The Half-Sun Pendant

With disheveled hair and eyes brimming with madness, Charles swung his sword about without form or grace. Watching him, Eleanor could hardly tell whether the man driving his blade into the blood-soaked bodies collapsed before Joshua was truly Charles — or someone else entirely.

Joshua roared like a beast driven into a corner. But Charles paid him no mind; he simply bent down and picked up a bloodied sword lying nearby. At the sight of it, Joshua's swings grew wilder, more frantic than ever.

Charles knocked Joshua's blade aside with ease, then severed both his wrists in a single stroke. Blood fountained from the stumps, and still Charles's face remained utterly blank.

Eleanor could scarcely believe what she was witnessing. In her memory, Charles Berihmen had always been gentle — a man who would never dream of saying or doing anything that might bring harm to another.

What on earth could Joshua have done, to drive him to such fury — to such merciless cruelty?

Soon, voices began to drift up from within the mirror. Eleanor stared into it, her expression still clouded with confusion.

Charles had seized the collar of Joshua, who was trembling head to toe in terror. When Charles spoke, Joshua gave a scornful sneer.

"All of this — over one person already dead! Five years have passed, and yet you choose *now* to throw this tantrum? Charles Berihmen, you really are a hopeless, weak little man. If you wanted to climb higher, then— Augh!"

"Shut your mouth."

Before Joshua could finish, Charles's hand moved. One of Joshua's ears fell away. With both hands and an ear severed, he wept, tears and snot streaming down his face.

Only then, it seemed, did he understand that Charles had no intention of letting him live. He clamped his mouth shut. Eleanor's gaze remained fixed on Charles — because something about Joshua's words struck her as strange.

A person already dead. Five years have passed. Eleanor stared at Charles as though she could not trust her own eyes.

……Could he be talking about… me?

Charles's eyes were rimmed with blood as he spoke.

"She was far too good for a beast like you from the very start. Because you wanted the throne, she did everything in her power to put you on it. And what did you do to Eleanor in return? The moment you feared the truth would come out — that you were no child of the late Emperor — you framed her for the Empress's murder and drove her to her death. Tell me. How should I kill you? What would satisfy me?"

"I don't want to die!"

At Joshua's desperate struggle, the corner of Charles's mouth twisted. At last, he swung his sword.

"That isn't yours to decide."

With a dull, rolling thud, Joshua's head tumbled down from the dais.

Eleanor watched it all with a blank expression. She felt nothing at his death — nothing at all. Only the thought that he had died by another's hand, when he should have been hers.

She turned her eyes to Charles. He was standing precariously, leaning on his sword to hold himself upright. Then someone came running to his side — his close friend and adjutant, she saw at a glance. Charles tilted his chin toward Joshua's severed head.

"Cut the body into pieces and throw it into the forest. Hang the head in front of the main gate and let the crows pick it clean."

The adjutant looked at him, troubled for a moment, but soon nodded. Several men stepped forward and dragged away Joshua's head and torso. Left alone, Charles sank down onto the low steps.

Eleanor was at a loss. To think he had taken revenge for her sake — for a woman he had only met a handful of times — an unspeakable gratitude welled up inside her. If only he were alive. Then she could at least have told him thank you.

A bitter smile touched Eleanor's lips. And then, something entirely unexpected happened. Charles raised his sword — and drove it into his own heart. Before she could stop herself, Eleanor screamed.

"No! Charles!"

But there was no way her cry could reach him. Charles coughed up a mouthful of blood, and his upper body crumpled. For a dying man, his face looked remarkably peaceful. It was the smile lingering at the corner of his mouth that made Eleanor freeze.

"……El. Now I can come see you."

"……"

"Ah…… No, I suppose not. I've killed so many people along the way…… I'm surely bound for hell…… and someone as kind as you would be in heaven…… So we'd just miss each other again, wouldn't we…… I miss you. Your face…… I miss it so much. El……"

Watching him speak as he stared into empty space with fading eyes, Eleanor held her breath, tears spilling down her cheeks. Her chest ached with the weight of Charles's heart, which she had only now come to understand.

She committed his final moments to memory, down to the last breath — every detail of Charles as he slowly slipped away. If a chance ever came, if a chance were truly granted to her……

At that moment, the space began to darken once more. Just as Charles's figure was being swallowed by the encroaching dark, Eleanor's expression froze. Something had flashed — just for an instant — inside the arms of the dead man.

Eleanor narrowed her eyes to see it more clearly. And then it rolled from Charles's breast and fell.

It was a necklace. A ruby pendant no larger than an infant's thumbnail, hanging from a chain that looked, at a glance, like any necklace one might see anywhere.

Fine spines of pure gold rose around the round red gem like needles, so that the whole of it resembled the sun. There was only one thing unusual about it: the stone had been cut clean in half, as though what had once been a single gem had been split down the middle. Which meant, without a doubt, that the other half existed somewhere.

