The moment she saw that letter, everything collapsed. The sky that day, obliviously blue without a care for her pain. The ground beneath her feet. The stubborn, unrelenting feeling she had carried for Bjorn — for a man who had never been anything but cold to her — all of it came undone before she could even try to hold it together. Helplessly. Completely.

I think of you always, wherever I am, whatever the hour. Even when you are not thinking of me. Even when you are not looking my way. You wouldn’t know how I feel, of course. But that’s all right. Even if I love you more than you love me, it doesn’t matter. This is my burden alone — the path I chose. The vow I made, to be yours always and forever, no matter what may come. And so this longing belongs to me, and me alone.

Bjorn would never know. Not even in his dreams.

How bitterly, how tearfully she had envied her — that woman whose face she did not know, whose name she did not know.

How deeply she had hated her. How she had beaten her own chest and wept.

That damned letter — and then, as time wore on, the things people kept saying about Bjorn. The looks they gave her, pitying her, or worse, finding her pathetic.

Why doesn’t Count Bjorn love me?

Why did he choose a mistress over me? Was there a reason?

How beautiful must she be? Someone completely unlike me — timid, withdrawn, unremarkable me.

Does she smile, loved by him the way she is? Is she happy every day? She must know every expression of his that I have never seen. Even the smiles he has never once shown me……

Ivnen gnawed at herself without end. Her sense of inadequacy, her self-reproach — they tightened around her heart again and again, until she could barely breathe. Even before she fell ill, she could not sleep easily, could not eat in peace.

When she closed her eyes, she saw Bjorn’s face — tenderly kissing a woman whose face she could not picture. She heard his voice, his laughter, as he gave his love to another. Ivnen endured it, struggling inside a hell of her own making. She was alive, but it was no life at all.

And always, those thoughts arrived at the same conclusion.

No, but…… I am his wife. A mistress is only a mistress.

Even if he only married me to make use of my family…… the fact that I am the Countess of Valder does not change.

It was a wretched rationalization, pitiable beyond words. Ivnen knew that well enough herself. But she had no other way. If she did not hold onto thoughts like these, she feared she might simply — die. Literally.

She could not lay it all bare before Bjorn either. If she ever said such things, she felt certain he would seize the moment and demand a divorce without missing a beat.

But what would any of it matter? In her imagination, Bjorn would fix her with a gaze full of nothing but cold contempt and say it again and again, with a sneer:

So.

So? Ivnen. What exactly do you think you can do about it?

Having been ground down like that for so long, Ivnen now knew it without anyone having to tell her——

Dek was very nearly pleading now. But Ivnen thought there could scarcely be anything more absurd.

What sort of madman showers attention and gifts of flowers on the very person they are trying to k*ll?

……But if not him, then who on earth?

“I could have you buried in petunias, Ivnen. I could do that for you. If that’s what you wanted.”

What drifted through her mind just then was a memory from before — before things between them had broken down like this.

Before the mistress, that is.

Back when Bjorn had been nothing but warm and gentle with her.

“But then you’d have to cut so many flowers.”

“Does that bother you?”

“I wouldn’t mind that…… but rather than being buried in them, I think I’d love to see one bloom every single day. That feels more precious, somehow.”

……Surely not.

Could it really be that Bjorn……

Ivnen’s expression shifted to puzzlement for a moment, then softened into a self-deprecating smile. How absurd she was — after everything she had been through, she still couldn’t quite let go of that flicker of hope.

With a small, wry laugh she put the thought to rest, and turned the conversation aside in an even voice.

“Never mind. In any case — call a carriage for me, Dek.”

“A carriage, my lady?”

“I have some things to attend to.”

Dek, who had been on the verge of tears, gave a resigned nod and excused herself. Ivnen watched her go in silence, then glanced down at her own hand.

On her fourth finger, the wedding ring set with an amethyst was still there.

“I had it made with your favourite stone — amethyst. I’d wanted to do exactly that for a long time. You mean that much to me……”

Before the ceremony.

Those were the words Bjorn had said as he held out the ring — the one he had gone to great lengths to have made, gathering every jeweler in the empire.

“I’m so happy, my lord……”

Yes. She had been so happy then. As though she were something of great importance to him.

What a laughable illusion that had been.

Ivnen slowly removed the ring.

And set it down beside the vase, just as slowly.

Before long she rose from her seat to prepare for her outing. On the terrace, where the autumn sunlight poured down in brilliant streams, the ring without its owner and a petunia were left behind, alone.