So I Was the Persecuted Grand Duchess Destined to Die? Chapter 107

Chapter 107

“Renée, are you okay?”

“—!”

When I opened my eyes again, Ternox’s worried face filled my vision.

Only then did I realize I had collapsed.

But even after waking, my heart refused to calm.

With his help, I slowly sat up. Thankfully, he didn’t bombard me with questions.

I sat on a fallen tree trunk and quietly sorted through the memories that had resurfaced.

Tears were already streaming down my cheeks.

“Renée, I never once told you to leave my side.
Even if the end is death… I’ll follow you to the very end.”

The voice I had faintly heard as I exhaled my last breath in my previous life.

Xavier.

So it had been real.

I curled inward, burying my face in my arms.

“Why… why, Xavier…”

Why didn’t you forget someone like me?

Why did you follow me—even into death?

To think he had thrown away his own life just to save mine—

The sorrow was unbearable.

I wept freely.

Ternox said nothing.

He simply rubbed my back.

And I cried for a long, long time.

After a while—

“Feeling better?”

“…Yes.”

“So. What did you see?”

I sniffled and began to explain.

The truth I had realized.

The “novel” I believed I had read—

was not fiction.

It was my first life.

I had lived as Renée Celeste and died—

then reincarnated in Korea.

And after that short life ended—

I returned.

To live again as Renée Celeste.

A second time.

“…It must’ve been Xavier,” I murmured.

The heart beneath the Grand Temple.

It was his.

He had offered his heart.

To rewind time.

To bring me back.

“…So that’s why his heart was with the High Priest.”

Ternox nodded slowly.

“…I must have slept too long.”

“Pardon?”

“I should have protected their descendants instead of hiding away in grief.”

His voice faltered.

His shoulders trembled.

I gently patted his back.

As he had done for me.

“Do you know what the oath actually was?” he asked after a long silence.

I shook my head.

“It sounds grand, but it was just a promise between friends. I strengthened Lucas Celeste’s heart.”

“Strengthened…? Was he ill?”

“Mana overload. His mana was overwhelming, but his body couldn’t withstand it. I reinforced his mana heart by a few circles—he went from dying to sweeping battlefields.”

“And what did you receive in return?”

For a moment, Ternox looked distant.

“…A new family.”

He continued quietly.

“My mother was killed by a monster powerful enough to slay even a dragon. I was consumed by vengeance. But Lucas and Albert Rembrandt… they became my family.”

Lucas Celeste.
Albert Rembrandt.

They had once stood side by side.

And now—

“They were my family…”

His voice cracked.

Dawn was breaking by the time we fell silent again.

Then Ternox cleared his throat.

“There was one restriction in the oath.”

“A restriction?”

“Yes. Xavier probably never knew. That fool handed over his heart to a dark mage and still survived—thanks to me.”

I rolled my eyes despite everything.

“What restriction?”

“Simple. The Celeste bloodline is upright by nature. So I bound the heart. It can only fully release its mana for what it believes is righteous.”

“…But his heart is in the High Priest’s hands.”

“Yes. Xavier must have believed saving you was righteous—even if it meant surrendering his heart.”

He would have believed it completely.

And after that—

He wouldn’t have cared what happened to himself.

“But the dark magic was incomplete. The backlash created a fragment—you. The oath’s power couldn’t revive the dead, so it diverted. It created a new timeline instead.”

“This timeline…”

“Most likely. And your confusion of memory as a ‘novel’? A similar side effect.”

He gave a crooked smile.

“One thing’s certain. That fool lost his mind trying to save you.”

I couldn’t answer.

My chest hurt.

Overflowed.

You really loved me.

In my previous life—

I had loved him just as fiercely.

Now—

In this timeline—

I still didn’t know his present feelings.

But I knew his past.

I covered my face again.

“Xavier… I need to see him.”

Right now.

At the Same Time — Imperial Palace, Underground Chamber

“Raphael, do something!”

The ever-composed Empress Isabella Rembrandt had lost her poise.

They stood in the deepest chamber beneath the Imperial Palace.

A place once used for secret trysts—

now housing something grotesque.

Xavier Celeste’s heart pulsed, feeding mana into a monstrous core.

“Callian and the Grand Duke are investigating the Temple! You erased everything, didn’t you?”

Raphael Blanche ignored her hysteria.

The heart beat steadily.

Mana flowed.

The embryo fed.

“Good… almost complete…”

“Raphael!”

Finally annoyed, he frowned.

“…You’re loud.”

“You dare—”

“I know. That’s why I’m doing this.”

Truthfully—

He was anxious too.

The mana levels haven’t changed. The embryo grows fine. Then why did my spell fail that day?

He narrowed his eyes at the heart.

His memories were incomplete.

Xavier or Renée.

One of them.

The heart’s true master.

And the one it obeyed.

Which of them was the impurity disrupting his control?