The Ring That Was Thrown Away
In the haze of drowsiness, a familiar voice whispered softly.
It was a warm, gentle tone that somehow felt comforting.
At the faint sound, Isabelle lifted her heavy eyelids.
“My lady.”
Through half-lidded eyes, she saw a woman calling her name. Short-cropped hair, a constellation of freckles scattered across both cheeks, and the familiar maid’s uniform. It was a face impossible to forget.
Her personal maid, Erika. She looked at least a decade younger, and the sight of her filled Isabelle’s vision.
“My lady, it’s time to wake up.”
The familiar voice piercing her eardrums cleared her mind, and reality began to settle in. The translucent something that had floated in the air right before she lost consciousness—and the words written inside it.
That meant…
“…I’m back?”
“Oh, my lady. The Count returned just yesterday, remember?”
“Really… I’ve truly come back…?”
“Of course!”
The crossed conversation barely registered. What mattered to Isabelle right now wasn’t her reunion with Erika.
She turned her head and looked around. The room was decorated in an antique yet charming style. Without a doubt, this was her bedroom from when she was young.
“Ah.”
A short gasp slipped through her parted lips. At the same time, realization struck like lightning.
Isabelle had regressed.
And not just anywhere—it was before her relationship with Kyle had twisted beyond repair. More precisely…
‘…Kyle is still alive.’
Before she had killed him with her own hands.
“My lady, shall I prepare your bath first? Or would you prefer breakfast?”
Erika moved around the room with practiced steps and threw the windows wide open to air it out. The crisp scent of morning breeze tickled her nose.
Wondering if it might be a dream, she pinched her thigh. The sharp sting made her frown involuntarily. It seemed this was no dream after all.
The fact that she could start over from the beginning made her eyes well up with tears. She wiped at her blurred vision repeatedly with her sleeve.
A moment later, Isabelle drew in a deep breath. Then, with a casual stretch, she rose from the bed.
“Prepare the bath first.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Keep breakfast light. Oh! And…”
She had returned to the past. Though the overwhelming unreality still left her dazed, Isabelle remembered her purpose with crystal clarity.
Her tightly closed lips parted with care.
“Could you help me get ready to go out?”
A pure, innocent smile flickered across Isabelle’s face.
Kyle was alive.
The mere thought of finally being able to see him sent an indescribable thrill through Isabelle. She would get to see the Kyle from the days when he whispered words of love to her.
What should she say first when they met? Words of atonement? Or perhaps the more ordinary greeting of “I missed you”?
Even just thinking about seeing him made her heart ache like this. She hoped she wouldn’t lose control and burst into tears the moment she laid eyes on him.
Her eyes burned. Pointless fantasies swam through her blank mind.
“…Get a hold of yourself.”
Kyle had no idea that Isabelle had regressed to the past. He knew nothing of her sins, nor of the catastrophic future that lay ahead. All of it was still nothing more than fragments of a distant tomorrow.
There was no need to overthink it. She would approach him as naturally, calmly, and slowly as possible. Just as he had once done for her—she would reach out with sincerity.
The hand holding her teacup trembled pitifully. Excitement, tension, and crushing guilt. The chaotic mix of emotions had taken root and borne fruit.
Calm down. She couldn’t afford to make a disgraceful scene from their very first meeting.
Isabelle smoothed a hand over her chest, forcing herself to maintain composure.
And then it happened.
“…!”
Hair as black as the night sky, eyes a piercing blue. And that slightly languid expression so uniquely his.
It was Kyle.
Kyle, alive and breathing, stood there staring straight at her.
Isabelle greeted him in a cracked voice. It wasn’t her usual style, but she didn’t care. She swallowed hard, anticipating his reaction.
“Kyle?”
Kyle remained silent, his face utterly expressionless. Even at her sudden visit, he showed not the slightest hint of surprise.
Unable to bear it any longer, Isabelle tried to draw him into conversation again. Soon, his firmly closed lips slowly parted.
“…It’s been a while.”
His voice was deep and resonant. It was unmistakably Kyle’s.
For a brief moment, she fought to suppress the surge of emotion. When she looked up at his face, it was clear he looked uncomfortable. Probably because she had shown up at his estate without warning. Isabelle carefully offered an apology and explained why she had come.
That was when Kyle cut her off, saying he had something to tell her.
A moment later, he narrowed his eyes and spat out words as cold as frost.
“Let’s call off our engagement.”
Isabelle blinked stupidly.
The man who had wanted their engagement more than anyone else was suddenly asking her to break it off. Had she heard wrong? Was this some light joke to ease the mood? Or perhaps a rebuke for visiting without notice?
Isabelle stared at him in utter shock. Her head spun and her stomach churned. At the same time, a piercing alarm rang in her mind—something was terribly wrong.
“Are you serious?”
Kyle nodded with a detached expression.
Isabelle didn’t believe him. No—she couldn’t. Asking to dissolve the engagement? There was no way that could be sincere.
