My Former Lover Didn’t Die And Came Back

The man was Cedric Peterson, her former lover with whom she shared a fiery love at a young age three years ago.

“Surprised?”

“……”

“I didn’t die, and now I’m back.”

Cedric circled around Blair with a cold demeanor as he spoke. Blair stood frozen, like someone who didn’t know how to blink. Her pale white skin was so pallid that it almost blended with the plaster statue above the fireplace. If it weren’t for her heaving white chest, it would have seemed like he was the only living being in the room.

“… This… this can’t be. You were supposed to be dead…”

Blair’s voice trembled messily.

“Oh, you must be so disappointed.”

Cedric interlocked his arms slowly, his voice soft. There was a calmness in his movements without any unnecessary gestures, akin to that of a predator. However, unlike him, his hands were covered in blood. His swollen knuckles, the blue veins protruding on the back of his hand, and the scattered remnants of knife marks caught her eye.

Blair blinked her long eyelashes and looked back at his face.

“This can’t be true. It’s a lie, isn’t it…?”

The man looked down at her with a faint smile on his lips, while she stared at him blankly with the maids’ corpses behind her.

It all felt too much like a dream to believe it. The only reality was the dampness she felt under her bare feet. Yet even with that, she couldn’t tell if it was blood or wine.

Cedric Peterson, her lover whom she had sold into slavery three years ago, had returned.

He didn’t die.

* * *

Her lover had returned. The one she thought was dead had come back to life, her former lover.

“C-Cedric…”

Blair could only repeat his old lover’s name. Even though she called out his name, the man did not respond.

Within the large reception room that turned into a field of corpses, there were only two living persons. A man dressed in military attire and a woman draped in a silk gown that reached her knees. The woman was as pale as death, like a corpse. Her face was so white that only her lips were red, trembling uncontrollably, unable to utter a coherent sentence.

Blair glanced sideways at the corpses of her maids lined up behind her. It was the first time in her life that she had seen so much blood. She couldn’t believe that so much liquid had poured out of the bodies of the maids who had been dear to her just a few hours ago.

Trembling like a leaf, the slender woman’s body shivered as if it were an aspen tree.

‘…It seems like it’s her first time seeing a corpse.’

Cedric sneered as he thought back to their childhood days.

To move forward into the future, one had to retrace the past. That was necessary.

* * *

Everything happened three years ago.

Cedric Peterson boarded the train at the request of his lover, Blair Seymour. The destination was a port city that was about a couple of hours away.

「When you arrive at the harbor, someone will come to meet you.」

When asked what was going on, his lovely lover just replied, ‘good things.’

Cedric was a commoner, while Blair was a noble lady. She was too much for him.

After they started dating, the whole world seemed rosy. Even if Blair said the earth has five sides, Cedric would believe it. That’s why his lover’s sudden request to visit an unknown city didn’t seem like a problem.

She came to meet him at the platform and waved her hand. Her tousled blonde hair and smile that he could see through the train’s window were dazzling.

When the train came to a stop at its destination with a loud, miraculous sound, Cedric got off.

“She said someone will come to meet me when I arrive at the harbor…”

As Cedric looked around confusedly, a stranger’s voice came from behind.

“Excuse me… Are you Cedric Peterson?”

“Oh, yes.”

Cedric replied as he turned around.

‘…Is he the man who came to meet me?’

The man who met him wore an old beret pulled down low over his head, obscuring his face. Cedric took a step forward to see the man’s face, but unfortunately, he couldn’t see it clearly due to the brim of his hat.

Perhaps Cedric Peterson would never know the face of the person who had come to meet him. His face was covered with a handkerchief soaked in a sleeping drug, causing him to lose consciousness immediately.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself on a ship he had never seen before, with chains fastened between his feet. He could walk, but the chains were too short to run. And his wrists were tied behind his back.

‘…Was I sold to a human trafficking organization?’

As an orphan, he had no family to search for him.

“Hey!! Is anyone here?! Something seems to be a mistake!”

Cedric shouted as he pounded the wooden door.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

After a while, the door opened. Despite protesting that something was wrong, he was met with violence. When he pleaded with a man who seemed like an officer, the response was that someone had already paid for him. That’s how his life as a boat slave began.

‘I can’t believe it. Did Blair really… do this to me…?’

