Chapter 50
A surge of exhilaration welled up — the kind that made it seem as if she could kill Duke Partin right this instant.
But then, a question followed.
If you really are Elicia, then why is Duke Partin still alive?
Even at a glance, Fee was clearly a mage.
No matter whose body she had taken over, one couldn’t freely shift between the form of a cat and a human without being a mage.
And yet a mage — unable to kill an ordinary man who wasn’t even a knight?
“Then why didn’t you kill Duke Partin?”
Elicia asked, her face cold and dangerous.
“Didn’t kill him? Let’s get the wording right.”
“…”
“Couldn’t kill him.”
Fee shrugged as she spoke.
Suspicion clouded Elicia’s eyes.
Their gazes collided in the air.
“Did you want me to kill Duke Partin?”
To someone who knew nothing, it might sound like a question with an obvious answer.
But Elicia gave an unexpected reply.
“No.”
Her shake of the head carried no hesitation. And as if she had been expecting that answer, Fee drew away from her entirely.
“Because if that happened, the Viscount Aste family would claim the inheritance rights.”
If so, Elicia and Ariel would be forced into marriage without a choice.
Elicia was still far from adulthood. And what’s more, she hadn’t even been appointed as the heir apparent to a viscountcy.
If Duke Partin were to die right now in that situation, it would be out of the frying pan and into the fire.
That was why Elicia was waiting for Eden to grow up.
Once Eden was grown and could ruin the Partin family, inheritance rights wouldn’t matter at all — because everyone connected to the Partin family would be dead.
That was what Elicia wanted.
Until then, she only had to hold out while keeping the Aste family in check.
But Eden’s sudden awakening had thrown her plan into disarray.
“Then you could just kill everyone in the Viscount Aste family too.”
Fee spoke with a mocking tone.
“You mean a massacre?”
Elicia asked.
If only it were that simple.
“You might not be able to, since you have no power, but me? I could.”
Fee spread her arms wide and spun once on the spot.
She looked genuinely delighted to have been reborn as a mage.
“Then do it.”
Elicia stared at Fee, whose figure was bathed in moonlight, with dim, murky eyes.
Now that it had come to this, having Fee kill Duke Partin along with everyone in the Viscount Aste family didn’t seem like a bad idea.
It was another kind of happy ending.
At Elicia’s resolute answer, Fee froze mid-step.
“…You’re colder than I thought.”
Fee gave a drained chuckle and smoothed back her disheveled hair.
“But I can’t.”
Her tone shifted abruptly, despite having sounded as if she’d do it herself just moments earlier.
Elicia let out a hollow laugh.
“You can’t even kill my father, so what are you talking about?”
“What do you mean, I can’t?”
At Elicia’s question, Fee seemed to gather her thoughts — debating where to start and how much to say.
From the branch behind Elicia, a leaf dropped to the ground.
Fee slowly opened her mouth.
That was the day I died at Eden’s hands and opened my eyes in someone else’s body.
“What the hell! What the hell is this?!”
This voice wasn’t mine. I rushed into the bathroom and looked in the mirror — and before I had time to think, a scream full of horror tore from my throat.
Not only had I gone back to the past, but I had been brought back to life in someone else’s body.
A voice that wasn’t mine.
A body that wasn’t mine.
If it could be called good fortune among misfortune, the face wasn’t unfamiliar.
Red hair. Golden eyes so beautiful there was nothing else like them in the world.
The eldest daughter of the Partin family — whose entire house had fallen and been executed — a face I, Elicia, knew well.
“Delphir…”
As if the name itself resonated, a crack split across the mirror.
Delphir had died before I was executed.
So she couldn’t have been the one to do this.
No… no, that wasn’t right. Delphir was a mage. I couldn’t jump to conclusions so easily.
One thing was certain — there was no one alive who could perform magic of this caliber other than Delphir.
Some kinds of magic could continue even after the caster’s death.
Like the sealing spell my mother had placed on Ariel.
When she was pregnant with Ariel, fearing that Duke Partin would covet any child born with mana, she had cast a spell to conceal Ariel’s mana from other mages.
That magic had persisted long after my mother’s death — and in the end, it had unraveled when Ariel awakened.
Thud— thud—
Mana I couldn’t control leaked from my body. The bathroom was flooded from burst pipes, and every piece of furniture in the room had been shattered.
Because of the unending noise, someone knocked at the door.
“Lady Delphir! Is something…!”
“There’s nothing wrong, leave!”
I couldn’t steady the panic in my golden eyes. My voice, hoarse with fury, was no better.
All I could do was curl up and endure the alien sensation that wouldn’t fade.
“But…”
“Why can’t you understand plain words! Get out, now!”
Bang!
Another explosion shook the air.
A bookcase shattered right in front of me, and I curled in on myself even tighter. I clenched my teeth and prayed for the moment to just be over.
“…If you should need anything, please call at once.”
At last, the mage — presumably from the Tower — withdrew, unable to overcome my stubbornness.
