That Thing Called Love and Hate
The next morning, the gardens of House Astell's main estate lay buried in fog.
In the last cycle, he had swung a wooden sword like a man possessed, desperate to claw back the strength of his prime. He had lost Eleanor so meaninglessly in the eighth regression—this time, he had sworn, he would stand right beside her and keep her safe.
Ethan of the tenth regression did not stand outside soaking in the mist, swinging a blade. He sat on the sofa instead, quietly sipping the tea Lia had brewed.
The scent rising faintly from the cup was unfamiliar. Not the black tea he usually drank—something paler, cooler. A floral fragrance.
"This tea..."
"I steeped it from flowers that happened to be blooming in the garden, Young Master. I'm not sure if it will be to your taste."
Lia smiled as she answered.
Ethan looked down at the cup for a moment, then took another sip without a word. In the ninth cycle, he had driven himself to the brink of collapse to protect her. Paradoxically, that very desperation had drawn her suspicion, and he had been branded an enemy of the continent.
Black magic. A pact with demonkind. Illegal substances. Rumors of every stripe had circulated until his reputation hit rock bottom—and he had repaid her by wrapping his own hands around her throat and twisting.
...No need to keep a paranoid woman at my side.
That once had been enough to know what kind of person she was. Keep her close, and the same thing happens. This time, he had to cut her loose.
Two weeks until academy enrollment.
He was counting the remaining days, reviewing the plan ahead, when a sound came from the front gate. Iron doors swinging open.
The fingertips holding his teacup stilled, just slightly.
Then hurried footsteps clattered down the corridor. The maid Lia burst through the door as if she had rammed it open, gasping for breath.
"Y-Young Master! Something terrible has happened!"
"...What's the matter?"
Lia's face had gone white. She pointed a trembling finger toward the window.
"I-It's a carriage from House Rosenberg! Lady Eleanor has... she's arrived at the estate!"
"What?"
Ethan's brow furrowed, unbidden.
Wasn't it next Wednesday?
In nine regressions, that schedule had never once been wrong. Eleanor was a perfectionist. A woman who treated appointments and procedure like a matter of life and death—advancing her visit by a full week, showing up at someone else's house with no warning?
A small variable, off the original track.
But then Ethan set his teacup on the table and sighed inwardly.
...Well. Doesn't matter.
He had already signed the pledge. Whether the engagement was annulled a week early or today, nothing changed. If anything, it was convenient—one less nuisance, finished sooner.
"Understood. I'll go out."
Ethan threw a formal coat over his light morning robe and left the room. From the half-finished cup of tea, the faint floral scent still rose.
The central reception hall of House Astell.
Seated in the place of honor, the Duke of Astell wore a look of open displeasure, and Chris, standing beside him, looked no less uncomfortable. An unannounced visit was an unmistakable discourtesy—but that was not why the two of them were in a foul mood.
The talk of annulment they had dismissed as a joke. They had learned it had reached the ears of Eleanor, the fiancée herself.
"Thank you for receiving me so graciously despite this sudden visit, Your Grace. Please forgive the discourtesy of calling without prior notice."
"...Not at all. For the daughter of House Rosenberg to come in person—discourtesy doesn't enter into it. Still, might I ask why the schedule was advanced by a full week?"
At the Duke's heavy question, Eleanor did not so much as glance aside. She answered with perfect composure.
"I received news of my fiancé. Specifically, word that this house itself had spoken of annulling the engagement with me."
The air in the reception hall sank a degree colder. A deep furrow cut between the Duke's brows.
"That was... nothing but the ravings of an incompetent fool. It has nothing to do with the family's will—"
"I came to confirm for myself whether it was ravings or not."
Eleanor cut the Duke off with a single stroke. There was not a flicker of hesitation in her eyes.
"The political marriage with House Astell is a solemn contract bound by a Debt of Life. But if one party intends to unilaterally dissolve it, then I, as the other party, have every right to ascertain the truth of the matter."
The Duke and Chris both closed their mouths. Anything more would only have been a disgrace to the house.
Just then—
The heavy doors of the reception hall creaked open, and Ethan walked in.
Every, every gaze in the room poured onto him. The Duke's chill stare. Chris's look, shock and fury tangled together. And—the cold blue eyes of Eleanor von Rosenberg.
Past regressions flickered through Ethan's mind. The arrogant look she had once given him. The way she had screamed his name as a magical beast's claws tore her apart. And the version of her who, standing in the wreckage of House Rosenberg's manor, had told him she had done it for her family.
