It is said that before death, people see a flashback of their lives.
The most intense memories of one’s life.
Memories filled with emotions such as happiness, loss, sorrow, love, and regret.
It seems I was no exception.
It was a memory from when I was 15.
A stranger’s funeral, a woman I met for the first time.
Unlike me, who had never been particularly emotional since childhood, her blue eyes burned like the embodiment of emotion itself.
Perhaps I had fallen for those eyes.
Her blue eyes, still clad in black mourning clothes, forced to feign affection, were too dazzling to me.
Those eyes were like the moon.
Not as radiant as the sun, but for some reason, I couldn’t stop wanting to look at them.
The emotions within them were too intense, and though it hurt that those emotions were directed at me, I remained silent because I vaguely understood where they came from.
I wasn’t the type to lose my rationality to such sudden love, and in the end, I couldn’t say a word, staying by her side throughout the engagement ceremony.
The closest I got to her was when the Emperor made a strange request.
A portrait.
The Emperor demanded a portrait as proof of the engagement, and we had no choice but to hold hands and stay still, pretending to be on good terms.
Under the pretense of needing to paint the portrait, we had to remain still for hours.
During that time, I was acutely aware of our forcibly clasped hands, while my eyes scanned her.
That was enough for me.
I could tell she, Ilia, was displeased by the trembling of our clasped hands, but I was too busy convincing myself that it wasn’t my choice to hold them.
Sadly, I didn’t see Ilia again for three years after that day.
Perhaps I had already sensed it when Ilia glared at me and spat out words closer to a curse than a farewell.
Still, that day was like a dream, the most memorable day of my life.
Time passed quickly.
The monotonous days of training with the sword to be of some help to Ilia.
Those days lasted for three years, and after three years since the engagement ceremony, I met Ilia again as an adult.
The wedding was no different from the engagement.
The Emperor still sought to control us, or more precisely, Ilia, and Ilia looked at the Emperor, and even me, with disdainful eyes.
Ilia had matured even more than I remembered.
Her body had become more feminine, and her face had shed its childishness, revealing its beauty.
Because of this, the men around us became more persistent, and I inwardly disapproved.
Looking back now, it’s laughable because I was no different from them.
I, too, couldn’t take my eyes off Ilia in her dress.
No longer a girl, but a woman whose ample chest would draw any man’s gaze, her slender waist that seemed like it would break if held, and her hips that looked perfect for bearing children.
There was nothing about her that wasn’t beautiful, and I was too busy looking at her.
What changed my thoughts was when we faced the Emperor.
Ilia’s gaze at the Emperor, who had taken the podium to officiate the ceremony, was more intense than ever.
Anger, shame. And the most intense of all, despair.
Her blue eyes were so dark and filled with such bleak emotions that it felt like they were slowly turning to ash.
That’s why I decided to change.
Instead of taking Ilia, toying with her, and ultimately killing her as the Emperor planned, I decided to live for her.
Drawn by her intense emotions, I wished that intensity would turn into happiness.
We did not exchange vows of love that day, nor did we consummate our marriage as husband and wife.
Instead of entering Ilia’s room on that dark night, I went to the training ground and swung my sword.
That was the only thing I could do.
I felt her gaze watching me, but I ignored it.
Even though that gaze came from the room I hadn’t visited.
…
After that, the flashback sped up.
At 19, in the summer, I pledged my knight’s oath to Ilia and headed to the battlefield.
At 20, in the winter, Ilia and I endured a month with our supply lines cut.
At 21, in the autumn, I lost three fingers.
And at 21, in the winter, we finally returned to the estate after two and a half years.
A month later, as the new year approached, the memories flowed, and finally, I arrived at the present.
Slowly dying.
No, perhaps I was already dead.
My mind was too clear for someone on the brink of death.
No, it was becoming clearer.
It felt like sensations were returning one by one, as if being pulled up from the depths of the ocean.
First, it was touch.
The smooth texture of expensive fabric.
It must have cost a fortune.
Slowly moving my hand down, I felt wood.
So finely polished that it felt seamless.
“…Are you awake?”
The next sense to return was hearing.
A familiar voice struck my ears, and I opened my eyes.
Vision returned, and I found myself face to face with my brother.
“…Brother?”
His face looked younger than I remembered.
His complexion was much better, and his hair was fuller.
Compared to the last time I saw him, his hair was much thicker.
The differences were noticeable, different from the brother in my memories.
I took my eyes off him and looked around.
“Where is this…?”
“Inside the carriage. You didn’t sleep well last night, so your mind must still be unsettled.”
“Inside the carriage…”
Now I recognized the familiar interior.
The walls painted entirely black, the artifact emitting light from the ceiling, and the black dog emblem engraved on the wall.
I was inside the Serigard carriage.
‘Brother rarely rides carriages…’
The last time he rode a carriage was when we headed to what turned out to be my engagement ceremony, disguised as Rigmond’s funeral.
Brother preferred faster horses over carriages.
“Where are we… heading?”
At my question, my brother looked at me with a strange expression.
“Did you hit your head? We’re obviously heading to Rigmond.”
“…No way.”
The puzzle pieces fell into place.
My brother looking younger than I remembered, my three fingers still intact, my brother riding a carriage.
That alone told me what was happening.
Something too unrealistic, something magical.
No, something even magic couldn’t achieve.
Regression.
If my guess was correct, I had returned to the past.
To when I was 15, the day I first met Ilia.
“…What is this…”
My head ached.
Thoughts tangled endlessly, and my heart pounded as if it would burst.
My emotions changed more intensely than ever, turning my heart upside down.
Sorrow, relief, fear, confusion.
All mixed together, I couldn’t make a sound.
I just clutched my chest as if having a heart attack and bowed my head.
Drops of water began to fall on the wooden floor of the carriage.
I thought it hadn’t rained today in my memory, but soon realized it was my own tears clouding my vision.
“Are you… alright?”
My brother’s concerned voice reached my ears.
Did he say that today?
No.
He was as stoic as usual.
We didn’t converse in the carriage.
Originally, there was hardly any conversation between my brother and me.
So what’s with this situation?
Confusing.
No word better described me.
And what ended that confusion was the familiar mansion I saw when my brother tilted my head up to look outside the carriage.
No, that wasn’t it.
The mansion didn’t calm my confusion.
The mansion’s third floor, the far-right room.
The window was wide open, visible even from the carriage, and in front of it stood a figure.
Clad entirely in black.
But her hair was the opposite, pure white.
A woman.
Her name was all too familiar.
A name I had uttered hundreds, thousands of times.
The woman I loved more than anyone, who gave me the deepest wound through her death.
Ilia Rigmond.
She was looking out from the mansion.
And her blue eyes didn’t leave the Serigard carriage.
Beautiful.
I suddenly thought.
It was a simple, clear thought that calmed all the confusion.