“Ikanel. Why did you do that to me? Why did you do that to my brother? There was no need to go that far. Ikanel. Ikanel. Ikanel!”

“Saint. Saint!”

Ikanel suddenly approached to support Snow as she staggered. His hand touched the Saint’s body. At that moment, Snow became Freia again. No, from the beginning, Snow had been Freia and Freia had been Snow.

The Saint’s eyes instantly grew cold again. Ikanel sensed danger and tried to hastily back away, but the Saint firmly gripped Ikanel’s arm with one hand. From the spot where she held him, ice began to form with a crackling sound.

“Ugh.”

Ikanel groaned and hurriedly pulled his arm away from the Saint. It was cold and stinging. Fortunately, thanks to quickly withdrawing his arm, he didn’t seem to be seriously injured. The familiar whirlwind began to rage around the Saint again.

“I am Freia Nigritia.”

“What?”

It was something impossible to understand immediately despite hearing it with his own ears, so Ikanel asked again. The Saint spoke distinctly.

“I am Freia Nigritia, who caused the One Year Calamity.”

“But you are clearly Saint Bernadette.”

“Saint Bernadette is Freia Nigritia. They are the same person.”

Ikanel’s mind became confused.

“How… could that be possible? Freia Nigritia clearly… died.”

He asked. The Saint raised her eyebrows slightly and tilted her head.

“Well. As you say, I certainly died. And then I was reborn. Ironically, I, who was called a witch, became a Saint admired by the entire nation. Perhaps the Goddess Amir took pity on me.”

This was nonsense. This was neither a miracle nor anything else. It was beyond the realm of miracles. For Freia Nigritia to be reborn as Saint Bernadette. Ikanel had never experienced such a strange and frightening emotion in his life.

What stood before his eyes was truly Freia Nigritia. The one who died 20 years ago, whom his father, the previous Emperor, had personally branded a witch, and whom he had once passionately loved. That very Freia Nigritia. Freia who had poisoned him and tried to kill him.

Poisoned him, she said. Did Freia really…?

“F…reia.”

Ikanel finally acknowledged the Saint before him as Freia.

“It was clearly you who poisoned my cup.”

His voice trembled slightly. Even as he said that it was clearly you who poisoned it, he was no longer certain.

“It wasn’t me.”

The Saint, Freia, coldly retorted.

For something that happened more than 20 years ago, if she now claimed she wasn’t the culprit, then what did that make Ikanel? Because Ikanel had collapsed after drinking the poison Freia had put in, he had finally let her go and attacked the House of Nigritia. Everything started from that incident. But if she hadn’t poisoned it…!

Freia seemed to observe Ikanel’s reaction with interest for a moment. She tilted her head and surveyed the large, desolate room with her eyes. She seemed to be scanning the memories etched within, the traces of time.

She suddenly giggled.

“Yes. Indeed, it’s not an idle statement.”

She laughed more loudly. Eventually, she held her stomach and cackled.

“It truly wasn’t you who poisoned the cup. But it wasn’t me either.”

“…”

Ikanel stared bewilderedly at the Saint who was laughing grotesquely.

“Not me, and not you. Not my father or brother either. Then who could have poisoned you?”

The Saint asked. Ikanel found her gaze very familiar, yet at the same time, very strange.

“You collapsed after drinking the poison. But it wasn’t enough poison to kill you. The poison you drank provided justification to attack the House of Nigritia. In the end, the House of Nigritia was exterminated, and the imperial family regained absolute power. In this ridiculous story, who do you think benefited the most?”

The one who benefited the most. Ikanel could now understand what had happened 20 years ago.

“Are you saying my father arranged it?”

It felt as if his heart was turning cold. Indeed, it was his father, the previous Emperor, who had encouraged him to invite Freia to the imperial palace. At that time, blinded by betrayal, he hadn’t thought about it, but it was worth considering that the poison he drank wasn’t a lethal dose. If the intention had truly been to kill him, the amount of poison wouldn’t have been so ambiguous as to allow him to regain consciousness.

“You don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to. It’s a matter of decades ago, what does the truth matter now?”

The Saint spoke with an intentionally light tone. As she said, now the truth is known only to those directly involved. There’s no way to prove that it was his father’s doing.

But Ikanel acknowledged it. It was indeed his father’s doing. With just a little thought, there were many suspicious points. It was to the extent that he wondered why he hadn’t noticed before—all circumstances proved Freia’s innocence.

