“Deal!”

Edgar’s sore offer made Ios gladly go fight Snow. He grabbed her and swung her in the air, so it was hard to tell if he was fighting her or playing with her.

While he was at it, Edgar went around the ice cage, looking for a crack.

“Rubica.”

He managed to find a hole and called her name through it. As Ios hadn’t been able to break it, it wasn’t going to be destroyed by most tools. For now, he wanted to see if she was alive.

“Rubica!”

His voice echoed until it woke Rubica up. She had almost fallen into eternal slumber in the ice, and she couldn’t move at all as if her body had been frozen. The ice was too cold, and the only thing she could hear was his voice.

‘What have I done?’

In her first death, she thought she had only one regret in her life. However, now in the face of her second death, she realized how arrogant she had been.

She thought she would be able to die without regret after living two lives, but she couldn’t help thinking of things she hadn’t done yet and her dream which she hadn’t achieved.

After confessing her love, she wanted to make it whole, and after it was made whole, she wanted to have a happy family with children who resembled him. She hadn’t known she was so greedy.

“Edgar.”

The moment she whispered his name with frozen lips, the ice cage shook with a huge ‘bam!’

She looked down at the ring. She wished she could take it off, but her body was frozen, and she couldn’t.

‘How selfish.’

She wished for the moment to end fast, but then there came another sound of a huge explosion. Soon his hand came in.

After Stephen abducted her, he had been carrying a small gun in the pocket of his jacket. Unlike ordinary guns, it was a gun that burned everything when fired.

“If I can’t shatter it, I should melt it.”

The ice was hard, but it was still ice. The flame soon died out in the severe cold, but not before it made a hole big enough for him to crawl in.

“Rubica, what have you done?”

He looked a bit mad. Rubica wanted to answer his question, but her lips were frozen, so she couldn’t utter a word.

“Ios.”

Edgar realized what had happened to her and turned. Ios knew what to do. He grabbed Snow by her feet and shook her up at down. As she had confessed everything to Minos while drunk, he thought she would easily talk.

However, she just kept her mouth shut. But then, Blanco just told them everything.

“Rubica!”

Now he was really mad.

“Unwrap your hand,” Edgar said as he grabbed her fist that held the ring.

‘But if you take this away from me, you’ll lose your chance to live.’

She wanted to say so, but her lips were like ice now. So were her cheeks and eyebrows. She was almost a huge lump of ice in the shape of a girl. She couldn’t do anything to express herself, but he read his mind and whispered, “Are you trying to make me live in hell?

He sounded mad, but his voice had a deep grief in it. She didn’t need to hear from him to know he didn’t want her to sacrifice for him.

‘If you miss this chance, you have a year left, at best.’

She just wanted him to live on. A year was way too short. She knew she wouldn’t be able to enjoy that one year, closing in to his death every second.

After that short year passed, what would happen to her when she was left alone?

Time affected everyone and everything equally, nevertheless, it sometimes went in a wink and sometimes went so slowly.

She couldn’t bear to live a long life without him, so it would be better to sacrifice herself for him.

“I want to live in happiness, even for a year. If you do love me, you can’t die for me.”

Too late, Rubica realized what she had done. She hadn’t considered what he would become after her death.

Was dying for love really noble? But at the same time, would it be right to make a choice for a short happiness that would last less than a year? Questions kept coming, one after another, but she couldn’t find the answer to any of them.

Tears welled up in her eyes, even though she was completely frozen. However, the tears froze before he could wipe them.

Now he couldn’t even wipe her tears, and it pained her greatly. Why was this happening? Why did she decide to sacrifice herself for him?

At first, he had been mad at her for trying to leave him and die, but now, he was mad at himself.

“I’m sorry.”

None of this would have happened if he had been an ordinary man. Then, she wouldn’t have been involved in his fate.

However, what made him even more miserable was the thought of not wanting to lose her. Was not leaving her alone part of his foolish insistence?

Back then he had laughed at his own selfish thought of reviving her and sending her to the past, even though she knew nothing.

The choice he was making now was no different. Was love about sacrificing oneself for the other? All he wanted was to be happy together.

“You suffer so much, only because you love a man like me.”

He blew warm breath on her clenched hand. Her fingers started to melt slowly. What kind of selfish choice was he about to make?

He unfolded each of her fingers. She could fold them again anytime, but she didn’t. She couldn’t speak or make a gesture, but that alone was enough.

Even though they weren’t going to be happy together, they were going to try until the very end.

He started to slowly remove the ring. For his entire life, he thought he would put a ring on the finger of the woman he loved. He hadn’t known he would get to remove a ring from her finger.

“Haa.”

When the ring was finally removed from her, warmth started to spread to her body. It started from her fingers and reached her heart. She managed to breathe. And, when that breath touched the ring, the blue stone melted like snow.

“Huh?”

She tried to catch the liquid as it fell, but it happened so suddenly that none of them could properly react to it. The moment Iber’s tear touched the land, mana quartzes under the cliff started to glow. Their lights all gathered to the giant diamond in the glass tube.

“Yes! The heart is melting!”

With Blanco’s yell, what they thought was a huge diamond started to shake. Snow around it melted and the glass tube started to crack.

Iber’s heart absorbed all the lights and started to glow. It became as bright as daytime, and the lights all went to Edgar.

“Edgar!”

He fainted and fell, but Rubica managed to grab him just in time. He wasn’t hurt, but his eyes were now dull.

“No, no.”

Something was wrong. Had it been wrong to take off the ring? She thought she should have just died. All they had wanted was to live on together happily. Was that asking for too much? Sadly, the cruel world was whispering to her that happiness was the wish that was the hardest to be granted.

“Wake up, please.”

She cried while holding his hand. Both of his hands were still warm, and his pulse was steady, which was her last bit of hope.

***

His eyes were blinded by the strong light. After that, he stayed in darkness. Only night existed in his world, and it was hard to tell how much time had passed.

He moved forward, groping through space without time. He didn’t know where to go. He just knew he had to run away.

He didn’t know how long he walked. He fell so many times that he lost count. He walked on sand, on grass, and on the bumpy roads made of small pebbles.

-Go to Hue’s Abbey.

He couldn’t remember who told him that, but it had been engraved in his mind. However, he couldn’t even see, so finding Hue’s Abbey was impossible.

In the end, he collapsed, tired and famished. His feet felt hot and he couldn’t feel his knees. The only good thing was he was on the grassy field.

‘Am I about to die?’

He was grateful for it as he wanted to be freed from his pain. Half of his life had been filled with the pain of the heart, and the other half full of the pain of the body. He couldn’t dare to wish for happiness. He just wished to rest.