Chapter 70: LXVII ※ Less Than Five Years, a Lifetime of Regret, and Still No One to Kill Me

"I'll be murdered," I repeated, my voice flat, stripped of any emotion. It felt like I was saying the same thing over and over, but each time, it didn't make it any easier to swallow. It didn't feel real. But it was, and I could feel the truth in every word. "But don't get so excited," I added, my lips curling slightly into a dry smile, the kind that didn't reach my eyes. "I won't die by your hands, if that's what you're hoping for. The person who will kill me is already inside the palace, walking around like nothing is wrong. It's frustrating, you know? To live in the same place as the person who will take my life. Every step they take echoes in my mind, a constant reminder that there's nothing I can do. It's suffocating. No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try to fight back, I can't stop it. I can't outrun it, can't hide from it. The worst part is knowing I'm powerless to change it. It's a slow suffocation—just waiting for the inevitable. And it's maddening. Day by day, hour by hour, I can feel the weight of it pressing down, like a shadow hanging over me, a burden I can't escape."

I closed my eyes, trying to block out the heaviness of my thoughts, but it only made everything feel worse. The bed, soft and inviting, seemed to call my name, but I wasn't sure if I even had the strength to move, let alone lie down. It felt like every fiber of my being was exhausted, as if I'd been running a race I hadn't signed up for, with no finish line in sight. "I'm tired," I muttered, the words coming out hoarse, thick with the exhaustion that had taken root deep inside me. "I just need some peace. Please, leave me alone for now. I can't deal with this right now."

Aeneas, unsurprisingly, wasn't ready to let things go. He never was. He opened his mouth, and his voice hit me like a sharp blade, cutting through the fragile silence. "You lied," he accused, his tone biting, filled with accusation and something darker, something I couldn't quite place. "You told me you had 52 years to live. That's not what you said before."

I let out a bitter laugh, one that held no trace of humor, just the raw edge of frustration and disbelief. "It's not like you believed me in the first place," I retorted, my voice steady but tinged with something colder now. I finally lifted my eyes to meet his cold gaze, the one that never softened, never showed any real emotion. "Why would I tell you the truth? I don't trust you. I never have. So why would I give you the satisfaction of knowing how long I actually have? It's not like you care about me or my well-being. You've always had your own agenda, always seen me as a pawn in your game, a piece to be moved around, manipulated. Anything I say is just ammunition for you to twist and use against me. So why would I give you that power?"

The silence between us stretched out, thick and uncomfortable, like a heavy fog. My words hung in the air, and for a long while, no one said anything. It felt like the entire room was holding its breath, waiting for something to break. Finally, it was Rai who broke the quiet, his voice much softer than Aeneas' had been, but still filled with tension. "Did Avyanna ask you to see her death?"

"Yes," I answered, the word slipping out with no resistance, as if the truth had been waiting to escape all this time. "She did. On her 13th birthday. By then, she had already been showing signs of the Rosé disease for more than a year. But she hid it from me. She didn't want anyone to know. Not her family, not her friends. She kept it from me, from everyone, until it was too late to do anything about it. But she had made up her mind long before that. She didn't want anyone to suffer alongside her. She didn't want to be a burden. She thought she could handle it alone. She thought if she kept it a secret, maybe she could protect everyone else from the pain of watching her fade away. But she was wrong. And I didn't know, not until the very end. I didn't even have a chance to stop her. To help her."

I paused, the memory of that day—of those final moments—flooding back to me with painful clarity. "It's not like I didn't try. I would have done anything to save her, anything to stop it. But she made me promise, Aeneas. She begged me. She said it would be better if no one knew. She didn't want anyone to suffer, and especially not me. She said I shouldn't have to carry the weight of it alone, but I did. I couldn't break that promise. I couldn't. She made me swear—on my name, on the names of the Gods—that I wouldn't tell a single soul. Not a single person could know. And I couldn't break it. Not after everything we'd been through together. It didn't matter how much I wanted to, how much I wanted to tell someone, to let someone else carry some of the burden. I couldn't. Promises like that… you can't break them. Not if you have any honor left."

Aeneas' voice rang out sharply, filled with disbelief, his anger evident in every word. "No!" he shouted, his face flushed with emotion. "No, she wouldn't have done that! She wouldn't have asked you to lie, to let everyone hate you for something that wasn't your fault!"

