300

Even in the darkness of the room, she knew the cross necklace had come from Emiliano. Once, it had been hers-a gift she had given him a long time ago when she was sixteen. Back then, he had treasured it above all else, and it had brought him unimaginable suffering as well. The contour of the pendant was painfully familiar, as well as the peridot nestled within its frame and the delicate engraving of her grandmother's name on the back.

Echoes of Emiliano's voice drifted through her mind to form small fragments.

"Please don't forget my name, my lady. My name is Emiliano."

"This necklace... it reminds me of your eyes."

"I'm a worthless man. I've put you through so much."

"It was your first gift to me. It was your heart..."

Her fingers tightened around the pendant-it was identical to the one locked away in her jewelry box. She had kept the necklace close to her at all times after her grandmother passed it on to her.

Unlike "before", she had never put on the necklace after she inherited it upon her grandmother's death. In fact, she hadn't even dared to examine it closely until she saw the cordless pendant in the pawn shop at El Tabeo. What she had been so terrified of, she did not know.

She struggled to steady her breathing, but it grew rougher and increasingly unstable in her throat. It's all right. This is fine, she told herself over and over, though her trembling hands betrayed her. She stared down at the duvet, unable to move, unable to act. She couldn't bring herself to meet Cárcel's gaze. It was as if unseen hands were wrapped around her throat, squeezing with all their might until her body shivered and gasped for air.

Cárcel reached out to hold her shoulders carefully, as if he wanted to help her lie back down. However, his hands froze mid-air when she violently pushed them away.

"I'm sorry," she muttered, her voice splintering. "I-I'm so sorry..."

His hands fell away, curling into tight fists.

She hung her head even more, tears slipping from her lashes to land on the necklace in her hands. If you got this from Bilbao, then you must know everything. I suppose there was no need for me to hide on the balcony... She spoke the words in her mind, not having the courage to say them out loud. That naive fool... he must have trusted you so thoroughly that he handed you this fake. He has always considered you his savior and revered you.

He didn't have a shred of jealousy in his foolish mind when he once asked why I hadn't chosen a man like you...

Being the only one to remember Emiliano had brought her great misery on many occasions. However, it had given her relief as well. All of her painful memories fell away like a dream whenever she regarded her endless solitude as a safe haven, and dreams were simple illusions that did not have to be looked back upon.

But now, she could not escape the truth: Emiliano remembered too. She bit down on her lip. Of course, there was no way that he remembered everything. He had died too soon to bear witness to the worst of it-to know their child's end or the weight of her mourning. The last thing he recalled had to be his own romantic yet tragic death, and he probably believed she had found happiness again after regaining her noble status... that she had lived the rest of her life with a nobleman like Cárcel.

The fool had been unjustly punished after his grand sacrifice, and now he was longing for her even in his new life. She had tried so hard to give him anything he could ever want, to rewrite his destiny, only to find that his heart remained tethered to the past. He had been chasing the remnants of the past he had shared with her, reminiscing on the places they had passed through while running away, and how they had dreamed of a nebulous happiness...

They both carried the weight of memories from another lifetime, but they couldn't be more different. While Emiliano was a man who had willingly given his own life for his beloved, she was a murderer and a liar, still fleeing from the shadows of her own sins.

The fateful moment returned to her mind-Luca's fragile life flickering out in her hands. It was a memory that clung to her like the fear of a thief, cornered and trembling before the inevitability of justice. Perhaps Emiliano and Cárcel remained unaware of the full extent of her sins, but she knew them all too well. The answer they knew was but a fragment, a faint outline of the terrible truth that lay hidden beyond the walls she had built to contain it.

A bitter laugh clawed its way up her throat as she realized how futile her efforts had been. All the lies, all the masks she had worn before Cárcel-useless.

Even when she saw Emiliano's paintings and the memories they had shared, she had still prayed that Cárcel would remain blind to the truth. With him, she wanted to pretend that her past lifetimes had only been a fever dream, and that she was a new, untainted soul. But that foolish dream had crumbled to ashes the moment Cárcel said he "remembered" Oscar.

"I will only fill my head with things you want me to know," he had once told her.

She couldn't understand why he was still with her. How could he love a woman so fractured, so irrevocably stained?

