Chapter 3

With disheveled hair and eyes filled with madness, he was swinging his sword wildly. Seeing the scene, it was impossible to tell whether it was he or Charles who had stabbed the people lying bleeding before Joshua.

Joshua shouted at the top of his lungs. But Charles paid him no attention and picked up a bloodstained sword lying nearby. Seeing this, Joshua swung his sword even more frantically.

Charles easily knocked Joshua’s sword aside and cut off both of his wrists. Blood gushed from the severed wrists like fountains, but Charles still showed no expression.

Elenor could hardly believe what she was seeing. As far as she remembered, Charles Berichmen had always been gentle, and he was never the kind of person to say or do anything that would harm another person.

What on earth had Joshua done to make him so furious that he would commit such a merciless act?

Soon, a voice began to come from within the mirror. Elenor continued staring into it with a bewildered expression.

Charles was gripping Joshua by the collar as Joshua trembled with fear. Joshua gave a mocking laugh at whatever Charles had said.

“You’re doing all this over one person who’s already dead! It’s been five years! Why are you making such a fuss now? Charles Berichmen. In the end, you’re just another weak human being. In order to climb higher—ugh!”

“Shut up.”

Before Joshua could finish speaking, Charles’s hand moved. Joshua’s ear was sliced off.

With both wrists and one ear cut off, Joshua was streaming tears and snot.

Only then did he seem to realize that Charles had no intention of letting him live, and he clamped his mouth shut.

Elenor’s gaze remained fixed on Charles. Joshua’s words had struck her as strange.

Someone who was already dead. And five years had passed.

Elenor stared at Charles in disbelief.

‘……Could he be talking about me?’

With bloodshot eyes, Charles spoke.

“You were never worthy of someone like her in the first place. She did everything she could to put you on that throne because you wanted to become Emperor. And how did you repay Elenor? Afraid that it would be discovered you weren’t the former Emperor’s child, you framed her for assassinating the Empress and drove her to her death. Tell me. What do I have to do to you to finally satisfy me?”

“I don’t want to die!”

At Joshua’s desperate struggle, Charles twisted up the corner of his mouth. Then he swung his sword.

“That’s not for you to decide.”

Rumble.

Joshua’s head rolled down from the platform and fell beneath it.

Elenor watched the scene with an expressionless face. She felt nothing at Joshua’s death. The only thought she had was that it was a shame she had not been the one to kill him herself.

Elenor looked at Charles. He was standing precariously, supporting himself with his sword. Just then, someone came running to his side. Looking closely, Elenor realized it was his close friend and adjutant.

Charles gestured toward Joshua’s head with his chin.

“Cut the body into pieces and throw it into the forest. Hang his head in front of the castle gates and let the crows feed on it.”

The adjutant looked at Charles with an uneasy expression, but soon nodded. Before long, several men approached and dragged Joshua’s head and body away.

Left alone, Charles sat down on the low steps.

Elenor was confused. Knowing that Charles had taken revenge for her, despite having met her only a handful of times, filled her with indescribable gratitude.

If only she could live. Then she could at least tell him that she was grateful.

Elenor smiled bitterly.

Then something completely unexpected happened.

Charles raised his sword and drove it into his own heart.

Without realizing it, Elenor cried out.

“Don’t! Charles!”

But there was no way he could hear her scream.

Charles vomited a mouthful of blood, and his upper body collapsed. For someone who was about to die, his face looked strangely peaceful. When Elenor saw the smile lingering at the corner of his lips, she froze.

“……El. Now I can go see you.”

“……”

“Ah…… No? I’ve killed so many people all this time…… So I’ll surely go to hell…… Someone as kind as you must be in heaven…… I guess we’ll miss each other again like this…… I want to see you. Your face…… I really want to see you. El……”

As Charles stared into the empty air with fading eyes, Elenor held her breath and shed tears. Her heart ached after finally learning about Charles’s feelings.

Elenor slowly watched the last moments of Charles’s life until his breathing finally stopped.

If she ever got another chance—if she were truly given another chance……

At that moment, the space began to grow dark again. As Charles’s figure gradually disappeared into the darkness, Elenor’s expression hardened. Something had briefly glimmered from within the dead Charles’s clothing.

Elenor narrowed her eyes to look more closely. Just then, it fell from Charles’s chest.

It was a necklace. At first glance, it looked like an ordinary necklace, with a ruby pendant about the size of a baby’s thumbnail.

Pure gold protruded like needles around the round red ruby, making it look like the sun. However, there was one unusual feature: it appeared as though a gemstone that had originally been whole had been split in half.

If that was the case, then surely the other half existed somewhere.

The necklace continued to shine, looking anything but ordinary. As she watched the pendant repeatedly flash as though desperately trying to make her notice it, Elenor leaned toward the necklace as if hypnotized.