No sound or presence lingered outside the door.
Every nerve was on edge, hyper-aware of the faintest presence — the sort of hypersensitivity that drained me both mentally and physically.
Thud—
“Stop, just stop…!”
More than anything else, I wanted to deal with the rampaging mana.
It was the hardest thing to do.
“So this is why mages walk around with their noses in the air…”
They handled this kind of thing as part of daily life?
A sticky wetness slid from my nose. When I swiped a hand under it, my fingers came away bloody.
I wiped the blood from my index finger with my thumb.
I could hear my own heartbeat clearly.
The very first thing I did was learn how to control and use Delphir’s mana at will.
I shut myself in my room, enduring the agony of blood flowing backward through my veins, until I finally managed to stop the mana from leaking.
The next thing I did was pretend to be Delphir.
It was easier than expected.
“The Imperial Palace has requested your attendance at a meeting.”
“Am I in a position to come and go at their beck and call?”
I spoke with my legs crossed and my tone haughty, and no one dared raise an objection or even show the slightest offense.
They only bowed deeply, as if it were to be expected.
Disgusting creatures.
The more arrogant I acted, the more the mages treated it as natural — and if I showed hesitation, they looked puzzled.
That made things simple.
“Then send a refusal—”
“Wait.”
I deliberately cut him off, and the mage gave me a puzzled look.
“?”
Uncrossing my legs, I rose from my seat and strode toward the nameless mage.
His body flinched.
He looked frightened.
“…”
His Adam’s apple bobbed, and then he lowered his head deeply.
As if he knew exactly what I was about to do.
Whether he was scared or not, I didn’t hesitate — I placed my hand firmly atop his head. In that instant, a flood of memories poured into me.
The very last line.
Immediately, I erased what had just happened from his mind.
It had been nearly a year since I started doing this.
“You said the Imperial Palace sent a letter?”
I turned back to my seat and asked in an even tone.
“Yes. They request your attendance at a meeting.”
The same answer as before. A magic that replayed Delphir in that seat.
It was the spell of Delphir’s that I grew accustomed to first — and the most important one.
“Tell them I’ll attend.”
The mage’s mouth fell open in surprise — he hadn’t expected me to agree so readily.
I had refused once and then changed my mind, but there was no reason to tell him that.
“What are you waiting for? Go deliver the message.”
“Pardon? Ah, yes.”
I jerked my chin to hurry him along, and without another word, he bowed low and left.
Once the room was empty again, I muttered to myself.
“At this point in time…”
This was when my father was frequently summoned to the Imperial Palace because of the war.
It was also when, as Elicia, I had been forced to keep an eye on Eden.
I clenched my fist.
The armrest of the chair twisted under the pressure.
Now I had grown accustomed to Delphir’s body — and to the power she possessed.
Which meant…
“I can kill him.”
If I had taken over Delphir’s body, there was a high chance the real Delphir had entered mine.
But that wasn’t the important thing.
The important thing was this — if I had come back to life, then so had my father.
Everyone I loved, everyone I hated — all of them liked Ariel.
But I hated Ariel.
Right up until the moment I died at Eden’s hands — no, even now.
And yet, I chose to die to save her.
I traded my own life, and my whole family’s lives, for Ariel’s.
Kneeling on the execution platform, I thought of my mother.
—Mother. I’m finally doing something like a proper older sister.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to follow her to where she was. So I wanted to say it while I was still alive.
No matter how I felt about Ariel, just the fact that she was my mother’s daughter was enough for me to protect her.
While quietly thinking of my mother, the moment finally came — Eden killed Duke Partin.
The only ones left alive on the platform were me and Eden.
It was finally my turn.
As Eden approached, I lifted my head to look at the high seat.
As expected, he wasn’t there.
The jeering crowd, and among them, Ariel screaming for someone to save me — that was all.
Because I was Ariel’s sister, because I was the eldest daughter of the Partin family, he had saved me countless times from Eden’s blade.
So this time, I wanted to repay him. Of course, he had furiously told me he didn’t want my help.
I knew he hated me. But still — couldn’t he at least come to see me die for his sake?
Even as I clung to such vain thoughts, the crowd’s curses rang clear in my ears.
Ariel’s cries had long since been drowned out.
The insults grew sharper — vulgarity as the baseline, mockery on top.
After all, because of the Partin family, the Empire had nearly been destroyed.
As I stared at the empty seat beside the Emperor, I burst into loud laughter.
The noisy surroundings fell silent in an instant.
—Eden. No… Prince Raymond.
—…
—Do you feel relieved?
No answer came from Eden.
—I feel relieved.
A mad gleam flickered in my crimson eyes.
Eden’s gaze, locked on me with the crowd at our backs, was no different from mine.
—Stop dragging it out and kill me.
The moment I finished my last words, Eden kicked me in the head, knocking me down. Then he raised his sword without hesitation.
The man I loved second only to my mother never appeared — not even in the moment I died.
