Just the sight of her child’s face ached in her chest.

“I’m sorry, Eve.”

At an age when she should have only known joy, the girl had endured far too much. Luise felt sorry for her time and time again.

So she spent more time with her. For the first time, she took her daughter to the markets in Faradel. She listened intently to the child’s curious chatter. Wanting Eve to ride again, Luise even secured Giselle’s permission for her to spend time on a small pony.

There was more, too. They baked cookies together and painted with the expensive colors that Luise had obtained.

“Look, Mommy!”

Eve proudly held up her picture. The lines were crooked, but the round faces and square bodies, the eyes, nose, and mouth were all recognizable.

“This is you holding my hand. This is Daddy. And this one’s the bad uncle!”

In the child’s drawing, not only Eclace but also Shed was included. Eve had drawn him quite large, perhaps because his tall frame and fierce presence loomed over her. Yet to Luise’s eyes, he looked almost like a protector standing guard over the family.

She looked at the drawing for a long time, grateful that Shed had found his way into it. Somehow, it eased her heart to know her daughter had grown closer to her father—though she had never told Eve the truth.

The chance to speak it had slipped by again and again. Three days had passed. Every time Eve laughed while playing, or rubbed her eyes sleepily, Luise’s lips refused to part. And the precious hours rushed by.

She had thought to tell the truth when she saw Shed again, to use his presence as the reason. But…

Luise watched her sleeping daughter, lost in thought. Shed had not appeared since that day. Instead, the echo of his final words lingered in her mind.

“I won’t let it end like this.”

The memory of his voice burned through her, leaving her stung with heat. She knew well enough. His vow was nothing more than a futile wish.

No matter how he fought it, this had to end.

‘Shed.’

With what little time remained, after Eve, he was the one she most longed to be with.

But Luise suppressed that selfish desire.

‘…I will leave, but he must go on living.’

She didn’t want to have any regrets. She didn’t want to burden him with the lingering traces of her longing. If she had insisted on leaving, it would have been unforgivable to seek him out first and tell him she wanted to see him.

This, too, was a kind of farewell.

Instead, she simply looked quietly at Eve’s sleeping face, which was so much like Shed’s. In the still night air, the child’s breathing seemed to breathe quiet happiness into life itself.

But soon, as though mocking that fleeting joy, the pain came crashing down upon her.

“Ugh…!”

Luise jerked upright. The sharp pain from the curse that had been carved into her wrist surged through her entire body. Her veins pulsed violently.

Dark veins rose across her pale face. She curled up into a ball, trembling in a cold sweat. Blood welled from her bitten lip, which felt as though it might tear away.

She clung desperately to her fading consciousness. If she lost it, the power would burst free and become uncontrollable.

“Cough—cough!”

She pressed her sleeve to her lips and coughed up dark, blood-tinged phlegm. Waves of pain crashed through her repeatedly until, finally, they began to subside.

Exhausted, she slumped against the wall, gasping for air.

The room was shrouded in darkness, illuminated only by faint moonlight slanting through the window.

Suddenly, she longed for Shed. She wanted to hold him. She wanted to hear the sound of his breathing.

When the tremors finally eased, Luise forced herself unsteadily to her feet. Thankfully, Eve was still sleeping soundly, oblivious to her mother’s struggle.

Luise tore her gaze from her daughter’s face. It was time to prepare. To prepare to leave Eve behind.

In the dark, she felt her way to the desk and lit a small lamp. Its faint glow spread across the wood without disturbing Eve’s sleep.

She took some paper from the drawer and picked up a pen.

Her hands trembled, so she pressed down harder to steady them.

Then, in the neatest handwriting she could manage, she began to write the first line:

[To my beloved Eve.]

Luise had spent countless hours wondering how she could explain this farewell to her daughter.

Eve was far too young to understand any of it. Telling her that her mother would be trapped in an endless death would have been too cruel. At the very least, Luise wished she could stay by Eve’s side until she could accept such a long farewell.

And so she lied again.

[My dear daughter, are you living well and healthy? Mommy is safe, traveling with the priests.]

A journey. A clumsy, awkward excuse. But Luise hoped that Eve might believe it, if only for a little while. After all, her daughter was used to Eclace being away on long sea voyages, so she would probably believe that her mother had gone on one, too.

[Eve, today Mommy ate a delicious crêpe. I wished so much you could have had one with me. Do you remember, at the festival, when we ate crêpes together?]

