TW: Thoughts of suicide

* * *

Christa returned to her true self and locked herself in her bedroom. She made her ladies in waiting leave and sits alone, nervously chewing her nails without even taking off her nightgown. Feelings of nervousness, anxiety, and fear build up inside her.

Before she knows it, there’s a commotion outside, and Ragnar enters the room, unarmed.

“Is everything all right?”

By the way he’s dressed, he’s just come back from the inspection.

“Yeah, nothing happened, just…….”

He ran his hands all over her body as if to make sure she was okay. His gauntlets touched her skin. She flinched at the cold touch of the metal, and Ragnar quickly withdrew his hand.

He slipped the gauntlet off and tossed it behind him, and a young squire scrambled to catch it and place it on his breastplate. Ragnar lets out a small sigh and leaves the room with the squire.

“Wait there for a moment.”

“Yes…….”

It doesn’t take long for Ragnar to return. He’s already drenched in sweat, having roughly shed his plate armor in favor of a simple undershirt.

“So, why was that bastard there?”

It was easy to tell who he was referring to even if he didn’t say who the subject was. Christa hesitated for a moment, then stammered.

“H, he said it was a vacation…….”

According to Crown Prince Elio, he had come to take a hot spring bath. He then dragged her to a secluded place where he wanted to say ‘hello’ to her……. She shudders again at the thought.

“How dare him enter another’s territory unannounced.”

Ragnar’s voice held no small amount of anger.

“Really, nothing happened.”

For some reason, she couldn’t face the way Ragnar was looking at her right now. Unable to help herself, she turned her head away.

“Nothing should have happened.”

She felt his hands slowly stroking her body. He checked her from head to toe, one by one, and it was only then that he seemed to relax.

Soon the touch was on Christa’s fingertips, the feel of cold metal against her left hand.

A copper ring, polished to a brilliant shine, came into view. At the same time, Christa’s heart dropped to the floor.

Ragnar narrowed his eyes and took her hand.

“I don’t remember giving you something like this.”

“Oh, this…… this.”

In her frenzy, she had forgotten that she was still wearing the ring. She tried to answer him, but it feels like she’s got sawdust in her throat.

“It’s, uh, it’s…….”

What was she supposed to say, this was her mother’s memento, and the crown prince had given it to her out of the blue? Even as she thought about it, it felt like a lame answer.

The ring she wore on the ring finger of her left hand was her mother’s memento ring that she was supposed to receive from her aunt. She remembered that they’d sold it and replaced it with a glass one, and now it had a beautiful greenstone in it.

The day Christa was supposed to receive this ring. She faced the Crown Prince at the Palmaril House. That day, he proposed to her to become his mistress.

She had kept it all a secret until now, from her visit to Palmaril House that day to the fact that she had been offered the position of mistress from Elio. She didn’t know how to explain it, because she had kept it all a secret.

This had happened in her previous life. This happened when she married Count Pasquier.

He was very suspicious indeed, suspecting an affair if she even touched someone. When a servant picked up a necklace she had dropped, he persisted in holding onto it, and used it as an excuse to beat her.

What had just happened reminded her of what had happened with her ex-husband. The fear etched into her body was very lasting. She still had nightmares of his whip digging into her flesh.

What if Ragnar misunderstood something about her and the crown prince? She knew he wouldn’t turn on her, but the whole situation was terrifying right now.

Her head was overloaded. Too many things had happened one after the other. Christa’s red eyes fluttered gently. What would be the right answer?

After a long moment of hesitation, she decided to remain silent.

“…….”

Ragnar ran a hand nervously through his hair and sighed. His brow furrowed, and he turned away.

“We’ll talk about this later.”

His tone and demeanor had never been like this before. Christa stiffened, unable to find the right words to say, so she stammered and shut her mouth. She watched his back as he turned and walked out of the room, still unable to get the words out.

Tears threatened to fall. But for now, she had to hold back. The heavy wooden door slammed shut with a bang.

With trembling hands, Christa pulled the ring off. Nothing. It meant nothing to her.

She wanted to throw it on the floor with all her might, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it, so she held the ring in her palm. She can feel the gemstone’s facets digging into her palm.

She slumped to the floor, barely able to stand. The tears came fast and furious. The tears stained the stone floor, spreading thickly.

“Hmph…….”

She couldn’t even come up with a decent excuse. The shame of being so unsightly was unbearable, and the sight of him was painful. She was afraid of his cold gaze and back.

