A Humiliating Proposal
“…My lady?”
Having finished the first face-to-face ceremony and seeing off her father as he departed for the capital on official business, Lumiang sat in the dressing room.
Her face was vacant, as if her soul had fled her body.
Worried by the sight, Marien set the crimson dress down beside her and called out gently.
“Yes.”
“How was it…?”
No one had awaited the face-to-face more eagerly than Marien.
The grand ceremony that would announce her lady’s existence to the world.
The grand ceremony that would reveal Erincia’s true identity to the candidates.
And she had wished it to be flawless, perfect in every detail.
Through that perfection, she had hoped her lady’s liberation would at last begin.
How was it?
The question carried so much weight. While she carefully arranged her lady’s hair in the mirror, Marien studied her complexion.
For some reason, a dread settled over her—that the answer would be the exact opposite of every hope she held.
That dread soon became reality.
“It was a disaster.”
“Pardon…? Why? Why was it?”
Marien had watched the ceremony from beside the dais.
When Young Master Kyle’s eyes rolled back and he collapsed in a faint, she had felt pure exhilaration.
The downfall of that shameless man who had driven the lady she loved to the brink of death—it had been the sweetest proxy satisfaction.
And so she had believed the ceremony would close on a grand, perfect note.
Of course…
The moment she saw the composed face of Young Master Elden Raphelion—the name her lady had spoken countless times these past few days—that expectation had wavered.
Even with Erincia standing before him, his expression remained serene.
Unlike the other candidates, who were painted thick with shock, he had shown only a fleeting spark of admiration before reclaiming his calm.
Moreover, from the instant she faced Young Master Elden, her lady’s expression had grown subtly displeased—an omen of ill fortune. And that omen had just spoken itself aloud.
Lumiang looked at her own reflection in the mirror.
At the self who had fled from Elden’s question.
“It was humiliating.”
“What was…?”
“The way I clung to Elden, forcing him to call me beautiful. The way I ran off like a fool when he asked if the confession was sincere… It’s beyond humiliation. I disgust myself.”
“….”
Marien’s hands, unfastening the buttons down the back of the dress, froze.
In the end, they were right back where they started.
Even after a magnificent ceremony completed amid the praises of the entire populace, her lady remained trapped in the same past as yesterday.
If it were up to Marien, she would have urged her to accept the withdrawal, send Young Master Elden away, and focus on the remaining candidates.
At this rate, it would not be liberation from the occasional violence that still visited her—it would be the beginning of a new isolation.
If she could not accept the withdrawal, then Marien hoped she would at least accept the change he was showing.
If she could not accept it, then ignore it.
If she could not even ignore it, then please—simply give up.
Marien knew her lady was a researcher of pure obsession, the kind who clung day and night to any unsolved problem until she found the answer. But this once, she prayed, please set that obsession down.
“Why am I like this? Why did I simper in front of a man like Elden, begging him to praise my looks? Why did I debase myself like that and cling to my own tormentor?”
At Lumiang’s self-mocking question, Marien resumed unfastening the buttons and carefully began to speak.
If she could not even give up, then at least let her examine the flaw in her own convictions.
Let her recall the old saying that even monkeys fall from trees.
And let her realize that sometimes a miracle can overturn even an absolute truth. With that quiet hope, Marien spoke with the utmost care.
“…I don’t know for certain, but perhaps, my lady… you are already acknowledging it unconsciously.”
“Acknowledging what?”
“You said it yourself last time. That an innate nature is an absolute, unchanging law.”
“I did…?”
“Perhaps… you are acknowledging that Young Master Elden is striving hard enough to defy even that absolute, unchanging law.”
“What…? Me?”
“Making the impossible possible requires heartbreaking effort, doesn’t it?”
A new hypothesis had appeared.
No—more precisely, it was a hypothesis she had been avoiding until now. As Marien drew it out and began discussing its possibility of proof, Lumiang’s pupils widened.
Honestly, she had no more hypotheses left to build.
The ones she kept constructing only failed, over and over, in spectacular fashion, and she had grown somewhat exhausted.
Because of that, the flow of her mind had stagnated; flexible thinking had become impossible.
And because of that, she had begun leaning toward emotional impulse rather than rational calm.
Had she been deliberately denying the truth?
