—No. No. This isn’t right.

Freia couldn’t approach Ian, who had collapsed horribly after being pierced by a sword. Restrained by soldiers, she thrashed about as if she had truly become a witch, crying, crying, and crying again.

—No. These people shouldn’t die like this. They’re innocent people.

“Something” began to think. For the first time, this entity that had merely been observing, blended into the sky, wind, water, and sun, formed its own thoughts.

To this “something,” this was merely a dream. The past of a witch who had brought a year of calamity. Someone else’s past. It should have been completely unrelated to itself, yet “something” felt a pain like a knife carving into its chest.

“No, no, no”, the “something” continued to mutter, half out of its mind, when suddenly it felt an eerie sense of dissonance. In this world, it was merely an observing entity. It had no physical form. It only observed the passage of time while blended with the air, sun, and clouds.

But at some point, its voice, which clearly shouldn’t exist, was coming through its ears. The body curled up with hands clutching its head was definitely its own. It was still wearing the same nightclothes it had fallen asleep in.

Something, no, Snow staggered to her feet and looked around. It was still the dreamscape. The sensation of dry, scratchy soil and ash pressing against her feet felt vivid. Ian Nigritia lay fallen, bleeding. The burning mansion was… the mansion was… the mansion?

The flames that had been surging like a demon’s throat were now frozen as if artificially halted. The smoke that had been climbing the sky was suspended in place.

Something was strange.

Nothing moved. People who had been groaning on the ground, soldiers who had been aiming at Ian—all were eerily frozen like soulless dolls. Even the flow of air had stopped, creating a suffocating feeling with each movement, like wading through water.

Everything had stopped as if by some lie. Snow gazed at the completely halted world with her rippling silver eyes, as if it had been abandoned by God.

She thought she was the only one who could move freely in this desolate world. But soon, through her tear-blurred vision, Snow saw something twitch.

She roughly wiped away the tears that obscured her vision with the back of her hand. In this desperate and bizarrely strange dream, another impossible thing was happening.

What moved before Snow’s eyes had very lightly freed itself from the stone-like grip of two knights. Tear tracks remained clearly on her cheeks, just like Snow’s. Emerald eyes undulated with sadness. She approached the fallen Ian with butterfly-like graceful steps.

It was Freia.

Freia walked very slowly. Snow watched the scene, gripped by maddening sorrow. She kept muttering, “No, this isn’t right.” When she was about two steps away from her brother, Freia stopped in her tracks. Then she turned her head.

Freia looked directly at Snow. Her gaze was so explicit that it couldn’t possibly be directed at anything else.

Freia approached the crying Snow. Snow looked up at Freia with an expression of unbearable agony. Despite the deep sorrow in her emerald eyes, Freia’s expression was rigidly frozen. She looked like someone without emotions. The woman who had been screaming and wailing just moments ago now wore an empty face.

Freia stretched out both hands. And she embraced the despairing Snow fully in her arms. A lukewarm sensation. Snow buried her face in this perfect comfort she had never felt before. It felt like finding and perfectly fitting a lost piece of herself. It was completely different from the fluttering emotion she felt when embraced by El. It was incomparable to the warmth she felt in the arms of Ceres Martadia or Arianne.

“This is not a dream,” Freia whispered in Snow’s ear.

“…If not a dream, then what is it?” Snow weakly asked in return.

Freia, looking like a withered flower, said, “The past of the Akelan Empire. The past of the Nigritia Ducal family. My past. And simultaneously, your past.”

It was difficult to understand. Snow asked Freia, “Who are you?”

With tear stains dried on her face, Freia smiled faintly. It wasn’t a smile that showed any happiness.

“I am Freia. The witch Freia, and simultaneously the saint Freia. It seems no one recognized me until the end.”

Freia’s laughter rang quietly. She continued, “I am Freia. I am your past, and also your present. I am you, and you are me.”

Snow, still confused, trembled with her small shoulders. Freia pressed her dirty, tear-stained cheek against Snow’s clean, white one. Freia’s clothes, covered in ash and stained, rubbed against Snow’s soap-scented nightclothes. Freia tightly embraced Snow with her frail arms.

“Recognize me. Recognize me.”

Freia whispered. Why was it? Though it was clearly Freia’s voice entering Snow’s ears, Snow felt as if Freia’s voice was a resentment resonating from deep within her own body. Freia spoke again, more quietly and secretly.

“Only you can understand me.”

“…Only I can understand you?”

Snow painfully repeated Freia’s words, as if crushed. Tears that she thought had stopped flowed again down her clean cheeks.

Despair. Lamentation. Sorrow. Pity. Depression. Pain. Fear. Anxiety. And anger. At that moment, an enormous mass of emotions surged like a tsunami, threatening to break Snow apart.

Snow, choking for breath, firmly grasped Freia’s shoulders with both hands.

“Ugh, I, I, uuugh.”

—Ikanel, I cannot forgive you.

“You are pure, white snow,” Freia whispered in the ear of Snow, who was suffering and crying.

“You are the noble Saint Bernadette.”

—You. Your world.

Snow, unable to say anything, buried her face in Freia’s chest and sobbed. Suddenly, her head began to ache terribly. The words that Freia had spat out, filled with hatred as she lay alone on the prison floor growing cold, were buzzing in her head.

“You are the reincarnation of the witch Freia who caused the Year of Calamity.”

—Even myself who loved you.

“And you are.”

Emotion finally appeared on Freia’s face. As if she couldn’t bear the pity. Like looking at a dying young creature.

“You are…”

She murmured something while gently combing Snow’s hair with her hand as Snow wailed as if losing her mind. But Snow couldn’t hear it. That part was particularly blurry, as if the voice had been forcibly cut out.

—So I probably won’t be able to close my eyes, even in death.

“So I probably won’t be able to, huk, close my eyes, even in death.”

Snow spat out in a broken voice. Receiving Freia’s despair, pain, and anger directly, Snow finally realized.

Perhaps she had known since the moment she began dreaming Freia’s dream.

Freia was soon to be Saint Snow.

—So I probably won’t be able to close my eyes, even in death.

“I am Snow, Saint Bernadette, and also.”

Snow painfully uttered. As if sensing what would follow those words, Freia finally smiled with genuine sadness.

“I am Freia Nigritia.”

Freia was Snow’s past. The moment Snow acknowledged this, she also became Snow’s present.

♣ ♣ ♣

It was a night when the blood-red full moon shone eerily.

“Ikanel. I cannot forgive you.”

A hoarse, cracked voice crawled weakly across the cold stone floor. She lay collapsed, giggling.

There was no comedy more absurd than what had happened to her in this world. A tiny mouse crawled over her body, but she had no strength left to chase it away.

“You. Your world. Even myself who loved you. I cannot forgive any of it.”

She knew no one was listening, but she recited it like a monologue. She knew she would soon die. Her body was already numb. There was nothing new to fear. Only, for the last time, she suddenly wanted to see the sky.

She stared blankly through the iron bars of the small window with unfocused eyes. The abnormally bright red moon was captured in her eyes for the last time. She smiled a bitter smile.

Something beyond her faded green eyes blinked out. Finally, she thought:

‘So I probably won’t be able to close my eyes, even in death.’

At the very end, she recalled the beautiful garden she had visited just once when she was very young. She suddenly realized where it was and for what purpose it existed.

Where the world begins and where the world ends. A place where eternal peace and eternal loneliness coexist.

Her soul, rotted and broken by suffering, returned to that garden. With each step she took, the flowers beneath her feet withered black like her heart. She walked aimlessly. Walking, walking, and walking more, she arrived at a lake emitting a strange light.