“Please, just disappear from my sight…”

On the verge of tears, Aileen pleaded desperately. Violet was planning to leave soon anyway, and so she responded with one final act of mercy.

“Fine. Since what happens next is no longer my concern, I’ll be on my way.”

Even as she was about to leave, Violet gently patted Aileen’s head. With her head lowered, like a sister offering genuine encouragement, she whispered softly.

“Do you know? Even if you were to die and come back to life, you could never be me. Aileen, you are only you. You carry the blood of the mother you so deeply despise… But, do you know? The bloodline you look down upon is one blessed by the gods.”

Aileen shouted back.

“Don’t be ridiculous! You were born noble—what do you know about me!”

“It’s ironic, isn’t it? You’re the one who taught me all of this. You say I was born noble, and it’s easy to think that way. But the bloodline blessed by the gods, the one that should be considered the noblest, was passed down from your mother to you. Aileen, if you had realized this sooner, wouldn’t your life have been different?”

“Hah, haha… Are you lying to me now? Just to see me suffer?”

“Who knows? It’s up to you whether to believe it or not. It’s your choice…”

As she recalled her own past life, her blood in that world not of noble lineage, Violet whispered in a sing-song voice.

“If you had known that, you could have at least lived a life with some pride, right?”

For a moment, Aileen wore a blank expression, as if she couldn’t grasp the meaning behind those words.

Violet patted Aileen’s head again.

“I had hoped you would never learn the truth, but it’s something you should know.”

―So live as yourself, not as an imitation of me.

This was Violet’s final act of kindness to her once beloved cousin.

In the struggle to sit up to ask what she meant by her earlier words, Aileen found that Violet had already left.

As she looked around the empty room and remembered her situation under constant surveillance, Aileen gripped the blanket tightly.

“What am I supposed to do now…?”

Foolishly, Aileen never came to realize the truth. It was too late. No matter what she did, she could never return to the life where she was loved as before.

“…I hate you.”

Even so, as long as she didn’t die, life would go on, and as long as she lived, there would be something she could do.

Aileen recalled the final words that Violet had whispered towards her.

“I hate you. I dearly hope that I never have to see you ever again.”

Even when such words were said, Aileen would return again and again.

While blaming every single thing on Violet, the person she loathed to the very core, all she was doing was making her own life even more miserable.

This was the only resolve Aileen could cling to in order to keep living.

* * *

‘I wonder what she’s thinking right now.’

In the carriage on her way home, Violet tried to imagine what Aileen might be thinking. She had hoped that Aileen would give up and live her own life, but Aileen, who had stubbornly returned from her studies in Liran, was likely to think otherwise.

Of course, what Aileen wanted was never going to happen.

She was now under suspicion as a spy for a hostile nation, and without the protection of the Everett Duchy, at minimum, the undeniable possibility of the death penalty loomed over her future.

If not that, escaping execution only meant she would lose all her rights as a noble of the empire and be exiled.

For a girl who had lived her entire life as a noble, never learning how to work for herself, it was tantamount to a death sentence. If she ever returned after being exiled, she would immediately be executed for breaking the law.

Violet’s prediction turned out to be correct. When she heard the news that Aileen had been stripped of all her rights as an imperial citizen and exiled, Violet couldn’t help but laugh.

Whether she wanted it or not, Violet’s life had always been entangled with Aileen’s. The feelings Violet had for her weren’t just hatred—they were far more complicated than that.

Whether Aileen was executed or exiled, if they parted like this, those complicated emotions would remain unresolved forever.

That’s the reason why Violet had gone to see Aileen, revealing a truth she hadn’t planned on telling.

Violet did not wish for death upon Aileen. It was in stark contrast to how he felt about Mikhail, towards whom she wished a pathetic life of wandering the streets, before he’d eventually die in that same state—pitiful and lost.

Instead, Violet wished for Aileen to live and suffer. Just as Violet had, she wanted Aileen to survive and be crushed by the weight of her own misery.

It might have been a hypocritical, self-serving thought. Perhaps, after spending nearly half her life so close to Aileen, Violet couldn’t bear the thought of her dying because of her.

Like the relief of having a rotten tooth pulled, Violet hoped that the lingering emotions wouldn’t torment her any further, holding onto that hypocritical wish.

In that sense, hearing that she was exiled instead brought her relief. After all, Aileen would live a life more miserable than death.

But the public reacted differently.

They reveled in discovering fresh gossip. People ridiculed Aileen, calling her the ‘true villainess’ who had hidden behind an innocent mask, and they spent all day imagining what might have happened if she had become the next empress. The fervor over an event that never even occurred was astounding.

Moreover, the mockery directed at her often crossed acceptable lines.

They told her to survive by selling herself to some nobleman, like her mother had, or to come to them, where they would forgive her past sins. Her once-beautiful face, which had been her shield when she was called an angel, was now no protection at all.

In any case, the excessively vulgar rumors were beginning to tarnish Everett’s reputation, so they had to be addressed.

It was Violet’s last favor to Aileen, who she would never meet again.