005
“What is it?”
“F-Forgive me, my lord…”
His voice trembled, thin and brittle. It took several tries—lips parting, closing, parting again—before the words finally emerged.
“The M-Marchioness…”
And just like that, I remembered.
I’d seen him like this once before.
His disheveled clothes. His normally serene demeanor rattled, breath uneven. The same shaken tone. The same weight in the air.
That day, too, I’d awakened to find my nursemaid missing from my side. The news had come quickly—she’d been urgently summoned to the Marchioness’s chambers. My mood had soured instantly. I remember being particularly angry that morning.
One of the maids—Marie, though I hadn’t realized it at the time—had stumbled her way through an explanation. Nervous, fumbling, flustered. I hadn’t heard a word of it.
My hand had landed across her cheek before she could even finish.
Now, I knew. She wasn’t incompetent—she was doing her best, just far too inexperienced to handle my anger. But back then? I didn’t see effort. Only failure.
Her awkwardness fed my rage. My patience, always thin, snapped almost immediately. I threw things. Screamed. And eventually, I hit her.
There was no escape for a maid like Marie. She couldn’t fight back. Couldn’t flee. All she could do was endure it.
Even when the other maids arrived, they circled uselessly—afraid to intervene, terrified of drawing my fury toward themselves.
And the nursemaid? The steward? No one came. No one stopped me.
I didn’t stop until I was too exhausted to continue. By then, the room was a disaster. Broken objects, scattered debris—and Marie, lying unconscious on the floor.
She didn’t move.
And still, the others just hovered, paralyzed by fear.
I was catching my breath, panting heavily when the steward arrived. The same steward who now stood before me, disheveled, shaken.
Even then, it was clear something was terribly wrong. I remember how strange it had been to see him, of all people, so rattled. He had looked just like this—hair mussed, breath shallow, jacket askew.
He’d paused to steady himself, then forced the words out, brittle as glass:
“The Marchioness has passed away.”
And I—Beonne—had stood there like a spectator in a play, watching my own story unfold.
It was the past.
It was the present.
It was the future I would live again.
—
Act II: The Funeral
The sky was impossibly blue. The sun, too bright. It was far too beautiful a day for a funeral.
But the crowds gathered anyway, filling the Marchioness’s estate to the brim—testament to the power and prestige of House Elient.
Her funeral was held in full accordance with Imperial rites.
In the Empire, funeral traditions varied by class. Royals were entombed in elaborate burial mounds, often interred with their possessions. The size and grandeur of a tomb reflected the deceased’s legacy. Yet such tombs were rare. For all their splendor, the royal family had a habit of devouring its own. Fratricide and infighting saw to that.
Nobles and commoners, by contrast, were cremated. Their ashes placed in family vaults—if they had them. The poor scattered theirs to the wind, into sea or soil.
The Marchioness would be cremated, then laid to rest in the Elient family’s mausoleum.
But cremation came last—conducted only after the guests had gone, when only family remained. What the world was permitted to witness ended before the final flame.
Her casket was brought forward.
Draped in black velvet, it was carried by the Marquess, her father, and several knights of the household. That, too, was tradition. The body must be borne by those who knew her best.
Ordinarily, the lid would be opened. The deceased’s face, beautifully adorned, revealed to the mourners.
It was believed the soul journeyed on in the very form they wore in death—not reborn, but simply moved. To another place.
The more radiant the final image, the more blessed their afterlife would be.
So the body was washed. Painted with warm tones to chase away the pale chill of death. Dressed in the finest silks. Adorned with the brightest jewels. Artists were even employed to perfect the illusion of peace.
The people gathered now waited with quiet reverence, anticipating the moment the Marquess would lift the lid.
The task usually fell to a husband. Or a parent. Or a child.
Once revealed, each mourner would approach in order of intimacy—placing a yellow flower near the body, offering final words, speaking as though to the living.
