I scanned the article absent-mindedly and moved my gaze to the publication date.

February 10, 314.

My fingertips trembled slightly. There was no way I could forget that date.

It was the day my mother and maternal grandfather died in a carriage accident while leaving for the Lopez County.

“……”

I exhaled my swelling breath. It was the moment when doubt turned into certainty.

As expected, Dante is related to that incident.

As my head throbbed faintly, a piece of memory floated to the surface with a pop.

“Open your eyes if you don’t want to die. If you lose consciousness now, you’ll die!”

“Don’t let go and stay close! Damn, if I knew it would be this troublesome, I wouldn’t have picked you up.”

“……Ah.”

I muttered blankly.

The face that flashed through my mind was clearly Dante from his boyhood.

“My lady, is the investigation going well……”

Elias, who was coming down with a drink in hand, spotted me and was startled.

“My lady! Are you alright? Your complexion is so pale!”

“……The Duke.”

Instead of answering, I slowly turned to him.

“Is he an old friend of His Grace?”

Elias blinked at the different answer to his question, but soon replied sincerely.

“Yes. Since childhood. ……We were quite similar despite our very different circumstances. Dante wasn’t the child of the legal wife, and I was the child of the legal wife, but my mother passed away and my father loved the stepmother he brought in so much.”

Elias smiled bitterly.

That explanation alone was enough to guess.

Like Dante, who was an illegitimate child, Elias must not have been a welcomed child in his family either.

I made up my mind and opened my mouth.

“I’d like to hear more details about His Grace’s childhood.”

Elias’s eyes widened.

“Please.”

* * *

Elias hesitated for a moment but soon opened his mouth.

The words I heard afterwards were unexpected.

I already knew that Dante was an illegitimate child.

I also knew that he had three half-brothers born from the previous Duchess’s womb, but all three gave up the succession, and Dante, who was the child of a concubine, seized the Duke’s position.

There was a stir in noble society even at the time of succession.

It was rare for the youngest, and an illegitimate child at that, to inherit a high noble title instead of the firstborn.

But Dante’s achievements were so great that no one dared to object.

That’s how smoothly he took the Duke’s position…… or so I thought.

However, Dante’s childhood was much more unfortunate than my shallow assumptions.

“I don’t know the details because he never told me, but the abuse and bullying must have been beyond imagination. Dante was a prodigy who excelled in both martial arts and academics from childhood. Despite being an illegitimate child, that is.”

Especially, the hatred of his half-brothers was full of blatant malice, he said.

Then one day, Dante’s half-brothers finally did something.

They knocked him unconscious and pushed him into the river.

“It was in the middle of winter, and it was the Eren River, known for its steep currents. It’s still a miracle that he survived when I think about it.”

The lower reaches of the Eren River border the Parze Forest. The very forest where my mother and grandfather had their carriage accident.

The puzzle was coming together more and more.

As if asking why I hadn’t found them earlier, the pieces fit into place with every turn, interlocking perfectly.

The more it happened, the worse my headache became, but I gritted my teeth and continued my thoughts without stopping.

Leaving a message that I would come back for another interview, I hurriedly left the newspaper office.

The more intense the headache became, the more certain I felt. The certainty that I was now very close to the answer.

As I stepped outside the building, the coachman greeted me.

“Ah, my lady. Are you returning to the mansion?”

“No. Please take me to the Imperial Palace.”

“Pardon? The Imperial Palace? ……Yes, understood, my lady.”

The coachman blinked once and nodded obediently.

‘Dante said he was at the Imperial Palace.’

I was planning to go see his face first.

I couldn’t shake off the certainty that if I could just face him once more now, the hazy memories would take shape like smoke.

As I got off the carriage, the gazes of the officials, servants, and nobles coming and going in the Imperial Palace were instantly fixed on me.

“Oh my. Isn’t that the Duchess over there? Am I seeing things?”

“Ah, seeing her out, it seems she’s feeling much better. Thank goodness.”

“Still, we shouldn’t approach her now, right?”

“She looks so busy.”

It felt like walking on a path full of iron filings with magnets attached all over my body.

With every step I took, gazes and whispers were drawn towards me.