Then light burst from the necklace, and the ground suddenly sank with a deep thud.

Elenor felt as though someone was shaking her arm.

“Miss, you need to wake up. His Highness the Crown Prince……”

“Mmm……”

“Miss!”

Gasp!

At the sudden shout, Elenor bolted upright. Breathing heavily, she looked at the person who had shouted at her.

Standing beside the bed was a maid in a neatly pressed uniform, looking at her with worried brown eyes. At the sight of that familiar and comforting face, Elenor instinctively stopped breathing and stared intently at her.

‘Hin?’

Brown hair reaching her shoulders and large eyes. It really was Hin.

Seeing the face she had missed for so long, Elenor’s eyes grew red.

[“Don’t worry, Miss. I’ll stay by your side until the day I die.”]

She had been the girl who once said those words to her.

But she had also been the first person to leave her side.

A nobleman who disliked Joshua had taken a liking to Hin when he met her at a banquet. At the time, Joshua was hungry for the imperial throne, and in order to bring that nobleman over to his side, he had immediately promised to give Hin to him.

Without even asking Elenor what she wanted.

By the time Elenor learned of it, Hin had already been handed over to the nobleman. Even when Elenor became furious, Joshua paid no attention. Instead, he tried to soothe her, babbling that Hin was not being taken as a mistress but as the man’s legitimate wife, so she was hardly losing out.

Later, when Elenor discovered that Joshua had even convinced Hin that this was something Elenor herself had wanted, it felt as though the sky had collapsed around her.

That incident made her despise Joshua even more.

How naive had she been to believe that such a person would create a world where everyone was equal? A bitter smile crossed Elenor’s lips.

In the end, regardless of Elenor’s wishes, Hin had gone to the nobleman herself for Elenor’s sake.

At the time, Elenor had been consumed by guilt and sunk into depression. Hin had smiled brightly and told her that she was truly fine, that she was the kind of person who could get along well anywhere, and that she would visit often.

But only three months later, news came that Hin had committed suicide.

Years later, Hin’s youngest brother came to find Elenor and told her through tears that his sister had not killed herself. Her husband had beaten her until she was on the verge of death, leaving that as her only means of escape. How could that possibly be called suicide?

Watching the boy cry and beg her to uncover the truth behind Hin’s unjust death, Elenor had been left stunned.

Consumed by guilt over believing that Hin’s death was her fault, she could not sleep properly or eat properly for a long time.

And yet, she could see Hin again.

And not only that—she was seeing Hin as she had been in the past, so full of life…… Elenor’s eyes grew red.

‘I’m seeing Hin again only after I’ve died…….’

When she remembered how Hin had died, Elenor knew she did not even have the right to cry like this.

She swallowed back her sobs and took Hin’s hand.

“I’m sorry, Hin. If only I hadn’t sent you to that beast back then, you wouldn’t have…….”

“Miss?”

“……This would never have happened to you. I’m truly sorry, Hin. Everything is my fault.”

Elenor sniffled, her nose stinging, and repeatedly apologized to Hin. But the more she apologized, the more bewildered Hin looked.

When Elenor’s apologies showed no sign of stopping, Hin finally took hold of her hand. Only then did Elenor stop speaking and look up at her.

Seeing the tears clinging to Elenor’s eyes, Hin anxiously shifted from foot to foot.

“Miss! What are you talking about? Why would I die? Look at me. I’m perfectly fine and alive.”

“……What?”

“And I already told you that I wouldn’t marry and would stay by your side for the rest of my life. I’m your person until the day I die. Do you understand?”

“……You’re alive?”

Hin lifted Elenor’s hands and placed them against her own face. Elenor gently stroked Hin’s face as carefully as though she were touching fragile porcelain.

She could feel the warmth of her body through her fingertips. Tears streamed from both of Elenor’s eyes and gathered at the tip of her chin.

“It’s true. You’re really alive!”

“That’s right, Miss. I really am alive.”

The louder Hin’s voice became, the more clearly Elenor felt that Hin was truly alive.

She pulled her hands away from Hin’s face, climbed out of bed, and ran toward the full-length mirror standing against one side of the room.

When she stood before it, her face came clearly into view. Elenor raised a trembling hand and touched her own face.

It was the face from the days when she had lived an ordinary life in the distant past. The face she had worn before anything had gone wrong.

Elenor covered her mouth with both hands in astonishment. If she did not, she felt as though a scream would burst out.

‘I’m back. I’m really back!’

Incredibly, she had returned to the past.

She had been given a chance to set everything right.

And that was not all.

Elenor looked at Hin’s face in the mirror as she approached from behind.

‘I can see the people who left my side again.’

Could there be any greater blessing than this?

Overwhelmed by emotion, Elenor burst into loud sobs.