Chapter Two – Back to the Spring Age of Twenty
“What?”
“E–Ete… rion.”
Eterion was a rare mana stone that could amplify a special ability dozens of times over.
Lilliana’s face twisted into an ugly grimace.
“Y–Your Majesty, help! Her Majesty the Empress is acting strange!”
Sensing danger on instinct, Lilliana raised her voice, prompting Amos and the attendants to rush into the room.
They froze at the sight. Claire, like a madwoman, had Lilliana by the wrist in a death grip.
“E… te…rion! Y–You… fake Saintess!”
Thwack!
Enraged, Amos snatched a knight’s scabbard and struck Claire’s head.
“How dare you lay a hand on my woman?”
“Guh!”
Pain so sharp she could hardly breathe tore through Claire; her scrawny body slid off the bed and crumpled to the floor.
“Lady Rupheus, are you all right?”
“I—I’m fine. I think Her Majesty is simply afraid of dying.”
In response to the attendant’s concerned words, Liliana answered with the face of a pitiful Saintess.
How dare a thief use her family’s name?
“Y… you loathsome… pair…”
A rasp of iron grated out of Claire’s throat.
Everyone in the room glared at her with icy expressions.
“Heh.”
Amos, exasperated beyond measure, kicked Claire’s body several more times.
“Kh…!”
Her body went limp, and the coppery reek of blood filled the air.
Disgusted by the sight, Amos instructed the servants.
“From this moment, the Empress is dead. Burn this cursed tower, and leave not even ashes behind!”
He then cradled the trembling Lilliana tenderly in his arms and left the room.
As the door began to close, Claire tilted her head back and laughed at Lilliana’s uneasy expression.
“Ha… ha… hahahaha!”
The gentle manner of speech.
The powers everyone revered.
Everything, every last bit, was fake!
“…The rotten lily emitting a foul stench… it was you all along.”
Cough.
Suddenly, a level of excruciating pain, far beyond what she’d felt before, struck her body.
Claire gagged, spitting up blood as tears rolled down her face.
‘Is this the price Mother spoke of for using my divine power?’
Each time such godlike power was invoked, it left behind searing agony.
This, too, must be part of the cost.
Lilliana had been right about one thing.
The truly foolish one was Claire, who had never doubted anything.
Her vision began to blur.
‘If there is a next life, I won’t live like a fool again.’
Though chosen by a sacred oracle, Claire—mocked as the Scarred Empress—at last closed her eyes in lonely silence.
***
A faint fragrance drifted from somewhere.
Orange-scented black tea, the kind Claire loved.
‘So heaven smells like this…’
Her lavender eyes blinked open slowly, frowning at the black veil obscuring her vision.
‘…Is this a veil?’
The veil she had been forced to remove at her wedding to Amos once more shrouded her face.
As Claire lifted a trembling hand to remove the veil, her breath suddenly quickened, and her heart began to tighten.
She was having a panic attack—something that had plagued her since the carriage accident that occurred when she was at the age of ten, which had taken her parents’ lives.
Consumed by guilt for being the sole survivor, Claire had always covered her face with a black veil until her marriage.
‘I’d managed to overcome this once I became empress… Why am I feeling this pain again?’
She quickly withdrew her hand from the veil. As if by magic, her breathing returned to normal.
“Huh?”
She ran her fingers over her face.
The deep scars and bumps were gone, replaced by smooth, soft skin.
Even through her gloves, she could feel it clearly.
‘Is heaven letting me see my old face once again?’
Awed by the vivid sensation, Claire slowly surveyed her surroundings.
‘Where am I…?’
An astonishingly familiar place.
It was undoubtedly the parlor of the Rupheus estate.
Startled, Claire looked around.
At the head of the table sat her elder brother, Dietrich Rupheus, lord of the house.
Seated at his sides were Lilliana and her mother, Baroness Evelyn Palm.
Claire’s fingertips trembled.
‘Yes, everything began when they came to the estate.’
After Evelyn’s husband, Baron Palm, took their wealth and ran away with a mistress to another country, Evelyn and Liliana had nowhere to go, so they came to the Rupheus estate.
Claire’s mother had treated Evelyn like her own sister, and—hoping their daughters would become good friends—had welcomed them with open arms. But after the carriage accident took both Count and Countess Rupheus, Claire’s world began to crumble.
“Now, now, Claire. Dietrich is holding back his sorrow—don’t you, who killed your parents, dare cry.”
“Everyone says Claire is a murderer. Still, Lily will be your friend.”
“From now on, just trust us and do as we say. It would be awful if you caused another precious person to die, wouldn’t it?”
Once, she had truly believed in them.
But that trust was met with cold betrayal and death.
Claire grimaced. This felt like a vicious nightmare replaying fragments of the past.
Dietrich loosened his cravat and asked Liliana, “I heard the temple’s triumphal ceremony was canceled because the Saintess fell ill?”
“Did you hear about it too, brother?”
“I happened to. And you’ve chattered about it often enough—how could I not? A triumphal ceremony where the Saintess herself places a lily wreath on the Commander of the Paladins who subdued the barbarians.”
Ah. She remembered this conversation.
It was during those years when Lilliana’s meager holy power had exploded, and she was revered as a Saintess.
Her healing ability, comparable to that of a high priest, had been the talk of the Empire.
Not knowing it was all a facade.
“Don’t be disheartened,” Dietrich said gently, as always. “Whatever anyone says, you are this Empire’s Saintess.”
“Yes, brother…”
Dietrich, gazing at her briefly, added in his usual tender tone, “More importantly, Lilliana, you’ve received many marriage proposals. You’re all anyone talks about in society.”
Even in this “dream,” Claire felt like the only outsider.
But something seemed off.
Every scene was too realistic to be a mere dream.
In an instant, Claire’s body became rigid.
The vivid sensation reminiscent of reality, the dialogue she recalled from her memories, and even the lingering panic symptoms.
She had died. And yet every sense throbbed as if alive.
‘Have I… gone back?’
