“Ugh!”

Rafez lurched upright, clutching at his chest without thinking.

“Hah, hah……”

The pain of a blade piercing his heart was still vivid and raw — and yet when he looked down at his chest, there was nothing wrong. Nothing at all.

He exhaled in relief at the fact that he was not dead, and looked around. His bedchamber.

Had he returned to the past again?

Rafez rose and went straight to the drawer beside his desk.

The dagger was still there, exactly as he had left it. He drew the blade from its sheath — not a single trace of blood.

He tucked the dagger carefully away and returned it to the drawer, then turned his gaze to the desk. On top of it lay a single letter.

[To my beloved son.]

It was a letter from the Dowager Grand Duchess.

The fact that this letter was here meant——

Knock knock. A knock at the door.

“Come in.”

Mollys entered and greeted him with a bow.

“Good morning, Your Highness.”

“This is——”

“Ah — it’s a letter from the Grand Duchy. It appears to be from the Dowager Grand Duchess.”

Mollys answered as Rafez held up the letter.

This was a letter Rafez already knew.

It was exactly the same as the first time he had regressed.

The point in time I return to doesn’t change.

Rafez gave a slow nod and turned back to Mollys.

“And the Grand Duchess?”

“Pardon? She is still asleep, as far as I know.”

Asking after Lacy the moment he woke — small wonder Mollys looked taken aback.

Either way, Lacy is alive and in this estate.

Rafez let out a quiet breath of relief.

“Are you feeling unwell, Your Highness?”

He must have looked strange to Mollys just now.

Rafez smiled and shook his head. And truly — it was enough to make him smile. That her being alive was cause for relief.

Yes, when it came down to it, she was from an enemy house. But he had never once wished her dead. He had simply felt nothing toward her — nothing either way.

“I’ll be putting the business trip on hold.”

“Pardon? But all the preparations have already been made…… Are you truly feeling unwell, Your Highness?”

Mollys moved to look him over with a worried eye, but Rafez waved him off.

This was already the second time he had said these words. The second time he had seen this reaction.

“I’m fine, I tell you.”

“Then why are you——”

“I thought about it, and there’s no particular reason I need to go myself. It can wait a little longer. Just have them send reports in regularly.”

That damned trip had worn his body through — and in the meantime, Lacy had turned into a corpse.

After regressing the first time, he had tried to find the cause of her death, only to be met with poison and Lacy’s s*icide.

And so he had driven the blade into his heart again and come back once more.

He didn’t know the reason — but the fact that the dagger could send him back more than once, that it hadn’t been a one-time stroke of luck, was nothing short of a miracle.

He had acted without certainty. If it had only worked once, he would already be dead.

“Leave me for now.”

“……Understood, Your Highness.”

Mollys left the room, and Rafez settled into his chair.

Either way, he had turned back time. He had been given another chance.

So how was he to make use of it?

“Perhaps I should simply get a divorce.”

Of course, a divorce without cause could amount to defying the Emperor’s decree.

But living with this unease — perhaps it would be better to make a clean break with Lacy sooner rather than later.

If they divorced, Lacy would have no reason to drink poison herself.

* * *

A room filled with nothing but the occasional clatter of cutlery.

Fruit, lightly toasted bread, and water.

Lacy sat in her thin chemise gown, eating breakfast in silence.

When her water glass ran dry, the lady’s maid standing at her side — Siz — quietly refilled it.

“Thank you.”

Lacy said it briefly and continued with the rest of her meal.

Knock knock.

“Come in.”

Click. The door opened, then closed again.

Lacy had assumed it would be Mollys. She didn’t bother to look up.

“Grand Duchess.”

But the voice that reached her was not Mollys’s.

Lacy set down her utensils and turned toward the voice.

“……Your Highness.”

It was Rafez.

He stood before her with a rigid expression.

Caught off guard by his unannounced appearance, Lacy quietly set down the utensil she had been holding. The hard look in his eyes as he gazed at her made her breath catch in her chest.