He had expected to feel at least a flicker of anger, meeting her in person. Surprisingly, he felt nothing in particular. Only a distant sense of watching a scene from some old novel, long since finished.
Ethan offered the Duke and Eleanor a perfunctory bow in place of a greeting.
"You called for me, Father. And... thank you for making the journey, Lady Rosenberg."
"..."
Eleanor's brow twitched, just slightly.
Lady.
Until not so long ago, this had been a man who fidgeted and called her Lady Eleanor, straining for her attention. The title that left his mouth now was dry as dust—the way one addressed a stranger, or something less.
Eleanor crossed the floor slowly and came to stand before him. A faint scent of Culan blossoms drifted from her. The flower she loved most—the one he had once scoured the entire empire to find, so he could give it to her as a gift.
...A useless memory.
Ethan shook his head, clearing the thought away.
"Young Master Ethan von Astell."
Eleanor looked straight up into his eyes as she spoke. Frost hung on her voice.
"I was told that yesterday, at the family table, you spoke of annulling the engagement."
"That's correct."
Not a shred of hesitation.
"And did you... mean it?"
"I did."
Ethan drew from his coat an envelope he had prepared in advance. A vivid red seal was stamped across it—the Engagement Annulment Pledge he had written himself the day before. He held it out to Eleanor without a pause.
"I imagined the journey would be taxing, so I drafted it ahead of time. With only House Rosenberg's signature, the engagement will be cleanly dissolved as of today."
"You—!"
Chris, standing beside them, could not hold himself back. Mana surged off him as he took a step forward.
"Ethan! You've well and truly lost your mind!"
"Be still, Chris."
The Duke checked him in a voice gone low. Those red eyes were fixed on Ethan and Ethan alone.
Eleanor looked down at the pledge in Ethan's hand. The tips of her fingers were trembling, very slightly. Whether from anger, or from shock at a situation she had not anticipated, it was impossible to say.
She did not take it. She only stared at him, her gaze gone cold.
"What... kind of scheme is this?"
"Scheme?"
"It was only last month that you were sending me gifts and offering me books of poetry, trying to win my favor. And now you mean to annul the engagement with a single sheet of paper?"
The corner of Eleanor's mouth twisted upward.
"Are you trying to seize the initiative? Or... is this some clumsy performance, meant to draw my attention?"
The initiative. A performance. Her attention.
A very Eleanor way of thinking. She was the empire's finest genius, a young lady who commanded everyone's gaze; it was hardly unreasonable that she would believe the world revolved around her. That it had gone too far—that she had suspected, envied, and humiliated the Ethan who had changed—was merely bitter.
For an instant, he felt it at his fingertips: the cold of Eleanor's body at the end of the last cycle, her neck snapped in his hands, blood-soaked, her fingers twitching.
A dry laugh slipped out of him.
"My lady."
Ethan swallowed the laugh and looked her straight in the eye.
For an instant, Eleanor's breath caught. Her eyes widened. Her shoulders twitched as if some impulse to step backward had seized her.
It was like looking at her father—the greatest mage in the empire. Eyes whose depths could not be fathomed. What lived in them was endless ennui, and a faint irritation.
"Nothing... to you?"
"Yes. The family already regards me as a card to be discarded, and you, my lady, have never made a secret of your contempt. In that case, it is only proper that each of us get what we want."
Ethan pressed the pledge directly into her hand. The fingertips that brushed his were cold.
"Use this to step free of that fine-sounding pretext of a family debt. Isn't that the perfect freedom you wanted?"
"..."
Eleanor stared blankly down at the pledge in her hand.
This was the annulment she had wanted so badly. Severing every tie to the incompetent, contemptible youngest son. It should have been the most perfect outcome for House Rosenberg and for herself.
So why did this unpleasantness come flooding in—as if a cold hole were being bored through a corner of her chest?
The freedom she had wanted was not this. She could not quite explain what it was supposed to be. But it was not something received as charity from someone else's pity.
"Well then. I'm tired, so I'll retire first."
Ethan offered the Duke and Eleanor a slight nod, then turned his back. He had delivered the document. He had made his will perfectly clear. The tedious yoke of a political marriage was finished.
"Wait—!"
Eleanor's voice broke behind him. It had lost all of its usual composure; it shook, just slightly. He did not stop walking.
"Ethan von Astell!"
She called his name. He did not look back. He opened the doors of the reception hall and went out.
A quiet click. The sound of the doors closing spread through the stillness.