"Inés," Cárcel whispered, his voice breaking into her thoughts.

At last, she found the strength to speak. "Did you... did you buy this chain for the pendant?" Her voice was thin, barely recognizable to her own ears.

Instead of responding, he slowly lowered himself to perch on the end of the bed. He kept his eyes fixed on the floor for a long time as if carefully choosing his words, then glanced back at her. "Emiliano saved for a few years to purchase the chain so that he could return it to you in perfect shape. He said it had been an overly generous gift from the beginning."

A bitter chuckle escaped her lips. An overly generous gift? That description was much more fitting for both Emiliano and Cárcel. "That's it? He wanted to return my gift because he thought it was...too much?"

He hesitated momentarily. "Inés... the Lord granted him mercy when you became twenty years old again."

"Mercy...?" she whispered in confusion.

"It's similar to how I can recall memories of you from the 'past' and feel my previous emotions and suffering, even without receiving the same punishment as you."

"What are you..."

He said softly, "Initially, Emiliano asked to receive the punishment that is only reserved for those who take their own lives. He wanted to remember you...so that he would never see you again."

She lifted her head very slowly, imagining their eyes meeting in the pitch-darkness.

"But he was never punished for killing himself, Inés. He was allowed to return to the world due to his death being unjust," he continued. "Instead of going back a certain number of years like you did, he started his life over from the very beginning. Before granting the reward for death, oblivion, the apostle asks those who are being given a second chance about what they wish for their new lives. Emiliano got to retain his memories since he said he did not want the reward, even when the apostle asked him what his wishes were. Then the apostle told him that it was a punishment reserved for those who take their own lives, which was when he realized 'Inés Valeztena' was someone who had already killed herself before coming to him. You see, he always felt that you were hiding something... that you were different. Only then did he realize the nature of your secret, just like how I learned the truth about you after several eerie epiphanies."

She bent over on the bed, supporting herself with one arm. One of her hands clutched the necklace, and her fingers were pale as they fumbled aimlessly. "Enough, Cárcel... that's enough..."

"He did not learn everything, of course, for his memory ended the moment he died in your arms. But he still wanted to find you and tell you something...that is why he traveled to El Tabeo on the year of his death and left the pendant at the pawn shop."

"Please, stop... I-I no longer... he is not..." she whispered.

However, he continued steadily. "You see, the Lord had mercifully allowed him to 'remember' something that should never have been a part of his memory."

"Cárcel," she gasped in a strangled voice and collapsed onto the bed.

He gently caught her in his arms and said, "He found out that... you had killed your child."

A silent scream escaped her lips as she sprung out of bed, her body falling to the floor as if she had jumped off a cliff. Cárcel quickly ran around the bed and caught her, only for her to desperately struggle to escape his arms.

"Inés," Cárcel whispered, breaking her out of her trance.

"I, I..."

"Inés, please... look at me."

"I told you... that... I love you, Cárcel..." she whispered falteringly.

"Inés!" he said, more urgently this time.

"I said I couldn't show you... b-because I love..." She wept silently, tears quickly drenching her entire face. Even then, her chest only rose and fell rapidly as if she was simply out of breath. She placed a shivering hand to her heart and tried to push him away.

But he didn't budge, pulling her into a tight embrace instead. "I know that you took your own life again after you killed Luca," he said, his unwavering voice calmly reciting her sins. "I also know you will never do such a thing again. I will not drive you to that point, Inés."

"I-I..." she choked, gasping for air. 

"You will never have to make a choice that you regret again," he whispered in her ear relentlessly.

"Emiliano told me that it was all a product of his own actions and choices, and that he doesn't blame you for anything... Personally, though, I do not think either one of you committed any kind of grave sin.

That foolish man spent all of his meager money to recreate your gift, simply because he wished to say that you didn't do anything wrong... that he wants you to forget your suffering and be at peace. As for you... you endlessly suffer from the guilt of killing a child that was never even born into this world."

Slowly, she crumbled against his chest.

He pressed his lips against her temple and whispered the words of forgiveness Emiliano had relayed to him. "Luca was simply released from the suffering of life because he was much too good for this world, Inés."

She sobbed out loud in his arms for the first time, and her tears didn't stop until the sun filled the sky with light.