MB Chapter 1

Chapter 1 Prologue

"Would you like to leave a little later today?"

"Why."

Just because.

They say you can't spit on a smiling face—but looking at a frowning one, apparently that rule doesn't hold either.

Therio shoved his arm through the coat he had paused mid-putting-on. The gesture, once indifferent, had grown distinctly irritable—as though the coat itself were expressing its owner's displeasure.

"I told you, Goiyo."

Therio, finished dressing, looked at me with an expressionless face.

"Don't expect anything from me."

Well, naturally.

My smiling have a safe trip went unanswered. Therio left the mansion, and the attendants went inside, leaving me behind without a second glance.

I stared blankly at the spot where Therio had vanished, then slowly lifted my head. They had said a storm was coming, yet the sky was serenely clear.

A strange day.

Meeting Therio Alte—my husband—is a somewhat old story.

Beneath the Emperor's seat, Solaris's sky held two ducal houses: Alte and Rubiette.

Therio was the son of House Alte; I was the daughter of House Rubiette.

The two houses were on cordial terms, and since our ages matched, it was only natural that Therio and I would spend time together. That was how it began.

Having known each other from a very young age, we were each other's closest friend. Our tastes, our talents, our worries—even our dreams for the future—we knew everything about one another, close enough to dare say there was nothing we didn't know.

Between us was a friendship thicker than anything else, and there was a time when I believed it would last forever.

Until Therio confessed his love to me.

First came confusion, then denial, then anger—and finally, love.

The transformation over that year had been tremendous, and the eternity we had pledged in childhood had proven terribly fleeting. Yet what was more fleeting still was my own heart.

The time it took for a friendship I had never once doubted—solid and certain—to soften and melt into love had been far too brief.

'I love you, Therio.'

Uneasy at losing the blueprint I had drawn for my life, yet unable to overcome what was in my heart, I surrendered. He wept, and I smiled.

It's all right. Nothing has changed. I've lost an eternal friendship, but gained an eternal love. Goiyo Rubiette decided to believe in forever once more.

Foolishly.

After that, things went smoothly. A clumsy love grew, nourished by time. The giddiness that had once felt as if her heart would burst was no longer quite what it had been at first, but in its place she had found something steady.

When we came of age, we entered into a verbal engagement.

It was the day that marked exactly three years since Therio and I had changed—and the day he first exchanged words with Melishi.

Melishi Rubiette. My younger sister, who did not share a single drop of my blood, yet carried the Rubiette name.

Melishi was the stepdaughter of Lady Kazehl, who had become the Duchess after my mother's death.

Melishi had joined the ducal family when I was thirteen and she was around ten, but Therio had shown no interest in her, and so that day was the first time any conversation had passed between them.

I neither liked nor disliked my fragile younger sister, and so I left Therio and Melishi to speak without interference.

Not knowing that it would be the thing to turn my beloved darling's fickle heart upside down.

I hadn't known. Whether I had not wanted to know, or had been unconsciously averting my eyes, what lay beneath my own feelings I still couldn't say—but I truly had not known.

We held a formal engagement ceremony and set a wedding date. As that date drew nearer, Therio's expression grew increasingly strange.

He said it was nerves, and I nodded, though something in the deepest part of me was never quite convinced.

But a bride-to-be had no leisure for dwelling on such things.

The ceremony approached, step by step.

Then a marriage proposal arrived for me. The other party was Marquess Bethelgius—a man who, having distinguished himself greatly in the war, had risen in a single bound from commoner to marquess.

Presenting a marriage proposal to someone already preparing for a wedding was an enormous breach of propriety, so I had assumed my father would refuse it at once—but to my surprise, he laid the proposal before me.

There were two reasons. One concerned the political angle. The other was about Melishi and Therio.

I stormed out of the ducal estate mid-conversation and ran straight to Therio.

To ask whether it was really true—whether his heart had changed again.

To ask whether he truly carried feelings for my younger sister even as our wedding approached. To hear him deny it with my own ears.

But the moment I came face to face with Therio, I understood everything.

That Therio Alte no longer loved me. That there was someone else in his heart. And that even so, I could not let him go.

To Therio asking what was the matter, I said nothing and smiled.

Returning home and looking in the mirror, I found a composed face that gave no hint of the tempest raging within.

I truly am a noble, I thought. I smiled because I had no choice, and I wept because I had no choice.

That day, for the first time in ten years, I spilled the bedside water onto my pillow. "What a thing for a lady to do," Annie said. Indeed, I agreed.

The one who had made me like this was Therio Alte. So he had to take responsibility.

I refused the proposal and threw myself back into wedding preparations. The proposal I had turned down passed to Melishi, and Melishi became the Marquess's fiancée.

Only I was smiling; everyone else's faces grew only darker. But it was all right.

And then, the evening before the wedding.

'I have something to say.'

A drunk Therio came to find me.

"If you need anything, please ring the bell."

"Yes, thank you."

At my gesture to leave, all the maids filed out of the bathroom.

Though I had never asked to bathe alone before, not one of them asked twice. I suppose I should be grateful they weren't openly contemptuous.

The fact that I had grown accustomed to such treatment struck me fresh, and a smile came of its own accord.

Still smiling quietly, I lowered myself into the bath. I disliked strong fragrances and had never cared for anything showy; even when I floated petals in the tub, a handful of small ones was the extent of it—but today was different.

The tub was filled so densely with red roses that my body was hidden entirely beneath them, and the bath salts gave off a bright, vivid scent.

The lamp beside the tub glowed in shades of violet, and through the wall from the room beyond came the sound of classical music.

This bathroom—so unlike its usual self—was the first thing I had ever requested of the maids for myself.

I had asked for it as a change of mood, but it didn't suit me, and I couldn't quite bring myself to like it.

