When he arrived in Ester territory, the undertaker who had overseen the burial of the Ester family was waiting for him.

The man had an unkempt beard and looked at Damian curiously. Clearly, he wondered about the identity of the person who had paid twenty gold coins for the burial ledger.

Damian had no intention of revealing his own.

Without a word, he followed the elderly undertaker towards the grave.

Bel Ester’s neglected, poorly maintained grave was a short distance away. Weeds had grown thick and wild around it, almost completely engulfing the headstone.

At a silent signal from Damian, the men stepped forward and began to dig. Their movements were devoid of ceremony or reverence, only efficiency. Yet no one dared to voice an objection.

The damp scent of freshly turned earth rose sharply into the air, heavy and raw.

The sky hung low above them. It felt as though rain was coming.

His intuition proved correct. Soon, droplets started to hit the coffin lid.

The coffin was old and filthy, clearly having been buried a long time ago. At Damian’s nod, the lid, which bore no family crest, was pried open.

“What is this…?”

Eric frowned deeply and turned towards the undertaker. The man’s eyes had widened in shock.

The coffin was empty.

Damian stared at it and finally found the answer. Bel Ester had not died.

Baron Logan had dismissed his servants, not to conceal her death, but to erase her from existence.

But why would he do that? Where had Bel Ester disappeared to?

Suddenly, Isabel came to mind.

More precisely, the woman standing before him now, her face hidden behind a veil.

Her altered behavior. Her temperament. Even the way she spoke.

Was it really because she had lost her memory?

“Your Highness?”

“……”

As the rain intensified, Eric called out to him, concerned. Damian rose abruptly from in front of the empty coffin. Without saying a word, he strode down the mountainside.

“Your Highness! Where are you going? Your Highness!”

Eric followed in alarm, his boots sinking into the thick mud. But he could not keep up. By the time he reached the bottom of the hill, out of breath, Damian had already ridden away into the distance.

“What on earth?”

Eric wiped the rain from his face in disbelief. His shoes were caked in mud, and his cloak was soaked and heavy. After sighing at his disheveled state, he mounted his horse and followed Damian.

***

It was as though a hole had opened up in the sky. A sudden, heavy and relentless downpour swept across the Empire.

A guard, who had been dozing to the sound of the rain, stirred. Through the darkness and the drumming rain, he could hear the faint echo of galloping hooves.

Who on earth would ride in weather like this?

Frowning, the guard strained his eyes. A man on a black horse emerged from the rain.

‘His Highness?’

Startled by his master’s sudden return, the guard hurried forward, but was stopped in his tracks by Damian’s rigid expression. Without sparing him a glance, Damian walked past.

In the corridor, the sound of the rain blended with the heavy, wet thud of his boots striking the marble floor. The echoes were hollow and almost unsettling.

Damian stopped in front of the bedroom door and slowly pushed it open.

Inside, a small oil lamp flickered weakly in the darkness. He stepped into the room.

His figure emerged from the shadows.

He was drenched from head to toe. Water dripped steadily from his uncombed hair, tracing cold paths down his pale, rain-chilled skin.

He approached the bed, taking measured steps.

His hand reached for the canopy obscuring his view. As he grasped the fabric, the wavering lamp gave a final sputter and went out, plunging the room into darkness.

His trembling fingers tightened around the canopy, as if held back by hesitation.

What exactly was he trying to confirm?

How would it have made a difference to Isabel if another of Ester’s daughters had truly died?

And yet, the quiet sense that something was wrong would not leave him. It lingered, stubborn and insistent.

If there was any doubt, he would settle it himself.

The woman lying there was Isabel. He needed only to see her face. Once he did, this unreasonable anxiety would vanish.

Slowly, Damian drew back the canopy.

His sharp, golden eyes, keen as drawn blades, fixed on the bed.

At that very instant, the darkness was shattered.

A streak of blue lightning tore across the sky, flooding the room with light.

Thunder crashed down with a deafening roar. Then, once again, darkness engulfed the room and the relentless drumming of the rain resumed.

The veins stood out sharply along the back of his hand. He had gripped the canopy so tightly for a moment that his knuckles had gone white.

And then—

His hand fell.

The thin fabric slipped from his grasp and drifted down again, veiling the bed from sight.

Damian took a step back.

His thoughts were fractured and scattered beyond reason. He shut his unfocused eyes tightly, then opened them again. Unsteady on his feet, he forced his trembling legs to carry him out of the bedroom.

On the large bed lay a woman as pale as a specter.

She was not Isabel.

The woman lying there was not Isabel Ester.

Damian’s expression darkened with despair and betrayal when faced with an almost impossible-to-accept reality.

The heart that had frozen moments earlier now began to pound violently. Intense emotions surged through him, flooding his body with heat and making it feel as if his blood was rushing backwards. Only moments earlier, his body had been chilled by the rain.

