MB Chapter 2

"My lady, Lord Alte is here."

"Is he? I'll be right out."

At her gentle request to prepare some tea, Annie left the room.

The moment the door clicked shut, Goiyo let out a long breath. She was the one who had summoned Therio—but that didn't mean she could be entirely composed.

To verify there was nothing lacking in her appearance, Goiyo looked into the mirror.

Her chestnut hair, long enough to cover her chest, had been combed to a smooth sheen, and the black velvet dress, though not elaborate, showed the care that had gone into it. The maid's skill was evident; her makeup lay evenly on her face without a single lifted edge.

Ready to go, she thought—yet she could not pull her eyes from the mirror. This was not something peculiar to today.

Since waking after three days of fever, Goiyo had found it difficult to look away from the mirror. Out of attachment, perhaps.

A rounded forehead, and beneath the dark, straight brows, a face that looked slightly melancholy—too youthful, too flushed with color, for a woman who had been nearly thirty.

And that was not all. The long shadows beneath her eyes from years of insomnia, the pallid complexion, the hollowed cheeks—everything she had grown accustomed to seeing was simply gone.

The face reflected in the mirror was, by anyone's judgment, that of a young woman who had only recently come of age—Goiyo Rubiette at twenty-two, her own past self, the one she had thought she would never see again.

The one who had procured the Silverbell was Eden, the Alte household's loyal butler.

Goiyo had needed a more potent blood pressure medication than what she had been taking regularly, and Eden had brought her the Silverbell.

On the surface, that was all.

That the Silverbell—which to anyone else was simply an effective medication—could grant Goiyo rest was something only she knew.

She swallowed the Silverbell dissolved in wine and closed her eyes. Death was quieter than she had imagined.

She realized it was not the end when her entire body ignited like a burning coal. It was a terrible pain.

Fiercer than the merciless fever she had suffered at thirteen when her mother died, fiercer than the illness after House Rubiette's destruction—a savage heat had overturned her entire body, and everywhere her blood ran, it burned as though fire had passed through.

Her body grew damp with cold sweat; her eyes, wet with tears, did not dry for a moment.

'I didn't die.'

Each time consciousness surfaced briefly, the hazy ceiling and the shadows of people told Goiyo that no period had yet been placed at the end of this wretched life.

Why? She had been found sooner than expected, or the Silverbell's potency had fallen short of what she had hoped, or perhaps a healer had arrived early...

Constructing hypotheses in her darkened consciousness, Goiyo stopped herself.

'What does the reason even matter.'

What mattered was that her suicide had failed.

And Goiyo Alte would have to go on living this tedious life once more.

That was a different kind of suffering from what the body endured.

It was now five years since House Rubiette's destruction. That meant it was the fifth year since Therio and Goiyo's relationship had changed beyond all undoing.

At first she had believed time would heal things. Just as Therio, who had once harbored feelings for Melishi, had resigned himself and returned to her—she had thought his resentment toward her would soften again with time.

Nowhere near it. That wishful thinking dissolved, fleetingly.

Therio had apologized for pouring abuse on Goiyo, but it had been a formality at best.

After that, Therio's conduct turned colder than winter. His manner of speaking grew frigid, and the obligatory nights in bed were rough beyond measure.

The Therio Alte that Goiyo had known seemed to have been buried alongside the dead Melishi.

But Goiyo's true resignation to everything had come a little later, once Therio's anger had subsided.

About a year after Melishi's death, Therio Alte's anger had slowly settled. In other words, he had behaved rather like a gentleman—not warm, but not rough either. He was a cold, correct gentleman who knew how to offer the bare minimum of respect that the situation required.

Looking at those navy eyes with all their light extinguished—she had known it then, in her bones.

Everything had become irreversible.

Goiyo Alte had nothing left. Her house, her family, even her beloved—she had lost all of it. Her only friend had been Therio, from childhood.

If she had had goals to achieve, or dreams of some kind, things might have been a little better—but Goiyo had nothing she wished to accomplish.

Days when it would have been perfectly fine if her breath simply stopped—those days had continued, one after another. In this wearisome and desolate life, the only thing that had kept Goiyo from ending things herself was a small remaining sense of responsibility.

Goiyo herself knew that her marriage to Therio and Melishi's death were not her fault—but even the most steadfast belief, when subjected to repeated blame, will eventually waver.

The people of the Alte household hated Goiyo.

As though she were a witch who had made their beloved master suffer, they sometimes turned gazes sharper than Therio's vacant eyes on her. No words were necessary; the looks alone were enough.

Even if she had not been directly at fault, perhaps she bore some indirect culpability. No—even if she had no fault at all, did she have the right to simply die like this?

Though not as much as Goiyo, Therio too had lost a great deal.

Because of a youthful folly, he had married a woman he didn't want. The person he loved had married another man and died by that man's hands.

One could at least imagine what Therio's feelings must be.

Setting aside the question of whether she was at fault. Even so— she bore responsibility. That much was clear. Having played the leading role in Therio Alte's tragedy, she couldn't simply run away because life felt unbearable.

Her marriage to Therio had been Goiyo's own choice, no one else's. She had to bear the consequences of insisting on a choice that no one else had wanted.

All the more so since it was clear that Goiyo, left alone after all of House Rubiette had died, was keeping herself alive on account of House Alte.

Goiyo murmured it to herself out of habit.

'Until the time comes. Until Therio Alte finds another love.'

And fortunately, Therio's new spring had returned sooner than expected.

