“It was about the end of last month, on the way back from the front, he volunteered to take over the rear, when the w, western front was being breached.”

“…….”

“Hngh……, he sent his men…… first, and he was isolated……. Hngh, what should we do?”

Belviana snapped her head up.

“Wait. So it’s not a done deal that he’s dead yet, is it? If it’s just an isolated case, maybe…….”

She asked, barely able to keep the words out of her mouth. Unlike Belviana, who had managed to squeeze out a glimmer of hope, the nanny’s complexion hadn’t changed a bit from that of a drowning man. She had a hunch. The undeniable proof had reached Dietrich. Something that could not even be compared to a broken flagpole or a bloody breastplate. Her father’s supply and demand. She gritted her teeth and tugged hard at the hem of her skirt. Her heart beat, very fast. Belviana rose to her feet, mesmerized.

“I must go to Dietrich.”

The poor woman was so startled she had forgotten to cry. The nanny opened her mouth in a daze, and then grabbed Belviana urgently. Her breath came in ragged gasps again.

“Oh, no, my dear. I, I thought it best for you to stay here.”

“…….”

“D, Dietrich is very dangerous right now, the citizens are openly blaspheming, the defeat has weakened each house’s forces and the city’s security, there are posters on every street denigrating the royal family and the noble houses, and there is a lot of scrutiny. I think it would be better for you to stay in Aalborg, at least for a while.”

“Why didn’t you call for me sooner?”

The nanny looked at her with damp eyes, and it was only in that aged gaze that Belviana realized that the past three years had been anything but short for the nanny. The old woman brushed her gaze away and spoke in a voice as slow as a sigh.

“There was a letter you wrote once, young lady, that was printed in the newspaper.”

“A letter? What the hell…….”

Belviana realized something before she could finish her sentence.

“The letter sent to the cobbler. At first, it seems he tried to sell it to the master using your name. However, when that became unfavorable, I heard he sold it to the newspaper for money.”

“…….”

“Officially, the time when you began to conserve your position due to illness coincided, and we barely managed to cover it up. The handwriting suspiciously seemed like someone imitated yours quite convincingly. Since then, someone has been using your name at their own discretion, and we haven’t heard from them for a long time.”

Belviana’s lips parted a little in surprise, then slowed, though she had no reason to be disappointed. She was the one who betrayed Liam in the first place. Still, she felt a pit in her stomach. Liam’s desperate attitude was all about money, and his heart was nowhere to be found. Maybe her misfortune was predestined, since she’d fallen for the wrong guy without thinking.

Perhaps if Aiden hadn’t intervened, she would have lived out her days in misery, abandoned by the man she mistakenly thought she loved. It wasn’t hard for her to picture herself dying of disease in a ramshackle inn room. Belviana bit the soft flesh in her mouth.

She couldn’t bear to think that Aiden had been her salvation, that everything he’d done had been for her good. First she’d made up all kinds of fantasies about Liam, and now she’d made up all kinds of fantasies about the dead. All that and no progress. Belviana laughed self-deprecatingly. The nanny was careful to note how she took her laughter.

“Don’t worry about it now, it’s all in the past, and I doubt anyone even remembers it now.”

“…….”

“I just wanted to let you know that the master never forgot you, or neglected you on purpose.”

The nanny placed the letter in Belviana’s hand, her hair a little damp from tears. She ran her fingertips slowly along the outside of the letter. The handwriting was in her father’s neat handwriting, as she remembered it when he was alive. It was his last memento.

“He regretted sending you here.”

WhensheI opened the envelope, the first thing she saw was a pressed flower, plucked from the battlefield and pressed by hand. A half-wilted amaryllis. It wasn’t the prettiest of flowers, having been plucked and pressed by her father’s crude hand rather than a woman’s delicate one, but she wouldn’t trade it for anything. With trembling hands, Belviana pushed the dry petals away and opened the letter.

My Belviette. That was how the letter began.

Her vision was blurry, like stepping into a dark night.

Maybe her parents had never even abandoned her in the first place, but she had.

Maybe, just maybe, she could forgive herself.

*

That winter, the value of the currency skyrocketed. The government had been printing money to pay off huge war reparations. Whereas five thousand sols had been enough to feed a family of four for a month, now a check for 100,000 soles could barely buy a loaf of dry bread. Hunger was everywhere in the city. In the empty bowls of the peasants on the streets, in the tattered aprons of the women gleaning wheat from the dry fields, in the skinny arms of the men picking spoiled food from the garbage.

It was the best of times for manipulators, cheats, and gamblers who capitalized on crises, but the worst of times for honest people. The world was turned upside down several times a day. Smugglers and criminals of all stripes made hundreds of millions of sols a day, while members of the Lancasters, Carrollings, and other highborn families were forced to sell their estates because they could not afford the war reparations. Lester, once a symbol of wealth in the south, lost its entire estate to the massive war reparations, and even their mansion was mortgaged. Of the hundreds of people who had once worked for them, only two remained, and they had all been purged.

A virulent plague spread like wildfire through the cold air. At first, it spread rapidly among the poorer classes, who were less likely to have good hygiene. The progression of the disease was uncanny, with people who were fine by midday often coughing up blood by evening. Before ten days had passed, half the capital was under lockdown, and tens of thousands of people were dying overnight. Unburied bodies piled up in mountains along the river. The stench of burning frozen corpses could be smelled everywhere in the city.

As the cold snap receded, the epidemic slowed, but the city’s defense and security remained weak. The guards had long since ceased to function. The starving citizens were now angry at everything. The capital was taken over by an angry citizen army. All transportation to and from the capital, including ships and trains, was blocked. It was fortunate that the Countess of Lester died of an illness at this time.

“She didn’t suffer long.”

The nanny she’d met over the years said that with an even thinner face. There was not even a trace of moisture in her voice.

“She was laid to rest in her bed in the mansion at the last moment, and was attended to by a doctor until the very end, which is very fortunate in these times, for she had a benefactor.”

“A benefactor? Who is that?”

“I never saw who it was myself. He sent a representative each time, some foreign nobleman, I believe. I wrote to him several times before she died, offering to see to his well-being, but he refused outright. She had already died without surviving the winter. Perhaps he was wary of the unknown.”

The nanny pulled a worn leather-bound notebook from her bosom. Belviana recognized it at once as the countess’s longtime journal.

“She entrusted it to me before she died. She didn’t say anything about it, but I’m sure it was her will that I give it to you.”

The leather seemed to have the temperature of the dead. Belviana hesitated, then opened the diary as if mesmerized. Her mother’s handwriting was painfully familiar. The Countess was writing about the events around her in as calm a handwriting as she could muster, but there was an undeniable despair in each sentence.

Her husband’s death, her overwhelming debts, and her concern for the well-being of her only daughter had left her weaker and weaker with each passing year. By the time spring arrived, she was already aware of her mortality, and many of her sentences directly counted down her days. The diary ended with a concern for Belviana’s well-being. With her eyes, she added the last sentence her mother had written. The ink was smudged, as if she had hesitated for a long time before pressing it down.

Please, stay alive, even for a moment.

Her tear ducts, dried up since her father’s untimely death, stiffened and she didn’t shed a single tear, but the words stuck with her. Belviana ran her fingertips over the cover of the journal, which was faded to the color of her mother’s skin. Belviana looked up and asked.