She had avoided letting him see her face. Her habits and gestures had always felt subtly different. That quiet sense of dissonance he had carried for so long—

Was it all because of this?

A hollow laugh slipped from his lips.

Each time he moved, droplets of rain fell from his hair and hit the floor with a soft, steady rhythm.

***

By the time dawn finally broke, Damian had not slept at all. As soon as he was steady on his feet, he rode straight to the scene of the accident.

There was only one reason why.

To find the real Isabel.

If the woman on his estate was an imposter, then she had to be somewhere else. He began his search with the firm belief that she was still alive.

In truth, there was a far simpler method than retracing the accident site. He could have forced the imposter to reveal Isabel’s whereabouts.

However, Damian could not act rashly. If Isabel was indeed alive, he had no idea why the imposter had drawn close to him or what her purpose might be. Until he understood the truth, he believed that Isabel’s safety depended on his restraint.

Fragments of the shattered carriage were still scattered beneath the cliff, with broken wood and twisted metal half-buried in the mud.

As Damian surveyed the wreckage, he came to an abrupt halt.

“….”

A faint, pale, wind- and rain-bleached bloodstain clung stubbornly to the stone.

For a moment, grief flickered in his golden eyes.

After staring at it in silence, he turned away and descended the mountain to find the apothecary who had first seen the accident happen.

But the man was already dead.

The villagers insisted that it had been an accident. In truth, it was murder, carefully disguised.

Damian investigated everyone the apothecary had ever known, tracing each connection and searching for anyone who might have harbored resentment against him. Nothing came of it.

In the end, only two names remained: Logan Ester.

And…

‘Bel Ester.’

In order to prevent Isabel Ester’s whereabouts from ever being discovered, the imposter must have silenced the only witness.

A dry, bitter laugh escaped Damian before he could stop it. He remembered the woman who had trembled before him like a frightened cat — yet perhaps she had taken a life without hesitation behind his back. The word ‘repulsive’ felt disturbingly appropriate.

What secret was she so desperate to hide that she would kill to protect it?

And where was Isabel?

In truth, Damian already knew the answer — at least in part.

The moment he saw the bloodstain on the cliff, he understood. But his mind had simply refused to accept it. He clung to fragile, improbable possibilities, denying the truth standing before him.

It took him five days to slowly and painfully begin to accept it.

The bed in the shabby inn was hard and unyielding. He had not returned to the estate once since confronting Bel in the study that day.

Instead of lying on the uneven mattress, Damian sat in a chair, rubbing at his weary eyes. The ease that once characterized his gaze was gone; his face had grown visibly gaunt.

Knock, knock.

“Your Highness, I will come in.”

Eric entered. Like Damian, he had grown noticeably thinner in recent days. He reported to Damian at regular intervals.

There had been no significant findings.

After repeated cycles of hope and disappointment, Damian no longer expected much. Leaning back, he draped his forearm over his eyes.

Eric began his report.

“We have not yet found Miss Isabel’s whereabouts. However, we uncovered something else.”

“What is it?”

“There was something unusual about the carriage Miss Isabel rode in. We retrieved the broken wheel and examined it. Several of the bolts fastening it had been removed.”

The languid dullness in Damian’s eyes sharpened at once. He lowered his arm and looked at Eric directly.

“So it was staged as an accident.”

“Yes. It appears to have been planned.”

The corner of Damian’s mouth twisted.

“So someone deliberately placed Isabel in danger…”

A faint laugh slipped from his distorted lips. Eric lowered his gaze. A chill crept down the back of his neck as though ice had brushed against it.

“Among those who might have borne a grudge against Isabel, none would have had the audacity to carry it out.”

He knew that the servants had not been very warm towards Isabel.

Feeling resentful was one thing, but taking action was another matter entirely. After all, they were just maids. None of them would dare lay a hand on the future Grand Duchess. If nothing else, the fear of his wrath would restrain them.

Damian lifted his hand and pressed his fingertips lightly against his brow.

Initially, he had believed it to be nothing more than a tragic accident. But the carriage had been tampered with. That much was undeniable.

If it had been premeditated murder, what were the chances that Isabel had survived?

And what if it hadn’t been the work of an insignificant servant, but someone with influence — someone with power?

“Eric.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Do you believe Isabel is alive?”

“……”

Eric remained silent for a moment. He already knew the answer. However, in front of a man who was clinging to hope, he could not bring himself to say it aloud.

As if sensing his hesitation, Damian spoke up.

“You may answer honestly.”

“…My apologies.”

Eric bowed deeply.

“I see.”

That was answer enough.

Isabel was dead.

She had been killed by someone.

He no longer entertained the idea that she might still be alive. She was gone.

Before despair or grief could take hold, fury engulfed him.

What he must do now was clear.