“Your Highness, do you not intend to attend the Imperial Ball this time?”

“No. What’s the point of going when I’m planning to divorce anyway.”

Rafez turned a page and replied to Mollys without looking up.

He had already lived through that ball once before.

It was something he felt every time since returning to the capital — the social scene was more irritating than any battlefield, and it simply didn’t suit him. Save for the risk to one’s life, he would sooner live on a battlefield than deal with this.

Going meant running into Duke Schkotz again for another pointless bout of posturing, suffering through the sight of the Emperor and Empress, and watching Lacy have yet another unpleasant encounter with Mary. Better not to go at all.

If he did go, he would have to send Lacy to the palace again as well. That was hardly welcome either.

“……I see. It seems the Grand Duchess consulted with the twin brothers on Rix Street about the divorce as well.”

So that had been the result of their consultation. That divorce would bring harm to the family, and so it couldn’t be done.

“A pity, then. All that deliberation, and it amounts to nothing in the end.”

“But why have you suddenly decided on a divorce, Your Highness?”

The marriage may have been uncomfortable for Lacy, but for Rafez and the estate’s servants, it hadn’t been particularly inconvenient. Divorcing now would put them at no small disadvantage — and Mollys couldn’t quite understand why Rafez would speak of divorce while accepting all of that.

“If it has to happen eventually, better sooner than later. And I no longer want to keep looking at her.”

Every time he saw that face, an inexplicable anger rose in him — and the image of her dying kept coming back.

He must have taken quite a blow from it.

Rafez shook his head and let out a quiet sigh. If he could, he wanted to shake that image from his mind entirely.

Even if it meant erasing the memory altogether.

“I see, Your Highness.”

“After the divorce, I want some quiet for a while. I’ve been thinking of going down to the Grand Duchy for some rest.”

“The former Grand Duke would be absolutely delighted to hear that, Your Highness. It has been quite some time since you’ve seen him, hasn’t it?”

Mollys smiled and agreed readily.

And with good reason — Louis had left for the Grand Duchy before the wedding, and Rafez hadn’t seen him since. It had already been half a year.

“I know. I wonder how he’s getting on down there. Hearing of him only through the occasional letter — what a terrible son I’ve turned out to be.”

From time to time, the Dowager Grand Duchess sent letters — but they contained nothing more than reassurances that all was well, and the rest was worry for Rafez, every last line of it.

And Rafez hadn’t managed so much as a reply, let alone read them promptly. Already knowing what they would say, he had let them fall to the bottom of his pile in the midst of everything else.

“You’ve simply been busy, Your Highness. No one could say otherwise.”

“……Thank you, Mollys.”

“Think nothing of it, Your Highness.”

Rafez gave a small nod at Mollys’s words — grateful, in a quiet way.

And he made himself the promise once more. He would finish what needed doing here, and then head to the Grand Duchy.

The Grand Duchy was where he had spent his childhood. A place he held more dear than the capital estate — and to think he had been stripped of it. He never wanted to dream of such a thing again.

* * *

“Is this true?”

Having rushed up to the capital upon receiving the letter, Duke Hereis Lennon arrived at the estate and went looking for Felix and Julien the moment he walked through the door.

“Felix! Julien! Where is everyone?”

“Father!”

“Is what’s written here true? Rafez wants a divorce?”

Felix and Julien came running at the sound of his voice, and Hereis quickly threw off his cloak and pulled out the letter he had received, thrusting it toward them.

“Yes, Father. Lacy has been in a state of confusion over it.”

“……What on earth are you thinking, Rafez Felista. How dare you.”

As they were husband and wife, the internal details of their marriage weren’t something outsiders could know well — but on the surface, Rafez and Lacy’s marriage had appeared to be without any particular trouble.

House Felista itself wasn’t open to social life to begin with, so it wasn’t especially strange that Rafez and Lacy only appeared together at Imperial Balls. And in public, the two of them looked neither particularly close nor particularly strained.

