Claire watched Leandro’s retreating figure.

He had come to clear up a misunderstanding—yet perhaps he had only made things worse by adding unnecessary words.

“…I left him like that. Of course he must hate me. He might come to hate you as well. That shouldn’t happen… you’ve done nothing wrong. But it would be better for him to hate me… I’m going to die soon anyway.”

Larne was worried that Leandro might hate her.

And yet, at the same time, she had secretly hoped that he would.

Since returning from the Borderlands, she had grown weaker by the day.

She was sleeping for longer and longer periods, and there were more and more days when her mind seemed clouded and unfocused.

Seeing her in such an unstable state made Claire feel as though something inside him was burning away.

It was as if his heart were drying out and rotting.

“I’m… being punished. My parents died because of me. I was greedy….”

All Claire wished for was for Larne to enjoy a single day of peace.

Despite knowing that she was going to die soon, she spent every day worrying about other people and blaming herself.

It was painful to witness.

“What can I do for you?”

She looked so fragile and close to breaking that she seemed as though she might collapse at any moment.

It felt as if she had no attachment left to the life she still had.

Yet, whenever clarity returned to her eyes, she said the same thing.

“Do not like me.”

That cut deeper than anything.

“…I’m glad you’re by my side. You’re too sensible to look forward to the day I die.”

“…Just… pity me.”

It hurt to have her feelings rejected before they could even begin, but Claire forced a smile.

He knew that was what Larne truly wanted. That he would never love her. And that Leandro wouldn’t suffer too much.

“Perhaps… if Leandro had known I was going to die soon, he would never have loved me.”

On the day that autumn arrived in the Atrice territory, Larne finally fell into a deep sleep.

Since then, Claire had not seen her open her eyes once. And yet, he could not bring himself to return to the capital.

Larne lay on the bed, breathing slowly and steadily as though she might open her eyes if someone called her name softly. With her eyes closed, she looked peaceful.

This was different from the faint, fragile smile she had once worn — the kind that seemed as though it might shatter at the slightest touch.

Now, she looked almost serene.

Claire struggled to know how to begin the letter. He had already thrown away more than ten drafts, unable to write even the first line. Like someone who had forgotten how to speak, he was at a complete loss for words.

After more than a week had passed without sending a letter to Deron, news arrived that he intended to come to the territory himself.

Claire closed his eyes for a moment, then slowly picked up his pen again.

If Deron came to the territory, it would throw the estate into unrest — something that Larne would never have wanted.

With her sunk in such a deep sleep, there was no longer any reason for him to stay.

Yet he could not bring himself to leave her side.

He wrote in the letter that he would return to the imperial capital and explain everything in person.

There was no reply from Deron or Aria. Instead, a letter arrived from the butler, informing him that they had both shut themselves away in their rooms.

In accordance with Larne’s wishes, no funeral was held.

After all, she was not dead.

She was still breathing.

She might open her eyes again someday.

Like a man clinging to the faintest thread of hope, Claire refused to accept Larne’s death.

She was just asleep.

That’s what he told himself.

He had meant to clear up Leandro’s misunderstanding, clinging to the hope that Larne might one day wake up again.

However, when he finally stood face to face with Leandro, he was overcome with an inexplicable sense of inferiority.

Was it because he was standing before the man about whom Larne had been more concerned than she had been about her, even when she had been on the brink of death?

Without meaning to, he said things that only served to deepen the misunderstanding.

It was ugly, but seeing Leandro misread their relationship gave him a brief, shameful sense of satisfaction.

Yet that was never what Larne had wanted.

Realizing this too late, Claire hurried after him.

“Sir—there is something you have misunderstood.”

He caught Leandro by the shoulder and turned him around.

“I have nothing further to say to you. This is unpleasant.”

Leandro’s face twisted with pain.

He looked like a man who was beyond words.

Seeing this, Claire was rendered speechless.

He felt ashamed — ashamed for acting as though he had any rightful place in this matter.

Truthfully, he was in no position to comment on Larne’s death or her heart.

“…I was following the duke’s orders when I—”

Claire trailed off and closed his mouth.

Leandro looked at him for a moment, then turned away.

***

Leandro could not bring himself to enjoy the banquet.

Even here, he felt trapped by her lingering presence.

At the start of the evening, lots of people came up to him to congratulate him. However, sensing the tension in his demeanor, they gradually withdrew.

Leandro lowered his gaze to his wineglass.

He kept drinking.

By the time he had finished more than two bottles of wine, someone finally spoke to him.

“Excuse me.”

For a moment, he thought he was seeing things.

It felt as though Larne herself was standing before him.

He had once superimposed her face onto Aria’s.

Now, the reversal seemed almost laughable.

But the most laughable thing was himself.

He could not take his eyes off Aria, who resembled Larne so closely.

“What is it?”

“Would you… speak with me for a moment?”

Leandro tightened his grip on the wine glass.

Without saying a word, he followed her.

The imperial garden was quiet.

Once they had gone further in, Leandro slowly parted his lips.

“When did you know?”

It was a question that had lost all meaning.

Yet perhaps he wanted to hear an answer that no longer mattered because he wanted to be told that the Larne of old had loved him.

How foolish.

Aria hesitated, then spoke carefully.

“From the beginning.”

“So the sisters deceived me together.”

A bitter smile curved Leandro’s lips.

“Was it amusing?”

“I never meant to make a fool of you.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me the truth from the beginning? If you had confessed early on that the person I met at the masquerade ball wasn’t you, things wouldn’t have become this disastrous.”

Aria hesitated as she looked at him.

“Rene didn’t want you… to like her.”

Leandro frowned at the unexpected answer.

He could not understand what she meant by that.

When he lifted his head, he saw that Aria was crying.

“…Why.”

He almost asked why, but then bit his lip instead.

He wanted to know.

And yet, he didn’t.

Because once he knew, there would be no going back.

“Rene liked you—”

He had brought up the past because he wanted to hear that the Larne of those days had liked him. But now, suddenly, he did not want to hear it anymore.

“I’m not curious. She’s a stranger to me now.”

Leandro cut her off sharply.

He had wanted to hear that she once loved him.

But hearing those words spoken from someone else’s mouth felt entirely different.

‘Liked.’

That past tense alone stirred something dark and unbearable within him.

‘That can’t be.’

An unfamiliar dread rippled violently through his chest.

“I said I’m not curious.”

Why, at the sight of Aria weeping, had the thought suddenly struck him—

‘What if Larne is dead?’

“It was nothing more than a cruel joke meant to mock me. I’ll think of it as nothing beyond that. I have no desire to dwell on a woman who no longer has anything to do with me.”

That couldn’t be true.

Larne had said herself that she would not die.

“Why would I die? Who even dies from a chronic illness?”

“How could everything she said have been a lie?”

Leandro muttered bitterly to himself.

When he returned to the banquet hall, the dazzling lights blurred before his eyes. His gaze was caught by the glittering chandelier above him, and he felt a wave of nausea rise within him.

He remembered the moment everything had begun again: Larne, standing beneath the brightest light, as if she were holding all the darkness to herself. Larne, who so often fell ill and retreated to her bed.

Why did these seemingly insignificant memories pierce his heart only now?

He felt as though he were losing his sanity.

Fleeing from something, he left the palace.

When he reached the estate—

— it, too, was filled with traces of Larne.