“I think I haven’t been in my right mind for a very long time.”

“You weren’t in an environment where you could be in your right mind.”

“Now I feel like I’ll go mad thinking I can’t breathe without Diana by my side. Anxiety has completely consumed me.”

“……”

Jerome listened to him in silence.

He understood them both.

Lady Diana probably didn’t know the lord’s mother had been poisoned to death, so she must have executed a plan to definitively bring down Helena.

And the lord had collapsed too.

“What on earth do I need to do for her to be safe and happy?”

“You need to win.”

“Win.”

Jerome’s eyes gleamed coldly.

“You need to kill, crush, and cut down everything threatening Lady Diana, and win in the end. To the point where no one would even dare think of touching the wife of the great Calliope Aquitaine.”

“……”

“If that happens, Lady Diana will be safe. She won’t be constantly tense like walking on thin ice.”

Calliope pressed hard on his exhausted eyes.

The days when he could protect the territory just by bowing his head were over. If he bowed his head, Diana would have to kneel and smash her head on the ground. If he stepped back, Diana would face more humiliation.

So he had to cut down everything that made Diana unhappy. As quickly as possible. By any means necessary.

Calliope looked one last time toward Diana’s bedroom, then turned around.

“Jerome, prepare to leave for the capital.”

“What? Right now?”

Jerome jumped, but Calliope strode into the castle.

To strike the enemy’s head, he at least had to go to their den.

If that was Diana’s wish, he would gladly make sure to make it happen.

* * *

“The capital?”

Diana asked in confusion.

Jerome shrugged with a face that said he was dying not knowing what was going on either.

“Yes. Whatever wind blew through him, the lord said if Lady Diana is alright with it, he’d leave for the capital tomorrow.”

After thinking briefly, Diana nodded readily.

“The capital. Perfect timing. Tell him I’ll go with him.”

She’d been needing to visit the capital as soon as possible anyway to investigate the corruption in the knight promotion examination.

Helena wouldn’t have asked the emperor directly.

Though the emperor doted on Princess Beatrice and his image as an affectionate father was emphasized, he was still a brutal and selfish man.

His pride would never allow him to commit corruption directly, so this incident must have involved Helena bribing another noble. She needed to find who was behind it.

“What? Your body hasn’t fully recovered yet. If you push yourself, you might fall ill again.”

Jerome seemed to think differently and jumped up to dissuade her.

Someone who’d just woken up from drinking poison traveling all the way to the capital by carriage would strain their body considerably.

Diana stared at Jerome’s worried eyes, then spoke lightly.

“How strange. You’re worrying about me.”

“……”

Jerome’s words caught in his throat and he pressed his lips shut.

Diana glanced at Jerome, who’d grown serious at her light joke, and softened the atmosphere gently.

“Well, I suppose I’ve become useful enough to Aquitaine. Tell Callion I can leave anytime tomorrow.”

“Understood.”

Jerome left the room looking somewhat dazed.

Diana picked up the letter she’d been reading before Jerome entered.

The letter Eleonora left for her was quite thick. Most of it contained phrases of worry and concern for Diana.

‘I need to head straight to the capital. I’ll only be able to see Diana in the capital. I’ll be waiting for the day we meet soon.’

Among them were important pieces of information too.

‘I’ve gathered forces supporting Paenna’s independence and hidden them in Aquitaine’s relief facility. Please protect them well.’

“Ah, Jerome. Send a third of the budget allocated to me to the Aquitaine relief facility.”

“What? Then what about you, Lady Diana?”

“I’ll be fine. As long as I’m in the west, I won’t need to dress up except during the social season.”

Paenna.

The brilliant jeweled nation that collapsed in just a few days as a birthday gift for the princess.

Eleonora joined hands with Diana to make the fallen Paenna independent from the empire again.

Diana joined hands with the Paenna independence forces to protect Aquitaine from the imperial family and achieve her revenge.

“What benefit could Duke Scar’s house possibly have to make them move?”

It was something she hadn’t known in her previous life either. Even having lived one life, she’d been so useless.

Thinking back now, she’d been too weak, foolish, and afraid. So she hadn’t known much useful information.

“Even coming back in time, people are ultimately creatures of regret.”

Diana muttered to herself with a hollow feeling.

She sprawled in her chair and stared blankly at the ceiling.

The ornate ceiling with elegant patterns carved in blue.

Many things had definitely changed from the past. Yet whenever Diana had time like this, she was trapped by the past.

She traced and remembered the Calliope of the past, dredged up past wounds and tore them open again.

Then when regret washed over her for not learning more information back then, she’d end up tormenting herself with excessive self-blame.

It was a cycle.

Even though she’d clearly regretted it.

“I’d rather be frantically busy.”

Diana slowly closed her tired eyes.

When this revenge ended, would the fantasy shatter and she’d return to herself sinking beneath the lake?

