Isabelle Ustia (1)
Between late spring and early summer. The day Isabelle first met Kyle was one when the entire world seemed drenched in vibrant green.
Isabelle had heard more than enough about him. The Winfred bastard. The scoundrel. The half-wit. Incompetent in every way, vile, and a walking disgrace to the Winfred name who reveled in cruelty. That was how the world judged Kyle Winfred.
Though most of it was rumor, Isabelle never doubted a word. After all, there was no smoke without fire, no leaves on a rootless tree.
“Hello… I’m Kyle Winfred.”
From the very first moment, Isabelle found Kyle distasteful. The way his face flushed when their eyes met, the faintly excited tone of his voice, how he constantly watched for her reaction—none of it pleased her.
He was simply too different from her.
Yet she kept the raw emotions churning inside her carefully hidden. She greeted him with the same practiced smile and polite facade she would offer any young man of similar station.
And perhaps that was the spark. Kyle’s obsession with Isabelle only deepened with each passing day.
He visited the estate constantly, begging for scraps of affection. Every time, he brought expensive gifts. The moment he saw her face, a pure smile would bloom as though he could finally breathe again.
Yes. Kyle loved Isabelle. His eyes sparkled with devoted love, and those clear blue irises turned toward her and her alone.
Isabelle knew it, too. Only a fool could miss the way he looked at her.
Even when she coldly rebuked him for the smallest mistake, when she threw baseless tantrums out of irritation, when she hurled sharp words without thinking—
“Isabelle, I’m truly glad you exist.”
—Kyle’s gaze remained fixed on her. That blind, fervent look she had never witnessed before even began to feel strangely romantic.
Once she realized that, an odd tickling sensation stirred in a corner of her heart.
Then one day, shocking news overturned the entire estate.
“Isabelle! A marriage proposal has arrived from the Winfred ducal house!”
Her father was more delighted than anyone at the prospect of forming ties with the Winfreds. But the knowledge that she would have to marry a man she had never once considered in that light turned a corner of her heart icy cold.
Her father who had arranged the match, the Winfreds who proposed it, and Kyle who loved her—she hated every last one of them.
“Kyle Winfred? Don’t even speak his name. A mere bastard throwing his weight around behind the ducal family’s prestige.”
“The servants at Winfred say the moment something displeases him, he flies into a rage and commits all sorts of atrocities.”
“And he’s so greedy that the moment he sees someone more talented than himself, he can’t hide his inferiority and throws a fit. You know that, right?”
The ceaseless stream of rumors. Isabelle shuddered at Kyle’s vile reputation.
News that the empire’s greatest scoundrel and the daughter of Count Ustia were engaged soon spread through high society. The endless flood of worried concern and open criticism was unbearable. It felt suffocating.
From that day forward, Isabelle refused to see Kyle. She hurled abuse at him whenever he appeared, drove a dagger into his heart with her words, and haughtily demanded he dissolve the engagement.
Yet that stubbornly tender gaze of his filled her with hatred.
“Stop deluding yourself! Simply exchanging marriage talks with a man like you is already torture!”
The way Kyle’s face crumpled in that instant was deeply satisfying. Isabelle was certain. That was his true face. The empire’s greatest scoundrel had merely worn a mask to deceive her all this time.
Kyle offered no reply. He simply staggered out in confusion.
Surely he would not come again.
Even though she had obtained exactly what she wanted, a seed of unease took root in a corner of Isabelle’s heart.
“Isabelle, I missed you.”
A few days later, Kyle appeared at the count’s residence once more, smiling brightly as ever. Isabelle felt both sickened and, deep down, relieved. The knowledge that his love for her remained unchanged stirred an emotion she could not name.
From that day on, Isabelle grew numb. The last traces of guilt were completely severed, and the venom in her words toward Kyle grew harsher with every passing day.
She wanted to break the engagement. Yet she could never bring herself to demand it directly from her father. She did not want to be the one to shatter her family’s happiness.
Instead, she poured all her misplaced fury onto Kyle. She prayed he would grow tired of her and demand the dissolution himself.
Whether he had read her heart or not, Kyle instead hurried the engagement forward.
“Isabelle, there is no precedent in history for anyone so stubbornly breaking off a marriage arrangement between families.”
Kyle spoke in a calm, even voice. There was neither anger nor sorrow in his tone—only the gentle patience one might use when scolding a child who had not yet learned better.
How dare he.
In the end, Isabelle unwittingly spat out a lie. To soothe her wounded pride. To scrape at Kyle Winfred’s self-respect.
“The ring?”
“Ah, that. I threw it away. It was cumbersome.”
Kyle’s blue eyes flooded with shock. His breathing turned ragged, as though a blade had been driven into his lungs. A cold silence wrapped around them both.
He soon turned and left the parlor. His retreating back carried the heavy weight of utter despair.
Her heart hammered against her ribs.
That day, for the first time in her life, Isabelle spoke a lie with her own mouth.
****
At last, Kyle and Isabelle officially became husband and wife.
As time passed, much between them changed.
Kyle no longer begged for her affection. Isabelle continued to loathe him with every fiber of her being.
At her vehement insistence, the couple used separate bedrooms despite their marriage, and their wedding night was omitted entirely. They communicated only through the butler and she avoided any direct encounter with Kyle.
Then the nightmares began.
Sleepless nights ruined her health day by day, and she fell ill with increasing frequency.
One drizzling rainy day. That night, burning with fever, she lay terrified she might actually die.
