1. Destined to Be Strangers
2023.11.01
“Are you Helena Owen?”
It probably started then.
The moment God seemed to completely abandon her.
Helena, who had gone from a wandering witch on the streets to a noble Grand Duchess, thought so.
“Strangely, I feel at ease whenever I’m near you. The more I think of you, the more I miss you. I wish you… felt the same about me.”
Eugene Hyde von Evergale.
From the very moment she faced the Grand Duke of Evergale, the lord of the very ground trampled by all the villagers who once despised her, she felt that all her blessings and tragedies had originated.
‘That’s all in the past now.’
But it was a realization that no longer mattered.
Helena should have understood the nature of time first. Before a power capable of fading everything, both blessings and tragedies grew distant, like a mist swallowing a swamp.
Her memories blurred, and the sound of grand drums resonated. It rang in her ears like the herald of the world’s end: thrum, thrum, thrum.
“The execution of Helena Evergale is to commence.”
Finally, once again, the executioner’s proclamation fell.
It was as concise and unembellished as her own downfall. No words were needed to describe her descent from a noble Grand Duchess to a falsely accused, wretched prisoner.
Helena crawled like an empty tin can kicked along by the executioner. Her swollen eyelids made it hard to see.
She barely felt the pain from her wrists, raw from the coarse rope, and her legs, broken and left unattended for days, had gone numb.
An extreme chill gripped her bones. Helena tried to recall the past, but she quickly abandoned the thought.
As she lowered her head, a dark shadow fell over her.
“Helena.”
Her name, carried in that low, pleasant resonance, just like the first time she had met him.
His voice, tinged with a broken cadence, always carried a subtle, seductive aura.
Some might call it cold or harsh, but for Helena, it was one of the many reasons she had fallen in love with him.
But—
If she had known that this voice could become a poison to strangle her very breath, would she still have loved him?
‘No. I couldn’t have.’
So, here they were again. Helena mustered the strength to look up at Eugene.
“You’re the worst.”
She forced herself to meet those eyes, which no longer offered even the slightest warmth.
“If you were going to abandon me like this, you shouldn’t have come to me in the first place.”
She wanted to stay composed, but her lips trembled as she spoke. She was barely holding back her tears.
Grief and sorrow, mixed with a growing resentment, welled up inside her.
“You shouldn’t have given me affection. You shouldn’t have held me warmly. You shouldn’t have said you loved me. If you couldn’t follow through until the end!”
Her words erupted into a near scream, surging and finally crumbling into a pitiful collapse.
“You shouldn’t have… reached out to me.”
Her exhausted voice dwindled like dying embers.
More painful than the crowd’s jeers and accusations was the coldness in his gaze. All the more so because it wasn’t normally like that.
“Then I would have lived resigned, thinking my life was always this miserable. Why tempt someone to hope, only to crush them utterly? Did you enjoy seeing me sway with every word you said?”
“Do you really think you have the right to be angry with me?”
“You said you loved me. You promised to stay with me forever. You made such a promise… and yet… am I still only worth this to you?”
“That fate is of your own making, Helen. No matter how unfair your position, you should never have killed Natasha.”
“I didn’t kill her. It’s true. Please, believe me.”
“…Helena.”
Eugene exhaled roughly, suppressing his anger, and wiped his dry face.
Helena couldn’t bear to hear the next words. She wished she could go deaf.
But with her hands bound, she wasn’t even allowed to cover her ears.
“I will repay the crime of taking Natasha from me, even with your pitiful life.”
A click of his tongue struck her like a sharp spike to the chest.
His gaze drove pain through her entire body.
“Eugene, Eugene…! Don’t go! Eugene!”
Even as Helena cried out desperately, he turned away, twisting his face as if disgusted by filth.
The dull sound of his footsteps receded. The roar of the crowd gathered for the execution rose in its place.
Amid the chaos, the executioner grabbed Helena by the hair and dragged her onto the scaffold.
Ah… ah… ah…
Only muffled, inarticulate gasps escaped her throat.
If his love had been everything to her, and now that love was gone, there was no way back.
‘How am I supposed to live now?’
The thought didn’t last long. Under the dawn’s light, the sharp blade glimmered.
With a swift thud, it struck her neck directly.
Swoosh!
Her first life was severed.
“Ugh… huff…”
After two more lives were taken, when she opened her eyes for the fourth time,
Helena finally realized.