If this was a dream, wouldn’t it be right to capture him in her eyes—him whom she’d longed for until her dying moment—for even one more instant, rather than revenge?

When she closed her eyes, she still missed him achingly.

She wasn’t afraid of ambushes or deadly poison.

But remembering his cold eyes and angry voice made her tremble with fear.

At this rate, wouldn’t being hated and divorced by the one she loved come faster than achieving revenge?

“I’m scared, Cal.”

Before falling asleep, Diana’s last murmur didn’t reach Calliope.

* * *

The carriage departed as soon as dawn broke. Inside were only Diana and Lien.

Calliope, who said to come to the capital after her body fully recovered, and Diana, who insisted on going together now, had clashed since dawn.

After arguing for a while, Calliope was the one who raised both hands in surrender.

He couldn’t break Diana’s stubbornness that if he didn’t take her, she’d go by hired carriage.

As a result, Diana boarded the carriage to the capital with her body not yet fully recovered.

Calliope had long since ridden his horse ahead.

Sensing the troubled atmosphere, Lien tried her best not to notice Diana’s stiff expression.

“Lien.”

“Yes, Lady Diana.”

“How do you see the relationship between the lord and me?”

At Diana’s question, Lien’s mouth opened and closed.

She couldn’t grasp what to answer. After deliberating, Lien gave an honest answer.

“I think you care for each other tremendously.”

“Care for…”

Diana’s eyes, which had been looking out the window, slowly moved to Lien.

“But I thought you both don’t understand each other.”

“Why did you think that?”

“Lady Diana would easily give your life for anything concerning the Marquis. And the Marquis is always anxious about losing Lady Diana.”

“Haha, Lien. You’re joking too much. Callion being anxious?”

Diana burst into light laughter. She seemed to think Lien’s words were just made up to comfort her.

Lien continued explaining in her characteristically calm manner.

“You might think that about the Marquis before, but he’s changed a lot.”

“……”

“But I felt Lady Diana has resistance or fear toward the Marquis’s changes.”

“Did I seem that way? That I’m afraid of Callion’s changes?”

Diana muttered with a slightly dazed face.

Resistance and fear.

Lately, it was true she’d felt fear beyond awkwardness, like he wasn’t the Calliope Aquitaine she knew.

Everything was changing little by little from what Diana knew. She couldn’t help but be anxious.

If she lost everything again, if she couldn’t protect it…

She was afraid of feeling those terrible emotions again. Diana was obsessively avoiding change.

She just never dreamed it showed outwardly.

Lien quietly observed Diana’s complexion. Fortunately, though she seemed somewhat shocked, she didn’t look angry.

After deliberating a bit, Lien spoke again.

“Even when the Marquis tried to do something for Lady Diana, you always drew a line.”

“Thank you. I didn’t think I’d seem that way. Actually, I thought you’d just say we seemed to have grown distant lately.”

“I think you two are the most blind and fierce of all forms of love I’ve ever seen. So perhaps you both feel you’re not receiving affection from each other?”

“Yes. You’re right.”

Diana nodded slightly.

Diana looked at Calliope with feelings close to blind devotion.

To call it love, it was closer to flames that would consume everything beyond warmth.

As for Calliope toward her—

‘Ah.’

She hadn’t thought about what emotions Calliope held or how he thought of her.

He was someone too busy with work to think about his wife.

Before time reversed, he was emotionless, so Diana had repeated hoping and being disappointed, harboring hope then despairing hundreds and thousands of times.

She was afraid. Of the disappointment and despair that would come later.

So Diana erased the very premise that Calliope might hold any affection for her.

“Lady Diana.”

“Mm?”

At Lien’s call, Diana raised her eyebrows gently and looked at her.

“As a resident of Aquitaine territory, if I may dare say, the Marquis isn’t someone who moves from sympathy or shallow emotions.”

Diana quietly looked into Lien’s clear eyes.

“Thank you.”

Diana smiled with upturned lips. Lien realized for the first time in this moment that a smile could look this sad.

Diana found it hard to agree with Lien’s words.

She couldn’t forget the voice she’d heard one night when she couldn’t sleep and happened to walk toward his study.

‘My lord. Shouldn’t the lady know too? I’m worried about your health. You’ve barely been sleeping lately.’

‘A noble lady from the capital raised delicately came to this barren place.’

‘Do you pity the lady?’

To Jerome’s words, he’d answered like this:

‘Pity. Perhaps. She’s experiencing unhappiness she didn’t need to experience.’

Despair swept over her.

She could have accepted hearing he didn’t love her.

She could have accepted hearing she wasn’t quite to his liking because she was incompetent.

But the one she loved—

Herself, who suffered inwardly wanting to show him her best side—

He pitied her.

He felt sorry for her.

Nothing was more miserable than that.

Pity was a death sentence in love.

Because pity could never become love.

What he gave her was kindness and consideration born from pity. That would be all.