She filled the letter with memories. Happy times that she had shared with Eve. She wanted her daughter to hold on to those memories and always remember them. She wished that only the happy moments with Mommy would remain.

Then Luise asked her child.

[Eve, what did you eat today?]

What kind of life would she be living on the day she read these words? What would she see and feel as she went about her days?

Luise raised her head and gazed at the child asleep on the bed. Such an ordinary scene of life. The thought that she would no longer be able to witness even these small moments of Eve’s life made her pen feel unbearably heavy.

[What do you play these days? Do you have good friends? You’re not sick, are you?]

Her hand trembled as she wrote. She was so curious about Eve, whom she would never meet. What games would her older child like to play? How tall would she grow?

Would the temple still honor its promise by the time this letter reached her? Would Eve be treated cruelly somewhere without her? Would anyone be left to protect her?

[I only want you to be happy, always.]

‘Will you… truly be happy?’

Questions spilled endlessly, questions for which there could never be an answer.

At last, Luise set down the pen.

It was not a letter for Eve at all, but a letter filled only with her own lingering regrets.

‘I don’t want to leave your side. I want to see you grow, to watch more of your days. I want to know what makes you laugh, and why you cry. When the world turns its back on you, I want to be the one who stays, to lend you my shoulder to lean on…’

She tore the long, rambling letter into pieces and threw them onto the fire. The words, filled with longing, burned away into white ash.

Then she took a fresh sheet of paper, picked up her pen, and wrote quietly and simply:

[I love you, Eve. Always.]

🌺⟡───⟡🌺 🌺⟡───⟡🌺

“Sir Hedrick. Where is the lord?”

At Carlisle’s question, Hedrick let out a long sigh and shook his head.

“He left nothing but orders to prepare against Gelevan and then vanished without a trace…”

Hedrick muttered as he stared at the dry firewood stacked high in the storeroom.

“There’s somewhere I must go. Guard Faradel in my stead.”

It had been a almost week since Shed’s disappearance. Without a word of explanation, he had left Faradel behind, leaving only a promise that he would return within five days.

“What in the hell is he putting his body through this time…”

It happened almost immediately after the ordeal with Dietrich. As soon as the funeral rites were over and his senses returned, he pored over Dietrich’s journals and research through the night — and then vanished.

“D*mn it. I should have gone with him then.”

Carlisle cursed himself for failing to stay at his lord’s side. He remembered the anxious look that had crossed Shed’s face. He had looked like a man being pursued, restless and uneasy.

Carlisle knew well enough: whenever Shed wore that expression, he was driving himself past his limits.

‘What in the world is he fighting for…’

His fist clenched tight.

“Is His Lordship… not in Faradel?”

A soft, delicate voice came from the side.

They turned their heads and saw Luise Ideana standing there.

Both knights stiffened at once, their bodies going tense.

Seeing how they froze at her presence, Luise lowered her gaze. She knew they disliked her. She regretted speaking at all.

Nevertheless, she could not help but strain to listen when the conversation turned to Shed. She had not seen him once since that day.

“I’m sorry. I just…”

“…His Lordship is away at present.”

Just as she was about to run off, certain that she would receive no answer, Carlisle spoke up.

Luise blinked in surprise and looked up at him. She had never heard him speak so respectfully and courteously before.

“He left three days ago and has not yet returned. He didn’t tell us where he was going.”

Hedric, too, offered her the news with unusual kindness.

“I see…”

So that was why he hadn’t appeared.

Luise clenched the hem of her sleeve. Foolishly, she felt disappointed.

Those violet eyes, which had once fixated on her so desperately, painfully rose in her mind’s eye. She knew how deeply she had wounded him. That was why she lacked the courage to go to him herself. She had chosen to say goodbye; she could not allow herself to linger or leave room for weakness.

And yet, tonight of all nights, she missed him unbearably. It was suffocating. She had wandered around the mansion, hoping to stumble upon him, but to no avail.

“Miss Luise.”

It was Hedrick who spoke her name.

Hearing her old name spoken by someone else felt strange, and she lifted her head sharply.

She studied the faces of the two knights.

‘It’s all your fault.’

The harsh accusation Carlisle had made earlier echoed in her mind, drying her lips.

“It’s just… there are some things on our side that are a little uncomfortable. It’s a shame, really.”

If Hedrick had felt uneasy before, his feelings could only have intensified now. The mere presence of a heretic outlaw roaming freely in the Lord’s house was enough to unnerve people.

And yet—

“Thank you.”

The words that fell from Hedrick’s lips were the complete opposite of what she had expected.