Previously
Sienna awaits execution in a damp prison, reflecting on her tragic life and the death of her daughter, Soliet. She believes Emperor Joseph and Marianne will celebrate her death, while her husband, the Grand Duke, visits her unexpectedly.
How to End Things with You Perfectly, Episode 2
More than the thought of others rejoicing over my death, it was this man uttering such words so casually that crushed my spirit beneath his heel. Yet his face showed nothing of the sort.
“It is unfortunate that things have come to this.”
“…”
“When I recall all the charms you poured out just to return to the capital, I can only offer my apologies for being of so little help.”
His face remained unsmiling as he mocked me. It was hardly any different from how we usually fought.
Yet was I not slated for execution tomorrow? We were once husband and wife, having shared a bed and a life together. To come before me on the brink of death only to speak such cruel words…
I had known all along that he held no fondness for me, but that did not mean his coldness left me unharmed. Even the coarsest men in the gutters would not treat the woman who bore their child with such cruelty.
An unspeakable misery burned at the back of my throat.
“…Do you think I wanted to die?”
The feelings I had forced down under the guise of resignation surged up all at once.
Do you truly find me so abhorrent? So much so that you treat me with such callousness even in my final moments? It was not as though I ever wished for an ending like this…
“I should never have met you in the first place.”
Once the words spilled out, I drew my own conclusion. Yes. Thinking back, that was where it all went wrong.
Had I not followed him to the capital, the Emperor would have forgotten me forever. He would never have cared whether I was still breathing in that barren wasteland or had starved to death.
“If I hadn't, I never would have lost my child before my very eyes.”
“…”
“Even if I had starved to death… at least I wouldn't be dying in such disgrace.”
I knew very well that what I was spouting was nothing more than unreasonable spite. After all, in that desolate land where life could barely take root, it was I who had clutched at the hem of his clothes.
It was just that dying like this felt far too unjust. My life was a mess from start to finish. Looking back, of all the choices laid before me, I seemed to have picked the worst every single time. Or perhaps not a single option had ever been anything other than the worst.
And tracing the path back to the origin of it all, I invariably arrived at the man before me.
“I never should have followed you. I regret it with all my heart.”
For the first time, a fracture appeared across his calm face.
“What meaning does regret hold at this late hour? Our daughter has already left this world, and you will ultimately lose your life to the Emperor.”
There was no emotion in his voice. He sounded entirely composed.
“Do not be so angry. This marriage you found so tiresome will soon be over as well.”
He spoke with biting sarcasm, slowly bending down at the waist. The distance between us closed in an instant. We were close enough that I could clearly see my own reflection swallowed up inside his gray-violet eyes.
His gaze at close range was as chilled as ever, yet I could tell with absolute certainty that the emotion lingering within was different from usual.
Perhaps it was because I had spent my entire life reading the moods of others. I had an uncanny knack for realizing when someone hated me. Thus, it was just as easy to detect the impurities mixed into what should have been mere contempt and loathing.
For instance, Marianne despised me while harboring jealousy all the same. Dahlia feared me yet pitied me at once. But his emotions were far more tangled and deep. It felt like rage, and it seemed like resentment.
Before I had time to decipher what it was, his face twisted in grief.
“You never loved me anyway.”
A hollow laugh escaped me at his strangely reproaching tone.
“Isn't that mutual?”
“…”
“Am I wrong? I know you only stayed married to me for the child's sake. Why not be honest now? It's not as though we'll ever see each other again.”
When our child was alive, what a splendid father he had been.
After our daughter was born, he handled most of the child-rearing himself despite hiring a wet nurse. Unless duty forced him to leave the house, he practically kept the baby in his arms at all times.
He read storybooks to an infant who could barely understand words, and at the first sign of drowsiness, he sang lullabies until she fell asleep.
While other children usually uttered ‘Mama’ first, Soliet's very first word was ‘Papa.’ It was a natural outcome, seeing as Soliet spent the greater part of her days nestled in his embrace.
For that reason, the cause behind his inability to cast me away in the end was clear. The woman who bore the child he loved more than his own life happened, unfortunately, to be me. Had he discarded me, it would inevitably jeopardize the standing of the child I bore.