“M-Madam…! It’s terrible…!!”
The mansion had already descended into pandemonium.
Dragging her fever-weakened body into the corridor, the thick metallic stench of blood assaulted her nose. She lifted her head. Following the trail of dark bloodstains across the floor, her gaze collided with Kyle Winfred’s, his eyes gleaming with savage intensity.
Kyle had killed the nanny. The woman who had been her pillar of support—on the flimsy charge of disrespect.
“Disrespect? With what right do you dare—!”
“I killed her because she deserved it. Is that the sort of thing you should be saying to me right now?”
“Go fall into hell, Kyle Winfred.”
Isabelle spat the words through clenched teeth. Each syllable carried a razor’s edge. Her hand gripping Kyle’s collar trembled violently with uncontained fury.
Kyle offered no excuses. His eyes seemed to hold something he wanted to say, yet in the end he remained silent.
Isabelle did not press him for reasons. She had no desire to hear any hastily crafted justifications.
The next day, Isabelle rose from her sickbed.
Perhaps the seething hatred had awakened something inside her—her body felt strangely refreshed.
Kyle Winfred had left for the imperial palace. After tearing her heart to shreds, without a single word.
And then—
“Madam, it’s terrible!”
An absurd rumor tore through high society. The scandal claimed she was having an affair with a man she had met at a banquet.
It was precisely the day after Kyle Winfred departed for the imperial palace.
Isabelle let out a disbelieving snort.
That evening, after returning from the imperial palace where she had gone to request a holy trial for divorce, her close friend Ludwig visited the estate and poured out his fury.
When she asked for an explanation while serving warm tea and refreshments, Ludwig spat out stale, familiar words.
“Isabelle, that bastard Kyle Winfred has completely lost his mind.”
“He’s going to join hands with the noble faction and launch a rebellion.”
“Let’s leave together.”
“You’ve always wanted to escape this mansion, haven’t you?”
Isabelle pressed both hands to her face. A heavy wave of disappointment made her head throb.
She sent Ludwig away with a troubled refusal. No matter how little she trusted Kyle, she had no intention of leaving the estate with Ludwig. A rebellion? No matter how mad Kyle had become, he would never make such a ridiculous decision.
But the next day.
Through the butler, she learned that Ludwig had died.
Isabelle knew instinctively. The true culprit behind the incident was none other than Kyle.
The taut string of reason snapped with an audible sound.
The temperature in the room plummeted.
“Prepare these for me.”
Isabelle ordered her maid to begin secret preparations.
Only she could stop Kyle’s madness as it spread like wildfire. She believed it without the slightest doubt.
The maid brought deadly poison. Isabelle smeared it carefully along the inside of the teacup.
After completing the table setting perfectly, Kyle entered with an indifferent expression in response to her summons. Without suspicion, he drank the tea.
Cough— Even as he vomited dark crimson blood, he continued drinking. As though he had been waiting for this very moment.
“I curse you.”
A faint smile melted across Kyle’s face.
Collapsed on the floor, he writhed in agony before finally becoming a cold corpse.
In the hushed silence, the only sound was Isabelle’s quiet sobbing.
****
Isabelle had killed Kyle.
She repeated to herself that it had been an accident committed in the heat of the moment, yet the guilt felt as though it were peeling her skin off while she still lived.
Isabelle confessed everything and was summoned to the imperial palace for further detailed testimony.
In the process, truths she could scarcely believe rose to the surface.
“Madam, they say poison was discovered among the nanny’s belongings.”
“There are testimonies that the nanny had been steadily poisoning your food…”
“It seems the master, upon learning of this fact, decided to…”
The image of Kyle drinking the tea she had given him and spitting bright red blood stabbed into her chest.
“Contact has arrived from the imperial palace.”
“The one who deliberately spread the scandal was none other than your close friend, Ludwig…”
The tender gaze with which Kyle had looked at her refused to leave her mind.
“Madam! Have you heard the news?”
“That Ludwig who frequently visited the estate was apparently a spy from the Republic.”
“According to the note they found, he planned to kidnap you and use you as a hostage… My goodness! Good riddance indeed.”
Her shattered mind began to recover, slowly.
Kyle… her husband… had loved her until the very moment of his death.
“Ah, aah… aaaaaaaaagh…!!”
Tears welled in her bloodshot eyes. She raked her nails across her body until she drew blood.
“Isabelle, I’m truly glad you exist.”
Kyle’s voice embedded itself like a stake in her mind, burned white.
Isabelle’s eyes grew transparently wet. The flood of self-loathing tightened around her throat until breathing became difficult.
It would be better to simply die like this… Such arrogant thoughts consumed her.
“Kyle… Kyle…!!”
If only she had accepted his sincerity even once. If only she had gently embraced him with warmth. No—if only a person like her had never existed in this world from the beginning.
All the truths she had missed drove Isabelle to the brink of madness.
“Please… just one more chance…”
The voice that slipped through her clenched teeth was tiny and pathetic.
“I… was wrong…”
I miss Kyle. Even if it’s only a hallucination, I wish he would call my name in that sweet voice.
Thick, lingering regret pooled and pooled until it became a deep pond.
It was then.
You may lose what is most precious to you.
Would you like to begin again from the start?
“…Please.”
Isabelle did not hesitate. Whatever was most precious to her, it could not possibly be more precious than Kyle.
A moment later, a piercing ringing filled her ears and her vision narrowed.
Commencing regression.
Wishing you good fortune.
Isabelle lost consciousness.