Lucella had turned gold.
Why?
This makes no sense.
As the sword tore through my insides, I vomited blood. Even then, I looked at her, Medea Young Lady.
Why are you doing this to me? We were friends.
"Oh dear…"
The young lady blinked her beautiful eyes mournfully.
"It hurts a lot, doesn't it, Bella? I'm sorry. I should have killed you instantly. I'm sorry."
I wanted to ask why, what was happening all of a sudden. But with my punctured lung, all I could produce was wheezing.
"I used some poison. After all, you're a Sword Master; I couldn't just attempt it without precaution."
Poison. The main weapon the young lady used to kill her adversaries.
"Bella, did you really think I considered you a friend? You're as naive as the Emperor."
She looked down at me, genuinely sorrowful about my foolishness.
I didn't know what expression I was making, but my face reflected in her red eyes was twisted in agony. My heart felt like it was being ripped apart.
Blood continuously flowed, soaking my lower body. The white cloak I wore turned red. I managed to lift my motionless head to look at her, and she slightly furrowed her brow.
"Bella, how cruel. How can you look at me like that? After I've told you the truth, aren't you grateful? You're the only granddaughter the Emperor has been searching for his whole life."
I'm the sole kin of Emperor Dimithus?
The only daughter of the long-dead Crown Prince?
The Emperor's granddaughter?
Medea Young Lady leaned her face close to my ear, whispering in a fragrant voice.
"This blue-handled dagger, it belonged to your mother. My father kept it and told me to take care of it, but I'm giving it to you as my last gesture of friendship."
The dagger fell in front of me. Tears welled up.
I came here at five, with no memory of anything before. My first memory was the young lady's kind face smiling at me.
Though it was a relationship of master and servant, she called me a friend. She was the only warmth in my life, or so I believed.
She bitingly said,
"It was true. The sword turned gold. The direct lineage of the royal blood, what does that even matter?"
With all my strength, I looked at the dagger she had thrown at me.
I could feel my life fading.
Yet, I wanted to see it. My mother's belonging.
"I had a mother…"
Medea's voice reached me.
"My father found this when he killed your mother. Oh, and your father, the Crown Prince, was also killed by my father, Duke Rahert, to make me an empress. Ah, that dream will come true tomorrow. Bella, die happily for me. Your blood won't be in vain. Lucella will be known to have turned gold due to my blood, and then I'll be recognized not as an adopted granddaughter but a blood granddaughter. Thank you, Bella."
Darkness increasingly enveloped my vision, and finally, it turned black. It was so cold.
Is this what dying feels like?
The last bit of breath in my drained body faded away.
And so, I died.
But then, I opened my eyes again.
"Kheuk!"
I screamed involuntarily. My lungs and heart, which I thought had stopped, panicked, expelling a great breath.
Something dark loomed overhead. It took me a while to realize it was the ceiling, as if I were in a coffin. Something scuttled across it with a squeaking noise. Stale, filthy dust filled my nostrils.
Beneath my palm was damp.
'Am I… lying down?'
For a moment, I wondered if I was actually in a coffin. I cautiously turned my head to look around.
A small window, smaller than a palm, was installed at the highest part of the wall. What was the faint light coming in from there? It couldn't be the sun.
'I'm sure I died… then why?'
Why am I back in the place I lived before becoming an assassin, long ago? The underground storage of the Rahert Duke's main castle.
Is this the afterlife?
Is the afterlife a place created from the most difficult memories of life?
I see. This is where I came after death.
Considering what I did in life, it seems fitting.
It was then that suddenly, two tears streamed down my cheeks.
Do bodies still function in the afterlife? Why are all senses as vivid as when I was alive, even the pain in my heart?
Medea Young Lady killed me.
I… was the sole kin of the Emperor.
The only princess born to the Emperor's only son, an assassin known as the White Butterfly.
A truth now useless and buried with my death.
Slowly, I rose from the straw bed I was lying on and went to a mirror hanging on one wall. I stared into it.
But then, I was startled. The reflection in the mirror showed me younger than just a few minutes before my death. It was like looking at myself from several years ago.
Staring blankly at my reflection, the left side of my face was grotesquely twisted like melted wax. The drooping eye socket exposed the bottom of the eyeball, which harbored a sinister red iris.
In stark contrast, the right side of my face was different.
Skin as clear as snow, beautifully curved eyebrows, long and round droplet-shaped eyes with sky-blue irises. The lips on this side were rosy, unlike the grey ones on the other.