“…I, I am such a selfish person, Snow. If you ask whether I’m also responsible for what my grandfather did, I’m not sure. I think if you say I’m responsible, then I am, and if you say I’m not, then I’m not. More than that, I fear that as long as I’m a member of the imperial family, you clearly won’t be able to see me just as myself.”

Elios was terrified, as if he might lose his mind. He knew he shouldn’t reveal his inner thoughts like this. He thought Snow might become disgusted and leave him. Yet the words came out on their own. It must have been because of the fever. Elios blamed everything on his physical condition.

If he wanted to win back Snow’s heart even a little, he shouldn’t be speaking like this. Instead, he should somehow pretend to be pitiful, pretend to be repentant, pretend to bear all the sins of the imperial family, and beg for forgiveness. And he hated himself terribly for having such thoughts.

“You really are a fool, El.”

Snow said.

“…What?”

“Freia couldn’t forgive Ikanel.”

“…Yes.”

He knew that all too well. Snow, Freia, had infiltrated the imperial palace to end his father’s life herself.

“Ikanel killed my brother Ian. Brother was my—Freia’s—only ally in the world. When even Ikanel turned his back and even my father tried to cut me down with his sword, only my brother was my entire world. So when Ian’s breath was cut off by Ikanel’s order, Freia’s world ended.”

Elios bit his lip hard. His lip split and blood flowed. It stung enough to make him flinch, but such pain meant nothing now.

“So ‘Freia’ tried to kill me. Just as my father did to her, she tried to take away his most precious family members.”

Elios apologized to Snow again.

“Stop, stop apologizing. I didn’t tell you this to receive your apology. Listen to the end. I wanted to kill you. I tried to kill you. Remember when you confessed to me? I made sure you could never enter my room. If you had opened my door, you would have died instantly. Whether strangled by me or pierced by sharp ice. I tried to kill you, Elios. I tried to kill you, and I tried to kill your father. You saw me choking His Majesty, Ikanel, with your own eyes.”

Snow took a deep breath.

“Can you still love me completely? How? If I were you, if I were ‘Elios Riman Akelan,’ I would have hated Snow terribly. I would have despised her. Both as Ikanel’s son and as Prince Elios Riman Akelan. Because the calamity happened because of me in the first place.”

“…”

“Now I’ll ask you the same question. As long as I am Freia, you can’t see me completely as just ‘Snow.’ I was your father’s former lover long ago. And now I tried to kill your father, and I tried to kill you too. In fact, the murderous intent still rises in me little by little. So I was afraid for the same reason as you. Afraid that you might no longer want me. I was the one who rejected you first, which is quite ironic.”

Snow, fluently pouring out all these words, almost seemed like she wasn’t Snow at all. But Elios knew it was her. He thought, so Snow had been thinking such things. She had been afraid of such things. A small laugh escaped him.

“Why are you laughing…?”

“Snow. You’re more foolish than I am.”

“What…?”

“It’s strange. If you are Freia and Freia is you, then why do the two of you want completely different things?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said Freia tried to kill me. But you fought against that to protect me. Ordinary people can’t act that way. If they want to kill, they kill; if they want to save, they save. They don’t try to kill and save at the same time. Freia wanted my father to suffer by watching his children die, but you would rather kill my father to calm Freia’s emotions. If the opinions of ‘the two people’ don’t align, how can those two people be the same person?”

“The judgment is yours.” Elios said this and smiled weakly, his strength drained. Snow became confused.

She was definitely Freia. But if so, how could she explain Elios’s words?

‘Brother Ian was definitely my brother, and I was definitely the daughter of the Nigritia ducal family, and I was killed by Ikanel.’

‘But Freia couldn’t forgive the world, and I want to save the world.’

‘Then which is the real me?’

No, was there even a “me” to begin with?

‘Who am I?’

Freia’s voice that had disappeared at some point, yet the targetless murderous intent that still remained, the affection toward Arianne, the respect for Ceres Martadia. Benevolence. Philanthropy. Love. Hatred. Loathing. Sadness. Joy. Anger. Whose emotions were all these?

There was something more. There was a faint clue that seemed almost within reach. There was something about to rise to the surface, using the recent confusion as a catalyst.