In a suppressed tone, she asked for his reason. Why the man who had loved her would suddenly want to end it.
His answer came out crisp and clear.
“I did love you. But not anymore.”
Horror spread across Isabelle’s pale face. Those words—I no longer love you—tore through her chest like a blade.
She asked again and again. But his answer remained the same each time. He no longer loved her. That was exactly what Kyle was saying.
“You hate me, don’t you?”
At the puzzled look in his eyes, her heart plummeted to the floor. A horrifying chill swept over her entire body, as if someone had dumped ice water on her.
Kyle no longer loved her.
No matter how many times the words repeated, Isabelle could not accept them. She refused to accept them.
—I love you, Isabelle.
That voice still rang so clearly in her ears. The sweet voice that had blushed shyly and whispered love to her.
“…I’ve wasted enough time.”
Kyle’s sigh-laden voice echoed in her ears like a hallucination. He withdrew his gaze from her, turned around without hesitation, and began to walk away.
Isabelle called out to him in a desperate voice.
And then she saw it.
On the ring finger of Kyle’s left hand—something that should have been there was missing.
An intense sense of wrongness engulfed her. Suddenly, a lie she had once thrown at him in the past to hurt him flashed through her mind.
—I threw it away. It was cumbersome.
It couldn’t be. Please, it couldn’t be.
Isabelle repeated the words to herself like a desperate mantra. But as if mocking her, Kyle turned back with a cold, vicious voice.
“Oh, this?”
“I threw it away.”
[You may lose what is most precious to you.]
The door to the reception room slammed shut with a heavy thud. Suffocating silence gripped her lungs.
Only then did Isabelle realize what it was she had lost.
Isabelle did not give up.
She did everything in her power to change Kyle’s heart. But there was one thing she had overlooked.
The wound she had carved into his chest was far larger and deeper than she had ever imagined.
—After treating me like an insect all this time, now you want to clear up misunderstandings?
The hatred and disgust swirling violently in Kyle’s eyes as he snarled at her were unmistakable.
—Are you sure?
—All those rumors you heard about my past behavior. Are you so certain they were the undeniable truth?
Kyle condemned her ignorance. Why hadn’t she trusted him? Why had she treated him so cruelly over mere hearsay?
—Vermin. Trash. Pathetic human.
Every blade had come from her own mouth.
—Want me to keep going? Scum of the earth. Disgusting human. Someone who deserves to be cursed…
Those blades had become boomerangs, mercilessly shredding her own skin.
—It’s strange. Why was I ever so obsessed with you?
I’m sorry.
That one desperate apology melted like lead in her throat.
—Vermin, trash.
—They were words I heard every single day. But hearing them from your lips made it especially miserable.
—Like I really had become nothing but vermin.
Words wouldn’t come out, as if thorns had sprouted in her throat. She couldn’t breathe properly. Each and every word struck her like a stone.
That was when she saw it—the ring Kyle claimed to have thrown away, lodged in her vision like a stake.
—He definitely said he threw it away—!!
For a split second, Kyle’s face flickered with panic. A sliver of hope sprouted in a corner of Isabelle’s heart.
Maybe… just maybe, a trace of affection for her still remained…
But that hope didn’t last long.
“My lady! Do you know what I just saw? Kyle Winfred was at a jewelry shop with some female knight, just the two of them…”
Isabelle’s face twisted horribly. Transparent tears streamed down from her distorted eyes.
“Ah! The engagement ring! He actually said he was going to auction off the engagement ring! My lady? My lady! Why are you crying…!”
Erika frantically wiped away the tears flowing down Isabelle’s cheeks with her sleeve.
Black regret multiplied inside her chest like a tumor. Isabelle, you wretched bitch. Unable to bear it, she pounded her own head repeatedly, cursing herself.
“Kyaa! My lady, please calm down…!”
Erika desperately grabbed both of Isabelle’s arms. Her flailing was so violent that Erika struggled for a long time before finally managing to restrain her.
“He’s selling the ring…”
Isabelle muttered in a low voice.
Hearing the murmur, Erika seized the chance to continue.
“Yes! It’s for the best! Just like you said, my lady—he’s finally fallen so low.”
—How annoying. When is he going to disappear already?
The hallucination pierced her eardrums like a sharp needle. The words echoing in her ears felt eerily familiar.
‘Ah, I…’
Yes. There had been a day when she had badmouthed Kyle and said something like that. Not through someone else’s mouth, but with this very cursed tongue of hers.
Isabelle’s breathing came in ragged gasps, as if she were trapped in a place with no oxygen.
“…”
Her lips trembled violently as if in terror, and both hands clutched tightly around her own throat.
Kyle was trying to erase every trace of her. The few remaining traces that proved he had once loved her.
A moment later, Isabelle squeezed out a command in a strangled voice.
“…Find out the exact date of that auction for me, will you?”