The necklace kept glowing, and it looked anything but ordinary. As if begging to be recognized, the pendant blinked on and on without pause, and Eleanor, as if bewitched, leaned her body toward it. Just then, light burst from the necklace — and the ground gave way beneath her with a deep, hollow thud.

Eleanor felt someone shaking her arm.

"Milady. You must wake up. Her Grace—"

"Mmm……"

"Milady!"

Gah! Jolted upright by the sudden shout, Eleanor stared at the person yelling at her, gasping for breath.

Standing beside the bed, gazing down at her with worried brown eyes and a crisply pressed maid's uniform. At that familiar, beloved face, Eleanor's breath caught, and she could only stare.

Hin?

Brown hair falling to her shoulders, wide, round eyes. It really was Hin. Seeing the face she had longed for all those years, the rims of Eleanor's eyes turned red.

That was the kind of girl she had been.

And yet she had also been the very first person to leave Eleanor's side.

A nobleman who viewed Joshua with displeasure had taken a liking to Hin when he met her at some banquet. Joshua, who was then hungering for the imperial throne, had promised to hand Hin over to him on the spot, in exchange for drawing the nobleman to his cause — without ever asking Eleanor how she felt about it.

By the time she learned the truth, Hin had already been handed over. No matter how Eleanor raged, Joshua paid her no mind, soothing her instead with babble about how becoming a wife rather than merely a mistress was no loss at all.

Worse, when she later learned that Joshua had persuaded Hin by claiming it was what Eleanor herself wanted, it felt as though the sky were collapsing. After that, she despised him more than ever.

To think she had once believed such a man would build an equal world — how naive could she have been? A bitter smile settled on Eleanor's lips.

In the end, Hin had gone to that nobleman of her own accord — for Eleanor's sake, regardless of what Eleanor herself wished.

Crushed by guilt, Eleanor had sunk into a gloom, and Hin had simply smiled brightly and told her she was truly fine, that she landed on her feet wherever she went, that Milady shouldn't worry, that she would visit often.

But barely three months later, the news came: Hin had taken her own life.

Years later, Hin's youngest brother came to find Eleanor and told her, weeping, that his sister had never killed herself. Her husband had beaten her right up until the day he died; the only way out had been that one escape. How could anyone call that a suicide?

Eleanor had gone hollow, watching that boy sob as he begged her to clear his sister's name.

Gnawed by the guilt that Hin's death was her fault, she had been unable to sleep, unable to eat properly, for a long while.

And now — she could see Hin again. And not just any Hin, but the Hin of long ago, vibrant and full of life…… The rims of Eleanor's eyes burned red.

So it takes my own death to see you again, Hin……

She knew she had no right to weep like this, not when she remembered how Hin had died. Eleanor swallowed her tears and took Hin's hand.

"I'm sorry, Hin. If only I hadn't sent you to that beast back then, you would never have—"

"Milady?"

"—never have ended up like this. I am so sorry, Hin. It was all because of me."

Sniffling, Eleanor apologized to Hin over and over. But the more she apologized, the more bewildered Hin looked.

When the apologies showed no sign of stopping, Hin seemed to decide enough was enough and seized both of Eleanor's hands. Only then did Eleanor fall silent and look up at her. Seeing the tears clinging to her lady's eyes, Hin stamped her feet in distress.

"Milady! Whatever are you saying? Why on earth would I die? I'm alive and well, right here — look at me!"

"……What?"

"And I already told you — I'm never marrying. I'll stay by your side my whole life. I'm your person until the day I die. You remember, don't you?"

"……You're alive?"

Hin lifted Eleanor's hands and pressed them to her own face. Eleanor stroked her cheeks as gingerly as though touching fragile porcelain. Warmth bloomed against her fingertips. The tears streaming from Eleanor's eyes gathered at the tip of her chin.

"It's true. You're really alive!"

"That's right, Milady. I'm really, truly alive."

As Hin's voice rose, Eleanor felt her aliveness with ever-greater clarity. Letting go of Hin's face, she climbed down from the bed and ran to the full-length mirror standing in the corner of the room.

Standing before it, she saw her face with perfect clarity. With a trembling hand, Eleanor touched her own cheek.

It was the face from those hazy memories — the face from the days when she had lived an ordinary life, the face from before anything had ever happened. Shocked to her core, Eleanor clapped both hands over her mouth. Otherwise, she felt a scream would tear its way out of her.

I'm back. I've come back!

Unbelievable as it was, she had returned to the past. A chance to put everything back where it belonged had been granted to her.

And that was not all. Eleanor turned her gaze to the mirror, where Hin's face had somehow drawn up behind her own.

I can see everyone who left my side — all of them, again.

What greater fortune could there be? Overwhelmed, Eleanor broke into loud, unashamed sobs.