“……”

Rafez, for his part, wore a composed expression on the surface — but inside, it was as though someone had reached in and stirred everything into turmoil.

Her face, looking up at him, came into focus in his wavering blue eyes.

Black hair against pale skin. Eyes as dark as the night itself.

She was alive. Alive again — sitting before him, breathing.

Relief washed through him. And alongside it, anger.

Why had she done it? Had she truly needed to throw her life away for her family, for the Imperial family? For nothing more than the ruin of an enemy? Had her life been worth so little to her — the daughter of House Lennon?

“What brings you here, Your Highness?”

Lacy, who had seemed flustered at first, appeared to have composed herself somewhat during his silence. The unease had left her face, replaced by a blunt, straightforward question.

Then again — in Lacy’s world right now, this was the first time he had ever come to her room.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your meal. I came because I have something to say. Siz, you may leave us.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Siz slipped out quickly, and the door clicked shut.

Perhaps news of a divorce would be welcome to Lacy as well. She would be able to return home — back to her family.

And if he recalled correctly, there had been someone she was close to — a young man she got along well with. Perhaps she could marry him instead and have a proper life. A real marriage.

Rafez felt something strange stir in him toward Lacy — this enemy, who had died on her own terms and made everything so difficult for him. Resentment, and alongside it, an inexplicable pity.

“Sit down.”

Rafez approached and took the chair across from her. Then he spoke.

“……First — I want to say that you’ve worked hard. These past months of marriage haven’t been easy. It must have taken everything you had just to hold on. Six months, has it been? Settling into this estate couldn’t have been simple.”

Lacy’s expression was unreadable.

Even he would have found it strange, hearing words like that out of nowhere.

“Let’s get a divorce.”

“Pardon?”

The word caught her so off guard that it left her lips before she could think.

Lacy knew full well that dissolving this marriage was no simple matter. If it were easily broken, Rafez would never have been forced into it to begin with.

“We’ve been married six months now. That’s enough. Keeping up this hollow pretense of a marriage — don’t you want out of it as well?”

Of course she had. Lacy had never wanted this marriage either.

But divorce — just like that — was something she hadn’t anticipated.

“I’m simply making my intentions known. If you agree, I’ll look into how we can go about it.”

Rafez was surprised by her hesitation.

He had expected her to say yes without a second thought. But she seemed unexpectedly conflicted.

“……Is there actually a way to get a divorce?”

Ah. So that was what was giving her pause.

“The contract we signed states that divorce is possible after six months of marriage — with the mutual agreement of both houses.”

After resolving to divorce, Rafez had gone straight to the marriage contract.

Two houses that were practically enemies had been bound together through this marriage, and in doing so, both sides had signed a contract with conditions attached. Given how poor relations between the two houses were, a number of stipulations had been included — among them, provisions for divorce.

And there were other clauses as well.

And his judgment was that it was better to divorce before that other clause could come into effect.

In truth, the divorce provision had always been little more than words on paper. Reaching a mutual agreement between the two houses would be no easy feat — and even if they managed it, the Imperial family would never be pleased.

“It’s not impossible. No matter that the Imperial family arranged this marriage — if the two people involved are not suited to each other, what can be done?”

To Lacy, it sounded as though Rafez intended to push through with the divorce regardless of Imperial opposition. Which meant he had also resolved to make an enemy of the Imperial family.

Up until now, House Felista had never publicly acknowledged its strained relations with the Imperial family. That was precisely why they had gone through with the marriage when the Imperial family pressed for it.

“I am the Grand Duke of Felista. I have the authority to decide matters concerning my own house.”

What would happen if House Felista refused to follow the Imperial family’s wishes?

Could that truly be in the Imperial family’s interest?

“Give me time to think.”

She was careful, as ever.

Rafez gave a nod and left the room.

At the door, he paused and looked back — and nodded once more.

When Lacy had first come to this estate after the wedding, she had refused the Grand Duchess’s chambers from the very start. Instead, she had made this guest room — the one farthest from the Grand Duke’s — her own.

Lacy had known. That she was nothing more than a guest passing through.

Rafez understood that now.