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***

Later that night, she found herself in a carriage with Luciano that would take them back to their manor. Looking out the window, she thought of the conversation that had taken place between her and Oscar.

On that balcony, blocked off from the rest of the world, the words had tumbled out of Oscar's mouth as if he was desperately confessing his sins. "I.../was wrong. I did not realize that you needed more time, and I couldn't be sure that 'we' had both returned... A part of me thought that I was the only one experiencing such a bizarre thing. The odds of you sharing that experience with me and remembering everything was incredibly low, or so I thought. That's why I made such a terrible mistake. I thought we'd be able to start over once I turned back time. I only did it for you... But I still couldn't believe that you had betrayed me in that lifetime..."

"You only did it for me?" she had muttered. Disgust churned her stomach. She couldn't believe the gall of this man.

He had nodded shakily. "I had to do whatever I could to save you, since I knew you had died because of me. I swear, Inés, after I watched you die, I never. "

A cruel smile had curled her lips upward. "Ah, yes. With your precious gift."

"Yes. With Admiral Calderon's hunting rifle... Your favorite among all the things I had given you."

Cárcel had tried to destroy the rifle as soon as he formulated an idea about what she had done with it, even though it had been his most dearly treasured possession among his late grandfather's belongings. His face had twisted in despair when she told him that she wouldn't have used it to end her life if she had known. Cárcel did not change no matter how many lifetimes she cycled through, and neither did Oscar-he had always been, and would continue to be, an impenitent thief.

Oscar had continued to refer to the rifle as something he had gifted to her. Of course, she knew the hidden meaning behind his words. When she had first received the rifle from him, the two of them had been happier together than they would ever be again. Thus, he had chosen to steal something he had owned in another lifetime and return it to her with his deceitful tongue, completely ignoring the relationship she had built with Cárcel. He was probably hoping that she would remember just how much he had adored her, all the while considering her current marriage to be no more serious than the superficial bond that had existed between them in a past lifetime, when they were both children.

Oscar had blithered on, oblivious to her disgust. "/lost myself after that day. You have no idea... I was drenched in your blood, struggling to breathe-"

"Indeed, you have always had a weak stomach. It must have been incredibly difficult to see your precious plaything on the ground, shattered into pieces."

"Ines..."

"It was quite disgusting, surely... watching me blow my head off, right after laying with you the night before. The shock you must have felt... I am so sorry." Although her words were sweet, the mockery in them was obvious.

For a moment, Oscar had simply stared at her, looking dazed and shocked. Then he said, "I see you die every night, no matter how many times I die and come back to life... I dream of drowning in a pool of blood that seeped out from your body, and I cannot breathe... Back then, Inés, I-"

"Back then'? You'll have to be more specific, Oscar."

"When you chose the painter over me... Please know that I was simply being rash. I wasn't sure if you were like me. But when I turned back time, your sixteen-year-old self had already left Perez."

She paused for a moment. "So... that is the point in time you returned to?"

"Yes, but if I had returned just a few days earlier, I wouldn't have let you slip away from me. I only went back in time to see you again, to see that you were still alive, but I never could... You must understand, I risked everything to turn back time, but you were not even there. I think, perhaps... I just wanted to see that you were alive."

Inés had never met anybody else like herself even after taking her own life twice, which was why she had felt like an abomination for so long. Back then, however, Oscar had already known that the act of suicide would cause one to go back to a certain point in time. Although he had said that he chose death to save her, in actuality, he had known that she would reopen her eyes in the past after killing herself with the gun. It was clear that it wasn't enough for him to simply know she was alive-he wanted her to be alive with him.

It was a selfish motivation that perfectly suited him, but she still didn't believe it. Surely, the scandals that she had risked her life to spread across all of Ortega had opened everyone's eyes to his vile mind and disease-ridden body, and the emperor had to have cast his son aside. She did believe that he had suffered for a long time after watching her kill herself, since he had a delicate stomach, reared in comfort and luxury as a noble prince. It made sense that he had completely lost his sanity after her death -he had already been on the brink of madness due to a mixed bag of drugs he had been taking to fight his venereal disease.

Even Cayetana's obsessive love for Oscar had given way to disgust by the time Inés decided to kill herself. Perhaps she had still supported him on the surface, but the two of them may as well have boarded a sinking ship when she began to feel genuine loathing for her own son. Overall, Oscar was trying to paint his death as some noble sacrifice when he had nobody else to blame but himself for his pitiful demise.

