Settling the Debt
"When your young, ignorant imperial fiancée threw tantrums and tested your patience, your wariness never wavered. How could it melt away like spring snow over a single stroke of accidental kindness? What if later I claim this was all a calculated ploy to steal ducal secrets?"
"You are not that kind of—"
"Not that kind of person? Based on what?"
I curled the corners of my mouth into a smile.
It was a smile the young Titania had practiced countless times before the mirror—eyes half-crescent, lips curving in an impeccably aristocratic arch. Though the expression accentuated my vivid, luminous beauty, even he must have sensed that not a shred of it was genuine.
"I am truly grateful for the kindness Duke Castrein's household has shown me in this matter. Thanks to you, I can stay comfortably in the Empress's palace without getting entangled in... unpleasant affairs."
"...Your Highness. I..."
Raymon spoke, a rare trace of restlessness slipping into his voice. But I didn't stop.
"Therefore, I ask that the Castrein Duchy refrain from showing me such unwarranted favor in the future. It will only become a burden to me."
"......"
Seeing his lips press into a tight, obstinate line, I gave a light shrug. Just as I thought.
"Fine, then. Let us settle this cleanly as a debt instead."
"A debt?"
"Whatever I ask in the future, you must grant me two wishes unconditionally. In return, I promise I won't demand anything immoral—nothing that directly harms the duchy, encourages ruin, or forces you to commit a crime."
"Will that truly be enough?"
"Two whole favors from the mighty House of Castrein? Surely that's more than generous."
I gave a shameless laugh. Raymon averted his gaze. Neither he nor Bibi looked pleased. Though I knew how petty it was, I refused to drop the mask-like smile plastered across my face.
There was no reason to resent Raymon. Nor was there any reason to reproach him for never giving his heart to an imperial fiancée thrust upon him against his will. Everyone had things they cherished, things they wished to protect. It was merely Titania's misfortune that there had never been anyone to cherish her.
Seeing everyone rush over in such an uproar just because Bibi’s life was saved—bowing in gratitude, showering her with gifts—it made me achingly envious. The Prince and the Empress had shown a belated flicker of concern, but that was all it ever was.
Still... yes. I'm glad my past life's memories awakened, even if late.
Titania had no one, but I had parents who truly loved me. That memory alone was enough to keep me standing. They always taught me never to pass the blame or lose my temper at others when faced with unfairness, but surely they would forgive me this much.
Do you not want to be loved?
Something deep within me suddenly surfaced to ask. It was the same voice that had reproached me when I ran off to save Bibi.
If you tie yourself to him through marriage, even like this, he would let you hold onto him, wouldn't he?
I answered in my heart.
I don't want feelings that aren't real. I don't want pity. I don't want sympathy. I don't need to make myself that miserable.
A sudden thought struck me.
In the original story, Titania probably gave Bibi that medicine knowing full well that she would never be loved in Bibi's place, even if Bibi disappeared. Because seeing Bibi so thoroughly adored had been unbearable. Because she had been sick with envy seeing how many people would move the heavens and the earth for Bibi.
"So do not think of meddling in my affairs any longer under the pretext of being indebted to your savior."
I decided to keep smiling. Those who have nothing must at least keep up their bluster.
Inside the carriage heading to the ducal estate, Bibi gazed intently at Raymon, who looked uncharacteristically subdued.
"Big Brother."
"......"
"You know... Bibi hasn't known Titania-unnie for very long, so I don't really understand. The relationship between you and unnie."
No, the regressor Bibi knew all too well.
She wasn't ignorant. In fact, in this life, she had even attempted to engineer a safe annulment between her eldest brother and Titania. Bibi studied Raymon’s troubled face once more, organizing her thoughts.
To the world, Imperial Consort Elaine was afflicted with an incurable disease. At present, even the name of the malady was unknown. Only in the distant future, when multiple patients appeared with identical symptoms, would someone dig through ancient texts and identify it as Arlene's Disease.
