In an instant, my father’s lips turned deathly pale, trembling uncontrollably. The man who had always been composed couldn’t even finish his words.

“H-How… how could you… do something like this…?”

“Or perhaps I should have taken everything from you. That might have been kinder.”

I murmured it deliberately.

Then I slowly stepped toward them and called out to my sister.

“You know, sister.”

Trembling just as much as my father, she lifted her head to look at me.

Shame.
Agony.
Humiliation.
Pain.

Every kind of negative emotion clung to her eyes, tangled together.

Without thinking, I placed a hand over my chest.

What was this feeling?

It was something I had never experienced in my life.

A twisted, cruel sense of pleasure.

I slowly crouched down and met her gaze.

Then, with a deliberately bright smile, I asked,

“So… how does it feel?”

“…You!”

As if finally snapping out of her shock, she sprang to her feet and lunged at me.

Just as her nails were about to rake across my face—

D’hiver, startled, grabbed her arm.

Unable to move, she glared up at him and screamed,

“Let go of me! You—come here! Right now!”

“Eri!”

The moment D’hiver let go of her, it wouldn’t be me who tasted hell—it would be my sister.

My father knew that instinctively and tried to stop her, but she only struggled harder.

“Just endure it, please!”

“You saw it too, Father! Did you see what she did to me?! Today, either you die or I do!”

“I really don’t understand what your problem is, sister.”

It was a sincere question.

The last time I asked her about it, she said that she had only ever lost things because of me.

Looking back now, though, I realize that was just her sense of victimhood talking.

In fact, it was because of me that she received all of Father’s affection.

Besides, she looked so much like Mother.

In this family, at least, no one could bring themselves to hate her.

Simply because she resembled someone who was gone.

“I’ve always wondered, why you hate me so much when you already have what I can never have, no matter how hard I try.”

“Why?”

My sister echoed softly, then spat the words out.

“Yes, there were times I pitied you. Even times I felt grateful—because I didn’t have to take your place. I even thought I might treat you a little better if we met again.”

She studied my face for a moment, then didn’t bother hiding her sneer.

“Isn’t that amazing? The moment I saw your face, all of that disappeared. No matter how hard I try… I just can’t bring myself to like you.”

At her words, I blinked once.

Something inside my chest shattered.

“Violette Silcania, I really hate you.”

“I really hate you too.”

I repeated her words.

Then I raised my hand and hit her across the face as hard as I could.

Smack!

Her head snapped to the side with a sharp, brutal sound.

Clutching her instantly reddened cheek, she began to tremble violently.

I looked at her.

I slapped her other cheek as well.

Another crack rang out as she screamed.

“Ah! You… you!” I won’t let this go! Let me go right now!”

“That’s enough. Lady Hermes is clearly in the wrong.”

As he spoke, D’hiver looked at her with undisguised contempt.

My sister’s neck flushed red as she shouted back, outraged.

“In the wrong? What do you mean in the wrong?! I should just stand there and take it? She hit me first! Lord Keith —you should be fair, shouldn’t you?!”

“Eri! There are times in life when you have to endure things! Please, just stay still!”

“Fair?”

D’hiver repeated quietly.

“…You wouldn’t want me to step in according to that word.”

For some reason, I found him unbearably hypocritical.

Was it because I now knew his actions weren’t entirely for me?

“Don’t pretend you’re doing this for me.”

“Violette, please.”

“Don’t even say my name. I don’t want to hear it.”

I really wanted to cover my ears!

Did you know?

You were the first person to call me that nickname with such tenderness. It sounded almost like a man’s.

That’s why I can’t bear to hear your voice now.

Even the slightest hint of the affection Blanche left behind has become unbearable.

D’hiver looked at me, his expression strained with pain.

Then, after a moment—

“I know you’re angry. I understand why you’re angry. But please… can’t you take it out on me instead?”

His voice fell into a pleading whisper.

For a brief moment, the way he looked at me was utterly desperate.

“Who do you think will suffer most because of what you did today? In the end, the one who’ll be left reliving that regret… is you.”

“I won’t. If anything, I feel relieved.”

“If you truly believe that—”

He let out a long sigh.

Then, suddenly, a familiar warmth touched my cheek.

“Don’t cry.”

Beyond that warmth, something damp and unsettling spread.

Only then did I recognize the emotion stirring inside my chest.

The one being hurt in that moment…

It was me.

I had pretended to be fine, but my already shattered heart was breaking further.

I had hit my sister.

And yet it was my own heart that was left scarred.

I said I felt relieved, but it only made the pain worse.

As this realization hit me like a wave, I shook my head.

Stepping back to avoid his touch, I forced the words out.

“…No.”

“Let’s go back now. You need to rest.”

“I don’t want to.”

I looked up at D’hiver.

But my vision blurred and I couldn’t see his face properly.

