People liked to declare that love was the greatest, most precious thing in the world.

The fairy tales Ivnen had read alone as a child — born a b*stard of a ducal house, raised under nothing but contempt — had always been exactly that. Beautiful, radiant love stories between princesses and princes, emperors and empresses.

But Ivnen had never believed any of it.

Love had never once been permitted in Ivnen’s life. It would have been easier if there were some particular reason — but there wasn’t even that.

Perhaps it had been wrong from the very moment of her birth. Ivnen’s mother, a maid in the ducal household, had been tormented by her master, forced to bear Ivnen against her will. And then she had died.

Stein Denia — master of House Denia, and Ivnen’s father — had not loved her either. Whenever Ivnen watched Lilien, who basked in their father’s love while grinding her underfoot, she would think to herself quietly:

It can’t be helped.

Ivnen had simply lived that way.

Without complaint. As though all of it were perfectly ordinary.

……Until the moment she met Bjorn, that is.

“……”

Ivnen opened her eyes slowly. It didn’t take long to realize that the place she was in was somewhere deeply familiar.

A lakeside, quite far from House Denia.

Near someone’s villa.

And the place she had always come to whenever she broke apart beneath the weight of knowing — knowing full well that no one loved her.

This is……

What on earth is this. Ivnen stepped forward to the edge of the lake and stood there, staring down in silence at her past self, crying alone.

I drank the poison and died — perhaps this is some kind of dream I’m having before I disappear entirely.

“Hk……”

The Ivnen of that day let out a small sob and let the tears fall.

“I can’t…… I really can’t do this anymore……”

She murmured to herself with a quiet groan.

“I can’t bear it……”

Ah. This day.

Ivnen knew exactly when this was.

The day she had been subjected to endless cruelty from her father and her half-sister, word after word, without end.

The day she had strangely been unable to let it roll off her the way she usually did.

And a day that had been terribly overcast, as though rain could pour down at any moment.

I should die.

I should die and put an end to all of it.

She had made that decision — and then——

“……Today isn’t quite the right weather for dying.”

Someone’s low voice interrupted her.

Both Ivnens turned around slowly.

Bjorn was there.

“Rain’s coming soon, and that would make finding the body quite a long ordeal.”

There he stood — solitary, luminous, just as he always was.

“Wouldn’t you agree, Ivnen Denia.”

The Ivnen of that day looked thoroughly startled by Bjorn’s sudden appearance.

Because she knew exactly who he was.

……Bjorn Balder, a Count of common birth. A man who had clawed his way from begging in the streets to the nobility through a string of merits on the battlefield.

There was not a soul in the empire who didn’t know Bjorn. He was always at the center of rumor. Sometimes for the particular ruthlessness that had carried him to where he stood. Sometimes for the fear that came with it.

“My name…… how do you——”

“When the rainy season ends and autumn comes, the lakeside will be covered in petunias. The kind you like.”

Bjorn stood with his arms crossed, looking at Ivnen with an unreadable expression, and said something else entirely.

“Which means dying here today would be a loss for no one but you.”

“……”

“Am I wrong?”

She could see her past self facing Bjorn, eyes wide and trembling. Beyond that gaze filled with nothing but despair, she could see something small beginning to stir.

She could see the moment she — starved for someone’s warmth — helplessly let another person into her heart.

And behind them both.

The Ivnen standing a few steps away, alone, wept and smiled at the same time.

“Lies……”

She murmured in a voice cracked with grief.

“It was all lies……”

Bjorn Balder, a Count of common birth.

No matter how many merits he accumulated on the battlefield, his origins alone meant he could not rise any higher on his own.

And so he had needed a greater power.

For instance — one of the most distinguished houses in the empire. One with enough influence to reach even the Emperor’s ear…… Ivnen’s own family, House Denia. That was precisely the degree of power he had needed.

Bjorn had not stopped her out of any genuine fear that she might throw herself into the lake and die.

Knowing that she loved petunias — that too had been nothing more than a means to draw close to her easily.

And the proposal letter Bjorn had sent in the first place had not even been addressed to her. It had been meant for her half-sister — Lilien, the true daughter of House Denia.

She hadn’t been able to think that far at the time. No — perhaps she had already known, and simply wanted to pretend otherwise.

But not anymore.

No matter how desperately she might want to deceive herself……

“Shall we have some tea, Ivnen. I went and got it myself. I wanted to share it with you.”

She could no longer do it.

“You…… spent your whole life slowly eating away at me, grinding me down……”

She could see Bjorn reaching out his hand to her past self, offering to walk her back to the ducal estate. She could see, with painful clarity, the flush of red rising in her tear-streaked cheeks.

Watching the two of them finally clasp hands, Ivnen wept without end.

……If I could go back to that moment — would I be able to avoid making the same mistake?

Would I be able to not love you?

Would I be able to avoid dying like this — so wretchedly.

Ivnen squeezed her eyes shut.

“……you.”

Suddenly, a familiar voice drifted to her ears.

Bjorn.

The words he had whispered against her ear in a low voice, just before she died.

“Next time…… you must……”

She had no way of knowing what he had meant. But one thing was certain — there would no longer be a “next time” for her.

Ivnen buried her face in her hands, despair written across every line of it.

And then everything was swallowed by darkness.

* * *

“……Miss.”

“……”

“Miss, it really is time to wake up now.”

The owner of the voice was someone she had spoken with every single day without fail — Dek.

Ivnen’s eyes flew open before she could think.

She stared up at Dek with a blank expression.

“……Dek?”

Something was wrong. She had clearly died — so why was Dek standing before her. Even on the day Bjorn had poisoned her, there had been nothing wrong with Dek’s health.

A plague……?

A grim thought flickered through her mind without warning.

Perhaps that was truly it. Every physician in the empire had come and gone, and not one of them had been able to identify her illness. That meant there was a possibility that whatever she had been afflicted with was contagious——

——which also meant there was no way of knowing whether or not it was contagious.

Of course, sweet, warm-hearted Dek had never seemed to care about any of that, standing faithfully by her side all the same.

“I — I’m sorry.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s all my fault. I don’t know how…… how I could ever make it right, Dek……”

Even in my dying I’ve burdened someone else.

How on earth am I to atone for this.

Ivnen’s gaze had begun to waver like a sinner’s when——

“Hmm…… We are a little pressed for time, but it really isn’t something to apologize that heavily for, Miss.”

Dek tilted her head in puzzlement, but answered with a small laugh, as if to say there was no need to worry so much.

“If we move as quickly as possible from here it’ll be fine. Just trust me.”

“Dek……?”

“Why do you look so dazed, Miss.”

When Ivnen showed no sign of following along, Dek let out a cheerful laugh and continued.

“You were the same way yesterday. Said your heart was beating so fast you couldn’t sleep. Surely you haven’t changed your mind overnight?”