One of the drugs tested on Bibi by the mage who had conducted experiments on her was a cure for that very affliction. Because the remedy required Arlene Flower Root, it came to be known as Arlene's disease. The root was exceedingly rare and expensive—a precious wild herb that bloomed only occasionally along coastal cliffs.
Once afflicted by Arlene's disease, a person would suffer rapid weight loss and complete exhaustion. The digestive system steadily deteriorated until keeping food down became nearly impossible. Finally, the respiratory system slowly broke down, leaving the victim gasping for breath until death claimed them. Because the symptoms emerged gradually without any identifiable cause, it was regarded as an incurable illness.
And yet, she was actually poisoned? It wasn’t a disease after all?
'...In the original timeline, Lasper-oppa was said to have contracted Arlene's disease as well.'
Bibi bit her lip.
Most of the people who succumbed to Arlene's disease were civilians who did not train in swordsmanship—sedentary people who spent their days indoors without physical conditioning. Most of them had always been regarded as frail. Consequently, they dismissed the early stages as a mild flu or mere overwork. Even as the sickness slowly worsened, no one could deduce its name or cause, leaving families in utter despair.
Later, people merely conjectured that, for reasons unknown, it arose when the internal balance of power in the body collapsed.
The mage had force-fed Bibi those medicines precisely because Lasper had fallen ill with it at the time. Lasper, the youngest of the ducal brothers and the only one who did not practice swordsmanship, had stayed in the family's home estate pursuing scholarship rather than coming up to the capital, and his health was comparatively delicate compared to his brothers. That was virtually all the public knew back then. Even when the ducal estate openly searched high and low for remedies after he fell ill, nothing more had come to light.
'...Arlene's disease might not be an incurable illness at all, but symptoms of a specialized poison.'
It was only after Imperial Consort Elaine finally perished that cases of the disease surged across the empire. Because the illness gained notoriety through Elaine, some even dubbed it the "Frail Beauty's Curse."
Looking back now, that too was deeply suspicious. As was the behavior of the mage who had tested remedies containing the Arlene flower on Bibi without even knowing the true cause of the disease.
Contacting Imperial Consort Elaine would be the simplest way to uncover the truth. If it was not poison administered by the Empress or Consort Cleo, but something Consort Elaine was ingesting willingly...
'Still... even so...'
Bibi recalled Titania's face—smiling cordially while raising an impenetrable wall between them. And the weary smile she wore just before facing near-certain death, as if she had already resigned herself to everything.
Just as Bibi had regressed, perhaps something about Titania had changed in this life as well. Perhaps that was why she treated Raymon, whom she had once obsessed over, so differently. Perhaps that was why she had thrown herself into danger to save Bibi. And yet...
'I can't bring myself to ask...'
Bibi gnawed on the corner of her lip.
Bibi had the Castrein Duchy behind her. She had people who backed her unconditionally, encouraging her to do whatever she pleased. That was precisely why Titania had drawn such a clean line, defining their bond as "closer than strangers, yet further than family."
Put House Castrein and your family first. Don't drift away from those precious to you on my account. You don't need to choose.
Would it sound hypocritical if she told Titania that she was genuinely worried about her? Would it seem like pity dished out by someone who had everything? Bibi agonized over it, but could find no easy answer.
"Brother, what is unnie to you?"
"...She is my fiancée."
Yet the voice that answered was unmistakably shaken. Yes, he must have felt it too.
The attitude Titania had displayed today was not that of a fiancée. Nor was it that of someone who had once harbored love. Rather, it was starkly familiar.
It was the exact mirror of how Raymon had treated Titania all this time.
Acknowledging the legal engagement, but nothing more.
We are political adversaries; I do not believe we could ever trust, cherish, or love one another. Whether we even make it to marriage remains to be seen...
"I know more than you think. Everyone in the Castrein household knows. Some people even suspected it was all a staged act on her part. Though that talk died down after you blew up in terrifying anger, Brother."
Bibi briefly looked back on the past.