Rewriting the Trash Ending - Chapter 2

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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2.

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The day Lumiere was born.
Her mother was executed for speaking an ill-omened prophecy.

‘When the black eagle of the North spreads its wings, a shadow shall fall across the sun.’

The black eagle symbolizing Winterheim Grand Duchy would eclipse the sun of the Wijer Empire. Such was the meaning.
For the Imperial House, which held continental supremacy, this was an intolerable insult.
Because of it, Lumiere had lived confined to a corner of the Imperial Palace, treated worse than a commoner.
Three years ago, when the late Emperor passed and her half-brother ascended the throne, her circumstances did not improve.
If anything, they worsened.
From that point on, she was dragged to every party to serve as an object of ridicule.
“I’m going mad, truly…….”
Lumiere dragged her palms across her face.
Once, twice, three times.
She splashed water on her face repeatedly, but nothing changed.
She had returned to the dreary, dreadful Imperial House.
She sat in a daze for a while before her gaze fell upon the invitation.
‘Wait—I received this just recently…….’
It meant her departure from the Imperial Palace was not far off.
In her past life, she had been sold off to the Northern Region exactly one month from this point.
‘Then I’ll be seeing him again soon.’
She reached back through the haze of old memory to conjure the man who would soon become her husband.
The lord of a Grand Duchy that had guarded the boundary of the world’s most perilous demon realm for hundreds of years.
Axid von Winterheim.
The man who had taken the seat of Grand Duke after the previous duke’s death—and in her ‘former’ life, her memories of him were few.
To carry the blood of House of Winterheim was to be cursed unto death.
It was not rumor; it was common knowledge.
Every Grand Duchess throughout history had died without exception after bearing an heir.
She had fainted at the very sight of him out of fear of that curse, locked herself away in the carriage for the entire journey north, and on the night she arrived at the Grand Duke’s Castle, she took her own life.
But it had been ten years.
For ten long years after her death, she remained bound to the castle, watching over him.
Rather than resenting the bride who had chosen death to escape marriage, he was the man who had bowed his head to the Emperor—the very one who mocked him as a savage—with a request.
That the corpse of the Imperial Princess be laid to rest in the imperial mausoleum.
He had said that burying the princess, who had turned away from the world unable to accept this marriage, in the Grand Duchy was tantamount to killing her twice over.
But the Emperor refused outright, and the Grand Duke could do nothing but bury her himself in the sunniest corner of the castle grounds.
What had that man thought, standing before her tomb until sunset on each anniversary of her death, gazing at the cold stone?
Her violet eyes grew distant for only a moment.
She did not know why she had returned, but what she wanted to do with this new life was abundantly clear.
‘I want to repay the debt I owe him.’
It was not a debt that could be repaid with mere words.
Because of her choice to die, the world had grown even more convinced of the curse upon House of Winterheim, and had come to view him as an even more ill-starred being.
Moreover, he was the only one who had remembered her death anniversary year after year.
Even if time had been erased by her regression, the solace she had received then had not been erased with it.
Whether it was atonement or repayment, it could only be accomplished at his side.
And for her, who knew that curse was a ‘lie’, there was no problem in doing so.
She looked at her reflection in the mirror once more.
Unkempt hair and sallow skin.
Dark circles beneath her eyes and a frame worn down to bone.
A dress so faded from repeated washing that its original color was gone, reeking of mold.
‘I need to recover my strength first.’
If she presented herself in this state, she would certainly become an object of mockery, and more than anything, she did not want to appear before the Grand Duke as a bride being sold off in desperation.
‘I need to eat something.’
She wet her parched throat with water from the side table, then pulled the bell cord.
But as time passed, no one came.
‘Well, I suppose that’s to be expected.’
Who would serve a princess faithfully when she lacks even the authority to bestow a single gift?
She rose from her bed with the grinding effort of a rusted hinge and stepped outside.
Murky dust clung to every corner, and the landscape lay barren and silent.
She walked quietly through the shabby corridor—hardly befitting a princess’s residence—and frowned before the empty reception room.
These so-called attendants couldn’t be bothered to appear at their mistress’s call, let alone abandon their posts entirely.
She let out a bitter laugh at the absurdity of it all and turned to leave, when a familiar voice drifted from the garden beyond.
“…I’m telling you, creatures like that have stubborn lifespans.”
“You saw her breathing, didn’t you? She was just playing dead.”
“Right. If she’d actually meant to die, a handful of poison would’ve done it. Hardly a real attempt.”
“Anyway, once she’s married, she’s as good as dead already. She’ll just lie low and leave quietly. I don’t know why she’d bother making a scene.”
Playing dead.
The things they had done to her rose up in her mind, and a small sigh escaped her lips.
Her chambers, left to rot beneath layers of dust.
Dresses wrinkled and reeking of staleness.
These were nothing.
They had offered her leftover scraps to eat, and when she returned from a party as a Wallflower, they applauded and mocked her for it.
And on that day when she had tried to die—

“Your Highness, there is no need to despair over not being chosen by Duke Trovietan.”
“Indeed, how much must His Majesty cherish you to have sought out a marriage match personally?”
“Though they say he’s a savage, he’ll surely be accomplished enough in bedplay—you’ll have quite the enjoyable time of it each night.”

And yet they had dared to mock her with such words.
She’d had no intention of leaving peacefully anyway, but this—this was practically begging to be slaughtered.
‘Perhaps it’s a blessing?’
They had handed her the very rope with which to hang them.
She let out a soft scoff and made her presence known.
“How inconsiderate of me—my lifeline proved too stubborn to sever.”
“Ah—! We’re caught!”
The three who had been chattering away jolted upright in alarm, their bodies stiffening.
“You should have died outright without causing trouble, shouldn’t you?”
She folded her arms across her chest, and one of the attendants cleared her throat and spoke.
“…Well, if you’ve come to your senses, why didn’t you simply call for us? For someone who was bedridden to venture all the way here and eavesdrop on servants’ talk—it’s utterly unbecoming of your station.”
Look at this.
So this is how they treated her—like vermin.
“If you’d appeared promptly when summoned, I wouldn’t have needed to come here at all.”
“Is that so? Your presence is so faint we assumed we hadn’t heard you calling.”
The three twisted their mouths and giggled mockingly.
“…I thought you must all be limbless, the way you never came no matter how I called. But now I see—you simply don’t know your place.”
“Had Your Highness possessed the dignity befitting one of royal blood, we would have come running at once.”
Lumiere let out a short laugh.
Brazen beyond measure, yet their words dripped with polish.
She would shatter the complacency these years of safety had cultivated in them, right here and now.
“Actually, I think I’ll establish some proper royal dignity.”
They laughed and sniggered as if she’d said something absurd.
Of course—what should they fear from a princess in name alone?
But how much longer could they afford such ease?
Lumiere’s eyes gleamed with meaning.
“Who will go with me?”
“Go with you? Where?”
They all stared at her with wide, bewildered eyes.
As if they couldn’t fathom why someone freshly risen from a sickbed would say such a thing.
But.
“Where else would a princess about to be married go?”
“……!”
The faces of the three, who had been smirking and jeering, turned rigid as stone.
Because her words meant she was dragging them all to the land of the savage they so dreaded.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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