Chapter 1: I Will Not Repeat the Same Mistake

Whose memories of a “former self” are given to what kind of person, I wonder.

Faustina von Wittgenstein, daughter of the Duke of Wittgenstein, suddenly collapsed on the day her engagement to His Highness Bernhard Louis Garcia, the kingdom’s First Prince and Crown Prince, was decided.
That day also happened to be the day she was to formally meet His Highness.
Faustina collapsed without any warning, throwing the entire mansion into chaos.
The duke and duchess, who were with her, turned pale and immediately ordered the servants to summon a physician.
They bowed deeply to the Crown Prince and his retinue who were present and had them return for the day.

The physician who examined Faustina, who had collapsed and developed a mysterious high fever, declared that since the cause was unknown, he could only prescribe fever-reducing medicine.
He told the duke and duchess to be prepared for the worst if the fever continued for long, then left the ducal residence.

The maids began caring for Faustina around the clock in shifts.
To state the outcome first, Faustina’s high fever somehow subsided after several days.
Did her parents come to visit her during that time—?
They did not.
Her father, the duke, happened to be overwhelmed with work that week and was unable to return to the mansion.
Her mother, the duchess, was not unconcerned about Faustina, but said she could not neglect her other daughter and told the maids to inform her once the fever went down, never visiting even once.
Not only the maids, but also the butler and servants felt anger toward the duchess.
Even amid his busy schedule, the duke sent letters urging Faustina to take care of herself, along with food and drinks that were good for her health.
Yet despite being in the same mansion, the duchess not only failed to visit Faustina, she did not even ask the maids about her condition.
She had always shown favoritism toward the heir, her eldest son, and her youngest daughter who resembled her, but here it became strikingly evident.

The head of the Wittgenstein household, Duke Citrine, returned to the mansion several days later.
It was when he had finished work that was expected to take much longer at astonishing speed and was asking the head butler about Faustina’s condition.

“Milord. Lady Faustina has regained consciousness!”

“What? Is that true!?”

He shoved his luggage into the head butler’s hands and rushed toward Faustina’s room.
The head butler hurried after Citrine.
Stopping in front of the door, Citrine straightened his disheveled collar and entered the room.
Faustina was sitting up in bed, staring vacantly at empty space with unfocused eyes.

“Faustina!”

When Faustina slowly turned her head toward him, his chest tightened painfully.

“…Fa…?”

“Hm?”

“Are you… Father?”

“!!?”

—W-What is this…!

Had the several days of high fever caused damage to her brain?
Suppressing the enormous shock within himself while harboring the premonition he least wanted to come true, Citrine forced himself to act calmly.

“Yes, I am, Fana.”

Citrine’s name came from his pale yellow eyes, the same as the previous duke’s.
Faustina was the only child who shared the same eye color as him.
Life gradually returned to Faustina’s pale yellow eyes that had been vacant.
At the same time, tears spilled from her eyes one after another.
Citrine tightly embraced his daughter as she cried and reached out to him.
They were not the only ones who had been anxious during the days of mysterious high fever.
Faustina, who had been suffering, must have been the most frightened of all.

“Fana. I heard you woke up, so how are you—huh?”

Her older brother Kane, having heard from the servants that his younger sister Faustina had awakened, burst into the room and widened his eyes at the scene before him.
His sister, newly awakened, was clinging to their father while crying loudly, and their father was hugging her back with tears in his eyes.
The servants in the room were also teary-eyed.

“What is this?”

For a while, Kane was left bewildered by the strange atmosphere filling the room.

That night, the day she awakened, the physician was summoned again and examined Faustina as she sat on the bed.
Her fever had returned to normal, and her consciousness and memory were both intact.
It was concluded that her earlier confusion had likely been due to disorientation immediately after waking.
Faustina had her body gently wiped by Rinsue, a maid close to her in age, and changed into fresh clothes.
She ate grated apple.
Putting solid food into a stomach that had eaten almost nothing would be a burden.
Her meals would be adjusted while monitoring her condition, and after eating the grated apple, she took medicine that was extremely effective but so bitter even adults hesitated to drink it, then lay down on the bed.

Faustina stared intently at the ceiling dyed in darkness after the lights were extinguished.

“What exactly is going on…?”

While she had the high fever, she had seen dreams that felt intensely real.
The scenes changed from moment to moment.

At one point, she saw Bernhard and her sister Elvira standing close together in the ducal garden, smiling at each other.
With a demon-like expression, she barged in between them, furiously confronting Bernhard for being with her sister despite already having her as his fiancée.
Seeing Bernhard bare his disgust and Elvira shrink back with an apologetic look only made her anger explode further.