Suddenly her head hurt as if it were splitting open. Snow screamed, then gasped “ha, haa,” clenching her fists and breathing painfully. It was hyperventilation. Eventually, she began to vomit onto the snow.

Arianne and Martadia also rushed to Snow.

“Snow! Lady Snow!”

The voices of the three people scattered chaotically in her ears.

Confusion. Confusion. Confusion.

Her mind was filled with nothing but confusion. Snow grabbed the hand that was patting her. She couldn’t even tell whose it was. She asked urgently:

“Who, who am I? Did the Goddess really send me? Did the revelation really come to me? Did it? What did the revelation say? What did it say? What?”

It was something she had memorized since she was very young because it was the revelation about the Saint, but now she couldn’t remember it at all. Snow desperately searched for the content of the revelation. Martadia, whose hand Snow had grabbed, quickly recited the revelation:

“One shall be born. One who has received my breath shall be born.”

“Breath. Born.”

Snow repeated fragments of the revelation.

“Her breath is my breath, her smile is my smile, and her anguish is my anguish.”

“My breath. My smile. My anguish. Why?”

Snow asked. None of the three could provide an answer. The three couldn’t understand why Snow was suddenly acting this way. When Martadia stopped reciting the revelation, Snow urged her:

“The next part. What’s the next part?”

Martadia heard informal speech from Snow for the first time, but she had no time to mind such things.

“If she wishes to embrace the world, it is my will. If she wishes to turn away from the world, it is my will. If she wishes to punish the world, that too is my will.”

“My will.”

Snow again repeated part of the revelation. Meanwhile, Ceres, who had been fluently reciting the revelation, seemed to have realized something as her eyes widened.

“If the Saint, no, if Snow wishes to turn away from the world, that is the Goddess’s will, and if she wishes to punish the world, that too is the Goddess’s will. Isn’t that about the current situation?”

“No, no. No, that’s right. Yes. It is about the current situation. This was the intention from the beginning. I am, ah, what is it? What? Am I Freia? Am I Snow? Or something else?”

“Snow!”

Elios shouted like thunder. Just as Snow had stopped abruptly at Arianne’s angry call earlier, Snow became quiet once more. Elios embraced her again, just as he had when he first saw Snow in the snow field. Elios spoke softly into Snow’s ear:

“Snow, listen carefully. From now on, think that what I say is absolutely true. No, what I say is the only truth.”

Snow stared fixedly at the front of Elios’s clothes in which she was buried, her eyes as if nailed in place. What he only thought but didn’t say aloud was once again heard clearly by Snow.

‘Snow, I’m afraid. I feel like you might suddenly disappear at this rate. Don’t go. Don’t go, Snow. I was wrong.’

“What I say is the only truth. Understand? Hmm? Answer me.”

“Uh, ha, but.”

“Answer me.”

Elios whispered in a mess. Snow thought Elios might break down at any moment. Frightened by that, she nodded.

“I don’t care whether you’re the Saint or whatever. In any case, at least you are the Goddess’s representative. Certainly the revelation came to you, and it was said that your will is the will of the Goddess Amir.”

No, Elios had been wrong from the beginning. Snow was not the Goddess’s representative.

As she calmed down from her fit, there was a faint memory emerging. A beautiful garden where flowers bloomed abundantly with every step, the familiar figure of someone standing there lonely, and the last words Freia had spoken while holding Snow in that nightmare where the Nigritia ducal house was burning down, words she couldn’t hear then…

Such things were gradually coming back to her.

Still, Snow nodded for now. Elios’s expression brightened a little, surprisingly thinking his words were getting through. If he had said these things earlier, Snow would have refused to listen, saying, “I’m not that. I’m a witch, I tell you.” But now she was in a very confused state, and Elios thought she was nodding in a daze because of that.

“Snow, you want to stop the calamity somehow. You want to save people. You said you would gladly do so even if it meant your death, didn’t you, definitely?”

Snow nodded again this time. Elios bit his already split lip hard again. Hot tears welled up drop by drop along his frozen orange eyelashes.

“That’s right. Your will is the Goddess’s will. You want to save the world. Then that is the Goddess’s will. The calamity happening is not your fault. How could something beyond your control be your fault? This is no one’s fault. No, if we were to place blame, it would be on those who drove Freia to that state…”

‘It would be the fault of those who drove Freia to that state.’

Elios couldn’t bring himself to finish those words.