He was a man who gave exquisite care to every single garment his child wore; no matter how much he despised me, he would never do anything that might lower his daughter's status.
The man said nothing in response to my sharp retort. Instead of parting his lips, he gazed at me with an unreadable look, then slowly reached his hand between the iron bars. Instinctively, I tried to pull away from his touch, but he paid no heed.
“My foolish love.”
His rough palm cupped the side of my cheek. At the vivid touch, I did not even register what he had murmured.
In contrast to his expressionless face, the hand caressing the curve of my cheek was quite tender, freezing me stiff like an awkward adolescent boy. Belatedly, I realized it had been a very long time since we had touched.
When I looked at him in surprise, the corners of his lips curved into a faint arch.
“If there is a next life, I only hope we never cross paths again.”
“…”
“A mistake like this is enough once.”
The soft voice drifted gently toward me, stabbing deep into my heart like a dagger.
The hand touching me was warm, but the words he spoke were cold as frost. For I knew very well that the ‘mistake’ he spoke of was allowing me into his life.
Though it was a truth I already knew to my bones, hearing it anew from his lips made my blood run cold. Barely swallowing back the tears that surged within me, I glared up at him.
“…I despise you.”
My voice trembled mercilessly, sounding pathetic. Mocking my effort to hold them back, tears spilled over my cheeks.
“You sicken me. I'm sick to death of you!”
I wailed as if throwing a final tantrum before death. Even so, deep down, I wished he would not abandon me. It did not have to be affection. If only I could remain by his side.
He had always sneered that all I ever wanted was his title, but that was never it. What I had needed all along was him.
Yet bound by my twisted pride, I could not bring myself to be honest, not even in this moment.
I was no longer an imperial princess, and the child who connected us was dead. Every reason for him to stay by my side had already vanished. I knew that better than anyone.
I feared his rejection more than anything else in the world. Though my husband did not love me, he was still the only person who had ever accepted me, making him the only one who truly mattered to me.
So to be abandoned even by him was miserable beyond imagination. But if it was fated to happen anyway, I wanted to leave at least a small scratch upon him.
Someday after I died, even if he forgot everything and moved on with his life, seeing a trace of me would naturally bring me to his mind.
I knew it was a low, petty sentiment. Yet I wished with all my heart that he would never forget me and my child for the rest of his days. Even if it were a memory rooted in hate.
“Do you know? I regret the years I spent as your wife so much it's driving me mad. If not for you, my life wouldn't be such a mess!”
At my desperate cry, his lips twisted. He did not bother answering. Instead, he slowly straightened his posture, placed his right hand over his chest, and bowed his head.
It was the customary etiquette nobles showed to the imperial family. He was undeniably mocking my stripped status.
He gazed at me as I gasped for breath, as though etching my image into his memory one last time.
“Fare you well.”
With those final words, he turned away. And he never looked back at me again. Toward his retreating figure, I screamed in desperation.
“Even in death, I will never forgive you!”
My cries, close to a curse, were ultimately the last struggle of a heart that simply did not want to be left alone.
There was a time when I harbored a thread of hope that my husband, at least, might grieve my passing. For even if our marriage held more misery than joy, it was not as though happy moments had been entirely absent.
In the end, however, it was all futile hope.
He had forsaken me after all.
* * *
Around the time morning dawned, I greeted my final day far more calmly than I had imagined. Perhaps it was because I had wept so hard throughout the dawn that my eyes were swollen. Though even those tears were not shed out of attachment to life…
I stared blankly at the sunlight filtering through the cracks in the stone wall. Thinking that this was the last sunlight I would ever see gave me a strange feeling. Was not the rising and setting of the sun the natural order of this world?
Tomorrow, the sun would rise on tomorrow. But for me, this was the end.
Come noon, the executioners would barge into the prison, and with my entire body bound in thick ropes, I would be dragged out of these cells.
Given the gravity of the day, the guard stationed outside was coming and going with unusual diligence.
When I quietly watched the scene unfold, he must have misunderstood, walking over to point his finger at me and utter threats.