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?