Her heart ached. It hurt as if she had swallowed a piece of glass. Her heart was burning and hot, as if it had been stabbed with a knife. She needs to vomit something to cool this burning in her chest.

Christa clamped her mouth shut to keep the sound from escaping and let the tears fall for a long time.

The most unbearable thing she could think of right now was her anger at herself. Why did she do that, why was she so stupid to say anything? She was ashamed to even be crying like this now. What did she do to deserve this?

Everything is sinful. Even loving him in secret, even crying, feels like a sin. She wanted to shatter into pieces and disappear.

* * *

There is an emergency at Castle Wishus. Everyone is on high alert for the crown prince’s unexpected visit to the north.

Ragnar was the busiest, with a murderous air about him. After a long day of meetings and inspections, he came into the bedroom late at night and disappeared like the dawn. Their plans to talk about it later never materialized.

At least if she had stayed up past dawn, she might have gotten to see Ragnar. But her languid body kept drifting off to sleep, and by the time Christa fell asleep, he was gone, leaving only a trace of his presence at her bedside.

This went on for days.

‘Why do I feel so tired all the time…….’

Christa woke up in the morning rubbing her eyes with Hilda’s wash water, chasing away sleep.

She slept brighter than the others. Normally, the sound of footsteps nearby would have woken her up. She should have been awake by now.

“My lady, are you all right?”

Hilda wipes my face with a soft linen cloth.

“Oh, yes…….”

She didn’t look too well to be categorized as fine. Soon enough, breakfast preparations began.

She tucked the ring given to her into the corner of her jewelry box. Every time she picked out a piece of jewelry for the morning, she saw it.

‘He couldn’t have traveled all this way just to hand me this.’

As far as she knew from her past life, the Central Powers’ invasion of the North was a long way off. At least three years away. Long after this contract marriage had ended.

“…….”

But too much has happened since then for her past life to be exactly the same as this one. People who should have died have lived, and things that shouldn’t have happened have happened. Like their contract marriage, for example.

Christa wasn’t sure of anything. Had she met the crown prince in her previous life? No, she hadn’t. Had she ever single-handedly saved someone from a demon? She hadn’t. Had Ragnar married her in a previous life? No. This was different.

This is very different from her past life. Whatever was changing, it was changing fast. Her second life was long since out of her control.

What if what she’d done so far had changed something. If her fate has been altered and twisted because of it……. Maybe the repression in the North would have been quicker.

Christa squirmed in her seat for a moment. She felt like she might lose her grip.

“Are you okay?”

Hilda rushed to her side.

“Ah, ah…….”

A wave of nausea washed over her mouth. What an unfortunate way to think.

When she’d returned from her regression, she’d initially just wanted to die. There was no point in living her life over and over again, so she couldn’t care less about the fate of others. Or more accurately, she didn’t care.

She remembered her dead-eyed, self-interested self, and the cold, calculating knowledge that one day, Ragnar would die, and there would be no aftermath.

“…….”

A cold sweat ran down her face. She wanted to turn back time, if she could, she would go back and change everything.

Why did she make such a foolish decision then? Would it be better if she ends this contract marriage now?

No, she had already come too far. Everything has changed too much, irrevocably.

She’d rather be dead. Wouldn’t that make things better?

Christa knew now where Ragnar kept the holy sword. If only she could go there now and…….

The thought made her dizzy and she shook her head.

“My lady, are you all right?”

“Your complexion is so pale!”

She looked at Hilda and Annette, who were clinging to her with concern.

Christa raised her hand to indicate that she was okay, but it was quickly snatched out of the air.

Her vision blurred and she felt like she was going to black out. Annette quickly fetched a vinaigrette (a vinegar bottle used to wake up a fainted person).

As soon as she smelled the sharp, sour smell of the candles, she felt nauseous. She had to lie down after vomiting up gastric juice from the morning before.

She continued to have nightmares, tossing and turning over and over again. When she woke up, she couldn’t remember what she was dreaming about. All she knew was that it was a bad dream. It was the middle of the night when she woke up.

Earlier, Hilda, Annette, or Mrs. Tatiana had seemed to be staying with her, but now she was alone. She had been lying there so long that her back was aching.

She slowly lifted her head and sat up. As usual, there was no one else in the room.

She put on her slippers and got out of bed. Then she opened the window. She needed fresh air. It was the middle of summer, but the early morning air in the north was stinging.

As the cold air entered her lungs, she felt the tightness in her stomach ease. She heard a snap. It was the resonance of branches shaking in the wind. The sound of the wind through the trees was eerie, like someone screaming.