MLS Chapter 5

As always, the Duke visited Soto on the scheduled date.

Lorena heard the thick wooden door creak open behind her, but she didn’t move. Over the past few months, the man who would typically kiss her the moment he entered now stood at the threshold, not advancing further.

With his hands casually stuffed into his pockets, Vaye Levantes stood still, staring at Lorena’s back in silence before speaking briefly.

“Let’s go. Everything’s been settled.”

“…Settled?”

Lorena let out a sharp, almost hysterical laugh.

‘Does he really think I’m a fool?’

Her hands disappeared into the folds of her black nun’s habit as she slowly turned to face him, her shoulders thin and fragile.

“What exactly has been ‘settled’? That my father’s existence has been erased?”

It had been six months since her father’s death, and she had only just learned of it. She didn’t even know how, or if, a funeral had been held. She hadn’t dared to ask.

“That it’s been ‘settled’ now that I’ve been told my brother, whom I haven’t seen in seven years, has committed suicide?”

The tragedies kept coming, one after another.

Two days earlier, Lorena had received the news of her brother’s death.

Just like the day she learned about her father, she had been sitting in the chapel, dazed, when the news had reached her.

[Ingerd’s young Finance Minister Alfonso Klein, held accountable for the republic’s financial collapse, was found hanged in his home. No suicide note was found…]

Lorena had shaken her head violently, recoiling from the flood of harsh, dry words that announced her family’s demise. The stark letters were suffocating her.

“‘Settled’? What, exactly, is ‘settled,’ Vaye? That you drove Ingerd to the brink of collapse?”

“Who brought you the newspaper?”

As always, Vaye was quick to catch on, immediately pinpointing the source of Lorena’s outside knowledge.

Soto’s cloistered monastery strictly forbade contact with the world beyond its walls. No letters, newspapers, or pamphlets were allowed, and no discussions of worldly matters were permitted.

But did it even matter how she had learned of it? Now, there was no one, nothing she could trust anymore. Lorena’s vision blurred as her thoughts spiraled.

Since Alfonso’s suicide, the citizens of Ingerd had turned their wrath on the “last remaining Klein,” Lorena. Public petitions demanded her immediate return to face the consequences, accusing her of hiding behind the shield of Levantes. The Bessen newspapers were filled with articles criticizing the Duchess’s precarious position. Nobles who had always envied her lined up to give interviews, claiming she was nothing but a vain and greedy woman.

They all spoke of how grotesque it had been for her to flaunt republican ideals in the presence of Bessen’s aristocrats. How Duke Levantes, in his magnanimity, had endured this shallow, beautiful woman for seven years.

But none of that mattered to Lorena. She had never cared about her reputation—it had never been good. But her family… her father’s bank…

“Just tell me it’s a lie.”

Lorena screamed, as if the words were being torn from her, bloody and desperate.

“If I… if I had been there, maybe the Klein family wouldn’t have fallen. Why—why did you imprison me here? Why!”

If she had been there, maybe Alfonso wouldn’t have taken his own life.

But Vaye had hidden her away, ignored her father’s detention, and led her homeland to financial ruin. He had allowed her brother to die without lifting a finger. He had never once reached out to help the Klein family.

All the “protection” Lorena had believed she was receiving was nothing more than a delusion—a fantasy.

‘The reality is… oh, the reality is…’

“What did you do to my father? Did you…?”

‘Did you kill him?’

Lorena gasped for air, her breathing labored. Vaye’s face hardened as he noticed her distress. He stepped forward quickly and gripped her wrist tightly.

“Let go of me!”

“Just breathe properly.”

“Let go! I hate you. I—I stayed here like a fool, believing in you…”

“I said breathe, Lorena. Look at me.”

“I hate everything about you—your dog, your house, this entire country. I’ve hated it all from the start!”

“I know, damn it.”

At last, Vaye cursed under his breath, his lips twisting in frustration. He grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her to stand upright.

“What matters more than your sudden confessions is the fact that, despite everything, I’ve chosen to protect my wife.”

“I’m not your wife. I never had a husband. I— I wish you were dead…”

“Then do it, if you can.”

He forced her chin up, making her breathe again before releasing her with a dismissive shove. His brow furrowed, and his expression showed clear irritation.

‘What can you possibly do on your own?’

His sneer was so blatant, it snapped Lorena out of her frantic state.

“…When we return to the capital, will you grant me a divorce?”

“You still don’t understand, do you, Lorena Levantes? The only place you’re returning to is my estate. The house you’ve lived in for the past seven years—and where you’ll continue to live.”

“It took seven lawyers an entire month to clear your name. So, no, divorce isn’t happening.”

Was he expecting her to be grateful?

Lorena couldn’t even muster a bitter laugh. ‘Seven lawyers’, and yet he hadn’t bothered to defend her father.

If he hadn’t used her family as a pawn, none of this tragedy would have happened.

“I’m not going back to Motrel,” she said firmly.

“Then go to Bellacarosa.”

“No. I won’t go to any land under the Levantes banner.”

“Then I’ll have to drag you there.”

Vaye responded coldly, his eyes sweeping over the small, dimly lit room. The cold seeped through the stone walls, and the empty crucifix hanging on the wall seemed to weigh down on them, pressing the air.

