more terrifying than any northern battlefield. More drenched in blood. And it had been his own estate that had become such a place.

In the end, he had driven the dagger into his own heart.

And then he had come back.

He had plunged a blade through his heart to die — and what had greeted him through that agony was, of all things, a second life.

At first he had been certain it was a dream. But it wasn’t.

“……Lacy.”

Rafez turned and looked down at the floor.

The place where Lacy had collapsed, bleeding.

The shock of it still hadn’t left him.

It was infuriating. To be branded a murderer without having murdered anyone.

He had wondered — why Lacy had died. How. Who had killed her.

But having now watched her drink the poison herself, he had to ask: had it been the same the first time? Back then, the poison hadn’t even been found on her. Had she simply drunk it on her own and died, without anyone knowing?

Living through her death a second time had only multiplied his questions. Why she had wanted his ruin badly enough to die for it. Whether she had hated him that much.

“You did it…… a proper marriage…… Your Highness.”

She had mocked his words about making a proper go of their marriage, and died with that on her lips. He resented her for it.

But if she had wanted to die that badly — he couldn’t simply let her.

“I’ll keep you alive and undo all of this. And you, Emperor — I’ll take everything you desire right out of your hands.”

The jewel on the dagger seemed to gleam with unusual brilliance.

Rafez steeled himself and drew the dagger out. The sharp blade caught the light.

He drove it straight into his heart.