Chapter 101
After the wedding, a specially prepared dinner by Tristan awaited them, but Maya couldn’t enjoy it.
Right now, conversation was urgent.
Maya had prepared a simple meal for Tristan, who, like her, probably couldn’t eat anything.
It was crab soup, freshly baked baguette with salad, and apple wine.
Since they couldn’t eat heavy food while talking, she had focused on appetizers.
Honestly, she had no appetite.
The moment she heard Tristan’s confession, Maya unconsciously realized she would have to tell him about her past—a past she had always avoided.
Tristan’s confession that she was his first and only unrequited love stirred conflicting emotions in her.
She was happy that the first person she truly loved also loved her… but at the same time, she wondered why someone like Tristan could ever love her.
“No way,” her heart screamed.
“There’s no way you could really love me.”
It wouldn’t be a lie to say that she had felt something from Tristan’s actions all this time.
Yet she didn’t believe that what he was showing was love.
She had always thought it was simply the way a kind person like Tristan behaved.
Deciding to live honestly didn’t instantly change Maya’s way of thinking.
Having grown up isolated and deprived since childhood, the way Maya learned to live was very different from Tristan’s.
“I didn’t want to tell you.”
Even though Tristan had asked her to tell him, and she knew that one day she would have to, she hadn’t.
It was natural.
She wanted him never to know what kind of person she really was.
She just wanted him to support and care for the Maya he knew now.
But eventually, avoidance was no longer possible.
The moment she heard Tristan’s confession, she realized that in front of his sincerity, she had no choice but to be honest.
For their private time, she sent away all the attendants and maids.
After placing the food neatly on the table, Maya sat down in front of Tristan.
“Please eat, Tristan. We’ll talk after.”
“I want to hear it first.”
His face, unusually tense for him, looked fascinating.
“Then…”
Unable to speak soberly, Maya poured herself some apple wine and drank it straight from the bottle.
Tristan stared at her in astonishment.
“…Maya?”
Bang! After that, Maya set the emptied bottle down and wiped her mouth.
Since it had been prepared for the wedding, it wasn’t strong alcohol, but for Maya, who was not a strong drinker, it was enough.
Her face had turned bright red.
“Tristan, haven’t you wondered why I know so much about the palace, about the future?”
“I was waiting for you to tell me someday.”
Though Tristan didn’t give an answer to her confession, he sensed that what Maya was about to say was important.
Biting her lips, Maya closed her eyes tightly.
“I’ve… returned.”
For an ordinary person, it would have sounded impossible and absurd.
But Tristan knew very well that Maya would never joke about something like this—or even avoid saying it.
Moreover, the pain in her expression was an entirely different kind of emotion.
“I am…”
Maya bit her lips and covered her face with both hands.
“I am not someone worthy of being with you.”
“Why?”
“Even if I live a different life now, originally, I was a tyrant’s dog who killed and massacred people.”
Although she had changed, her memories and traumas still lingered.
She could become a good person, but that didn’t erase the life she had lived.
“…Maya.”
Tristan sat beside her and took her hand. Maya realized only then that her hands were trembling.
“It’s okay to cry.”
Hearing Tristan’s words, Maya noticed tears forming in her eyes.
“I-I’m not crying on purpose.”
She quickly wiped them away.
She wasn’t trying to look pitiful.
She wasn’t trying to gain sympathy.
It was just that, on the day of her wedding with someone she loved, she had to finally reveal her tragic past, and it made her unbearably sad.
Tristan watched her silently.
He took in her trembling eyes, her shaking back, carefully storing every detail in his mind.
“Tell me everything from the beginning.”
He wouldn’t judge. He wouldn’t think badly of her.
“You wouldn’t have done it without a reason.”
Even in his confusion, Tristan’s faith in Maya remained.
Her story hadn’t even begun.
And the fragmented glimpses she had given weren’t enough to understand the full situation.
He poured apple wine into a glass and handed it to Maya while holding his own glass.
“If it’s going to be a long story… a dinner together wouldn’t be so bad.”
Maya faintly smiled at Tristan’s willingness to stay by her side, no matter what.
Clink. The glasses touched, as if they had been one from the start.
“Take your time. You can start wherever you want. I will…”
Tristan fed her a small apple from the salad while whispering,
“I’ll hear everything.”
He didn’t rush.
He wasn’t surprised.
So Maya finally began from the beginning.
Perhaps aided by the apple wine, recalling memories in her hazy state was much easier.
Even if her memories were scattered, Tristan didn’t mind.
“I will tell you my story.”
Maya began her past life story:
Born into the Pendragon family, awakened, and became the commander of the royal knights—Maya Pendragon.
The dog of the emperor who massacred people—Maya Pendragon.
…And finally, after leading a revolution, she couldn’t even lift Tristan’s curse that came upon her and ended her miserable life—
Maya Pendragon.
‘The more I speak, the more wretched I must sound.’
The more she spoke, the smaller she felt.
Maya clenched her fists tightly.
“If you don’t want to hear anymore, you can leave.”
Even though Tristan seemed unshaken, she couldn’t confess the final truth—that she loved him too.
If she did, she would feel like she had to abandon even the desire to be near him.
She waited anxiously for Tristan’s reaction.
“I’m sorry.”
Maya blinked at his first words.
It was so unexpected that she couldn’t prepare for it.
“For what?”
“Because I didn’t find you sooner back then.”
Tristan’s warm words made Maya swallow the surge of emotion.
“No, on the contrary, I have always been grateful to you.”
She shook her head firmly.
“Back then, you were the only one who respected my will.”
After that, Maya smiled bitterly.
“You are also the only one who knows all of me now.”
Her gaze darted anxiously around, like a lost child.
It was then Tristan realized why Maya had avoided telling her story all this time.
What she was showing him now was her deepest, darkest vulnerability, the side of herself she never revealed to anyone.
The brightest light casts the deepest shadow.
The bigger the light, the larger the shadow.
Maya was the same. Beneath her usually bold and straightforward demeanor lay wounds Tristan hadn’t even noticed.
Tristan recalled Maya Pendragon of the past, how lonely and miserable she must have been.
He thought of how that past shattered the self-esteem of the Maya she had become now.
“…Do you understand? How different our positions are?”
Even after hearing his confession, Maya could only give the best possible gratitude from her standpoint.
“You are just too good of a person.”
She thought herself nothing.
She believed her past couldn’t be erased.
Her harsh memories from her past life had become the foundation of who she was now.