Was that why he had been so composed—because it was the truth?
Perhaps…
Had Elden already begun walking the path of repentance through his own regret and reflection?
Had he been making heartbreaking efforts, even in places no one could see, to change his wicked nature?
At Marien’s casual words, countless questions that had sunk beneath the surface began to rise in a whirlpool.
Of course, they were still far too early to resolve.
“Even if that were true… it wouldn’t justify the obsession. It wouldn’t be a reason for the victim to cling to the perpetrator. If I acknowledge it, that should be the end of it.”
This was the same lady who, through denial and stubborn pride, had refused to accept Young Master Elden’s change.
The same lady who had attached a watcher to seek the truth, then closed her ears and refused to believe the reports.
The same lady who had sworn not to be consumed by vengeance, only to be seized by it the moment Elden withdrew and wither away in misery.
And now that same lady was finally questioning another possibility. Feeling as though a firmly locked castle gate were beginning to open, Marien answered with a soft smile.
“You said that as well, my lady.”
“…Said what?”
“That you would end up marrying either someone who truly repents, or someone who does not.”
“What……?”
“Perhaps you have already chosen Young Master Elden—the one who stepped onto the path of repentance himself—as your marriage partner. Isn’t that why?”
Lumiang’s eyes flew wide open.
Into the blue pupils that had been filled with grievance and bitter rage, something else took root.
Something still nameless, still uninterpretable—something tinged with a faint contempt.
“M-me, marry a man like Elden? D-don’t talk nonsense. That can’t be.”
Naturally, Marien thought her lady was a hundred times too good for him. But if the crimes were of relatively light severity and she had to choose one out of four, Elden Raphelion was the lesser evil.
“There’s… something I never told you.”
Thinking of the Elden who had extended a helping hand even to a fallen maid as the “comparatively” better choice, Marien now lifted her fully healed ankle for her lady to see.
“The truth is, this ankle—I fell because I collided with Young Master Elden.”
“…What?”
“And thanks to Young Master Elden helping me, I was able to receive treatment safely.”
“What?”
At the unbelievable story, Lumiang furrowed her brow and stared at Marien’s ankle reflected in the mirror.
“What… are you talking about?”
“Young Master Elden offered me his hand when I fell. But he said if I ever revealed his help, I would die… so I couldn’t tell you.”
“He told you not to… reveal it? Why?”
“He said he wanted to stay quiet until the withdrawal was approved. I didn’t understand at the time, but looking back now, I think I know.”
“Know what…?”
“That both the withdrawal and the change were sincere. That’s why he did it, don’t you think?”
Suddenly, a tale of Elden Raphelion’s good deed reached her ears.
And it came from the mouth of the person she cherished most—carrying a truth she could not deny.
The ears she had closed began to open, little by little.
The eyes she had shut began to open, little by little.
Click.
The final button down the back of the dress that had been constricting her chest came undone.
“Ugh!”
“Bleargh!”
A beautiful sound—like the melody of wind—echoed through the silent great hall.
During the first formal meal she had served them something with only mild aversion, just enough to plant the suggestion. The backlash had been mild as well.
It had been disappointing, but she had contented herself with that small reaction for the sake of the main event.
And now.
“Ulp!”
“Bleeaargh!”
The dish whose level of revulsion she had raised was producing a tremendous reaction.
It was clearly a satisfying backlash—the very response she had so long awaited.
Deron and Blund were retching exactly as she herself had once retched after being forced to eat insects.
Those men who had once strutted about with such noble, pure airs were now licking the floor of the great hall like dogs, swallowing contempt.
Those men steeped in vanity and power were obediently carrying out orders like slaves.
They were the same as her past self. Just as they had once done, she ought to clutch her belly and laugh at their wretched state.
And yet.
“….”
No laughter came.
It was because of Elden, who sat quietly with that ever-serene expression.
Her gaze was fixed on Deron and Blund, but every other sense was trained on Elden.
Even that gaze somehow found it difficult to meet his eyes and kept slipping away.
This was supposed to be the liberation that had only just begun—the moment she had waited and waited for—yet instead of freedom, only resentment and irritation surged up.
She could think of only one cause: Elden Raphelion.
“…I will reward the one who eats the fastest and the cleanest. So all of you, do your best.”
