To solve this required the determination to cut the thread decisively.

“I want to apologize to you too……”

Louise’s undelivered words briefly reached only Rondimio who was beside her before falling away.

After having an early dinner with the child, Louise arranged for Tenueis and Dallin to be thoroughly guarded and decided to go for a short walk with Rondimio.

* * *

Red glimmers sparkled on the imperial lake they had visited after a long time.

It had once been a precious place she visited alone in hard times, but now she came here with Rondimio.

Wrapping a thick shawl around herself against the growing chill, she stopped in front of him.

Rondimio blinked at her sudden action. For something that seemed like a very important message, Louise looked genuinely happy—as if she were ready to let go of all past regrets.

“Rondimio, I think I’ve made a decision. About what you asked me to choose.”

Louise didn’t say what she had decided, but Rondimio knew what she was trying to say. It was about choosing who should receive the next throne.

Though it wasn’t a long time, it was enough for Louise to make a confident decision, and in fact, Rondimio had a slight inkling of what Louise wanted to do.

“Actually, I think it wasn’t something we should have decided from the beginning.”

“I think so too… but it’s right that we should have regrets, even if they’re late.”

As Louise, who was standing in front of the lake with its gentle ripples, tried to sit on the cold ground, Rondimio hastily took off his outer coat and spread it on the ground for her.

Louise accepted his consideration without ignoring it.

Although it would take more time for Rondimio’s past life memories to fully return, she didn’t want to treat him as she had before.

“I think Tenueis should be the new owner of the throne.”

Louise, sitting on Rondimio’s outer coat, splashed the clear water of the lake. It felt like she was recalling the people she had sent over this lake long ago.

Memories too painful to forget, yet impossible to escape.

“Though we’ve only known him for about a year, I think he’s a really good child. Of course, I haven’t met many good people.”

Rondimio affirmed Louise’s words without delay.

Perhaps he had determined her answer to this choice from the beginning. Louise soon seemed to make up her mind and firmly grasped his hand that had been floating in the air, not reaching her.

“And… I’m really sorry, Rondimio. I don’t know what comfort my apology will bring to you, but I sincerely want to apologize to you.”

At Louise’s sudden action, Rondimio, uncharacteristically, pulled his hand away. Still, unlike in his past life, he didn’t seem displeased.

Because he realized that Louise wasn’t apologizing on behalf of her family members who had abused him. Of course, that didn’t mean he welcomed it.

“I believe I said I wouldn’t accept Your Highness’s apology.”

“This is an apology for the wounds you had to suffer again in order to apologize for the events of your past life. Because it’s not easy to give to people who abused you and tried to kill you by staging a rebellion.”

She knew his wrongdoings were immeasurably great. But… seeing him carefully taking care of each and every family member of those who had tried to kill him, her heart broke.

It was even more painful to think that Louise herself was the root cause of it all.

As Louise slightly frowned, Rondimio smiled and approached her.

“Even if I did that, I couldn’t change the past. It seems like I haven’t changed much despite living a second life.”

When the large body suddenly clung to her, Louise was startled and raised both arms.

The young boy who had grown up curled up in a narrow underground prison had now become an adult and was embraced in the arms of the woman he loved.

As Louise gently patted him, who had folded his large body to fit into her arms, she carefully told him what she had been contemplating.

“Originally, I mean, if you hadn’t become emperor, you said you wanted to run away with me to a place where no one knew us and live quietly.”

“If time had gone back to before I became emperor… I would have done that.”

Lying on Louise’s lap and playfully tousling her hair that flowed downward, Rondimio recalled the irreversible past.

The fact that he was living a second life thanks to time turning back was already absurd, yet he couldn’t stop dwelling on hypothetical “what ifs.”

“Can’t we do that even now? After passing the next throne to Tenueis, I mean.”

And Louise decided to put that hypothetical “what if” into action. Rondimio wanted to ask how that would work, but Louise’s words were so serious that he couldn’t.

Rondimio knew better than anyone how difficult it was to change reality.

“But we are now the emperor and empress of Araceli.”

“We weren’t at first. We never thought we would be, but here we are.”

“That’s true, but……”

“There must be a way. Even if there isn’t, I’ll find one.”

