“Haaah……”

As she drew in a ragged breath, the nauseating stench of blood and the scent of flowers mixed together and filled her lungs.

Startled, Ihis slowly opened her eyes. Then she stared blankly up at a familiar ceiling.

“What is……”

This?

I was certain I died.

With thin, trembling fingers, she felt all over her body.

But unlike her final memory, Ihis’s body was neither burned nor giving off acrid smoke.

All she could feel were the scars that remained quietly in place.

…Just what on earth had happened?

Ihis sat there in a daze, then flinched slightly.

A moment later, she hurriedly raised her hand and began touching her nose, as if checking it.

He was someone I had planted in the Imperial Palace.

Even now, Ihis remembered it clearly.

Her nineteenth birthday.

The face of the person her father, Duke Erbereje, had brought with him.

But it seems he ended up switching his allegiance to the Imperial Palace.

The man, who could barely keep his senses after such cruel t*rture, was in an awful state.

His body was stained with blood, slashed open in countless places.

That much was something she had seen often enough.

The reason Ihis remembered him so vividly was because of his nose.

If he had only stopped struggling, it would have ended with a cut across his cheek.

His nose, caved in and torn away, was a sight too horrific to look at.

“This is important. Fix him.

And then……

Cleanly.”

His wounds were transferred to Ihis exactly as they were.

“Th-that’s… the infamous witch of Erbereje?”

There had been a reason the private soldiers with Cahilid had said such things.

The wounds on her body could be hidden beneath her clothes, but there was no way to hide the crushed nose that poor man had left behind on her.

And yet, the nose beneath her fingertips now was perfectly intact.

“I… came back to the past?”

Cahilid killed the Duke! Hurry, run!

The murmuring voices of the people. Their screams.

“Your father, who plotted treason, and every member of House Erbereje are dead.”

Cahilid Herneheight’s red eyes, looking down at her as he spoke in that cold voice, were still so clear in her mind.

So was the feel of the black cloak quietly laid over her charred body, and even the scent of winter……

Ihis wore a look of disbelief.

Anxiously biting at her lips out of habit, Ihis suddenly sprang to her feet.

Even though there was no one around to hear her, she stifled every sound and took each step as quietly as she could.

Passing the bed like that, then the window where spring was still in full bloom, she went to the corner farthest from the door.

There, in front of an old, worn-out cabinet, she bent down.

Inside the drawer were old objects that would look like trash in other people’s eyes.

But that was not what Ihis was looking for now.

She carefully felt around the top of the drawer, and before long, pulled out a small notebook.

The only thing Ihis could do while trapped in this cramped room.

That was writing in her diary.

Not once had Ihis skipped writing in it since being locked inside this room.

But there was no way the Duke would have liked that.

So she had continued hiding it like this.

In any case, once she looked at the diary, she would know.

Whether she had truly returned to the past.

Imperial Year 873, December 8.

With trembling hands, Ihis opened to the last page, then flinched violently as if she had seen something wrong.

From early morning, I went down to the underground prison under Father’s orders. The person brought in today was someone who had betrayed Father. A sword was lodged in his chest, so his condition was poor. The healing itself succeeded without much difficulty, but as always, a new scar appeared on my own chest as well, and it hurts terribly……

Ihis’s face went blank as she touched the front of her clothes.

When she carefully lowered her head, she saw a long new scar carved into her snow-white skin.

“I came back… to December 8, 873……?”

Ihis, who remembered the exact day she had died, murmured to herself as if possessed.

“I’m certain it was… January 31, 875……”

How could something like this happen?

Ihis kept asking herself the question, one hand clamped over her mouth, but there was nowhere she could find an answer.

“Cahilid.”

Ihis jerked her head up and spat out his name.

“Wasn’t it around this time that Cahilid came to House Erbereje?”

Though the first time she had met him in person was right before she died……

Ihis was not unaware of Cahilid.

I need a justification.

Justification……?

A justification to drag the current Emperor down and start a rebellion.

Sometime after she had saved yet another dying person.

She had heard it while returning to this cramped room with her father.

“In any case, Cahilid has imperial blood, so there is no better justification than him. That is why I plan to find Cahilid, offer him help, and make him Emperor. Cahilid will take the throne, but that will be nothing more than a shell. All true power will be in my hands.”

……

“So, from now on, you must help me with even greater devotion, Ihis. The glory of Erbereje is no different from your own glory.”

Not long after that day, Duke Erbereje truly did bring Cahilid back with him.

Of course, during the two years he spent in the mansion, Ihis had never once spoken to Cahilid, nor had she ever even crossed paths with him.

Cahilid killed Father.

He had clearly said he would return to the Imperial Palace.

“Maybe Cahilid was also… trying to use Father.”

She did not know why he had been cast out of the Imperial family, but House Erbereje was one of the five greatest noble houses in the Empire.

It was obvious to anyone that if House Erbereje plotted rebellion, it would pose a grave threat to the Emperor.

Then, had he stayed with House Erbereje to create a pretext for returning to the Imperial Palace, biding his time?

And once the proper moment came, had he found evidence of the rebellion, annihilated the Erbereje family, and planned to return to the Imperial Palace in triumph……?

As Ihis continued reasoning alone, she suddenly froze in alarm.

It was because she sensed someone ahead of her.

And that presence was drawing closer and closer.

She quickly set the notebook down on the corner of the table, then sat back down on the bed and looked toward the door.

A moment later, she heard the unpleasant sound of the magic placed on the door being released.

“Ihis.”

The person who appeared was the head of House Erbereje.

Ihis’s father, Mahie, stared intently at his daughter.

As always, there was not a trace of warmth in his eyes.

“Why do you look so startled?”

Because you are alive, Father.

Ihis swallowed down her true feelings and looked back at Mahie.

“You were not about to do something foolish again, were you?”

“……”

“I have told you again and again. You cannot leave this room on your own. If you do not want to burn to death, I must have told you countless times to stay quiet.”

At the frighteningly sharp gleam in Mahie’s eyes, Ihis shook her head as if to deny it and parted her lips.

“No, no. It’s just that I woke up earlier than usual today.”

That was all.

Even at Ihis’s words, Mahie still wore a displeased expression as he looked around the room.

However, there was no sign anywhere that Ihis had tried to leave.

He did not question her any further and closed his mouth.

Then he slowly walked over and stood in front of Ihis.

“First, there are a few things I need to tell you.”

“……Yes, please speak.”

“For the time being, there will be no need to use the underground prison. At least for about a week.”

Ah, she seemed to remember hearing these words too.

The reason there would be no need to use the underground prison for a while was……

“A new guest will be coming to House Erbereje today.”

……Cahilid.

“Cahilid Herneheight.”

It was because of him.