In This Life, I’ll Assist You

Is it pity? I asked, my nemesis. “No, it’s interest,” you replied. Your eyes, once bluer than the deepest lake in the Empire, were losing their light. As an assassin, I have spilled much blood, but there was one person I never wanted to kill – you, Sion Belpast, the Grand Duke of the North, my master’s enemy. Yet, I destroyed everything about you, and now, charged with treason, you are dying before my eyes at the scaffold. I mustn’t cry. I don’t even deserve to. The only man who ever defeated me in combat, the only one who treated me, the monster, as human, I confessed to you. “I respected you.” “White butterfly, may your soul emerge from the darkness.” With those words, you died. But I couldn’t harbor any doubts. My master, the Duchess of the South, Medea, who took me in and raised me when I lost my memory, her bidding was always right. Tomorrow, my duchess will become the adopted granddaughter of the childless Emperor. The future Empress of the Empire. But that night, as I announced the death of the Duke of the North, she stabbed me in the heart. She whispered in my ear, “The real granddaughter of the Emperor is you. You are the lost princess from your childhood.” My whole life was built on a lie. I died and returned to the past, where I met you again, Duke. In this life, I will keep you hidden and make you the Emperor’s successor, to atone for my past life. May I stay by your side in this life?