The colors, the light, the scent—all too intense. It felt as though I might suffocate.

Buried in the pile of roses, I closed my eyes.

The wedding ceremony began. I wore a snow-white wedding dress; Therio wore a black tuxedo.

Throughout the ceremony, the groom did not smile once—but that was enough for me.

From Goiyo Rubiette to Goiyo Alte. I became Therio's wife, and Therio became my husband. That was enough.

Even after the wedding, Therio continued to drift for a while. His heart held someone else in place of me, and he had married a woman he didn't want without being able to say so.

Therio was colder than usual and treated me with formal distance. He appeared sad; he appeared to be in pain. But after Melishi married the Marquess, he changed his manner as though he had resigned himself.

My husband returned to what he had once been. Gentle words, a gentle smile, gentle gestures. Occasionally his gaze would drift as though he were turning something over in his mind, but when I called his name, he would look back at me.

I thought then that everything had finally returned to its proper place. I believed there would be no more reason to weep, no more pretending not to notice as I probed at his wounds, no more cold words spoken out of jealousy toward Melishi.

House Rubiette was destroyed.

At first I thought I had heard wrong. My father, who did not love me but respected me. Lady Kazehl, who pitied me and looked on me with sympathy. My half-brother, who had not yet come of age. All of them were dead.

The charge was treason; the sentence was execution.

I could not accept it. A man my father had not supported had newly taken the throne—but even so, the Duke of Rubiette had not moved against the imperial family. His support had not been active, as it had been under the previous Emperor, but neither had his opposition.

We were people who already had much. There was no reason to risk losing everything for the sake of gaining a little more. And yet the Emperor had ordered the destruction of House Rubiette without hesitation.

Only Melishi and I survived—the two who had taken no part in the conspiracy and had transferred our family registries to other houses. Imperial law's limitations on guilt by association had spared us.

But before I could even call that a mercy, Melishi was found dead at the Bethelgius estate.

The Bethelgius side claimed it was an accident, but no one who heard the news believed them. The destruction of House Rubiette had been orchestrated and led by Bethelgius himself.

Overnight, I lost a great deal. My house, my wealth, the family I shared blood with, the family I did not—all of it.

I had thought that was enough to lose—but there was one more thing.

'You killed Melishi.'

'If you hadn't refused the proposal. If you had let me go. Melishi would be alive now.'

'That child, who didn't share a single drop of Rubiette blood, would be weeping in my arms right now.'

Exactly like the night before the wedding, Therio came home drunk. What he had kept locked away in the deepest part of himself—his resentment—poured out unchecked.

But this time I could not stop his mouth or turn the conversation as I had that day. I sat in a daze, yet every word found its way into my ears.

Having poured out his resentment for a long while, Therio seemed to come to his senses belatedly and apologized to me.

I simply watched his unsteady footsteps toward his room. Something I wanted to ask surged up beneath my throat.

'Then what of me?'

'If I had let you go. If I had married Bethelgius. Then what would become of me?'

'Therio. Do you want me to die?'

Keeping my mouth shut for fear of the answer I might receive—that I regretted for the rest of my life.

Even without spending long in the tub, the scent of roses had seeped into my whole body. The fragrance had been so thick I hadn't recognized it for what it was. It seemed even the bath salts had been rose-scented.

I hauled my swimming body upright, lurching, and pulled on my robe without even drying myself.

Stepping out onto the slippery tiles and opening the door, the classical music that had been filtering through the wall came to me louder now.

I put on the slippers left in front of the bathroom and crossed the carpet to sit at the glass table in the center of the room.

As I did, droplets fell tap, tap from my hair and skin, staining the carpet an unpleasant color.

On the table, as I had arranged, sat wine and a wineglass. I tipped the bottle and poured; something redder than blood pooled in the glass.

"It's been a while."

Valut '82—the wine whose cork I had pulled the night before the wedding, after sending Therio away, was before me once again.

I felt sorry for reaching for it only in my most pitiable, fraying moments, but I had always been a selfish person.

I stared blankly at the red pooled halfway up the glass, then opened the small case sitting beside the wine.

Inside were silver-colored tablets. Silverbell—the heart medication I had personally asked the butler to obtain.

I crushed the small tablet; the white powder scattered across the wine's surface. The white dust settled over the red like snow, then sank and dissolved.

Kuh-rung—thunder rolled. Looking out through the window, the sky had turned pitch-black as though the clear day had never been, and rain was pouring down in sheets.

It would have been nicer if the stars were visible. I took a sip of the wine in which the Silverbell had dissolved and muttered my complaint.

Therio was not expected back for some time. He had said it was a business trip, but whether it was the Emperor's orders or a secret lover's request was none of my concern. Suspicion was my petty little freedom.

I leaned back in the soft chair and took another sip.

A wet body smelling of roses. A robe wrapped around an unremarkable frame. Wine as deep as the color of roses, and a soft chair to hold my back. A day of wind and rain that flashed and made its noise at intervals.

A day like this isn't so bad.

Feeling my vision start to blur, I finished the wine remaining in the glass. Only two sips, and already rushing things.

In truth, it all suited rather well. Goiyo Rubiette of the overwhelming scent—alone on a solitary night, drinking wine that didn't suit her to the sound of classical music tangled in the rain.

How perfectly my shabby death matched this sorry mess of a day.

I picked a good day, didn't I.

Tuk— the sound of the wineglass she was holding falling was heard.

It was a faraway sound.

Translator Note:

The word "고요 (Goiyo)" also means silence or stillness in Korean. The name carries an inherent irony — a woman named Stillness, suppressing storms. I don't know how to replicate this in English considering the source never mentions it either. It's inherent. But since it's part of the character's identity, I thought a note on it would suffice.