You Reap What You Sow
"Once the next victim appears, Veronica will be freed… was that right?"
Count Belnett had been stripped of his title and lost his noble status. Since Veronica had now become the daughter of a commoner, it seemed they had decided honorifics were no longer necessary.
Mary said this and then, with a polite “Excuse me,” wiped my face with a hot towel.
"A doll can only hold one soul at a time. When a new soul enters, the one inside will be expelled, but…"
"If it takes too long before they are freed… if a hundred years pass, there will be no body left to return to—that was what you told me, wasn’t it?"
Mary removed the hot towel, tilted a small vial, and poured oil into her hands. It was for a lymphatic massage.
Behind me, Lilia was giving me a scalp massage. While I let myself relax into the pleasant sensation, I couldn’t help but think about what would happen to Veronica after this.
"Even if she did return to her body, it seems her memory would be reset."
"… I didn’t know that."
Sarasa, who had been preparing a tea set with herbal tea, spoke in surprise. Then, as she poured the tea into the cup, she continued:
"But isn’t that actually a good thing?"
"A good thing?"
"Veronica is an outrageous woman, isn’t she? It’s surely for the best that both her memory and personality are reset at least once."
Sarasa’s blunt words made me give a wry smile.
"In the first place, the fact that she was captivated by the doll and had her soul stolen was her own fault. If she had simply stayed out of the treasury and not taken the doll, none of this would have happened. She destroyed herself out of her own greed."
Indeed, she was right.
When I asked Luca what he intended to do with the doll now, he answered that it would remain in the treasury as before.
Cursed or not, the doll was made of high-purity diamonds. Its value must be enormous. Ideally, the stones could be removed from the doll, but any craftsman entrusted with it would likely fall under its spell and disappear, so that wasn’t an option.
Still, in an emergency, the doll could be a potential tool.
I didn’t like thinking about it, but in wartime, it could even be used as a trap.
After all, in appearance alone, it was a breathtakingly beautiful jeweled doll.
Thus, the doll was returned to the treasury once more.
---
It was only about ten days, but after enjoying Nympée, I returned to the castle.
In high society, whispers now claimed that Veronica was the true villainess, and my own rumors faded away as if swallowed by the tide.
The exposure of Veronica’s misdeeds played a large part, but so did the pressure exerted by the House of Lords.
They clearly did not want to lose Father’s influence.
As for the matter of keeping a cat in the castle, it was approved as an exception with the consent of both the House of Lords and His Majesty.
It had been a good thing that I had arranged the law so that “in principle, no living creatures may be brought into the castle”.
Thanks to that, exceptions could be granted.
I never imagined I’d actually be keeping a cat in the castle, but I was glad I’d prepared such a loophole in the law just in case. I silently thanked my past self for her foresight.
And so—after the coronation, the long summer came to an end.
Autumn arrived, and in the Royal Garden, the anemones had reached their peak bloom.
During Luca’s break time, I accompanied him for a stroll through the garden.
In front of the anemone flowerbeds, I asked him:
"Luca… what would you do if your fated mate appeared?"
The reason I had dropped his honorific was because he had asked me to.
"It doesn’t feel right being called that by you," he had said, so when we were alone, I called him simply “Luca.”
In turn, he had begun speaking to me more casually as well.
Luca seemed surprised at my question—
but then he gave a wry smile.
"A mate? There’s no such thing."
No such thing…!?!
His words left me confused.
(…!? Does that mean the concept of mates doesn’t even exist in the first place?)
No, but I was certain he had once told me he would only show his dragon form to his mate…
While I was puzzling over this, Luca gave another troubled smile.
"Sorry, I didn’t mean to confuse you. To be more precise, I’m skeptical that mates really exist."
"And why is that?"
"I’ve read the diaries of past heads of the family… and after reading them, here’s what I came to think."
He stopped speaking there.
Looking as though he was pondering, he gazed at the anemone flowers.
"I suspect they were just calling love at first sight a ‘mate.’"
"That’s…"
Could that really be the case?
"There’s no official document proving a mate’s existence. All there is are the statements and beliefs of the people involved. Seeing someone once and deciding you want them—that’s the same as love at first sight, isn’t it?"
"──"
His words were cutting, dismissive even.
Yet I found myself smiling.
(It’s just like Luca to say that.)
There was only one concern I had about returning to my seat as queen.
What do you think about this chapter?
