Chapter 97

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 97
Chapter Title: Vow of Revenge
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Ariadne gently placed Arabella’s hand, marked by fingernails, back where it had been. She crossed the two small hands prettily over her sister’s chest and stroked her cheek one last time. It didn’t feel the same as when she was alive, but this was a cheek she would never touch again. Then, Ariadne stood on the dais and spun around. A blazing fury ignited in her eyes.

“What happened before this child died?”

The first person Ariadne questioned was a household maid standing respectfully to the side. She was the one who had first discovered Arabella.

“Th-there was a bit of a commotion, and I heard a *thud*! When I went out to see, Lady Arabella was on the floor…”

Ariadne scoffed coldly. As if a person would just fall on their own.

“Wasn’t she fighting with Lady Isabella right before she fell?”

Isabella jumped, and right after, she and Lucrezia exchanged a startled glance.

*How did that girl know?*

*She just got home! Who could she have heard it from? No, were there any witnesses in the first place?*

Seeing Lucrezia and Isabella exchange looks, Ariadne descended from the dais without hesitation and strode toward Isabella. Then she slapped her across the face. *Smack!* Caught off guard, Isabella’s head whipped to the right. She clutched her left cheek and shot Ariadne a resentful glare, letting out a shrill scream.

“What do you think you’re doing!”

Ariadne didn’t move an inch as she yelled back.

“And you call yourself a human being?”

“What are you talking about?!”

“You pushed Arabella!”

“!”

Arabella had lost her balance and fallen during a physical struggle with Isabella. To Ariadne, Isabella’s act was as good as murder. But Isabella thought she had committed the perfect crime.

“What kind of nonsense are you spouting! What did I do! How could you make such a horrible accusation?!”

But Ariadne was unshaken. She sneered and roared at Isabella, who was worse than an animal.

“You! If you have eyes, then look properly!”

Ariadne grabbed Isabella and forcibly dragged her forward. Isabella struggled, trying to resist, but she was no match for the furious Ariadne’s grip, which seemed to possess superhuman strength. Ariadne dragged Isabella to the front of the coffin where Arabella lay. She lifted Arabella’s hand and held it before Isabella’s eyes. The fresh nail marks were visible.

“In this house, who besides you would dare leave a scratch on Arabella?”

Ariadne brought her face nose-to-nose with Isabella’s and snarled.

“You were fighting with Arabella, and when things didn’t go your way, you pushed her. And now you claim she was just playing by herself and fell? A horrible accusation? You’re worse than an animal!”

Isabella couldn’t admit to a single thing. If she backed down here, it was over.

“I pushed her? Did you see me?”

She had. But she couldn’t say she had. Seizing the moment of Ariadne’s silence, Isabella shrieked desperately.

“Do you have proof? I said, do you have any proof!”

At Isabella’s audacity, Ariadne answered harshly.

“Arabella’s body is the proof!”

“Those are just nail marks!”

Isabella didn’t yield an inch.

“Fine, it’s true I had a little fight with Arabella this morning. That’s when the scratches happened. But we fought in my room! I wasn’t anywhere near the stairs!”

That was Isabella for you. She was skillfully mixing truth and lies to defend herself. The claims she was making were impossible to disprove at the moment. There were no witnesses, and the dead tell no tales.

“Ariadne! I don’t know how much you hate me, but how could you make such a vile accusation just because we didn’t get along?”

Isabella changed her tactic, turning to Cardinal de Mare and appealing pitifully to her father.

“Father, Arabella was my own sister. I’ve done nothing to deserve being called a murderer out of the blue!”

Cardinal de Mare let out a low groan. Isabella turned back to Ariadne and asked earnestly, her amethyst eyes glistening.

“Aria, do you hate me that much?”

“Aria? This isn’t about that, you rotten…”

Just as Ariadne, furious to her core at the loathsome Isabella, raised her right hand to lash out, Cardinal de Mare stepped in.

“Ariadne. That’s enough.”

Ariadne whipped her head around to face the Cardinal. He spoke in a heavy, subdued voice.

“I know you are greatly distressed over Arabella’s death. But Isabella is family, just like Arabella and you. It’s not like you to fly into a rage and accuse Isabella of murder with such flimsy evidence.”

Ariadne gritted her teeth. The Cardinal was right, in a way. Ariadne had always been an obedient daughter. It was a given before her regression, and even after, she had outwardly complied with her father’s wishes under the guise of reason and rationality. But this was the result.

“If we’re family, you should have protected her like family!”

Ariadne glared fiercely at the Cardinal, raising her voice.

“What is ‘like me,’ Father? To say, ‘It’s fine, there’s no problem,’ and bow and scrape my way through everything? To concede no matter what happens and pretend it’s all for the best?”

The words poured out of her like a volley of shots.

“And what was the result of that! Arabella ended up dead!”

“It was a tragic accident!”

Cardinal de Mare finally lost his patience and raised his voice in return.

“There is no proof!”

“Isn’t it you, Father, who refuses to see the proof that’s right there!”

Cardinal de Mare finally revealed his true thoughts.

“Your youngest sister is already dead, and the sister you’re attacking is alive! How far are you going to take this within the family!”

“Ha!”

Ariadne let out a derisive snort, mocking Cardinal de Mare.

“Even in this situation, you’re not concerned with right and wrong, but with calculating the potential shockwaves to our precious ‘de Mare family,’ are you? The youngest is already dead and can’t be brought back, but if it gets out that the eldest killed her, you’ll lose the eldest as well!”