On the rare occasions Lacy met with Felix and Julien, the Grand Ducal house’s surveillance made it impossible to speak of their marriage at all — so her family had known nothing of it.

“We’ll make our own preparations. The lawyer?”

“Already sent for, Father.”

“Good. Have him come in at once.”

Just then, Hereis’s wife — Rose, the Duchess of House Lennon — entered the room.

“My love, if something were to happen to Lacy in the Felista house……”

“What? You come barsting in here and what is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s true though! We already lost Isaac because of House Felista — I won’t lose Lacy the same way!”

Rose had come in without warning, and now she clutched the Duke’s hands with an anxious expression, clinging to him.

Looking as though she might burst into tears at any moment, she was by nature someone who worried deeply. The shock and grief of losing Isaac had worn her down further still, and ever since sending her only daughter off to marry, she had been living in a constant state of dread.

“Mother, please calm down.”

“Yes, nothing like that is going to happen. Lacy’s not that kind of girl. All right?”

“Calm yourself and sit down first.”

“Someone bring tea, quickly!”

“Yes, Young Master.”

The three men of House Lennon moved hastily to settle Rose into a chair and do what they could to soothe her. Warm tea arrived shortly, and Rose — who had been breathing in sharp gasps from raising her voice — managed to compose herself somewhat after taking a sip.

“Rose. Listen to me carefully.”

Hereis took her by the shoulders, met her eyes, and spoke with quiet sincerity.

“I will never let them take Lacy from us.”

“……My love.”

“You know as well as I do. The marriage contract contains provisions guaranteeing Lacy’s safety. They cannot lay a hand on her first. Rafez — that man — he absolutely cannot.”

“But my love, I — I am so frightened. What if something were to happen to our Lacy. If, by any chance — any chance at all — something went wrong.”

A tear slipped down Rose’s cheek.

“Now, now — why are you crying? Do you actually want something to happen to Lacy? Is that why?”

“No, that’s not what I — “

Rose shook her head vigorously at Hereis’s words and wiped her tears with her sleeve. But the tears kept coming no matter how she wiped, soaking the fabric through.

“But why would the Grand Ducal house suddenly bring up divorce? That’s what frightens me so.”

“……Rose.”

“They must have found something out and are plotting against us. If that’s true — if it comes to that…… we could lose Lacy. Just like our Isaac. Our poor Isaac……”

The poor relations between House Felista and House Lennon were not simply a matter of Imperial politics.

There were many reasons things had deteriorated to this point — and the most grievous among them was this.

The death of Isaac, heir to House Lennon, and Derpel, heir to House Felista.

* * *

Crash——

The glass slipped from fingers that had lost all strength and shattered into pieces. The juice it had held could not be gathered back.

“Your Highness the Grand Duchess!”

Siz came running.

Lacy had fallen from her chair and lay collapsed on the floor. Blood seeping from her lips soaked into the carpet.

Siz could not believe what she was seeing. An ordinary morning — the same breakfast menu as always — and in the brief moment she had stepped away to fetch juice, Lacy had fallen?

This was…… poison.

But who? Who would do such a thing? Even if there was no one in this estate who was fond of Lacy——

“Your Highness, please — stay with me, Your Highness!”

No matter how Siz held her and shook her, she was already gone.

* * *

“What?”

“It’s — it’s — Your Highness the Grand Duchess has——”

Before Mollys could finish, Rafez was on his feet and out of the study. He ran — flat out — all the way to Lacy’s room.

Everyone scrambled to follow after him. It was the first time anyone had seen Rafez run inside the estate.

It can’t be. It can’t be. It can’t.

Even as he ran, he kept denying what his own ears had just heard.

“It can’t be——”

Breathless, Rafez reached Lacy’s room — and at the sight visible through the already-open door, he stopped as though turned to stone.

Siz, half out of her mind, sat on the floor clutching Lacy’s bleeding body.

“Again……”

This time, he couldn’t even bring himself to go to her. His feet would not leave the ground.

The image that had haunted him, flickering before his eyes without end — it had come to pass in reality.

Again.

Like a nightmare.