Chapter 125
Like the rainy season arriving far too late, the winter rain showed no sign of stopping, even after several days.
Each time the cold, heavy raindrops struck the ground, the cemetery sank deeper and deeper into the mire.
The mud clung stubbornly to people’s ankles, letting out wet, squelching sounds with every step.
As though it were mourning Agnes’s death in their place.
Or as though it were weeping on behalf of Lionel, who could not cry.
Lionel refused to hold the funeral until the very end.
The very act of burying Agnes felt as though it would deny even the last remaining possibility.
He feared that the moment he uttered the word *”the end,”* everything would truly be over.
It felt like a ceremony forcing him to acknowledge with his own hands that Agnes would never return.
And so Lionel endured for several days with Agnes’s urn held tightly in his arms.
Waiting for this endless rain to stop.
Waiting for time itself to turn back.
Waiting for someone to say, “Actually…” and overturn the news of Agnes’s death.
He waited for such a foolish miracle.
In the end, however, it was Raul Herben Guten’s plea that moved Lionel.
Lionel simply could not ignore the request of a father who begged to be allowed to see his daughter off on her final journey.
And so…
The funeral was held.
On a day of pouring winter rain.
In a small cemetery deep within the private grounds of the Valheim Duchy.
The modest memorial prepared for Raul Herben Guten was unbearably quiet.
There were no cries of mourning.
There were no visitors.
Only the wind striking the ribs of the umbrellas and the rain falling upon the gravestone filled the silence surrounding the cemetery.
Only two people stood before the grave.
Lionel.
And Raul Herben Guten.
The moment Raul Herben Guten reached the gravestone, he collapsed.
Without caring that his clothes were soaked, he embraced the gravestone and buried himself against it as he sobbed.
At a glance, Raul Herben Guten had become terribly thin.
Although it had not been long since he had poured all his resentment upon Lionel, his back looked even more bent now.
There was no trace left of the man once known as a terrorist.
There remained only an old father forced to bury his daughter.
“Agnes… My daughter…”
Lionel watched him from several steps away.
He had the strange feeling that an invisible line had been drawn beneath his feet.
A line he had no right to cross.
Because of that, he could neither stand beside Raul Herben Guten nor even cry alongside him.
Like an uninvited guest, Lionel simply remained standing behind him.
He held something in each hand.
One was the bouquet he had never managed to give Agnes himself.
The flowers, blooming in full, were far too beautiful for this season.
Even amid the mud, rain, and fierce wind, their colors remained unnaturally vivid.
Just as Agnes had been in Lionel’s life.
The other was a newspaper.
It contained the article influenced by Jerome.
The filthy printed words that branded Agnes as the biological daughter and accomplice of the terrorist Raul Herben Guten.
Only today had Lionel finally read the article.
He cursed his own stupidity.
After losing Agnes, he had locked himself away inside that dark bedroom.
He had done nothing except endure the passing of time.
Unable even to distinguish morning from night.
Completely unaware of what was happening throughout the Empire.
Meanwhile…
The world had judged Agnes however it pleased.
It had turned her silence into a crime.
It had dressed her death up as proof that she had fled.
Lionel’s grip tightened until the backs of his hands turned pale.
The flower stems snapped.
The rain-soaked newspaper crumpled into a miserable mess.
The black ink, blurred by the water, looked like filthy handprints staining Agnes’s name.
Rain soaked Lionel’s face.
He looked utterly haggard.
Dark hollows lay beneath his eyes.
His cheeks had grown gaunt, making his features appear even sharper.
And yet…
An almost unnatural beauty still remained upon his face.
As though it represented someone who had lost everything but still could not completely fall apart.
The sentence in the newspaper entered Lionel’s eyes once again.
[The Imperial Family announced that the Duchess of Valheim died while attempting to flee after her assistance to the terrorist Raul Herben Guten was exposed.]
In an instant, Lionel’s vision spun with rage.
But his anger did not come from doubting whether the article might be true.
Agnes had helped Rebelt?
What utter nonsense.
From what he had witnessed with his own eyes alone, there was more than enough evidence to prove how absurd that claim was.
Lionel no longer believed a single word spoken about Agnes unless it came directly from Agnes herself.
For him, the only measure of truth and falsehood was Agnes herself.
Yet while he had been pathetically drowning in the sea of his grief, these filthy printed words had trampled all over Agnes’s name without hesitation.
That realization drove Lionel even closer to madness.
The last shred of dignity Agnes had struggled to protect until the end could not be thrown into the mud because of vile people like himself and the Emperor.
He would never allow that to happen again.
His desire to die and follow Agnes remained unchanged.
Countless times he thought of simply stopping his own breathing.
The urge to embrace her urn and bury himself together with it beneath that cold, wet earth had never disappeared.
But this single newspaper article ordered Lionel to keep living.
Whether he died.
Whether he lost his mind.
Whatever happened…
Not yet.
There was still one thing he had to set right.
He had to clear Agnes’s name of the false accusations Jerome had placed upon her.
Or at the very least, grant Raul Herben Guten the freedom he had never been able to give Agnes.
One of those two things had to be accomplished.
After safely sending Raul Herben Guten beyond the Empire’s borders…
Only then could he think about what came next.
This was the punishment Lionel had chosen for himself.
And it was another kind of death.
****
Meanwhile.
The winter rain that soaked the frozen earth showed favoritism to no one as it spread across every corner of the Empire.
Even reaching the southernmost harbor where Agnes’s exhausted body had finally arrived.
The dock, battered by wind and rain, was nearly deserted.
The dark blue sea roared like a furious beast as its waves crashed violently against the breakwater.
Seawater seeped through the soaked wooden planks, glistening beneath the wheels of Agnes’s wheelchair.
Each time the cold air slipped beneath her clothes, Agnes’s body trembled slightly.
That trembling was not caused solely by the cold.
Only now was the reality of the past few days settling into her body.
She had abandoned her name.
Hidden her identity.
And disappeared from the world like someone already dead.
‘Will I really be able to remain undiscovered from now on?’
Just as a sigh filled with uncertain anxiety was about to escape…
Leuceviten, who had been waiting for Agnes, slowly searched for her hand before gently taking hold of it.
Even amid the fierce rain and wind, the wrinkled hand holding hers was astonishingly warm.
“It’s all right.”
Leuceviten’s gentle voice brushed past Agnes’s ears like a lullaby soothing a child.
“Everything will be all right now, Duchess.”
Leuceviten asked nothing.
Not about the newspaper articles.
Nor about why Agnes had become someone officially dead.
She simply patted Agnes’s hand.
As though the mere fact that Agnes had managed to make it this far through the winter storm was worthy of praise.
Confronted by such unconditional kindness, Agnes suddenly felt her chest tighten.
She had thought she had grown accustomed to suspicion.
Accustomed to being misunderstood.
Apparently, she had not.
The warmth of someone staying by her side without asking a single question was so unfamiliar that it struck her all the more deeply.
Beneath her rain-soaked eyelashes, Agnes’s vision blurred for a moment.
Only then did she realize just how long she had been alone.
For the first time, Agnes found herself grateful that Leuceviten could not see.
Otherwise,
she would never have been able to hide her reddened eyes.
“The rain has made the waves too rough, so the ship to Marsen won’t depart for several more days.”
With a gentle smile, Leuceviten guided Agnes by the hand.
“Let’s go inside first and warm you up.”