“How’s your body? The doctor said by now you should…”

Vaye’s attention returned to Lorena, his gaze dropping from her chest to her flat stomach, but she didn’t notice. What he did notice, however, was the gleaming gun that emerged from the folds of her skirt, catching the light.

His voice instantly turned icy.

“Lorena, what are you doing?”

The cold metal of the gun pressed against her temple, and she smiled bitterly.

“Are you worried about me?”

“Put it down. Hand it over.”

“You’re right. I could never kill you. In fact, no one could ever kill you…”

Lorena didn’t even attempt to aim the gun at him. Even if she fired point-blank, it seemed as if Vaye Levantes would simply deflect the bullets.

“…Why did you marry me?”

She still remembered the summer when she was seventeen, when she first met him while accompanying her father on a business trip to Bessen. By their second meeting, he had given her an engagement ring, and on her nineteenth birthday, they were married.

“You were in such a hurry back then, like marrying me was the most urgent thing in the world.”

“I said, put it down. Didn’t you hear me?”

“If you planned to use me and my father from the start, everything makes sense now.”

How had it taken her seven years to realize such a simple truth?

There had never been a real reason for Duke Levantes to propose to the daughter of a common banker.

Just as her finger twitched over the trigger, Vaye moved with lightning speed, grabbing her wrist and wrenching the gun from her hand. He let out a long, deep breath, his voice low and menacing.

“Don’t try something foolish. You know this kind of threat won’t work.”

Lorena, now weaponless, stared at him in disbelief.

“…Then answer me…”

Her pale green eyes, unfocused and brimming with despair, were devoid of life. She looked like a beautiful but hollowed-out shell, as if she had been preserved in her misery.

“Answer me, Vaye. Who killed my father?”

“….”

“Please, just say something…”

His jaw clenched, his patience wearing thin. Finally, with a bitter snarl, he spat the words.

“If you need to hear it, fine. Yes, I shot your father. Do you need more explanation?”

“…”

“Your family, your country—it was time for them to disappear. It was decided nine years ago, and the only exception, damnably enough, was you.”

Lorena’s fragile world, already cracked like a spiderweb, finally shattered. The ground beneath her gave way, and she felt her mind plummet into an endless abyss.

“But even so, nothing changes, Lorena.”

Vaye grabbed her chin and cheek in one hand, forcing her to look up at him. His face, now burning with raw emotion, showed the searing mix of anger and twisted affection he had kept hidden until now.

“Whether you hate me or not, you’re still mine.”

“After all, there was never a good time for us,” Vaye muttered coldly.

“…”

“So bear with me, as I’ve decided to bear with you.”

As he re-engaged the safety on the gun, pushing her away as if to discard her, Lorena’s hand reached for the nearby desk, fingers fumbling along the edge. The moment her fingertips brushed against the cold barrel of another gun hidden in the half-open drawer, she grabbed it tightly. She had prepared for this. This one was already loaded too.

“No.”

She whispered.

The day she learned about her brother’s death, printed in the newspaper for the world to see, Lorena realized something. Even if she returned to Motrel, there would be no normal life waiting for her.

A life trapped in the arms of a man she despised, in a country that hated her—if that was her fate, then it was better to die. But she wouldn’t die quietly. She would do it in front of the man who had destroyed her world.

She wasn’t afraid. She had imagined this moment hundreds, thousands of times. She knew it would be quick, painless, and she would soon be reunited with her family.

As the anticipation of success filled her, she spoke with a chilling finality.

“You will never control me again.”

Vaye, who had just tossed the first gun aside, sensed something terrifying and snapped his head toward her, but it was too late. Lorena’s finger had already pulled the trigger.

The cylinder inside the gun rotated.

Bang.

The single gunshot echoed through the monastery, shattering the silence.

Vaye’s crimson eyes widened in horror, twisted and filled with shock.

And with that, the last light in Lorena’s world went out.

* * *

The world after death was silent.

Was it a dream?

At some point, Vaye was no longer there. Lorena’s soul, now as light as ash, drifted into a long, endless dream.

In that dream, she sat alone in front of the simple, worn-down chapel at Soto’s temple, staring endlessly at the cross above the altar. The suffocating cigar smoke and the debauched man who had once haunted this place were gone. It was just her now.

‘Oh, God.’

She muttered emptily, her voice hollow as it echoed through the vacant space.

‘Do you truly not exist?’

The man’s voice echoed in her mind, firm and resolute in his declaration that there was no God. For some reason, his words stuck with her, unusually vivid. Perhaps he had been right. If there was a God, surely there wouldn’t be such rage and sorrow in this world.

Lorena’s thoughts wandered to the faces of her lost family, and her eyelids fell shut.

Just then, a mysterious light began to gather atop the once desolate altar.

The light shimmered like waves, flowing down from the altar and enveloping Lorena’s entire body. She slipped into unconsciousness once more, unaware of the sacred scene unfolding before her.

NON.

(No.)

 

Golden letters began to etch themselves into the cross suspended in the void.

 

DEUS UBIQUE EST.

(God is everywhere.)