Chapter 06
Amelia darted forward to catch him as he faltered.
“Your Highness, it will be all right.”
“Lady… Amelia…?”
“Please understand my choice.”
Strength drained from his legs; his body collapsed beneath him.
Yet even then, Amelia kept her gaze fixed on his, desperate to hold his eyes.
“Your Highness, you must look at me.”
“What… have you done?”
There was no mistaking it.
She had tampered with the tea.
Yet even as he tried to rise, his limbs grew stiff, locking tight until he could no longer move.
“They said the pain doesn’t last long.
Just endure it a little, and it will all be over peacefully.”
Her words made no sense.
“Kh—!”
Blood burst from his lips, splattering across the floor.
His vision swam; Amelia’s face dissolved into a blur.
“Your Highness…?
Your Highness!
Why… why won’t you Your Highness!”
Her voice receded, faint and broken, before darkness swallowed him whole.
Amelia… poisoned me.
Vincent’s fury gave way to disbelief.
How could she how could anyone wear such an innocent face and so calmly deliver death?
Had he trusted her too much?
Was this her father’s command?
Whatever the duke’s orders had been, Vincent had believed at least her heart to be genuine.
He had treated her with the courtesy due to that belief.
And now this.
Never, in all his life as crown prince, had he imagined his end would come this way.
He had always been proud, certain, unshakably confident.
The nobles irritated him.
His half-brothers were a nuisance.
But none of it mattered he was destined to be emperor.
Of that, he had never doubted.
Now, in the grip of rage and despair, he realised something strange: his consciousness remained.
Slowly, he opened his eyes.
The world around him was black as pitch, yet he could still see his arms and legs, clear and sharp.
Is this the world beyond death?
He blinked several times.
Off in the distance, a faint light appeared.
“Do you wish to begin again?”
The light spoke.
He could not tell what it was god, spirit, or something else entirely.
It didn’t matter.
If there was a chance to return, that was enough.
“Yes.”
“What you see is not all there is.”
“Of course.
If I return, I won’t be deceived again.”
“…That is not what I mean.
But still, I shall give you another chance.”
“Can I truly live again?”
“That child is weeping far too loudly.
It’s bothersome.
But mark this well: if you fail to see the truth, your fate will only end the same.”
“I can do this.”
We’ll see.
Remember what comes now is the true beginning.
The voice answered coldly, then vanished.
Vincent was left once more in a world of suffocating darkness.
He did not know how much time had passed when suddenly a powerful force yanked him forward.
He clenched his eyes shut against the pull.
When he opened them again, he had returned one year before the day of his death.
It was a week after his riding accident.
He had half-expected Amelia to be there when he awoke.
She had been before.
In his first life, he’d also fallen from a horse, and when he’d opened his eyes, she was at his bedside, weeping.
He remembered how much trouble it had been to send her away, how stubbornly she had clung to him.
Perhaps it’s for the best.
Had Amelia been the first face he saw upon waking this time, he might have lost control and wrapped his hands around her throat.
It was only thanks to those days without her presence that Vincent managed to steady his mind and accept the truth: he had come back.
Now, standing in his study, he leaned against the window and gazed outside.
Beyond the stretch of lush green lawn lay the windows of the very chambers Amelia would soon occupy.
Vincent’s thoughts turned, unbidden, to the reason for his death.
It couldn’t have been Amelia alone.
She may have been the one to lace the tea with poison, but behind her was surely Duke Wentworth.
And behind the duke, the faction of nobles loyal to him.
He wanted to know what trap he had fallen into back then.
What signs had he missed, what gaps in his vigilance had led him to drink poison from Amelia’s hand?
Too complacent.
The warnings had been there.
He had received reports of suspicious movements among several noble families.
But he had never once considered they would dare to strike at the imperial family so brazenly or that they would use Amelia, of all people, to reach him.
He had been arrogant.
Proud.
But at the time, why wouldn’t he be?
Duke Wentworth and his ilk, whatever they whispered in secret, still bowed their heads low whenever they stood before him.
In the end, Vincent had to admit to himself that he hadn’t kept a close enough eye on the people around him, and he had underestimated his enemies.
That arrogance had only one consequence.
Death.
And the one who delivered that death was none other than his loathsome fiancée, Amelia Wentworth.
Even if she hadn’t acted alone, poisoning him while professing her love was a crime he could never forgive.
I’ll return it to you in kind.
But death, for her, would not come swiftly or gently.
Not for her, nor for anyone who surrounded her.
First, I’ll lure Amelia in.
And when she is at her happiest, when she feels most secure, I’ll drag her straight into hell.
That was the plan.
That was how he would make her his closest companion, only to destroy her when the time came.
And yet… something felt off.
When he awoke this time, she hadn’t been at his side.
Even afterwards, when he had expected her to come to him at any moment, there had been only silence.
In the end, he’d had to summon her himself.
And when she finally came, he had expected tears her sobbing that she had been worried sick.
Or at least, he thought she would be overwhelmed by his calculated charm, flustered and moved by his attention.
At this point in the past, Amelia should have been desperate to draw closer to him.
But what was her reaction instead?
Vincent tilted his head slightly as he recalled that day.
Was she simply too tense?
Too nervous to move?
That explanation made sense… at least on the surface.
But then, like a flash, their earlier conversation returned to him.
“Is it because it’s been so long?
You don’t seem like yourself today.”
“Well, Your Highness, you don’t seem like yourself either.”
If I wasn’t acting like myself… did she change as well?
Even so, there was one thing that made no sense at all.
It was Amelia who brought up breaking off the engagement.
At this point in time, that Amelia his Amelia would never have spoken of annulment, not even as an empty threat.
She had changed.
Just as he had.
“…I’ll need to tread more carefully.”
If his regression had taught him anything, it was patience.
Patience, and caution.
The cloying scent of flowers filled the room until his head throbbed.
What had begun as a feigned illness was turning into something that felt dangerously real.
Lying back on the bed with a hand pressed to his forehead, he heard the door slam open.
Kate stood there, clutching yet another basket of flowers.
She looked around the room, scowling at the blooms crammed into every corner, then all but hurled the basket down.
Something small tumbled out, rolling under the bed.
“Ugh, why can’t you accept these yourself?
Which lunatic keeps sending flowers anyway?”
With that, she shot Amelia a sharp glare, slammed the door, and stormed off.
Amelia sat up slowly, bent to pick up the fallen object, and slipped it absentmindedly into her pocket.
“…Incredible, really.”
She let out a hollow laugh.
She’d known Kate treated Amelia with disdain, but that had been… excessive.
And lunatic?
Clearly, no one in this household had the faintest idea that the Crown Prince himself was the one sending the flowers.
How little do they care about her?
Seven days she’d been lying here, pretending to be ill.
In all that time, the only visitors had been delivery boys with bouquets and servants bringing trays of food.
No family member had come not once.
Even for an illegitimate daughter, wasn’t that too much?
If the duke’s young lady was bedridden, surely someone should at least look in on her, no matter what she had said.
At first, the shock of inhabiting Amelia’s body had left her too distracted t
o notice.
But now… now it struck her fully: Amelia Wentworth was the outcast of this house.
Not that she’d wanted visitors like these.
BANG—
“Hey, bastard child.
How long are you planning to just lie there?”
The voice belonged to none other than Aiden Wentworth, the duke’s eldest son.