At another time, at a formal ball required of fiancées, she watched while clutching the hem of her dress as Bernhard danced only once with her, yet danced with Elvira—who was not even engaged—two or three times.

She saw many other scenes as well.
In every one of them, Bernhard and Elvira stood close together like true lovers, their gazes overflowing with love as they looked at each other.

They were dreams she was seeing for the first time, yet all of them felt familiar.
The emotions of the version of herself within those dreams flowed vividly into her, who could only watch in a daze as a third party.
And then she remembered.
All of that was her former self.
The days when she fell in love with Bernhard upon meeting him on the day of their engagement, when she strove to become a Crown Princess worthy of him, when she worked hard through harsh noble training and queenly education in order to become a queen who would support the king protecting the nation.
…All of it was ruined by the great mistake she made in the end.

“This time, I won’t get it wrong.”

She did not know why the memories of her former self had returned, but she was glad she remembered.
If she had not, she surely would have repeated the same mistake again.

“There is no love in noble marriages.
Even knowing that, I refuse to marry someone who already loves another from the very beginning.
Especially when the other party is the Crown Prince.
I am done sacrificing my own time for an unrequited love.”

Faustina firmly swore in her heart, lying in bed, that in this life she would annul her engagement to Bernhard as early as possible and do all the things she had wanted to do before.

—The next morning, though Faustina was not yet fully recovered, her appetite had returned somewhat.
She ate grated apple again that morning, but the portion was larger than the day before.
She made a deathly face only when drinking the medicine, but otherwise spent the day without incident.

“How are you feeling, Fana?”

“Brother.”

Her brother Kane, one year her senior, came to check on her and sat down on the chair beside the bed.

“My body feels a little heavy, but not enough to keep me bedridden.”

“I see.
You need to be most careful when you’re just recovering, so stay quietly in your room until you’re fully healed, alright?”

“Yes.”

“Good.
You seem to have some appetite, so in a few days your condition should return to normal.”

“I had them increase the amount of apple just a little.”

“Will you eat the same thing for lunch too?”

“The doctor said I’ll be able to eat solid food starting the day after tomorrow.”

To cure an illness, the first thing needed is physical strength.
No matter how excellent the medicine, without the patient’s strength, even curable illnesses will not heal.
Telling her to be sure to eat well at lunch too, Kane left the room.

As if taking his place, her father Citrine visited next.
He sat on the same chair Kane had used.

“Is it alright for you to be sitting up already?”

“Yes.
I’m still not allowed out of bed, but it’s not so painful that I have to lie down all the time.”

“I see.
That’s good.
If anything happens, tell me immediately.”

“Yes, Father.”

“By the way, Fana.
Is there anything you want?
You’ll need to rest for a while longer, so you’ll probably get bored since you can’t go outside.”

“Then, I would like some books.”

“Understood.
I’ll have Rinsue bring them to you later.”

“Thank you.”

Saying he would come again, Citrine left the room as well.

Left alone, Faustina assumed there would be no more visitors and picked up the water pitcher on the side table.
She poured water into several clean glasses that had been set out.

After her brother and father, it would not have been strange for her mother or sister to come next.
But those two would not come.

“Mother is unreasonably strict only with me and indulgent toward Elvira, the cute one who resembles her.
Hah.
Before, wasn’t it not just His Highness, but Mother too… that I wanted to love me?”

What is wrong with a child seeking affection from her mother?

Faustina had worked tirelessly at her studies and lessons as a duke’s daughter, and at her education to become queen, yet she could not recall a single time her mother Ludmila had praised her.
Citrine would always pat her head and say, “Well done, Fana.”
Ludmila constantly told Faustina that things done as expected were not worth praise.
If Faustina made even one mistake, she would be criticized as if she had committed an unforgivable crime.
Other young ladies of the same age, from families of lower rank than the ducal house, could do it.
Why couldn’t Faustina?

That must be why.

She envied Elvira deeply, who received Bernhard’s love and Ludmila’s love without any conditions attached.
Clinging to the coveted position of Crown Prince’s fiancée that everyone admired was the only way Faustina at the time could preserve her sense of self.

“I won’t expect anything from those two anymore.
I have Father, Brother, Rinsue who cares for me, and the other servants.
…I wish I had realized this before.
I was ruined because I stubbornly clung to things.”

As if she did not even want to remember anymore, she pulled the blanket up over her head and lay down.