The farewell could stretch for days. Dozens, sometimes hundreds of visitors came to pay respects. It was a ritual of endurance as much as of grief.
I looked around the sea of black-clad figures.
How many of them truly mourned her?
There were a few familiar faces, but many more I did not know. I doubted the Marchioness would’ve recognized even half of them. Yet here they stood, waiting to see her off.
There were so many that I wondered if we’d ever finish.
Just as I sighed at the thought of the long ceremony ahead, a stir passed through the crowd.
I didn’t need to ask why.
The Marquess had approached the casket—
—but he did not lift the lid.
Instead, he placed a single yellow flower atop the velvet and stepped back in silence.
No words of farewell. No prayers for her next life.
Just… that.
Then he returned to his place and stood straight, his duty fulfilled.
“Ha…”
I couldn’t help the sigh that slipped through my lips.
I knew he would do that. And still, it stung.
Last time, I had screamed at him. Not because I was grieving—how could I grieve someone I’d never truly loved? No, what I’d felt then had been something closer to rage.
Because he had refused to speak.
I hadn’t known the cause of her death at the time. The Marquess had ordered it sealed—only a handful of people ever learned the truth.
But I’d seen how he denied her dignity, even in death. No blessings. No warmth. No kindness.
I thought it meant he hated her.
And if he hated her…
Then surely he hated me, too.
I had believed that. With everything I was.
“So it’s true, then…”
“The rumors were right. The Marquess never loved her…”
The murmurs in the crowd grew louder.
They couldn’t understand the Marquess’s behavior. In hushed voices, conjectures flitted back and forth like moths to flame—some fanciful, others disturbingly close to the truth. And as always, when facts were scarce, fiction stepped in to fill the void. Soon, half a dozen versions of a tragic novel starring the Marquess and his wife were circulating the funeral grounds.
There were well over a hundred people present. No matter how quietly they whispered, the hum of speculation carried. If I could hear them, so could he. Yet the Marquess remained still, unmoved. His silence, meant perhaps as dignity or restraint, only fed the fire.
“So the young Lady Elient… the rumors must be true.”
“Shh, someone might hear you. Keep your voice down.”
I felt the stares. The sideways glances tinged with pity. Their eyes said it all—abandoned, unwanted, the poor girl the Marquess had never acknowledged. Their assumptions solidified with every minute he refused to look my way.
Back then, I couldn’t stand it. His indifference. Their gossip. The weight of their pity. I had stormed out of the funeral in a blaze of fury, not caring in the slightest about bidding farewell to the dead.
The Marquess didn’t stop me then. And I knew, even if I were to walk away now, he wouldn’t stop me this time either.
I turned to look at him, standing silent beneath the sunlight. Just like before, he ignored the rumors around him. Some of the whispers now held sharp edges—accusations, slander—but if he heard them, he gave no sign.
There are very few circumstances in which a body is not displayed at a funeral in the Empire. Only two, really. Either the corpse is too gruesomely mangled to bear witness, or the deceased died of an infectious disease. In such cases, it was customary—required, even—to inform mourners in advance.
But the Marquess had said nothing.
Not out of negligence.
Because to ask forgiveness would mean offering an explanation.
And he couldn’t do that.
Of course he couldn’t.
The Marchioness had taken her own life.
She had jumped from the third-floor window of her private chambers. It had happened in a moment—when the maids had turned their backs for just a second.
The Elient estate was no modest villa. Its floors were high-ceilinged and grand. Even a fall from the third story left no chance of survival.
Her head had shattered. Her limbs were twisted unnaturally. It was a death so violent, the remains were unrecognizable. Her body—what was left of it—could never be shown.
Suicide was a scar on a family’s name. A blight on one’s legacy. And in the Empire, it was deeply taboo.
The prevailing belief was that those who took their own lives were doomed to an unhappy afterlife. Mourners offered no blessings, no farewells. In some cases, families were treated as if a criminal had lived among them.