Ikanel had been so preoccupied with the fact that Freia had tried to kill him that he had closed both his eyes and ears. He hadn’t tried to see the truth. If what he had known all along was actually a lie, he wouldn’t have been able to bear it, especially after destroying her so thoroughly.

The result is this. An empire in a blizzard, a calamity, and Freia laughing like a witch, hating him.

“Ikanel Riman Akelan.”

The Saint suddenly called the Emperor’s name in a soft voice. The Emperor felt goosebumps all over his body.

“Even if you didn’t poison the tea, I still cannot forgive you.”

“…”

“You killed my brother. You ruined my life.”

“…I see.”

Ikanel barely managed to reply. The Saint, Freia, abruptly stopped laughing.

“This calamity won’t end with just one year. Gradually, the blizzard will become fiercer than it is now, more people will suffer, eventually everyone will leave, and in the distant future, Akelan will be marked on maps as a cursed wasteland. A land of extreme cold where no one can live.”

Ikanel wore a hollow expression. The Saint, without even twitching an eyebrow, gazed calmly at Ikanel and continued speaking.

“But perhaps at this very moment, the calamity could be stopped. Ikanel. Shall I tell you the method?”

“…What is it?”

“Since it’s caused by the explosion of my emotions toward you, if my anger could be calmed, the curse would also subside.”

From the Saint came the answer that he had perhaps already anticipated.

“What should I do?”

“Die by my hands.”

The Saint said once more. But it was by no means a simple statement. Ikanel gave no answer. The Saint took a few more steps toward Ikanel. Ikanel knew that the Saint would harm him, but he couldn’t bring himself to move away. He looked at the Saint with eyes full of lingering attachment.

“Freia, I…”

“Don’t speak. I don’t want to hear any excuses or apologies.”

The Saint told Ikanel. Suddenly, the whirlwind grew stronger, and the window that had been rattling for some time cracked with a sharp sound before bursting open with a shattering noise. The Saint strangled Ikanel’s neck. Her hands were excessively cold. Her strength was unbelievably powerful for such a small body.

Ikanel tried to resist, but strangely, he couldn’t muster any strength. Ugh, gak, Ikanel made choking sounds. In the midst of terrible agony, his mind grew hazy. In his fading consciousness, Ikanel suddenly thought:

‘If she strangles me, do I have the right to resist her?’

His movements, which had been slightly squirming in resistance, stopped. A tear flowed from his bloodshot eyes. Yes, if everything could end with my death. He thought. It was then.

“Father!”

Elios rushed in, opening the firmly closed office door.

♣ ♣ ♣

After returning from the Grand Temple yesterday, Elios had not left his room even once. Due to rumors like “the Prince is disliked by the Goddess” circulating, all his schedules had been suspended, and since the Emperor, his father, had personally ordered him to stay quietly in his room and not come out, no one particularly cared that the Prince wasn’t leaving his room. Moreover, Elios had given instructions that no one should enter without permission until allowed, in order to secretly visit the Grand Temple.

Immediately after returning from Santarium, he removed all the thick curtains that had been drawn over his room’s windows. Despite the windows being tightly closed in several layers, the cold still seeped through the glass. Elios, just as he had always done since first meeting Snow at the age of twelve until meeting her again, sat by the window and gazed outside endlessly.

Whoosh— The wind blew violently as if it would shatter the glass windows. A gust filled with large snowflakes raged, making it impossible to see even a foot ahead. All white. Snow white. Just like Snow.

“…It’s cold.”

Elios muttered blankly. Outside was in chaos. People were getting hurt, freezing to death, and supplies couldn’t be transported to distant regions through the blizzard. Soon, people would begin to starve to death. Even the imperial palace’s informants couldn’t penetrate the calamitous blizzard, so they had only roughly assessed the situation near the royal palace, that is, the capital. It was impossible to know how much more serious the situation was in other territories.

Elios felt a terrible helplessness.

He was the first prince of Akelan. Moreover, he was the prince who would inherit the throne. Yet there was nothing he could do for the country. It was absurd that simply staying quietly in his room was the best course of action during such an emergency. Many people were dying. More people would lose their lives in the future, and the land would be devastated.

He also could no longer do anything for Snow. The moment this thought occurred to him, he felt unbearably miserable and clenched his fist tightly.

He had been told by Snow that she detested him, and had ended up confessing impulsively, only to be rejected. It felt like his heart was being stabbed and twisted by a fire-heated knife. No, it was even worse than that. It was an indescribable pain of the heart.

But Elios couldn’t simply lie sick with the pain of unrequited love. Though the shock of having his feelings rejected by Snow was significant, it hurt more that he could no longer directly help her.