Still, Snow found it difficult to believe that Ikanel would give up his life so easily. So she carefully asked Freia:

“Did you perhaps… encourage Ikanel to make such a decision…?”

Until now, she had immediately asked Freia whenever she was curious about something, and had even resented her. But this time, asking such a question felt extremely delicate. Freia held a few round pebbles and rolled them meaninglessly in her hand.

“If only I had, would he have been less pitiful? Snow, I tried to stop him.”

Freia stared into the distance for a moment, then began to speak.

♣ ♣ ♣

Ikanel wanted to see Freia even if only in dreams, and Freia occasionally entered Ikanel’s dreams through the lake. Though she knew it wasn’t good to interfere in the lives of the living, she felt that if she didn’t do at least this much, Ikanel would be broken forever.

When Freia entered Ikanel’s dream for the last time, he looked smaller and more shabby than ever before. He was sitting on a tree trunk in a meadow. A large crown studded with huge jewels was weighing down on Ikanel’s head, and to Freia, it looked as if his neck might snap at any moment, unable to bear the crown’s weight.

“Ikanel.”

When Freia called him, Ikanel immediately noticed her. Without hesitation, he knelt before Freia. Freia could only look at him with a sorrowful face.

“Freia, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not believing you.”

As always, Ikanel begged for forgiveness, kissing Freia’s feet. When he bowed his head, the heavy crown fell to the ground with a dull thud.

“I’m sorry for ruining your life. I’m also sorry for turning away from the truth.”

Ikanel apologized over and over, but Freia gave no answer. She just stood silently, watching Ikanel apologize. Ikanel, shedding tears, apologized and then collapsed at Freia’s feet. Freia, with a face that looked like she might cry, lowered herself and placed her hand on Ikanel’s shoulder.

“Stand up.”

She said. Ikanel raised his head, his face showing clear signs of exhaustion. His sunken, lusterless, hollow eyes trembled faintly, unable to meet Freia’s green eyes directly.

“Ikanel.”

Freia called his name. Though Freia couldn’t tell him it was okay, she embraced him instead.

“You were used by your father, and as the Crown Prince of the Empire, you carried too many heavy burdens on your back. I understand that in that situation, you had no choice but to make such decisions.”

Ikanel could no longer look at Freia and dropped his head. Her not forgiving him was very painful for Ikanel. But he hadn’t expected her to comfort or forgive him. She had lost everything. Ikanel had taken everything from her. He thought it shouldn’t be something she could understand.

“Yes, I understand. But I can’t bring myself to tell you it’s okay when you ask for my forgiveness. Because I wasn’t okay.”

“That’s.”

Ikanel spoke.

“That’s enough. You don’t have to forgive me. No, you shouldn’t forgive me. Asking for your forgiveness is just my selfishness.”

Ikanel glanced at the large crown that had fallen miserably to the ground but ultimately did not pick it up. Freia helped him to his feet and examined him. He who had once been big enough to completely cover her seemed terribly emaciated and diminished.

In truth, Freia had intended to no longer interfere in Ikanel’s dreams. She thought that was right. But a certain event changed her resolve, and today Freia visited Ikanel one last time.

“Ikanel. The calamity has ended, and though I cannot forgive what happened to me, I no longer hate you. Now you have a good wife, excellent children, and people you must protect.”

Wife. Children. When Freia spoke these words, Ikanel’s expression became even sadder. Freia observed his reaction and carefully asked:

“Now that it’s all in the past, what is still driving you so?”

Once more, Freia spoke firmly.

“Why are you trying to make such an extreme decision?”

Extreme decision. Through the pond, Freia had seen Ikanel trying to take his own life.

It was an empty office. He held a teacup in his hand. It was the same kind of tea that Freia had once given to Ikanel. Freia knew what Ikanel had done to that tea.

It was poisoned tea. Ikanel knew this fact, yet he was calm.

Just as he was about to drink it, Freia quickly stirred the pond water. The teacup slipped from his hand and shattered with a crash.

Freia had been interfering in his dreams out of fear that Ikanel would break, but she realized that the dreams featuring her were actually causing Ikanel more suffering. So she had decided to no longer appear in his dreams.