When he went back in time to find that Inés had already disappeared with a lowly painter, she had probably become an insolent little puzzle piece that he had to collect to make his perfect life "normal" again. Perhaps he had felt something deeper than his initial obsession toward her, since she had finally managed to escape him through death after multiple failures. It was also possible that his madness had grown so severe that he managed to convince himself that there had been something romantic about his obsession-after all, the way he talked of her "betrayal" made it obvious that he always thought of her as something that belonged to him.

There were many words that Oscar had spewed at her on the balcony, but the only thing that seemed to be accurate was the fact that he had never been in his right mind.

Inés leaned her head against the wall of the carriage, watching the lights on the streets pass by as her body swayed gently. She could still hear Oscar's disgusting voice in her head.

"I didn't mean to corner you and make you suffer. Yes, I did despise that painter, but your brother is the one who killed him in the end, remember? Sixteen, then twenty... you left me after mere four years, and my life became meaningless. I couldn't believe that you had taken your own life, all because your brother killed your precious plaything... that Luciano cared so much about his family's honor that he considered his own sister a disgrace. I know you must have been distraught when the man you trusted most killed your lover. If I had known just how much you were suffering because of those Valeztenas, if I knew how your father despised you and considered you an abomination, I would never have..."

Back then, it had only been natural for her father and brother to loathe her. Even her sixteen-year-old self had accepted this as an inevitable fact. They had probably never suspected that she would run away with some commoner only three months before her marriage with her betrothed, who had treated her with love and kindness, at least on the surface. To make things worse, her betrothed happened to be the crown prince himself. Therefore, her decision had probably struck them like a terrible storm or earthquake.

A noble house that could not justify its own authority was doomed to fall. Back then, the honor of House Valeztena had been in the dirt, and everybody had turned their backs on them. After all, Inés had never been caught and punished or forced to live a wretched life, which meant the incident was never resolved. Essentially, Valeztena hadn't been punished for producing a child that betrayed the imperial family despite pledging their eternal loyalty to Valenza, and this meant there was no possible way for Valeztena to refuse an imperial order. In the middle of this turmoil, they also had to find some kind of justification to save their insolent daughter.

Indeed, it was all about being able to provide a proper justification. This was true for everything, including the emperor's great conquests as well as minor back-alley skirmishes. She still remembered what had happened when Luciano dragged her back to the manor after Emiliano's death. When Cayetana ordered her to marry Count Almenara, who had been widowed a long time ago, her father had told her, "We have no justification for refusing to follow her orders."She too had been planning on obeying the empress, since she knew she lacked good cause to refuse-until she was told to kill her own child, that was.

"I regretted not giving you some room to breathe," Oscar had confessed. "I should have allowed you to have your fun with the painter, just for a bit longer... I felt so guilty that I didn't manage to stop Luciano. I swear, I announced that I would grant you unconditional forgiveness as long as you returned. I had no clue that your brother would kill him right in front of your eyes... I know the terrible pain that comes from watching your loved one die, Inés. I know how much you must have cherished your first child..."

She turned her head and looked at Luciano, who was sitting across from her with his eyes closed. A bitter smile formed on her lips-she knew that Oscar had been trying to make her think that her family had been responsible for the deaths of her precious lover and child. That way, he wouldn't be blamed for their deaths, all the while creating a permanent chasm between her, Luciano, and her father. He wanted her to despise her own family much more than she had ever hated him back when they were married. He probably thought her despair would be even greater because she had always trusted Luciano and her father, and that this new suffering would overshadow the disgust she felt toward Oscar.

To him, it wasn't enough to see her cast away by her own family as a disgrace-he wanted her to voluntarily and permanently distance herself from them and despise them so much that she didn't even want to breathe the same air as them. Then she would live as the wife of Count Almenara, a man who was so loyal, timid, and submissive that he wouldn't even protest if Oscar took her away from him. That way, Oscar could have her forever.

She was sure that he had been trying to get his revenge on her more than anything else, since she had dared to escape him through her death and given birth to a commoner's child. He probably wanted her to lock her in a cage that was so disgraceful that she would never dare to escape.

Of course, Luciano would have been willing to separate his sister's lowly husband from her, considering Emiliano had been her only flaw and weakness. However, he wasn't the kind of man who could destroy something she held dear right in front of her eyes. While he was quite cold and aristocratic, as befitting his station, this only meant that he determined the value of things through a different set of values. She knew that he hadn't meant to hurt her by killing the painter.

"I promised myself that I would love you unconditionally once I brought you back to life," Oscar had said.

Unfortunately, she knew him all too well to believe any of his words-to him, everything in life was conditional.