Chapter 04
It was certain that Duke Haimenwar was supposed to be dying of illness, on the verge of death any day now, yet he had no idea how this situation had come to be.
Rather, the woman lying beside him looked more like the one who would die soon, and Tatiana trembled with unease even as she continued speaking.
Tatiana opened the bag she was carrying and took out a dull-colored glass ring.
“I am Tatiana Henesigo, and my grandmother was a Grand Magician. And this is the treasure she created over the course of her lifetime.”
The glass ring, crudely crafted in silver, looked shabby. Perhaps because it was so old, scratches were scattered all over it.
“Before she passed away, my grandmother said that this could turn back the target’s time!”
“Time?”
Lindenel’s straight brows twisted mercilessly.
Every physician who had come to see Astrid until now had unanimously said the same thing—Astrid could not live.
And Lindenel had cut down the throats of those who spouted such nonsense.
Yet as time passed, the anxiety that gradually spread inside him could not be suppressed.
He strode toward Tatiana and snatched the ring from her hand.
It was nothing more than a cheap ring with cracked glass instead of a gemstone, yet it seemed to carry a strange aura.
“If what you say is true, why bring it to me instead of using it yourself? If I turn back time with this, you’ll receive no reward.”
“That would be true for the present me. You can reward the me in the past.”
“The you in the past?”
“I heard that both the caster of the ring’s magic and the target can return to the past while keeping their memories. So please go back to before the Imperial Princess fell ill and make sure to find me.”
Tatiana tightened the corners of her eyes as though that were the true point.
“Find me, praise my contribution, and help the me in the past. I’ll become a powerless child again then. I will desperately need your help. That is the reason I’m giving this ring to Your Excellency.”
“Help… You want me to participate in changing your past.”
“Isn’t that a fair deal? If the ring is fake, you can simply cut off my head. If it’s real, you can return to the past and help me.”
As she said that, Tatiana glanced repeatedly at Astrid, who lay there as if gravely ill.
At that, Lindenel stepped forward, openly displeased, blocking Astrid from her view.
Then he stared intently at the ring.
With this alone, he could return to the past.
In the past, he would have dismissed such nonsense without even listening.
But now that he had been cornered, desperation numbed his reason.
The ring felt like the final arrangement of a twisted fate.
Tatiana’s eyes flared like sparks as her emotions surged. She continued in an excited tone.
“Please go back to the past and make me Your Excellency’s person. So I can save my family and take revenge on my enemies.”
“…This turns back time?”
As he looked at the cloudy surface of the heavily scratched glass ring, countless thoughts rushed through him—people who had already departed and could never be seen again, the years that had passed, and the effort behind everything he had achieved.
Lindenel slowly reflected on the past.
Faces passed by in his memories.
Dead friends, parents who had died suddenly, the death of his young sister…
Tatiana’s resentful cries and reddened eyes meant nothing to Lindenel.
But the words “turn back time” were unbearably sweet.
He knew as well that if things continued like this, he would have to live while holding Astrid, who could die at any moment.
If he could return to the past and erase all his mistakes, he truly wanted to do so.
Whether it was the day he first saw Astrid, the day she was poisoned, or the day she threw herself down—it didn’t matter which moment he returned to.
Even if he went back to the miserable days in Entil when he had been so hungry he picked up dry dirt and swallowed it, he had the confidence to rise again.
Lindenel glanced at Astrid and thought of the past.
“To Astrid’s past…”
Whenever summer came and all living things ran wild with life, the Imperial Princess would become so excited she could hardly contain herself.
Her body was weak and she often collapsed from heatstroke, yet she would still insist on going out under the blazing sun to look at the lake, listen to the lush greenery and the ear-splitting cries of cicadas, and go boating.
What had he been thinking while accompanying her then?
Had the Imperial Princess been a nuisance?
Or had he still hated her?
They had already spent several years together, yet those were the only memories that remained.
Other than knowing she liked boating in the summer, he knew nothing about what she enjoyed or sought.
To sever the limbs of the Imperial Princess—the empire’s only heir—he had killed all of her loyal followers.
And while planting his own spies in their place, he had left not a single person who could tell him such things anymore.
When Lindenel remained silent for a while with his back turned, Tatiana, growing impatient, asked again.
“Then… may I turn back time now?”
“Do it.”
Still facing away, Lindenel tightly grasped Astrid’s hand.
After staring at the unconscious Astrid’s face for a long time, he slowly spoke.
“Begin.”
“Then I will now turn back time.”
Tatiana lowered her head deeply and began chanting a spell.
But the sight of him, Duke Lindenel Haimenwar, clutching a woman limp like a corpse was so strange and bizarre that even as she designated the target of the magic, she kept stealing glances at the two of them.
As Tatiana’s mana reacted with the ring, a magic circle formed on the ground.
Light burst out from the circle, and soon a shimmering haze began to rise.
Beyond the blurring view, the three figures seemed to fade away and vanish.
“By the way, this lake resembles the color of Your Highness’s eyes.”
It was something he said carelessly to divert attention. There was no other topic to change the subject while they sat together on the small boat floating in the middle of the lake.
The Imperial Princess, who had been about to raise her voice at her fiancé’s debauchery, flinched at those words.
She blinked blankly, as if she had misheard, and looked out beyond the boat.
“My eyes?”
Lindenel nodded.
“Yes. Don’t they say the color of one’s soul resides in the eyes?”
Of course, that dull and murky color resembles you perfectly.
He quietly swallowed the mocking remark.
For now, he still had to treat her like an Imperial Princess.
The Imperial Princess seemed newly flustered as she saw her reflection on the lake.
It was not difficult to guess what she was thinking.
The tips of her ears, visible through her hair, had turned red.
Embarrassed and unsure what to do, she asked in a deliberately bold tone.
“What color are my eyes then?”
“Well… the color of water.”
Even after hearing such a half-hearted answer, the Imperial Princess smiled.
Her smile was clear and innocent, fitting for someone her age.
The world said the Imperial Princess possessed the qualities of a wise ruler, like a sequoia tree stretching high into the sky.
Yet the empire’s sequoia was now blooming and withering repeatedly at just one word from Lindenel.
“It feels like I’ve fallen into Your Highness’s world.”
As Lindenel moved his glib tongue, he thought it ridiculous and laughable that she blushed at just one of his words.
The Imperial Princess seemed to lose the will to scold her fiancé and fell silent.
Soon a quiet stillness settled.
The sound of oars dipping into the water came at steady intervals, and the sunlit surface of the lake sparkled as if thousands of minerals were embedded within it.
The Imperial Princess’s pale hand, which had been gazing at the fragments of light, cautiously parted the water.
At last, the silence broke and she spoke. Her voice was filled with wonder.
“Duke, in your eyes… was I truly this beautiful…?”
No answer came.
Yet the Imperial Princess smiled happily.
Her profile as she rested her chin on the boat’s railing, gazing for a long time at the brilliantly shining water.
The scales of water breaking beneath her fingertips engraved themselves forever into his retinas.
Moments from the past—now already worn and faded—that he would sometimes recall after losing everything.
Now they were nothing more than meaningless time.
