The Count of Everett was sentenced to death for murdering a nobleman, setting a fire that claimed dozens of innocent lives, and deceiving society with deliberate and calculated lies.

The court also stripped him of his title and ordered that his vast fortune be confiscated and added to the national treasury. Upon hearing the ruling, the Count erupted in fury and immediately filed an appeal. He argued that the punishment was disproportionate to his crimes and vowed to contest the verdict until the very end.

He insisted that the death of Duke Fraser had been an accident arising from a heated argument, and not intentional murder. However, despite offering excuses for killing the duke, he never once expressed remorse for the servants who perished in the flames that consumed the mansion.

The trials of Amelia and Laura Everett, who had been involved in the kidnapping of Isabella Wins, were held alongside his. Like the Count, they refused to accept responsibility, maintaining their denials until the end.

“Next, the court will question the defendant, Amelia Everett. Is it true that you falsely claimed to have saved Duke Logan Fraser in order to secure an engagement to him?”

“That’s not true! I never lied. If it hadn’t been for me, His Grace would have died that day! I risked being burned to save him!”

Only days had passed, yet Amelia had grown gaunt. Tears streamed down her face as she pleaded for sympathy. Life in detention seemed ill-suited to her. Without makeup, red blotches marred her pale skin, and her once lustrous blonde hair hung dry and brittle like a worn broom.

“I was injured trying to save him—!”

“The wound on your shoulder, which you claim you received while saving him, was sustained before the fire. The Everett family’s physician has testified to this.”

He said that the burn scar on her shoulder had been caused by a fireworks accident two years earlier, long before the mansion fire. When her heroic tale, which had led to her engagement with Logan Fraser, was also exposed as false, no one believed a word she said.

The questioning continued.

“How do you explain the charge of concealing Isabella Wins’s death and exploiting the matter for your own benefit?”

“I didn’t know anything! I wasn’t even ten years old — what could a child possibly know? I only did what my parents told me. I truly loved the Duke.”

Amelia finally collapsed under the weight of it all. Standing before the unyielding officers, she showed no hint of pity, despite her disheveled appearance after days without proper food or bathing.

Insisting she knew nothing, she sobbed loudly enough for her cries to echo throughout the courtroom.

“According to the maids’ testimony, you—Amelia Everett, their mistress—led the harassment of a particular servant. How do you respond to that?”

Yet no one in the chamber was moved by her tears. A cold, impenetrable silence settled over the room.

When the one-sided interrogation finally ended, Amelia was escorted away in chains. Having exhausted herself with hours of frantic weeping, she could barely stand. She was dragged forward, weak and trembling.

“Your Grace, Duke Fraser! No, Logan! Please, just spare me this once. Please? They’re sentencing me to death too! It’s not fair; this is far too cruel. Don’t you think so?”

At that moment, she saw Logan leaving the courtroom. Shoving aside the officers holding her back, she rushed forward and blocked his path.

Logan raised a hand to stop the officers who were about to seize her and drag her away.

“See? I knew you wouldn’t cast me aside so coldly, brother! After all the time we’ve spent together…”

Hope bloomed in Amelia’s heart simply because Logan had paused to listen to her. At least he still believed in her. Carefully, she reached out and grasped the edge of his sleeve.

“Brother…”

Even her own brother, Vincent, had not visited her once. But Logan—soft-hearted and bound by old affection—would be different. They had once promised to marry, after all.

“Let go.”

There was not a trace of emotion in his gaze as he looked down at her blistered hand clutching his sleeve.

The chill in his eyes made her release him without thinking.

“I—I truly didn’t do anything wrong. Father made me do it. I swear.”

She lifted her head, only to falter and lower her gaze again. The polite smile he once offered his fiancée was nowhere to be found.

“I heard what you did to Isabella.”

His voice—so composed, the very tone she had once adored—rang quietly in the air.

“You ordered the maids to ostracize her. You often punished her for minor errors. And you hit her whenever you felt like it.”

After Isabella was sent to Netherwell, things seemed to improve temporarily. However, whenever she was summoned back to Rosedale, the torment resumed.

It was said that all of this had been carried out under Amelia’s direction.

Out of jealousy towards Isabella. Not because she feared the truth might surface, but because she had known the truth from the beginning.