She flung the mockery over the heads of the men who, oblivious that their own mouths were being soiled, were greedily licking the floor.
Then she walked toward Elden.
With uncertain steps, with an uneasy expression.
And so she stood before him.
Things should have been different now.
The relationship should have reversed—Elden the pitiful weakling, herself the great and powerful one.
Yet it was no different from those days.
Elden was composed; she was shrinking.
It was a truly absurd, ridiculous moment.
I will overcome this.
I will make him submit.
With that resolve, Lumiang opened her mouth.
But—
“You asked me, didn’t you? Whether the confession I sent in the letter was sincere.”
Once again, words completely contrary to her intent slipped out of their own accord.
Why?
“It was sincere.”
“Pardon?”
“I said it was sincere. That I supported you, that I loved you—it was all sincere.”
What she had been unable to answer at the first face-to-face ceremony now emerged with strange naturalness.
Even though she had fled because she hated answering so much it felt like dying, her mouth was opening of its own will.
Her heart trembled.
Her lips felt as though they were burning away.
And in the end—
“So… will you marry me?”
The confession she would rather have chosen death than speak—the one that had made her so nauseous she had been forced to write it instead—burst out as if all her restraint had meant nothing.
“I promise to give you everything you want. The revival of your house, honor, power, forgiveness, love—anything at all. I swear it on the name of Winterfell.”
It had only been a lie to encourage him to join the contest. That was why she had never pledged the name of Winterfell.
She had not wanted to stake that sacred name on a villain who despised it.
And yet.
She had clearly felt that way.
And still the promise, staked so easily on that name, had tumbled out.
She hoped.
She yearned.
She longed.
For him to accept.
For him not to refuse.
It was a temptation that even staked the name of Winterfell—and it was no longer a lie. It was a promise.
And it was the final ultimatum.
But then—
Elden’s head lowered.
His waist bent.
And soon—
“I am sorry, Grand Duchess.”
Once again, he refused her.
Just as in the past, he rejected her coldly and without hesitation.
The root of all this—the reason resentment rose higher than any sense of liberation—refused her without a single moment of deliberation.
A surge.
Tears welled up.
All the sorrow she had endured until now exploded at once, and tears flooded her eyes.
The nights she had spent trembling with anxiety that her plans would unravel, the nights she had writhed in agony—those nights felt so unfair that tears rose.
The days she had been shoved into the pit of hell and shed bloody tears on iron thorns—those days felt so bitter, and the hope that she would finally be free of them now seemed so foolish, that tears rose.
Not the mere moisture that had gathered at the first face-to-face, but tears thick enough to blur her vision. They soon formed droplets and rolled down her cheeks.
As violently as her heart pounded, her entire body began to tremble.
Elden raised his head.
That eternally innocent face he had worn ever since declaring his withdrawal—she found it so detestable.
It felt as though he were mocking the way she had thrown away every last scrap of pride to cling to him, and the detestation nearly drove her mad.
That must have been why.
Why her hand rose of its own accord, and why she struck his cheek as if lashing herself—the self who had failed at confession, at proposal, and even at revenge.
Why she unleashed violence upon that pure face, not knowing any other way to pour out the boiling resentment and injustice.
SMACK—!!
She had sworn countless times.
That she would never become like them.
That she would never resemble them.
But just now, that vow had crumbled.
There had been no time to endure.
No time to stop herself.
It was the backlash of everything she had suppressed until now exploding at once—a backlash that could neither be blocked nor restrained.
In an instant the tears dried.
Her trembling hand stilled; her legs began to shake.
“…Ah….”
Her lips, having lost all direction, let out only a dull gasp.
Beyond that, there was nothing she could do.
Having broken her vow and resorted to violence, the only thing left to her was to shrink endlessly before him.
In the end—
Thud.
She sank to the floor, covering her face with both hands.
It was cursed.
It was despairing.
Herself, who could not even endure a moment’s impulse, and him, who never helped her then or now—
She hated them both so much, so bitterly, so venomously.
And so Lumiang, just as she had during her academy days, could only kneel before Elden and repeat the past she had sworn never to repeat.
“…….”
And—
Elden, who had been standing blankly, simply stroked his stinging cheek, then lifted the lid of the dish set before him and nothing more.