Inside the reception hall, Eleanor could not take her eyes off the doors Ethan had gone through. Her grip tightened until the Engagement Annulment Pledge in her hand began to crumple.
That look in his eyes... what was that?
As a mage, she had always been skilled at reading another person's emotions and the flow of their mana. But the gaze Ethan had just shown her was, without question, not an act. It was the look of a man who genuinely regarded her as nothing at all.
"My lady."
The Duke of Astell's heavy voice broke the silence. His expression was very dark.
"...The boy is clearly not in his right mind. That kind of absurdity—"
"No, Your Grace."
Eleanor cut him off. She smoothed the creased pledge with care and slipped it into her coat.
"I will... accept the Engagement Annulment Pledge."
"...What?"
Chris and the Duke both stared. Eleanor toyed with the pledge inside her coat, her gaze cold on the doors Ethan had left through.
You'll give me my freedom, will you?
That calm, indifferent voice still hung at her ear. That manner of his, as if he were taking pity on her, bestowing some gracious favor.
Don't make me laugh, Ethan von Astell.
This was the first time she had ever been discarded like this.
Eleanor's lips curved.
"...What?"
Before anyone else could react, Chris slammed the table hard enough to make it boom.
"Lady Eleanor! What kind of insanity is that? An annulment in front of every noble in the empire—are you trying to disgrace House Astell?!"
Chris's face had flushed a mottled red, but Eleanor did not so much as blink. Those cool blue eyes swept over him without interest.
"Disgrace? Your house's youngest son personally presented a written pledge and asked for this. I am merely respecting his wishes."
"You—you—!"
"That's enough, Chris."
The Duke of Astell's voice, sunk low and heavy, filled the hall. The veins stood out in his red eyes. The teacup on the table trembled in its saucer.
"...Lady Rosenberg. Since when has the indebted party taken the liberty of setting conditions upon the house of their benefactor?"
"Discourtesy? The one who clung to me using that debt as a pretext was your youngest son."
Eleanor paused a beat.
"That same young master threw a written pledge at me, declaring he would settle the debt himself. I am merely offering an official answer befitting that gesture."
She toyed with the pledge inside her coat and smiled, coldly.
"You need not worry overmuch. The ducal House of Rosenberg is a house that knows gratitude. We will not, for any reason, give offense to Your Grace."
Eleanor rose from her seat and brushed a speck of dust from her coat.
Ethan accompanied Eleanor as far as the estate's front gate.
Sending a visiting guest off alone would have been an unmistakable discourtesy, and Ethan had no desire to make an enemy of another ducal house of the empire. The fog still had not lifted; it lay low along the garden paths. The stone steps were slick with overnight dew.
"I've been rude today. Calling without any notice."
"Not at all, my lady. Please travel safely."
An utterly perfunctory exchange. Eleanor found, somehow, that it sat poorly with her. She bit her lip and spoke in as even a tone as she could manage.
"Stop by House Rosenberg before you leave for the academy. This matter—I would prefer you explain it to my father yourself."
"That..."
Ethan had begun to answer when Eleanor's foot, descending the steps, slipped on a patch of moss-slick stone.
"...!"
In that brief instant as her body tipped sideways, Ethan's hand was already closed around her arm.
"..."
The one who had caught her looked, of the two of them, the most startled. Ethan glanced down at his own hand, then let go as if nothing had happened.
"Watch your step."
She looked down at the arm he had just caught. Ordinarily she would have put distance between them at once, out of displeasure. There were lines, even between an engaged couple. And yet, for some reason, it did not feel all that unpleasant.
"I'll send a letter regarding that. As the party who unilaterally declared the annulment, calling in person would be... burdensome."
"...It isn't that it's burdensome. You simply haven't the nerve to face my father alone."
Eleanor shot back coldly, a twisted smile on her lips. Even as she said it, her blue eyes never left Ethan's face for even a moment.
Before she boarded the carriage, Eleanor turned to look at him one last time.
"Travel safely."
The same composed look as when she had first seen him in the reception hall.
"...Right."
Even after the carriage had left the gardens and receded into the distance, Ethan stood there for a while, quietly looking down at his own palm.
Back in his bedroom, Ethan lay on the sofa, staring quietly at the ceiling. What replayed in his mind was the moment just before she had slipped on the stone.
"...My body moved first."
He had thought he'd severed it. But it seemed the love-hate was still there.
He had spent roughly seven cycles with Eleanor. Two in which she had betrayed him, or died first. Was that gap still lingering?
Ethan smiled, bitter, and closed his eyes.