Now I understood why the truth had been buried.
No one in the household had told me—not a servant, not the steward. Not until much later, when my old nursemaid quietly revealed the truth.
To the world, the Marchioness had died of illness. The Marquess’s announcement had cited a prolonged period of seclusion and declining health.
It was believable. She hadn’t appeared in society for years. Whispers had always surrounded her: that she was ill, that she’d grown mad, that she was already dead. The stories had been endless. So when the notice came, no one questioned it.
The real problem… was today. The funeral.
The moment her casket was opened, the truth would unravel. So the Marquess never opened it.
He said nothing. Offered no apologies. No explanations.
In doing so, he made the only choice he could: to accept being misunderstood. Better to endure rumors than to confirm a disgrace.
Even if someone did know the truth, they wouldn’t dare speak it aloud. Without evidence, no one could refute the official story. And even if they could—what would that gain them? To expose the Marchioness’s secret was to declare war on House Elient.
And unless you were ready to face the Marquess as your enemy, you kept your mouth shut.
So her suicide would remain hidden. Forever.
—
“Gasp!”
“Oh my…”
I stepped forward, walking slowly toward the casket. The crowd hushed instantly, all eyes turning to follow my every movement. Some looked on with curiosity. Others with pity. A few—too few—wore something uglier. Malice, barely disguised.
For the first time that day, the Marquess’s gaze met mine.
I smiled at him. Just faintly.
He remained expressionless.
Sometimes, he didn’t seem human at all. A machine in a man’s skin.
I placed the yellow rose I held atop the black velvet. Its color stood out brightly against the dark cloth—vivid, defiant.
Like him, I said nothing. No blessing. No goodbye.
Only a gesture of respect.
One hand to my chest, the other gently lifting my skirt, I offered the formal bow—shortened but correct. I bent at the waist, not the knees. Not too low, not too shallow.
Then, with nothing left to say, I turned and walked to stand beside him.
He still didn’t move.
But from this close, I saw it.
The smallest tremor in his eyes. A flicker. Gone in an instant.
And like him, I fixed my gaze forward and stood tall.
The crowd didn’t know what to do. The silence was suffocating. They looked between us—us and the sealed casket—as if waiting for a signal.
That was when someone else stepped forward.
An elderly man, hair streaked with silver, holding a yellow flower in hand.
He knelt beside the casket and gently placed the flower atop the velvet. His fingers, gnarled and weathered, lingered there—stroking the fabric as if it were the Marchioness herself.
His face was drawn, hollowed with grief.
Count Peaceon.
A powerful merchant lord—and my maternal grandfather.
He said nothing.
He, too, was one of the few who knew the truth.
He didn’t bless her. He didn’t say goodbye. He simply stayed there, kneeling, his hand brushing the velvet again and again.
When he finally stood, he swayed. Just slightly.
“Oh!”
“Goodness!”
“Catch him—!”
Gasps rippled through the crowd as he began to stumble.
And then—swift as wind—someone moved. A blur of motion.
A young man caught him before he could fall. With one arm steady around the Count, he helped him upright.
Who…?
A boy? No. Not quite. His features were mature, refined. But too youthful to call him a man.
The Count leaned into the support, murmuring something I couldn’t hear. Whatever it was, the young man nodded respectfully, then turned to leave.
Our eyes met.
Steel-blue. Piercing. His gaze pinned me like a blade.
Does he know me?
His stare was shameless. Direct. Full of a meaning I couldn’t decipher.
I met it without flinching, glaring back.
What? You picking a fight?
But before I could say anything, he turned away—calmly, deliberately.
Something about that made me feel strangely… empty. Like I’d lost a battle I didn’t even know I was fighting.
Was I the only one getting worked up over nothing?
He helped the Count back to his seat. As they arrived, I saw the Count say something again. The words didn’t reach me, but the boy nodded, bowed, and disappeared into the crowd.
Just like that.
