There was no love.

All that remained for Asilri, who had lost her parents and her family at once, was a fiancé connected to her by nothing more than paperwork.

And even that had been forced on her without her input by Count Bliché, a man who had never once pushed his daughter into anything in his life.

[If House Bliché can no longer protect you, Renatus is the only one you can trust.]

But he could never have known that those words would become his final message to her.

Why the Count Bliché who had cherished Asilri so dearly had left her with words she could not understand.

[I brought this for you. I heard you like flowers.]

[It’s a lisianthus. My favorite flower. But why are you giving this to me……]

[The sudden news of Count and Countess Bliché’s passing is truly regrettable. Even so, our engagement will continue.]

[……What are you trying to say?]

[I mean that I will take you as my wife in earnest. No need to drag it out. We marry right away.]

Why the blood tyrant, called the brutal demon of the battlefield, had clung to Asilri so persistently in that moment of all moments.

Asilri had no idea.

[This relationship is already over. Why do you want to take me now, of all times?]

[I told you. I am the one who ends this. I have no intention of letting you go.]

[Do you truly…… love me?]

[……Who knows. Does a hollow marriage really need something like that?]

In truth, it was a terrible thing to bring up marriage to a woman who had just lost someone precious and stood at the edge of a cliff.

But knowing all of that, Asilri was the one who took Khalid’s hand.

[……Then make me a promise.]

[What kind?]

[That you will never abandon me. That you will not leave me alone…… the way my parents did.]

[……I promise. As long as you carry the Renatus name, I will never abandon you.]

Until that point, she had believed it.

That Khalid would protect Asilri.

That Asilri would be safe under Renatus.

Right up until she married Khalid.

No. Right up until he rejected her on their very first night together.

Worried that people would gossip about a couple who had not even consummated their wedding night, she gathered her courage and reached out to Khalid, but all she received in return was cold indifference.

[Let me be clear. I will not be able to meet your expectations.]

[Is that really what you say on the first night of marriage?]

[Well. I thought it better than letting you hold onto false hope.]

Rejected by her husband on their very first night, Asilri was thoroughly neglected by him from that point on.

Khalid gave Asilri nothing of what a duchess deserved.

On the rare occasions Asilri worked up the courage to approach Khalid, he would coldly push her away without fail.

Trapped beneath a cold and cheerless shadow, Asilri felt more alone than she had even in the moment she lost her parents.

On the day that marked half a year of withering away under Khalid’s indifference and cold treatment, Asilri finally broke.

“I’ve been called up as supreme commander for the imperial war. It will likely be a long fight.”

“……What do you mean?”

“Don’t wait for me. It will only make things hard for you.”

Khalid stripped away even the thin hope that he might return.

“Khalid, why on earth…… What am I supposed to do, what is Renatus supposed to do……”

“Do whatever you want. Consider it your chance to have everything you couldn’t while I was here.”

“How am I supposed to, without you……”

I came here trusting only in you.

I came trusting in that one promise, that you would never abandon me, that you would stay by my side.

Khalid walked toward Asilri, who stood drained, looking as though she had lost everything.

Watching him approach, she foolishly let herself feel a flicker of hope.

That Khalid still held some lingering attachment to her.

“Live like you’ve forgotten someone like me.”

But that was Asilri’s terrible mistake.

Khalid’s red eyes flashed fiercely, and Asilri felt something drop heavily inside her chest.

“However, I cannot allow you to leave Renatus.”

“……”

“Remember this, Asilri. You are my wife.”

“……Khalid.”

“The Renatus that follows your name belongs to me.”

And yet the person who knows that is leaving me here alone.

Unable to get the words out in the end, Asilri could only watch her husband leave.

Who could have known that a newlywed couple, at the height of what should have been their happiest days, would end in separation.

No, perhaps everyone had seen it coming.

There was no one who did not know that the relationship between the Duke and Duchess of Renatus had been heading toward its worst.

Everyone knew well that the duchess, a wife in name only, would have to shoulder the vast Renatus estate alone.

And so Asilri Renatus was left behind, alone.

* * *

After that, two years passed.

Much had changed over those two years, but Asilri, standing at the center of it all, had not changed at all.

[Live like you’ve forgotten someone like me. However, I cannot forgive you for leaving Renatus.]