It was truly the end of her love with him.
Once, Helena had been clever enough to know her place. A streetwise witch of the Owen family, willing to trade even a noble name or her dignity for money. That was who she had been.
Without a protective dress, even her natural beauty and body were a curse, not a blessing. She instinctively understood that selling the little she had would only invite greater disaster.
So, knowing all this, she had committed acts far beyond her station.
“Please, just leave. And don’t come back again.”
But Eugene was no man to accept her presumptuous refusal lightly.
Despite curious glances and countless objections, he brought her flowers and jewels every day, promising eternity.
No matter how she tried to ignore him, he appeared the next day with an even larger bouquet. Even with allergies making him cough constantly, he never failed to show up.
Contrary to her expectation that he would give up quickly, his pursuit lasted a week, a month, half a year.
Slowly, Helena’s heart gave in. Though she knew she shouldn’t go deeper, the trickle of affection eventually broke through her walls.
A Grand Duke of the North, and a fallen noblewoman.
A mismatched pair, like puzzle pieces forced together.
So when the Evergale Duke announced their marriage, it was nothing short of shocking. For those who loved to gossip, Helena became the ultimate appetizer.
⌜What a pretty face she has. Always playing games with it.⌟
⌜How shameless. She even made marriage contingent on clearing her family debts. Why can’t the Duke resist such an audacious woman?⌟
⌜She’s a notorious woman. Did she even have a child this time?⌟
Whether noble or commoner, tongues were equally sharp. Whispers behind her back, low-quality gossip, pushed her into the abyss.
Yet Helena endured it all.
“Forget it. No matter what anyone says, you’ll be my wife.”
Simply knowing Eugene loved her kept her alive. That one truth, natural in a relationship, became her reason to live. He was her savior.
She believed that, like a fairytale, fate had finally come to her. For a life filled only with misfortune, this was her first stroke of luck.
Until that beautiful blonde woman, Natasha, appeared.
“I don’t want to take your place. Let’s be friends, okay?”
Unfortunately, behind every fairytale lies a lurking serpent. Those who dared covet forbidden things were punished.
The serpent opened its mouth, and Helena realized she was not the protagonist.
When had Eugene’s lips started speaking only Natasha’s name instead of hers?
Foolishly, by the time she understood, it was already too late. This time, she vowed, it would not end the same way.
‘Even if I die again, I will not die by your hand.’
Her life could not compare to the pain of being discarded by him.
This was the most peaceful conclusion Helena could hope for.
A sunlit indoor garden. Across a neatly set tea table sat the Evergale Duke and Duchess.
Steam from the tea brushed Helena’s cheek, snapping her from her daze.
She traced the gilded edge of the cup with her fingertip and looked up. Outside the glass, her personal maid, Madame Tara, waited. She was the only one in the mansion aware of the truth between Helena and Eugene.
They say life is a comedy from afar, a tragedy up close. Even from a distance, the glass greenhouse looked grim.
Madame Tara, perhaps maintaining minimal etiquette, bowed low, desperately avoiding Helena’s gaze. Her demeanor made Helena’s own situation painfully real.
‘Nothing seems to have changed this time either.’
The fourth life, after three previous resets, was slightly different. She hadn’t woken in the third year of marriage at night in Eugene’s arms, as before. This time, it was the fifth year.
At first, she hoped something might have shifted. But it was a futile hope.
From the moment she woke not in Eugene’s bed but in her own room, she sensed the truth. The ending would be the same; it was God’s arrangement, telling her not to bother. It was oddly comforting.
Helena steeled herself overnight to stay calm. Now, she sat there, ready to put a final end to this relationship.
‘“Husband and wife” is such an overstatement for us.’
Swallowing a faint sense of emptiness, she lifted the cup to her lips.
Eugene controlled vast northern territories of the empire. His father, the previous Grand Duke, had ended long-standing wars, and Eugene carried on that legacy as an undefeated hero.
The Evergale family had long maintained massive enterprises—shipbuilding in the Senoba Archipelago, marble mines in the Hecate region—making Eugene a skillful businessman with immense wealth.
But, like anyone of his stature, he was always busy.
Even this month, seeing him or hearing his voice was rare.
So, it made sense that…
‘Even sitting across from him, he doesn’t speak first.’
But whether he was the empire’s hero, the revered Evergale Duke, or secretly unfaithful—
It no longer mattered.
Soon, he and she would be strangers.
