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Cárcel reached out to brush his fingertips over her trembling lips. She unconsciously pulled away from his gentle touch, but he quickly curled his hand behind her neck and drew her closer until their bodies meshed together in a desperate kiss. As his arm circled her waist, she attempted to push his shoulders away, worried that the ornaments on her dress might aggravate his wounds.

"Please..." he whispered, his breath hot and pleading against her mouth. The word hung between them, raw and tender. "Please, Inés..."

Finally, her hands stilled. His arms enveloped her, heedless of his wounds, and tightened around her waist. Before she knew it, she was perched upon his lap. Her mind was still swirling with hesitation and uncertainty as he sucked on her lower lip, making something flutter in her stomach. She could taste and smell the faint traces of wine on his breath, and his sigh melted into hers as he whispered her name.

"Inés..."

"Cárcel."

"I am so sorry."

The words scattered in the space between their lips. Before she could form a response, his lips covered hers again, softer this time. His nose rubbed against hers as she scrunched her nose reflexively. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "I am so...terribly sorry..."

"I told you," she replied, her tone laced with a quiet resolve, "I don't want apologies for something that was never your fault."

"I should have known... I should have remembered. I should have shared those memories with you..."

"Cárcel," she began, but she fell silent as he continued.

"I am sorry I couldn't... save you." Guilt dripped from his voice like fresh blood. Silent tears streaked his cheeks, although he seemed unaware of them, lost in the grief that clouded his gaze.

She stared at his crumbling face, her heart twisting with pain.

Her thoughts had been flooded with icy contempt back when she was thinking about Oscar, leaving a bitter tang in her mouth, but they quickly faded as she watched Cárcel's face covered in tears. It appeared that they both held an unshakable, illogical influence over the other. There was a force between them, something unseen yet unbreakable, that neither distance nor time could sever.

Though her heart trembled with emotion, her words came out sharp. "What makes you think you could save me?" Her voice was calm, her gaze steady as she regarded him.

It wasn't what she truly wished to say, but she hated to see him crumbling under the weight of guilt that was never his to carry. After all, Cárcel bore no fault for Oscar's wickedness, nor for the fate that had torn them apart.

In that other lifetime, he had been little more than Oscar's pawn, trapped in an endless cycle of battles. His life had not been his own; he had only existed for the crown prince and served as the symbol of House Escalante, pouring his loyalty into a bottomless vessel. He had been envied and feared by many, and he was forced to become yet another old nobleman of Mendoza upon his retirement from the military.

Inés had been blind to the weight that was placed upon his shoulders. Now that she was able to look into his eyes, however, she realized just how much he must have suffered. He probably had to manage Miguel's terrible state on top of the duke being dead and the duchess wasting away quietly. She remembered just how lonely and desolate Cárcel had looked sometimes, although he was always surrounded by different people. Perhaps he had seen a shadow of his own suffering in hers. Perhaps that was why he regarded her with such sorrowful eyes-because he knew she was slowly being crushed by the world, and he had always been much kinder than herself.

On the other hand, she had not even remembered him during those years. It was true that she had pitied him and his misplaced loyalty, but it had only been a fleeting little thing. In fact, she had been too busy drowning in her misery and cursing her own life that she blocked out the entire world.

Even then, it had been superficial and foolish of her to label him as an irresponsible womanizer simply because of a certain phase he had lived through.

"I should have known you," Cárcel muttered. "I failed you, Inés..." Tears continued to fall from his eyes as he gazed at her. His blue orbs were much darker than usual, and he was clenching his jaw so tightly that she feared it might shatter under the strain.

She stroked his chin, shaking her head firmly. "No."

"I should have tried to remember you... even then, I should have..."

Just as she narrowed her eyes, three knocks sounded on the door. She quickly stepped off Cárcel's thighs, remembering that she had ordered Alfonso to fetch a doctor. Still, Cárcel's hand lingered, drifting from her elbow to forearm then pausing on her fingertips before finally returning to his side.

She turned to him and patiently wiped his face dry with her sleeve instead of answering the knocks immediately. The entire time, he stared into her eyes without saying a single word. She steadily met his gaze as she said, "You may enter."

Alfonso silently opened the door and stepped inside. "My apologies for the delay, Madam. Mr. Garcia is here."

An elderly doctor with graying hair followed after him. "My Lord and Madam Escalante," the doctor said as he placed his bag on the floor and began to bow.

Inés waved a hand at him, gesturing for him to stop. "I want you to inspect his left arm first. There should be a deep cut that was inflicted by a knife."

"Yes, Madam."

"Make sure to check his palm for any remaining glass shards before you place your stitches."

"Of course, Madam."

As she watched the doctor treat Cárcel's injuries, she thought about the strange way in which he lamented how he hadn't managed to remember her "back then". Cárcel also appeared to be lost in thought as he nonchalantly watched the doctor thread a needle through his skin.

After a few minutes, the doctor straightened up, having finished with his stitches. "Please take care to not allow any water on the bandages," he said.