Bound to the moment Khalid left, Asilri could not even bring herself to think about leaving Renatus, and she faded away day by day.

That night was no different from any other. Asilri spent another lonely evening as she always did.

If there was one thing different from usual…… it was that today was Asilri’s birthday.

She had not entertained the thought that her husband might return just because it was her birthday.

“My, my. Still waiting desperately for a husband who won’t come, even tonight?”

“……W, who are you?”

“How sad. A long wait ending in a lonely death.”

But she had not known that a visitor would come calling in the night for a duchess who had been cast aside.

“……Ah.”

A sharp blade drove cruelly through Asilri’s lower abdomen.

Hot blood still poured from where the sword had pierced her, and a pain so intense she could not even scream crashed over her.

A dark shadow stepped heavily over Asilri as she crumpled to the floor.

Red lips beneath a hood curved into a smooth arc and let out a satisfied laugh.

“Did you trust Khalid Renatus? That cold, cruel man?”

The man wrapped his hand gently around the sword’s hilt and looked down at Asilri with a cynical gaze.

“Think carefully. Who was it that locked you in that lonely, cold shadow.”

The man tightened his grip on the sword.

“Why it is that you have to die this miserably right now.”

The man’s voice, seeping through her fading consciousness, was damnably seductive.

The one who had locked her in that lonely, cold place, that was……

[Let me be clear. I will not be able to meet your expectations.]

Her husband. Khalid Renatus.

Khalid had locked Asilri here, and because of that, she was suffering this cruel fate.

If it had not been for Khalid……

“That’s right. Everything is because of him.”

“……Because of Khalid.”

“If you want to resent someone, resent Khalid Renatus, who brought this heartless moment upon you.”

The moment Asilri wavered, the man pulled the sword from her abdomen without hesitation.

“Ah, aaagh!”

Asilri cried out in agony and her weakened body struggled pitifully.

“House Bliché is truly finished now. You survived remarkably long. Didn’t you?”

“……Urgh.”

“If not for Khalid, you could have gone with less suffering. How pitiful.”

The man shook the blood from his sword without a care and muttered as though speaking to Asilri.

The man shook the blood carelessly from his sword and muttered under his breath, as if to Asilri.

“It would have been easier for you if you had died alongside Count and Countess Bliché.”

The moment the man spoke those familiar names in his cold, mocking voice, Asilri’s motionless body trembled faintly.

Even as her consciousness grew dim and began to slip away, the man’s words reached her clearly.

‘This person killed my parents……?’

In that instant, Asilri’s fading consciousness sharpened ever so slightly.

Asilri tried, too late, to move her body as it continued to lose strength.

But her body, which had already lost all feeling, no longer obeyed her.

“Dear me. Far too late to grasp such a harsh truth.”

“……Hh.”

“I suppose I should thank you for being foolish enough to stay locked away in Renatus. It made everything go so smoothly.”

As Asilri fought back desperately even from within a pool of her own blood, the man looked at her with an expression of curiosity.

“Happy birthday, Asilri Bliché.”

“Ugh, urgh……”

“The best and worst birthday gift, isn’t it?”

Asilri could not tell whether the hot liquid running down her cheek was her own blood or tears that had no business falling now.

“Rest easy, then.”

“……”

“Asilri Renatus.”

The man crushed even her faint will and mocked her before finally leaving that place steeped in cruelty.

Bliché and Renatus.

Asilri had barely begun to turn over the two names she carried when a low sob finally broke from her.

“Hk, hhh……”

It hurt. It hurt so much.

Her abdomen, run through by a sharp blade.

The truth about her parents’ deaths, learned far too late.

The resentment born from that cruel reality found its end pointed squarely at Khalid.

‘It’s because of Khalid.’

If not for Khalid, I……

“……Asilri.”

In that moment, a voice she had been forcing herself to forget cut through her anguished m*ans.

Then a somewhat rough pair of hands gathered Asilri’s frail body into their arms.

“Urgh!”

“D*mn it, get a physician! Now!”

Asilri, gasping for breath, forced her head up with great effort.

Even through her blurred vision, she recognized the man holding her in an instant.

There was only one man in the world with red eyes that stood in such stark contrast to his deep black hair, a man as cruel and cold as they came.

“Kha, lid……”

……At least, that was true for Asilri alone.