The face that had been like a frozen wax figure had grown animated of late, and the hour of his return to the mansion had grown later and later.

Watching the whispers spread about Therio's secret lover—the moment she had been waiting for had come.

It was the joy of a crumbling heart. Of something already broken, finally turning to dust.

Out of the minimum of consideration for those who would be left behind, Goiyo had chosen not to hang herself or throw herself from a window.

More gracefully than that; more discreetly. So that no ugly rumors would circulate that the Lady of House Alte had taken her own life on account of Therio's affair.

As if it were an unavoidable death by accident—grieved and grieved over—so that a new Duchess could enter House Alte without difficulty.

Yes. Like the story of her own father and Lady Kazehl.

"My lady, are you awake!?"

All she had asked for was that much, yet the world had been too heartless with her.

The eyelids she had not wanted to open did open, and as a hazy human shadow sharpened into focus, Goiyo stared blankly at her.

"Annie...?"

"Good heavens, listen to your voice—it's all cracked! Here, drink some water first."

Hadn't Annie died? On the day House Rubiette was destroyed, she had heard that everyone who had worked at Rubiette had been beheaded.

The charge was not some lesser crime but treason, and so even those without blood ties had nowhere to escape. On nothing more than the most petty pretext that no one could know what they might have seen or aided.

Supported by hands lifting her back, Goiyo awkwardly raised herself. As lukewarm water touched her cracked throat, a pain she hadn't noticed until then announced its presence.

When she coughed several times, Annie, who had offered the water, shifted her weight from foot to foot in helpless distress.

"Are you all right, my lady?"

"...What is happening."

'You're alive?'

'And yet—'

'Why are you here at Alte?'

The unorganized questions threatening to pour out in all directions were stopped by the sound of the door opening.

Even in the midst of her confusion, Goiyo lifted her head at the familiar footsteps. In a pair of brown eyes, the face of a dead person was reflected once more.

"You're up."

"...Father."

"I heard you've been down with a fever for three days. Are you feeling any better?"

The formulaic concern, entirely devoid of any real worry, settled into her ears with familiar ease.

The middle-aged man in impeccably neat attire was unmistakably Goiyo's father—Kauloros Rubiette.

She had heard he was dead. More than heard—she had seen the Duke of Rubiette's body with her own two eyes.

By grace of a cruelty packaged as a final consideration for blood kin, Goiyo had been permitted to look upon her beheaded father's gaunt face. That face—more lined than this one, more pallid than this one.

But that was not the only thing that was strange. The place where the Duke of Rubiette stood, the bed she lay in, the whole of the room—all of it was familiar.

It was Goiyo Rubiette's room. Not Goiyo Alte's—Goiyo Rubiette's.

The room she had used until the wedding, in the estate that would later burn.

Hadn't her suicide failed? Then had Goiyo Alte truly died? And because she had died—was it because she was dead that she could see the dead and speak with them?

The strangeness rising in her pressed her hand against the bed. The texture of the sheet in her grip was so vivid it raised goosebumps.

'I had believed death was an ending in itself— why, how —.'

"Goiyo?"

From a young age she had learned to conceal her feelings, so hiding her bewilderment was not difficult for Goiyo. Even so, this time it was a little hard.

Goiyo Rubiette had lowered her gaze in silence, and apparently this seemed strange—Duke Rubiette called her name.

Goiyo lifted her head with as composed a face as she could manage.

"My throat hurts a little. Other than that, I'm fine."

"...Good. I'm glad."

"What about Valter?"

Whether the effort was working, Goiyo's voice—dry and cracked as it was—sounded steady enough.

The flicker of puzzlement on the Duke's face settled back into blankness.

"I know you'll find it disappointing, but he's having his nap. He's only seven, after all."

"I know. I just... I was worried I might have passed my fever to him."

"He's perfectly healthy. Don't worry about it."

"Yes, Father."

Goiyo swallowed against a dry throat. In truth, she was not genuinely curious about Valter's wellbeing in this baffling situation.

She had offered the clumsy excuse of worrying about passing her fever to him so that asking after someone else wouldn't seem out of place.

And next—the name most difficult for her to say aloud in all the world. Pressing down on her beating heart, Goiyo asked.

"Melishi is all right, too?"

With a lingering low fever leaving her head heavy and her senses dull, Goiyo Rubiette did her best to explore the situation as rationally as she could.

Whenever a longer conversation threatened, she used her low fever as an excuse to avoid it, and quietly drew information from the less suspicious Annie or Jeffrey.

And so, three days later, in this strange situation that felt like either a dream or hell, Goiyo had managed to learn several things.

The first was the date. The day Goiyo had taken her last breath was September of Year 151; here, the calendar read October of Year 144. In other words, between the moment Goiyo Rubiette had closed her eyes and the moment she had opened them again, there was a difference of seven years.

The second was the people. Everyone who should have been dead was alive, perfectly fine. From her maid Annie, to Duke Rubiette, Lady Kazehl, young Valter—and Melishi.

And the third...

A slow breath out.

There was no need to think further. With just these two things alone, it was clear that the time in which Goiyo was waking and breathing was not the present but the past.

Goiyo had not yet fully accepted the nonsensical idea that she had returned to the past.

But if it was truly the case that she had come back against the flow of time, there was one thing she could guess at as the reason.

Even so, it felt more plausible that she was dreaming a dream of returning to the past, or wandering through hell.

Goiyo opened the door to the reception room.

"Hello, Therio. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Whether it was a dream, whether it was hell, whether it was reality—

Goiyo Rubiette had things she needed to do.