I couldn't stop the bitter laugh that escaped me. It was hollow, laced with frustration and pain. "Everyone already hated me, Aeneas," I said, the words coming out like a slap, a truth that had been gnawing at me for so long. "Her death didn't change that. It only made it worse. I tried to tell them what was happening. I tried to explain, to get them to understand. But she insisted on keeping it a secret. She didn't want anyone to know. Not even her family. Not even you. She wanted to protect everyone else, even if it meant I had to suffer. Even if it meant I was the one who had to carry the weight of her secret alone. She thought it would be easier that way. She thought it would be better for everyone, even if it broke me in the process."

Sighing, I sat up, my body aching from the exhaustion that had been building for years. The weight of it felt like a mountain pressing down on me, crushing me slowly, making it harder to breathe with every passing moment. I looked at them both, my hands clasped tightly in my lap, the tension in the air thick enough to cut with a knife. "You can believe me or not, I don't care anymore," I said, my voice flat, empty. "I've spent years trying to earn your approval, trying to get you to understand, but nothing I do is ever good enough. Nothing I say will ever change what you think of me. So go ahead, keep hating me. I'm used to it by now. I'm used to being the villain in your story, to being the one who carries the blame. I've always been the one who has to shoulder the consequences, even when I'm not the one at fault."

My throat tightened, but I pushed through the pain. "But just know this—I suffered just as much as you did. I watched her die slowly, day by day, and I couldn't do anything to stop it. I tried. I went to the temple, I begged for a cure, I studied everything I could. But it was all in vain. I was helpless. And that killed me. Every single day, it ate away at me. To know that I couldn't help her, that I couldn't save her, it broke me in ways I can't even describe. And maybe you'll never understand that. Maybe you'll never see it the way I do. But that's the truth."

Rai's voice cut through the silence, quieter now, but laced with something that sounded like pity, or maybe understanding. "How... how long do you have left?"

I leaned forward, my voice low and steady as I locked eyes with him. "I'm not going to tell you," I said, my lips trembling just a little. "But I will tell you this: I won't make it past five years. From today, I've got five years. That's all. Five years, and I'll be dead. It could happen tomorrow, next week, in a month, two years... but in five years, I'll be gone. That's my fate. And there's nothing I can do to change it. I can't outrun it, can't escape it. It's coming for me, and all I can do is wait."

Aeneas' mouth fell open in shock, his face draining of color as the words sank in. But Rai... Rai didn't gasp, didn't recoil. He just stared at me, his eyes unreadable, like a storm waiting to break. "Five years?" he murmured, his voice barely a whisper, filled with something raw and unspoken. "And you're just going to let it happen?"

"I'm not going to tell you anything else," I replied, leaning back against the bed. My head felt heavy, and I just wanted to disappear into the darkness. "But understand this: no matter how hard you try, no matter what you do, you won't be able to stop it. You can try to torture me, to break me, but in the end, I'll still be dead. In less than five years, I'll be gone. And there's nothing anyone can do about it."

Rai's voice cut through the silence, his tone sharp and filled with frustration. "That's why you begged the Queen...?"

I turned to look at him, my face cold and unreadable. "Yes," I said quietly. "I begged her to let me go. To release me from this fate. But she refused. And now, I'm losing a precious year of my life, a year I can't afford to waste. But I'm not giving up. I'm following Aeneas' suggestion. I'll make myself the best candidate, get them to want me as Queen. And then, when the time comes, I'll refuse. Let them live with the knowledge that their Queen wasn't who they thought she was. But to do that, I need the temple's help. I can't do it alone."

Rai's expression softened slightly, but there was still a hardness in his voice. "Look, we may not like you, but you are still part of this house. You're still our sister. And we won't let anyone tarnish that. Not Daisuke, not anyone. We're the ones who can hurt you, but that doesn't mean we'll let them. You're ours to break, but we won't let anyone else break you first."

I scoffed, a bitter laugh escaping my lips. "I wouldn't expect anything less from you, Rai," I muttered, my voice laced with sarcasm. "You're all the same. But don't worry. I won't tell anyone how much time I have left. Let them wonder. Let them figure it out on their own."

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