I remembered Elias’s words that my existence was currently the hottest topic in the capital. It seems his words weren’t just boasting.

“Oh my, madam!”

Rio, who spotted me from afar, hurriedly approached.

“What brings you to the Imperial Palace? And are you feeling alright?”

“I’m fine thanks to your concern. Um, Rio. Could I ask you to guide me to His Grace?”

“Ah, to, to the master?”

Rio asked back with a visibly flustered face. I nodded with a faint smile.

“I know he’s in the basement.”

“Ah…… You’ve heard.”

Rio rolled his eyes once and soon nodded as if he had no choice.

“I’ll guide you.”

* * *

It wasn’t my first time stepping into the Imperial Palace’s underground prison.

It was just recently that I had visited to mock Lucas.

‘Lucas.’

It was a name I hadn’t thought of even once in the past few days.

By now, he must be waiting for his trial day, his blood running cold with each passing day.

I should feel triumphant, but now I felt numb even thinking about Lucas.

After all, only one person’s face was filling my mind right now.

“Please wait here for a moment. I’ll go inform the master.”

Rio said that at the entrance of the basement and nodded to the guards.

The guards politely guided me and even served drinks.

It was an extremely courteous treatment I never expected to receive in a prison.

As I waited anxiously, I organized my thoughts.

‘What should I say first when I meet him?’

That I’ve gathered this many clues, that the puzzle is nearly complete.

But still… I don’t understand what he meant by our first kiss.

‘Should I insist that he take responsibility since the hint he gave is making me even more confused?’

As I was thinking such thoughts, I casually turned to the side.

“……!”

I drew in a short breath.

A man was staring intently at me through a window in the wall.

“Huh……?”

Startled, I realized a beat later that it wasn’t a window but just a realistically drawn picture.

What a foolish thing to be surprised by a mere composite sketch.

Even while thinking that, I couldn’t take my eyes off the picture.

“……”

Somehow, my mouth felt parched.

The man in the picture had a strange appearance.

His face was excessively white, his black pupils were eerily large, and shadows fell on his nose and mouth as if they were gaping holes.

Like wearing a mask.

My heart raced rapidly.

‘……A white mask.’

The image I had seen in my dream dominated my mind.

The image so intense that I had even recreated it on stage.

I forcibly moistened my dry mouth and asked the guard.

“Who is the person in that picture?”

“Ah, it’s someone who recently infiltrated the Imperial Palace, but you needn’t worry about it.”

The guard smiled brightly as if to reassure me.

“He was caught last night. The mastermind will be revealed soon too. Your husband is personally interrogating him, so it’ll be fine.”

……So Dante is with that person right now.

The moment that thought crossed my mind, I stood up abruptly.

“Where is the room where my husband is conducting the interrogation?”

“Pardon? In the innermost interrogation room… Oh, you’re not thinking of going there, are you? It’s certainly not a sight fit for a lady to see!”

Ignoring the guard’s voice, I turned around.

“Ariana.”

Dante was standing there, his appearance slightly disheveled as if he had come in a hurry.

He approached me with furrowed brows.

“What’s the matter? I told you to eat well, but your complexion has become even more corpse-like in the meantime.”

“……Your Grace.”

Dante’s eyes widened at my slightly cracked voice.

“That wanted criminal drawn in the poster. Could I see him in person?”

He stared at me for a moment before opening his mouth.

“Follow me.”

“Ma, Master? It’s the interrogation room… There are many gruesome tools too. It’s not a place suitable to show the madam!”

Rio looked at me and Dante alternately with a flustered face.

“She’s not such a weak woman.”

Dante replied briefly and gestured for me to follow. I quickly followed behind him.

We walked together through the deep corridor.

The deeper we went, the more a strange smell of blood seemed to sting my nose.

After walking for quite a while, we finally saw the dead end.

Dante, who had reached the innermost room, opened the door with a creak.

As we entered, a chair placed in the center of the room caught my eye. A man was sitting on it.

“……”

His appearance was no different from the composite sketch.

A chalk-white face like a dried corpse, strangely hollow features that looked just like a mask.

‘……Ah.’

Seeing him in person, I was certain.

I had definitely seen this man before.

In the very distant past.