“I—I’m sorry!”

Amelia cried out, the color draining from her face. The realization that Logan’s attitude had changed because of a mere maid humiliated her further.

Over just one servant. But pride was meaningless now. Logan was her only hope of survival.

“Once the trial ends safely, I’ll apologize to her myself.”

What wouldn’t she do to survive? For a noblewoman to admit that she would bow to a common maid would be an unimaginable humiliation. Yet Isabella was casting aside her pride and everything else she had left.

“You never had the right to treat Isabella so carelessly.”

Logan no longer believed her. He stepped past her, unable to bear being in the same space as her.

“Logan Fraser!!!”

Her scream echoed through the courtroom. She called his name with desperate longing.

But he did not look back.

“Ahhh—!”

She let out a shriek as she was seized and dragged away. Amelia collapsed onto the floor in despair, screaming until her throat felt torn apart.

Once, she had believed that she had it all. Now, imprisoned in a dark, damp cell, she could only wait for the day when her privileges would be stripped away.

***

After the trial, Logan visited the cemetery where the victims of the fire had been buried.

The Fraser family had set up the burial ground in honor of those who had lost their lives in the tragic blaze, including the Frasers’ devoted servants, who met such a senseless end.

Logan placed a bouquet of flowers in front of the memorial stone.

Today, at last, the true culprit behind the deaths had been revealed.

He had survived that night, too.

But survival did not mean escape. In the aftermath of the fire, Logan was left with lasting scars. For more than six months, he had lost his voice entirely. He could not sleep, not even in a brightly lit room, and he spent countless nights staring into the darkness.

After spending months in hospital, he found that he could no longer endure the sterile scent of infirmaries. The nightmares returned relentlessly and unforgivingly, showing him the faces of victims swallowed by flames.

Amelia claimed that she had saved him that day. But if she had saved him, why hadn’t she saved Isabella, who had been with him that day?

How frightened must she have been inside that burning mansion?

How much pain had she endured?

Logan had asked himself these questions countless times.

Burdened by crushing guilt, he had been unable to visit the cemetery until now. Only today had he finally found the strength to stand before her grave.

[Henry Wins]
[Isabella Wins]
[Maria Wins]

He stopped before the names engraved side by side upon the stone.

“Maria…”

After Isabella died, Maria never came to see him again.

The maid, who had cared for him as if he were her own son ever since before Isabella was born, suddenly seemed to collapse.

She neither cried nor smiled. Instead, she kept vigil beside Isabella’s grave. When it rained, she held an umbrella over the headstone. When it snowed, she brushed the frost away with her bare hands before it could settle. Even when her fingers and toes turned red and raw from the cold, she refused to leave.

Logan could not forget the sight of Maria’s back shrinking and withering under the weight of grief after losing the daughter she had fought so hard to have.

It all felt like his fault.

Logan clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. He stood by the graves of those who had died so unjustly for a long time.

The leaves stirred softly in the wind.

With his head bowed, he finally spoke in a hard yet unsteady voice.

“At the very least, I will protect Isabella.”

It was late—far too late.

But at last, he could say the words.

“Since you’re unemployed now. Unless you intend to make me out to be some heartless employer who refuses to pay severance to a long-serving employee, take it.”

For a fleeting moment, a faint smile touched Vincent’s lips.

It was the first smile he had shown since his family’s execution.

Teasing had always been his role.

“…I suppose I should accept my severance. Considering how much you overworked me.”

Even Logan’s awkward attempt at humor didn’t escape him. Vincent picked up the envelope, knowing that rejecting it would mean rejecting the sincerity of the gesture.

“Thank you.”

It was only two words, yet they carried guilt, apology, and farewell all at once.

“I’m leaving the Empire. I want to go somewhere else… help those in need through the law. Live in atonement. I’ll carry even the sins I didn’t commit.”

It would never be enough to repay what his family had done.

Still, it was the path he had chosen.

“I see. If that’s the road you’ve decided on.”

Logan watched him in silence before giving a slight nod.

He had hoped Vincent might return to Fraser Enterprises one day.

But he would not force him.

Vincent offered one last smile, then turned his back.

“I hope Isabella wakes safely.”

He paused at the threshold to say it.

Then he stepped out.

The door closed softly behind him.