All the feelings that had been denied to me because of that wretched family came crashing over me at once.

My lips trembled as I stared at him.

“You… you’re the one I hate the most.”

“It’s fine if you hate me.”

“Right now… right now, I can’t breathe.”

I gasped, barely able to speak.

D’hiver stepped closer to me.

“It’s alright. Just stay by my side.”

Then he pulled me into his arms.

I didn’t even have the strength left to resist.

In his familiar yet cold embrace, tears fell endlessly from my eyes.

“Let’s go.”

He spoke in a quiet, low voice.

Gradually, the scenery around us started to change.

Before I knew it, I found myself standing in my room within his castle, a place that had become all too familiar over the years.

Violets, the flowers that bore my name, were scattered across the floor.

White curtains swayed gently in the breeze.

The room was filled with dolls that he had given me one by one.

Everything here had been given to me by D’hiver after I arrived.

He used to say it was all for me.

But now, none of it felt like it belonged to me.

From beginning to end, it all felt suffocating.

Like something dreadful, quietly and unmistakably.

“Have you returned?”

At that moment, I heard a voice in my mind.

It was impossible to tell whether it belonged to a child or an adult, or to a boy or a girl.

I turned towards the source of the voice.

On the bed was a sword with a translucent blade.

“The child who holds the right…”

…It felt as though Teslai was smiling softly again.

It had no expression, and yet that was the impression it gave.

“Yes… have you made your decision?”

“……”

“If you choose the path of transcendence, then take me and stab D’hiver Keith. In doing so, you will take his place and become one who observes the world.”

“Can you shut up? Can’t you see this mess happened because of you?”

D’hiver snapped in irritation.

He looked at the sword as though he were thoroughly fed up.

“See? This is what Teslai is like.”

“You’ve grown bold, D’hiver Keith. To dare speak to me in such a manner.”

“That’s why I told you not to go there in the first place.”

“You have no authority to prevent one worthy of me from making contact. It is I who judges who has the right to wield me.”

I looked back and forth between D’hiver and the sword.

It was strange.

The feeling they gave off… was similar.

Before long, I let out a bitter laugh and murmured,

“Why did you tell me not to go there?”

There was only one answer.

Teslai knew the truth, and D’hiver was afraid that I would discover it.

He had been afraid that this would happen.

Now, that fear had become reality.

It was as if it had always been destined to happen.

“You know, D’hiver… you had a chance.”

“A chance? What do you mean?”

“A chance to tell me everything yourself. To explain it all in your own words.”

From the outset, rather than hiding behind Teslai, he could simply have told me the truth.

If he had, I wouldn’t have been hurt so badly.

I wouldn’t be suffocating under this crushing sense of betrayal.

If only he had told me himself sooner.

If only he had spoken to me first.

Then I might have been able to accept the way he isolated me and kept me to himself, forcing me to focus on him alone.

I might have accepted it all.

He said that I resembled Zesti, the Divine Emperor who had cast him into hell.

At first, the idea that I was just a substitute was unbearable.

But now, it didn’t matter.

Just as my sister had been endlessly loved for resembling our mother.

Perhaps resembling someone had worked in my favor after all.

No matter what, I was still me.

The Divine Emperor was nothing more than a ghost of the past, long dead and gone.

If anything, I was the one who could truly understand him.

I knew what it meant to crave love.

To long for someone.

I could have been the only person who truly understood him.

“But you didn’t. Or maybe you couldn’t. Because you were afraid I would leave you. Because you would be forced to keep living in that endless loneliness, unable to die.”

Desiring something you know you cannot have, only to lose it once it comes within reach, is the greatest source of despair and emptiness.

This was exactly how D’hiver felt right now.

“Violette.”

The moment he called my name, D’hiver pointed at Teslai.

Whoosh—!

The sharp sound cut through the air as he moved roughly.

“Love and doubt cannot coexist. You chose to trust the words of that worthless piece of metal over me.”

“A ‘worthless piece of metal’? How absurd—how dare you speak of me that way!”

“No.”

I slowly shook my head.

“I just can’t deny what you’ve done.”

“Is it really that big of a problem?”

I had told him the beginning was wrong, that everything in the past had been fastened with the wrong button from the very start.

And yet, that was how he responded.

“You wanted to be loved. And I love you. Until the day my life ends, no one but you will ever enter my sight.”

“……”

I was left speechless.

As if asking what the problem was, when he had given me exactly what I had always wanted.

“That… that much will never change.”

It was only then that I realized I had been questioning whether I was normal.

But it wasn’t me who was abnormal.

D’hiver was far from it.

Perhaps it was only natural.

After all, he had lived for an unimaginable amount of time. Expecting ordinary humanity from him might have been unreasonable.

But that was precisely why I understood.

He didn’t love me.