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“Brother, what… what are you saying?”
Lucius’s voice trembled. He stared at Rael in disbelief, but his brother’s expression didn’t change. Rael’s serious face remained steady, as though everything he had just said were undeniable truth. Lucius, overwhelmed and confused, muttered to himself as if trying to sort out his chaotic thoughts.
“Tiana was… she was Tiana. She looked exactly the same as before. But…”
“But?”
“…She was different. Different.”
After the great accident, Tiana had lost her memory and changed as if she were another person. Back then, he convinced himself it was only the aftereffects of trauma. She had lost everything, was unstable, and so she couldn’t help but change. That was the best way he could explain it to himself.
“Every gesture I saw, every word, even the tone of her voice—none of it felt like her. I thought, ‘This isn’t her.’ And yet, I told myself I had to believe it was her. I had to. Only then could I pretend it was all right.”
Even if her heart had drifted away, he thought it was fine because his own feelings remained. He believed they could always return to what they once had.
But I was wrong. Just because my feelings remained didn’t mean I could protect everything.
The more he tried to bring things back to how they had been, the further they grew apart. Her words, her actions, her feelings—even the distance between them, both in spirit and body. Once those things changed, there was no chance to undo them; she kept changing and drifting farther away.
“Even though she was different, I told myself it was fine. That if I thought of her as the same, I could endure it. But…”
At first, he managed. He lived by recalling their memories together, by holding onto the belief that she would someday return. But as time passed, her indifference and cold words only grew, and there was no sign of going back.
One month passed. A year. Then two. Slowly, a strange sense of rejection began to take root within him.
“In the end, what I thought was ‘the same’… wasn’t really the same at all. The illusion was peeling away.”
At the garden where they used to meet almost every day, her figure no longer appeared. The window of her room that looked out onto the flowers remained shut, curtains drawn, with only a shadow occasionally moving behind them.
Each day he couldn’t reach her even though she was close, couldn’t see her even though she was there—it only deepened his sighs. On rare days when he managed to see her face or exchange words with her, the sharpness of her gaze and the cruelty of her words tore his heart apart.
Her heart… had already left me.
He couldn’t keep lying to himself forever, saying it was because she lost her memory. If she had shown even the smallest effort to remember him, things might have been different. But from the moment she lost her memory and rejected everything, he should have admitted sooner that, to her, he no longer existed.
Even so, he couldn’t let go of that faint thread of hope. Until she told him—
“The one I love is not you.”
“I hate you.”
Those were the first real words she said to him since the accident. And with them, even the last fragments of hope shattered into dust.
“…So, that’s why I…”
“…Lucius?”
“When she said she didn’t love me, when she shouted that she hated me… I… I did the same…”
“….”
Lucius buried his face in his trembling hands, his head hanging low. His voice was weak, filled with pain. For the first time, Rael’s eyes widened in surprise. He… did that?
That Lucius, of all people? It was shocking, but thinking of his younger brother’s position, Rael couldn’t say it was unreasonable. What man wouldn’t be driven to despair after hearing such words from the woman he loved so deeply for the first time?
Lucius must have blamed himself countless times for harboring such feelings. He must have suffered terribly. Yet now, with Rael revealing the truth, even that suffering seemed meaningless.
“…Brother. You said back then, that Tiana was someone else?”
After a long silence, Lucius finally raised his pale face, his golden eyes regaining focus. Rael nodded.
“Yes.”
“Then… what about now? The Tiana of today is…”
“What you’ve been feeling is correct. She… she is the ‘real’ one.”
“…Ha…”
Lucius’s head fell again. His trembling hands couldn’t hide his distorted face, nor the tears welling in his eyes. Biting his lips, he forced his voice out.
“Then… what happened to her now? If she’s truly herself, why doesn’t she remember me? Is it because of the accident?”
“No. That might have been a possibility, but in her case, it’s extremely unlikely. Because another soul had entered her body.”
“Then…”
“She didn’t lose her memories because of the accident. They were stolen—just as her body had once been taken over.”
“Then, during the carriage accident… her memory loss back then was…”
“In reality, it wasn’t memory loss. Her control over her own body had been stolen. Now, it’s the opposite. Her soul has returned, and she has regained her body, but her memories remain stolen.”
“How could such a thing…”
Rael explained it concisely and clearly, yet Lucius still struggled to believe it. It wasn’t that he doubted Rael’s words—it was simply impossible by common sense. He didn’t know how to accept it.
And yet, strangely, a weight lifted from his heart. The unease he had felt, the answers he couldn’t give himself—now they made sense. At last, he didn’t have to force himself to deny it. For once, he felt grateful that his instincts had been right.
Even so, Lucius still sat stiffly, unable to fully accept such an outrageous truth. Seeing this, Rael spoke again, calmly.
“In this world, there’s always room for the impossible. Just as this world isn’t the only one.”
“…What?”
“Lucius. Do you know why I can speak with such certainty about this?”
“…No…”
“It’s because I saw it with my own eyes. I lived it. I heard it myself. Now tell me—where could I have possibly seen, heard, and experienced all this?”
“….”
“It was in the past.”
“…! Wh—what…?”
At Rael’s bombshell, Lucius’s eyes widened. His face was so shocked it looked like his mind might shut down completely. Rael, expecting this, gave a faint smile. Then, glancing briefly at Rose, who had silently approached, he continued.
“I won’t explain everything right now. You wouldn’t be able to take it in anyway. For now, I’ll set my own story aside. Lucius, what is the one thing most important to you right now?”
“…Tiana.”
“Exactly. Then focus only on her. As long as you know her situation, the rest will come naturally.”
“Is that really all right? Brother, it sounds like you have something important yourself…”
“It’s fine. Just worry about yourself and your wife. That alone helps me. For now, even if explanations are lacking, just pay attention to what I’m telling you.”
“…Understood.”
Reluctantly, Lucius nodded. For now, listening to Rael was the best course. It wasn’t that he wasn’t worried—he had just heard Rael mention “the past,” something deeply unsettling. But he couldn’t demand every answer now.
Rael clearly had a reason for holding back. Perhaps he was sparing him. After all, Lucius was already reeling from the truth about Tiana. If Rael piled his own story on top, even Lucius might lose his sanity. For both their sakes, it was best to pass on only the essentials for now.
“Listen carefully. To summarize: your wife, the duchess, once had her body taken over by another. Now, she has regained her body, but her memories remain stolen. To get them back, she must inevitably come into contact with the one who stole them.”
“Do you know who that is?”
“Yes.”
“Then… who is it?”
Who could possibly do something so impossible—take another’s body, steal their memories? Even magic couldn’t do such a thing. Lucius couldn’t imagine who it might be.
Judging from her behavior back then, it must have been a woman… but who?
No matter how he tried, he couldn’t forget the gestures, the speech—it had felt undeniably like a woman, like Tiana. But was she even from this world? Rael’s earlier words—this world isn’t the only one—echoed in his mind.
Could it be someone from another world altogether? At this point, nothing seemed impossible.
“It was… Lady Even, the Marquess’s daughter.”
“…What?”
Of all the possibilities, the identity Rael revealed was the last Lucius ever expected.