He remembered her smiling brightly and waving her hand at the station. It was hard to imagine such cruelty behind that sunny smile.

‘That can’t be true. Maybe she was forced by someone and couldn’t help it…’

He thought of her parents, who seemed dissatisfied with him. But her smile was too genuine to be something she did under orders. In fact, she seemed somewhat excited that day.

‘No… The culprit must be someone else.’

Cedric thought and thought, trying to find those who might bear a grudge against him. But no matter how hard he tried, no one came to mind.

Fortunately, his life as a slave didn’t last long. Shortly after being sold, a war broke out in a neighboring country, allowing him to escape from the chaos and confusion of war by fleeing from the ship.

While he was hiding in a coastal village, he was employed as a mercenary. After serving as a mercenary for a while, he joined the army after seeing a recruitment notice posted by the imperial army on the wall.

The war was hell. Every day he risked his life in battle. Today he might be lucky to survive, but tomorrow was uncertain. A comrade who exchanged light-hearted banter at the barricade in the morning returned in the evening as a cold corpse.

…If the war ends, maybe he could return to the Empire.

That was his only hope.

* * *

“…So, I wandered the battlefields for three years.”

Cedric finished summarizing his past life and gazed at Blair’s face.

“……”

Throughout Cedric’s storytelling, Blair’s expression was something. Her drained complexion resembled the corpses scattered behind her. By the middle of the story, her demeanor almost seemed like that of a slave on a slave ship. She had an extraordinary ability to empathize.

“Well… I did gain some recognition on the battlefield. Shouldn’t you be thankful for that?”

Cedric said, raising one corner of his mouth.

“C-Cedric…”

“If you have a mouth, speak. Tell me why you got married right away and live in a mansion as grand as this.”

Blair nervously nibbled her lip, memories of events from three years ago quickly passing through her mind.

* * *

Everything was orchestrated by her parents.

Like any noble family, they did not approve of their daughter falling in love with a commoner. Particularly her father, who wanted to sell her to a wealthy suitor.

Blair’s family, the Seymours, were nobility in name only; they had no wealth. The little they had dwindled away under her inept father’s management, tilting the family into significant debt.

The suitor her father sought was not Cedric Peterson, who had a good-looking face and a large build but lacked wealth. Blair was a beauty with shining golden hair and blue eyes. While she could have been sold at a high price to a wealthy suitor who only cared about appearances, Cedric’s presence was a thorn in their side.

So, Blair’s father deceived her. He said he would send Cedric to the academy. Blair might find it strange if her lover would suddenly go absent for days, and she might report it to the police. That could have caused trouble. To prevent that, he sent Cedric to the port without saying anything, claiming all preparations had been made for his enrollment at the academy.

When Cedric arrived at the harbor, he was sold into slavery.

Unaware of everything that had transpired, Blair believed her lover had enrolled in the academy. However, as days passed without receiving a letter from Cedric after his supposed arrival at the academy, she began to harbor suspicions. By the time she discovered the whole truth, he was already aboard a slave ship.

「Didn’t you say you would send him to the academy! That it would make him a suitable man for me to marry!」

「We didn’t raise you all this time to marry a man like that.」

「Father!」

Her father admitted that he was the one who sold Cedric into slavery. Overwhelmed by betrayal, Blair desperately turned her gaze to her mother, who avoided Blair’s eyes. Her mother was also an accomplice.

「Mother… Father… How could you do this?!」

No one comforted her as she cried out in anguish.

Her father could not send Blair to the ‘best suitor’ he had in mind. She had been sitting at matchmaking gatherings like a mute person because there were fewer and fewer suitors coming forward. At times, she even rebelled by refusing to eat and drink.

The one who accepted Blair as his wife was Viscount Cavendish. He was a handsome young man with bronze-golden hair. Not as grand as her parents desired, but given the circumstances, the match proceeded hastily.

Thus, she became a ruthless woman who trod the virgin road¹ as soon as her lover disappeared.

* * *

Blair shook her head to snap out of her reverie. In the room turned into a sea of blood, the imposing figure of a man was standing before her.

Blair locked eyes with Cedric. In the darkened room, his eyes, which used to sparkle, were now ablaze with anger.

‘…First, let’s tell Cedric everything.’

Blair clenched her skirt tightly, making a vow.