Chapter 2
I silently gazed at Theodorus, who was holding the sword that had pierced my heart.
My blood was soaked thickly over the blue veins of his large hand and his thick knuckles. Soon, the blood gushing from my body splattered onto his chest, shoulders, and even the tip of his chin.
Theodorus, lunging at Lucas with his blade, had looked like a starving, feral dog gone mad after days without food.
But in the end, he did not get the prey he desired.
Could he have ever imagined that I, Lucas’s wife, would be hiding behind the curtain? Furthermore, he never dreamed that I would step in front of him without a moment’s hesitation.
Of course, I didn’t know either. That I would meet my end at the hands of a former commoner, a knight-commander who once worked as a servant in the Darthion mansion.
The surging, fresh blood spread in ever-widening circles.
“Vivian, please!”
Lucas’s anguished cry, his face pale as a ghost, echoed beyond the spire.
In the sword, gleaming like a mirror, I saw Lucas’s aquamarine eyes reflected.
His rounded eyes, which always smiled for me, compensating for my perpetually expressionless face.
His nose, glinting resolutely beneath the gold-rimmed glasses.
His crimson lips, which vowed eternal love as if the curse upon me meant nothing at all.
I struggled desperately to sear his face into my memory until the very end, afraid I might forget this man.
His hot tears poured onto my rapidly cooling body.
“Vivian, stay with me. You can’t pass out now, okay?”
Lucas shook me frantically, but my eyelids grew heavier and heavier.
That our bond would end so futilely.
Because of the damnable curse that prevented me from showing any emotion, I had never once smiled for him. And though I tried everything after being diagnosed as infertile, I couldn’t bear him a child who resembled him.
‘But you… were the perfect husband to me.’
So I wanted to tell him not to feel guilty, to run away quickly, to live happily even for my share. I wanted to say that.
Unfortunately, no more sound could escape my parched throat.
As luck would have it, the last face I saw was Theodorus’s. His expression was utterly unreadable—I couldn’t tell if he was crying or laughing.
What on earth drove him to the reckless act of trying to kill the Crown Prince? How long had he been plotting this sinister, dreadful plan?
And… how did it feel to have ended up killing me?
I wanted to grab him by the collar right then and demand answers, but I couldn’t even move a finger.
I had been foolish and stupid to think Theodorus was a good person.
I had secretly come to rely on the servant of Darthion Manor—naive, yet diligent and considerate—and I had trusted without a shred of doubt the taciturn knight who had always steadfastly guarded Lucas and me.
Like a flash of lightning, I remembered Theodorus holding an umbrella over me, his shoulder wet.
‘It was all pretense and hypocrisy…’
I slowly closed my eyes. An indescribable emotion—a mixture of betrayal toward Theodorus and relief that I had saved Lucas’s life—washed over every cell in my body.
And so, as if falling into a deep sleep, Vivian Frederick, Crown Princess of the Oranum Empire, took her last breath.
How much time had passed since that long sleep? When I opened my eyes again, I was in the basement bedroom of Count Darthion’s estate.
“……?”
A flattened, musty blanket. Cobwebs blooming in the corners of the ceiling.
‘This is the very room where I’d eaten and slept since childhood… To come back here after death. A cursed woman’s afterlife is certainly… different.’
As I dwelled on these bitter, self-mocking thoughts, the door burst open.
“Young lady, if you take this medicine, you’ll feel much better.”
A maid in a well-starched apron approached. I was certain I had seen her face at the Count’s estate ten years ago… Feeling a chill from the cold basement, I spoke.
“Why are you here… Ah, did you come to hell with me?”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
The maid looked at me with a contemptuous expression. That expression, which a servant should never show a master, was all too familiar, even after such a long time.
Vivian Darthion. The youngest of the five daughters of Count Darthion, known as a marriage broker.
Even back in the Count’s residence, I was an object of scorn among the servants.
The reason was simple: they feared my curse might rub off on them.
Because the moment I was born, the Countess had died from excessive bleeding.
‘I’ve never seen a newborn who doesn’t cry. Her body temperature is abnormally low as well.’
‘Vivian, try to smile. Ah, you can’t, can you?’
‘No maid wants to serve the young lady. Just meeting her eyes makes you feel like you’re freezing.’
My punishment for being born, for killing my own mother, was a curse that prevented me from laughing or crying.
Who would want to marry a woman with corpse-cold skin, who remained expressionless no matter what was said, whose very gaze caused an inexplicable discomfort?
The Count, who only cared about filling his own belly through marriage, had rejected his hopeless youngest daughter.
Pretending to care for me, he hypocritically locked me away in the basement.
“Hell is quite impressive. It’s exactly as I remember…”
The maid frowned and retorted.
“What kind of hell provides medicine and a personal maid? Have you been having nightmares again?”
Her attitude—that there could be no such luxurious hell—made me hurriedly look around.
Now that I thought about it, there were no pits of fire or horrific swarms of insects anywhere. Then, could this be heaven?
“…If this is heaven, can I look down and see how Lucas is doing?”
“…….”
The maid’s silence made me feel as if my heart was eroding with every passing second.
“If it’s too hard to answer, just tell me this. Is he alive? He didn’t die, did he?”
I had thrown myself onto Theodorus’s longsword with that very intention.
I felt as if my whole body was plummeting downward.
“It seems you’re not waking up from your dreams even with your eyes open now. I’ll tell the physician to add more medication.”
“Theodorus must have been arrested, right? Please, just tell me something…”
The maid silently shook her head.
Her hair, so dark it bordered on blue rather than black, swayed left and right, reflecting the ceiling light. Not a single strand of gray.
Only then did I realize something was odd.
She must have worked at the Count’s residence for quite a while, so how could she not have aged a day? If this truly was heaven, perhaps she had reverted to her youthful appearance?
“Stop your nonsense and take your medicine. Unless you want to stay here forever, unmarried.”
“…Married? I am already married. I became the Crown Princess. Dying doesn’t change that fact.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake. You must have been dreaming of becoming Crown Princess Anasha. Please, come to your senses. You’re not referring to some ‘Lucas’ as a prince, are you?”
The maid looked me up and down, as if finding it absurd that I would dare mention the imperial family. Frustrated, I said,
“What are you even talking about? Crown Prince Venice passed away years ago!”
Venice Frederick. The older brother of my husband, Lucas. The Crown Prince who had died in an unfortunate accident. After his death, Lucas became the Crown Prince, and I married him, becoming the Crown Princess.
“Don’t say such dreadful things! With rumors swirling about factions forming against the Crown Prince, you’re spreading false gossip about him being dead? Young lady, I will be reporting this to the Count, so know that.”
The maid stamped her feet and slammed the basement door shut as she left.
I remained in that small, dark room, where time seemed to stand still, for a long while.
Painfully, I raised my body and faced the mirror beside the nightstand. I saw myself before marriage—gloomy, gaunt, and skeletal.
Only then did I look down at my own fingers, the bones practically protruding.
The wedding ring I had never once removed after marriage was gone without a trace. As if it had never existed.
Was this a vivid hell, or a long, lifelike dream? Whatever it was, I was certain it wasn’t heaven.
I raised my hand high and slapped my own cheek mercilessly.
A stinging sensation traveled vividly across my cheek to the rim of my ear.
“If this isn’t heaven or hell, and I’m not insane… then could it be that I’ve truly gone back ten years?”
Just then, someone stopped outside the door, and two knocks rang out.