However, when he could no longer see Freia even in his dreams, Ikanel lost all meaning in life. So Freia visited him once more, truly for the last time.

“Ikanel. Your life doesn’t belong to you alone. There are many people watching you. Family. People. Subjects. Your life belongs to all of them.”

The moment Freia said this, Ikanel was somehow wearing the large crown on his head again. It was an even more splendid and heavier crown than before. But this time, Ikanel himself removed the crown.

“…Freia, until now, I thought I had protected my country in exchange for losing you. I’ve endured with that thought alone. That’s why I became more attached to my country and considered it my everything.”

Ikanel said as he put down the crown.

“Then continue to endure with that thought. Since it’s your country achieved by losing me, protect it fiercely and make it prosper. Live for that, if nothing else.”

“Freia, you are as cruel as I am.”

Ikanel smiled weakly. The crown was turning to sand and scattering in the air. Watching the crown crumble in the wind, Freia realized she could not change Ikanel’s determination.

“I know I’m terribly selfish. But you see.”

Ikanel reached out to touch the sand floating in the air. The tiny particles slipped through his fingers.

“Having lived my whole life as Akelan’s ghost, I just want to die on my own terms.”

With those final words, when Freia blinked and opened her eyes, she was standing alone in the meadow. It meant Ikanel had awakened from the dream.

Ah, what could she have done? As he himself said, Ikanel was terribly selfish. To abandon his family, his people, his subjects, and meet death on his own terms.

But he was also terribly exhausted. What could she say to him?

Freia lifted her face from the pond where she had been immersed. Now she would truly never meet Ikanel like this again.

At least not while Ikanel was alive.

♣ ♣ ♣

“Freia, so did he end up taking his own life?”

Snow asked. She had become so deeply immersed in this story that tears were welling up in her eyes. She couldn’t bear how pitiful Ikanel was.

“No, even I couldn’t bear to see that. I made him fall ill. An illness with no known name that slowly consumed him, just as I once had.”

As he gradually withered, grew thin, and lost strength, during that brief period, Ikanel spent more peaceful days than at any other time since his ascension. And he prepared for death. Watching him leave his will and put his affairs in order, Freia gave up on Ikanel’s life.

“After death, his expression was as serene as those times when we were once lovers. Snow, what could I have said? I could only personally guide his soul to eternal peace.”

Freia was staring into the distant void as if looking at something she missed, so Snow also turned her gaze in that direction. There was nothing but fluffy clouds drifting by. Here in the most beautiful garden in the world—no, a beautiful garden that doesn’t exist in the world—there was nothing. Just an abundance of sadness. Now Snow and Freia existed here as two people, but originally it was a place where a lonely God merely maintained existence alone.

Snow suddenly worried about what had happened to Elios afterward. She had seen fragmentary images in the pond earlier, such as him at Ikanel’s funeral or kissing the forehead of Snow’s empty shell, but she wanted to know more about how he had been living.

Besides Elios, she was also worried about Arianne and Martadia. From here, she could see their entire lives at a glance, like reading a storybook. She now realized that the futures and pasts she had seen when she caused the calamity and partially regained divine power were only fragmentary. She had only been able to see one or two of the many branches. But through this pond, she could know everything.

That’s why Snow became afraid to look into their lives.

What if they died young due to an unexpected accident? What if they became unhappy due to unavoidable major obstacles in life? Snow simply couldn’t bear to see such things happen to them.

Freia knew what Snow was worrying about without her having to say it. She too had hesitated hundreds of times when she first came to the Garden’s pond, until she saw Ian Nigritia’s reincarnation.

Freia respected whatever choice Snow would make. She also waited. After all, in the Garden of Beginning, time was so abundant that even if you spilled and scattered it, there would still be plenty left over.

Snow pondered and pondered again. Should she look or not? Freia knew it was time for her to offer advice.

“Snow. How about first checking if you can return to that place?”

At those words, Snow was startled. She stood up abruptly from the rock she was sitting on and almost fell into the pond.