Marriage B
"It's because of you. It should have been you who died."
Goiyo had married Therio Alte, the childhood friend she had loved all her life. And yet her marriage had brought her nothing but misery.
The sudden annihilation of her family, at the hands of Marquess Entzi Bethelgius. Her younger sister Melishi — given to him in a political marriage — was dead too.
Therio, who had loved Melishi, poured all his grief and blame onto Goiyo.
She endured it for as long as she could. Then she let go of her life.
And then she came back. Back to before the marriage to Therio.
But what, really, could she change?
She had never believed in happy endings. So rather than allow her sister to walk toward the same fate, Goiyo married Entzi Bethelgius herself.
Not the life she had always longed for — a life where love is returned — but its precise opposite: a marriage without love.
A life lived behind careful masks.
And yet — why was Entzi so tender with her? Why did he persist in this strange, unearned kindness?
If that was how it was to be, then perhaps...
"I hope your gentle mask lasts a long time."
"Until the day you end my life."