Cardinal de Mare didn’t answer. No, he couldn’t. She had hit the mark. It was then that Lucrezia interjected.

“Perhaps that was her fate.”

A trace of fury flickered across Ariadne’s lips. She had clearly ‘seen’ it. Arabella’s fading vision, the last words she had heard.

—“She deserved it for defying her older sister.”

—“All you do is cause trouble, you’re not good at anything! Why did I even give birth to you? I’m so sick of it!”

—“If it weren’t for you, my life would be better than this! Better than this!”

Arabella had done nothing to deserve hearing even one of those awful tirades. Lucrezia had utterly failed in her parental duty to protect and raise her child. The last things Arabella saw and heard should never have been anything like that. Ariadne could no longer hold back and finally exploded.

“You!!!”

She lunged at Lucrezia. Rushing at her like a flash of light, Ariadne grabbed Lucrezia’s collar with her thorn-thin arms and howled like a beast.

“You call yourself a mother! A human being! There’s no such thing as fate! What kind of godforsaken fate is that! Is life just about living as you’re told and then dying? It’s absurd! I’ll never accept it!”

Clinging to Lucrezia, Ariadne screamed as if sobbing her heart out.

“Arabella’s destiny was never supposed to be like that! It wasn’t a fate to die at ten! No, and even if it were, if you’re born unlucky, are you just supposed to live ‘within your station’ and die? How can there be things that don’t change no matter how hard you try! I won’t tolerate it!! I’ll change everything!!”

Cardinal de Mare gestured to his butler, Niccolo. It was a signal to bring the servants and deal with Ariadne. *Rustle.* As Ariadne’s cries filled the grand hall, three or four servants approached. Sensing their presence, Ariadne let go of Lucrezia and strode directly in front of the Cardinal.

“Father. I see it all. You’re thinking your second daughter is out of control, calculating whether you can still trust me.”

She met his eyes and stared her father down.

“If you think the daughter who is angry at the one who killed her younger sister is more out of control, you are making a grave misjudgment. You had better think carefully about who you’re going to bet on.”

Ariadne shot a cold glance at Niccolo and his servants, who were hesitantly inching forward as commanded, unsure of what to do.

“Don’t come any closer. I’ll go on my own.”

Ariadne turned her head and declared to her remaining family.

“Even if I must stain my hands with blood, even if I am to fall into hell, I will cast those who laid a hand on Arabella into hell myself. I do not care what consequences I must face in return!”

Her blazing eyes fell upon Isabella and then Lucrezia.

“You’d better prepare to pay for your sins!”

Ariadne stormed out of the grand hall.

***

Cardinal de Mare could only hang his head at the state of his ruined family. He thought his second daughter’s declaration to “cast those who laid a hand on Arabella into hell” meant that she would properly investigate the cause of Arabella’s death and clearly distinguish right from wrong. But the Cardinal only understood the world of half-measures and reason. For Ariadne, who had traveled through time, proof was unnecessary. The Golden Rule had shown her the truth. The price to be exacted had been fully calculated. All that remained was the execution of the blood price. Back in her room, Ariadne, her face burning with rage, muttered to Sancha, who had followed her in.

“Sancha, if you want to see your cousin Maletta’s face again, you should do so in advance.”

Sancha asked cautiously.

“My lady, why Maletta all of a sudden?”

“I will collect the price for Arabella’s life. It will all blow up from there. Maletta—no, Ippolito—is the crack, the weak link. And if Lucrezia’s karma is to erupt, it will erupt from the evil she committed because of Ippolito.”

Ariadne clutched the bedsheets so tightly her hands could have bled.

“There will be blood and torn flesh. A banquet of slaughter will begin.”

—“Do you know the tale of the merchant of Porto? One pound of pure flesh. If you can take only the flesh, it is a just collection of a debt, but if you spill a single drop of blood, it is a new sin. You cannot collect all that you are owed. Live a good life, even at a loss.”

Ariadne recalled the gypsy woman’s words and shook her head.

*Even if I fall into hell, I will collect every last thing I am owed! A lost soul who succeeds in her revenge, clutching a fistful of gold, is a hundred times better than a foolish spirit who enters heaven by being meek and obedient!*

Once she had committed to her revenge, a sense of loss washed over her. Even if she tore Lucrezia and Isabella apart limb from limb and drank their blood, Arabella would not return. Arabella’s laugh, her small hands, her stubbornness, her warmth. And the emotion that lingered most intensely was guilt.

*It’s because of me. She was trying to bring me the iron clamp. What in the world am I worth…*

Her thoughts spiraled. If only I had been a little more decisive, this wouldn’t have happened…! If I had gone to extremes and poisoned Lucrezia, and locked Isabella away in a convent forever, Arabella would still be alive…! February 1st, 1023. The day Arabella died. She had lived about nine months less than her original fate.

*If I hadn’t regressed, could Arabella have lived happily for those nine months…?*

After going through all the trouble of returning to the past, she hadn’t been able to make the life of someone she loved better. No, she had made it worse. For the first time in a long while, Ariadne was engulfed in a feeling of powerlessness, and she locked herself in her room and cried until she had no energy left.

*Is it even possible to change something like fate…?*

Whenever she wanted to give up, Ariadne thought of the futures she had changed. Sancha, who should have been dead, was by her side, and Old Woman Gian Galeazzo, who would have committed evil for another ten years, was nowhere to be found.

*I can do it.*

She renewed her vow. She could do it. She had to. She would grieve until today, and tomorrow, she would work. Lucrezia and Isabella would pay for their sins. Soon.