At that moment, Rondimio discovered that Louise’s mint-green eyes were sparkling and shining more brightly than ever before.

With the confidence that she would soon find that way.

“I’m not saying we should leave right away. Around the time Tenueis comes of age… I think all your past life memories will have returned by then. Including the memory of me forgiving you.”

With those final words, Louise flopped down beside him. The splendid dress that only the noble empress could wear got dirty, but that didn’t matter much.

She didn’t want to live well for others to see. Because she shouldn’t.

* * *

After that day, Louise and Rondimio began to live diligently in a different sense.

They made Tenueis, who had not been officially revealed, known to all people of Araceli and officially made him a member of the imperial family with the second right of succession to the throne.

Although they couldn’t hold imperial banquets often for fear that the young Dallin might be in danger, they tried their best to let the child enjoy the life of a “precious princess” that she had longed for.

In addition, they occasionally visited the seaside village that the child loved, formally introduced Rondimio to Lorella, and painted oil paintings like before.

Rondimio spent time with Tenueis, who would unofficially inherit the next throne, day and night, while Louise spent her days making apologies that Rondimio couldn’t complete.

And then, after several years had passed.

One day, like any other, Rondimio, who had fallen asleep after complaining of pain, immediately embraced Louise as soon as he woke up.

“My memories have finally returned. The memory of the day Your Highness forgave me.”

“It must have been a long time.”

Louise, who had been sleeping with him on the large emperor’s bed, tightly embraced Rondimio, who was sweating coldly.

Too much time had passed, indeed. Seeing how all the past things had become dull, forgotten, and newly emerged.

“But, the fact that you forgave me isn’t what’s important.”

Louise flinched at Rondimio’s informal speech, which she hadn’t heard for a very long time.

Of course, Louise couldn’t have easily forgiven him. It was a forgiveness she spat out after stabbing a poisoned sword into his heart, saying forgiveness would be unnecessary after death.

“How about we agree to forgive each other now? Oh, but don’t misunderstand. We will only forgive each other. We can’t forgive other people.”

Louise, trying to smile, offered a new forgiveness to Rondimio today.

Even if others couldn’t, Louise could forgive Rondimio, even if he didn’t particularly want it.

“Let this forgiveness be the first. I can’t accept the forgiveness from our past life.”

Rondimio erased all traces of the past dream as if it had never happened and helped Louise, who had woken up, with her hair.

And the moment he touched the strings of Louise’s negligee to change clothes, Louise stopped him.

“And about our long-held wish. We can fulfill it after Tenueis’s coming-of-age ceremony, right?”

Our wish, namely, was to run away to a place where no one knew us and live quietly.

Very long ago, it was something the two of them wished for, and now, their lovely Dallin would join us too.

Of course, all the choices about the future had been finalized, but if their lovely Dallin had wanted to remain here, the two might have somehow maintained their positions.

‘As long as I can live with Mom and Dad, anything is fine!’

But thankfully, Dallin had followed the two’s wishes over the past few years, so they didn’t have to make a new choice.

“I’ll prepare without any hitches. My lovely princess.”

Rondimio smiled as he reverently kissed the top of Louise’s platinum hair.

Fulfilling their wish now depended on completing a specific decision. Namely, on the day Tenueis came of age.

It involved Tenueis staging a rebellion, making it appear as if he had killed Rondimio, the current emperor, along with his beloved family, and then ascending to the throne as the new emperor—just as Rondimio had done to everyone long ago.

* * *

Time passed swiftly without stopping, and the day of Tenueis’s coming of age approached.

Louise and Rondimio, celebrating their nephew’s coming of age—he who now officially held the second right of succession—were attacked by that very nephew on that day.

Yet in the palace, now turned into a battlefield, Louise and Rondimio looked more serene than anyone else, even as Dallin clung to the hem of Louise’s dress.

“Tenueis promised to burn all traces of us. Marquis Est and Head Maid Belka, who will become Tenueis’s people, will take care of it.”

“Thank you so much for looking after us until the end.”

Louise smiled and looked towards the emperor’s palace where Tenueis would be. She was so grateful and sorry to that child, and to Dallin by her side.