Cárcel's face remained emotionless as he gave a curt nod. The doctor nervously glanced at Inés, waiting for her permission to leave-her face appeared quite formidable as she glared at her husband.

It took a moment for Inés to realize what the doctor was waiting for. She silently nodded at the door, and Alfonso quickly excused himself with the doctor in tow. Silence settled over the room when the door swung shut behind the two men.

She wanted to ask what exactly Cárcel wished he had remembered "back then", but she couldn't form the words with her tongue.

The image of a younger Cárcel drowning in his misery drifted to the surface of her consciousness. It was one of the memories that she had regained during her current lifetime. She tried to brush it away, but she was only assaulted by another unwanted memory that Anastasio had placed in her head-the one of herself dying all alone, Cárcel nowhere to be seen. She saw images of her "first" death, as well as "another one" of Viviana's funerals, and desperately attempted to erase them from her mind like a criminal trying to conceal the evidence of his crimes.

It was not the right time to talk of things that she herself did not understand. But this was not to say that she knew exactly what she would tell Cárcel upon regaining all of the memories from her forgotten lifetimes. The stories about how I ruined him... ruined us both? How I ran away with a gentle, powerless man but ended up killing my own child? She opened and closed her mouth but remained silent in the end.

At that moment, Cárcel rose to his feet. His imposing frame blocked the light that spilled in through the windows and cast a dark shadow across her body. Inés froze and stared at him as if he had somehow trapped her like a wild animal. However, the grief and fragility in his face erased any kind of fear or wariness she might have felt.

"Inés," he whispered as he carefully reached out to cup one of her cheeks. "Did he... kill you?"

She couldn't see his hand, but she could feel the tremors that were beginning to run through it.

"You must tell me, Inés. Please... I-I cannot remember anything with my foolish head..."

It was clear that Cárcel knew something he wasn't telling her. Suddenly, she felt like she was standing at the edge of a cliff. A wave of fear swept through her-the confidence she had felt before was nowhere to be found.

He continued, "I cannot remember how your life ended... or how mine ended, for that matter. They... they will not show me anything. I am a blind man stumbling in the dark..."

She could only stare at him, completely dazed.

His voice was full of rage and terror as he said, "Did that damned rat kill you in the end?"

It was mostly impulse that moved her to reach up and grab Cárcel's hand. Immediately, he reached all the way around to the back of her head and pushed his fingers into her hair so that she couldn't move, as if he had expected her to push his hand away.

Her throat felt tight, and it took a moment for her to be able to speak. "No, I... I'm the one who did it, Cárcel. I took... my own life."

Although shock was evident in Cárcel's face, it was the kind of shock that came from realizing that something he had been trying to deny for a long time had been true all along.

"Unfortunately, I... I do not know what happened to you," she continued. "I always... mine always happened before yours."

Always... The word lingered in her mouth like a glass shard. She briefly thought of her first life, the one she had forgotten, and wondered if he had been alive when she died. It was a foolish thing to ponder, since she had no idea when she had met her demise and how old she had been. The only hint she had was an image of Arondra, who had been much older than she currently was.

Even though she knew next to nothing about that lifetime, she hoped that Cárcel had lived for many years after her death, if it was something that had been-would be-inevitable. After all, his life was too precious to be wasted on hers.

She prayed he had found peace, and that he married another woman who was much kinder than herself.

Perhaps he had even raised his own children... Considering how he was treating her now, she could say with absolute certainty that he would have remained loyal to his wife after getting married.

I'm sure you were happy, Cárcel...

Yet, there was so much pain in his face that she was forced to swallow all of her meaningless blessings toward a man who lived in the past.

"Always...? You always died before I did?" he muttered. "But... why, Inés? Why would you do such a thing?"

She bit on her lip, then whispered, "Because...the pain was too great. I could not bear the suffering."

"I simply wanted you to continue living... I gave you my most prized possession, because I thought you wanted it. And you... you used it to..." His words faltered. He looked utterly lost and confused.

Suddenly, his face turned cold as if a completely new realization had struck him. Without warning, he turned and stormed out of the room. Inés rushed after him, her frantic voice echoing down the hallway. But he had already thrown open the door to her bedroom and strode toward the hunting rifle mounted on the wall. The heirloom, with his grandfather's name etched into the polished wood, had remained undisturbed until this moment. He yanked it from its place.

"Cárcel!" she shrieked, but he didn't even pause.

"Why did you...!" He hurled the hunting rifle to the ground, his breathing ragged, his face pale with anguish.

"It's not what you think!" she cried, rushing forward as he picked up the rifle again and raised it to bash it against the wall. She grabbed the rifle and tried to snatch it away from him. "Have you lost your senses? This belonged to your grandfather!"

But he clutched it firmly and pulled it toward himself.

"Why, Inés... Why?"

"Let go, Cárcel. You're not thinking clearly-"

"You thanked me and embraced me with a smile, when you knew..." His voice shook, his grip tightening on the rifle. "How could you accept this, knowing it's the very thing you once used to end your own life?"