I’ve Decided to Let You Go - Chapter 75

Cold sunlight drifted through the bedroom, softly brushing against her eyelids. When it gently landed on her closed eyes, Natasha opened them naturally.

Her vision was blurred by the chill in the air. Every blink brought the icy touch of her lashes across her skin.

Still exhausted, she stared at the ceiling for a long while. Only after some time did she shift her gaze. Outside the window, a vast field of snow stretched out, completely covered in white.

Sieghart Aschart had left at dawn for knight training. Since it was the harsh season when disasters were likely, they had to prepare thoroughly for all emergencies.

She sat on the edge of the bed, lost in time. It wasn’t that she was thinking deeply. In fact, she wasn’t thinking at all, which is why she sat there like that.

It felt as if time had stopped. So she remained still, almost stupidly.

“It’s snowing…”

Looking again out the window, she saw the snow falling. Snow was cold and damp.

But from a distance, it looked incredibly beautiful. Just like Natasha Aschart’s life, it seemed perfect only from afar.

As if in a trance, she stood up and reached toward the window. The cold that wrapped around her fingers felt like it was piercing her heart.

“I… I died today.”

She knew it instinctively.

She hadn’t checked a calendar. She didn’t know the exact date or time. But she could feel it.

Long ago, the woman she had once been had died today.

That day, she held a dagger that a man had given her as a gift.

Today, Natasha Aschart wore the scarf that same man had once given her. She draped a blanket from the chair over her shoulders and left the room.

“Good morning, madam. Are you going somewhere… wait, what?”

The servants wandering the hallway were surprised to see her in her nightgown. It was strange to see the duchess stepping outside her room first when she usually summoned the maids.

But she gave no response. She simply ignored them.

The Duchess burst out of the mansion as if she were being chased. She didn’t stop as she ran down the stairs, reached the entrance, opened the door, and stepped outside.

She ignored the knights shouting behind her and ran toward her destination.

A stranger entered the still, snowy field.

The snow that had fallen overnight was deep. But she walked through it without hesitation, her feet sinking with each step. Even as the snow rose to her slender ankles, she didn’t seem to care.

Eventually, she arrived at Douglas Forest, defying the Duke’s clear orders.

“This place…”

She had only been here once in her life. It should have felt unfamiliar. And it did. But at the same time, it felt oddly familiar.

Maybe it was because this place had always been her sanctuary.

“Ah…”

Suddenly, a familiar scene appeared in front of her.

A woman held a blade to her chest. A cold man stood before her, watching without any emotion. The two figures began to move, as if they were real.

The woman muttered something in despair, then raised the dagger high. Snowflakes drifted onto the blade as she drove it into her heart.

She smiled as the blood flowed from her chest, then collapsed. Even the man, who had shown no reaction to her pain, eventually faded away.

A long time later, a real man entered the forest with the knights of House Aschart. They began to dig and search the ground.

And then…

“Madam, you can’t be here!”

“…”

“Oh no, you’re freezing. We need to get you inside right now. The winter flu is terrible this year. You could get seriously ill.”

A knight and Meliana, who had been chasing her since she left the mansion, lifted her up. She had come out into the cold with only a thin blanket around her, so her body was icy cold.

Natasha never saw the end of the vision. In truth, she wasn’t sure if it had been a vision or just her imagination.

It was a foolish thought. Whether it was an illusion or a delusion, the image had come from her own mind, hadn’t it?

If that was true, then it meant she had been thinking foolish things.

That man would never blink an eye if his wife died. He wouldn’t be sad to hear she had passed. He would be glad the impurity had disappeared.

Unlike the Sieghart Aschart of now.

The pain was sharp, almost unbearable.

As she sat up in bed, she clutched her head, unable to endure the aching. She was grateful to whoever had left the tea for her. She picked up the cup and drank it quickly.

After a few deep breaths, the headache that had been shaking her mind slowly began to fade.

Next to the teacup was a small note. The handwriting was rushed and filled with urgency.

“I thought you might need some peace, so I left first.
I’ll be waiting by the door.
Please call me whenever you wake up.
— Meliana”

I should call her once I’ve calmed down a bit.

Natasha set the letter back in place and stepped out of bed. As soon as her feet touched the floor, a burning pain shot through her. Shocked, she looked down and found both feet tightly wrapped in bandages.

Confused by the sight, she started to unwrap them herself. What she saw underneath were feet red and swollen, blistered and raw.

They looked so badly damaged that it was hard to tell if they were even human.

Then she remembered. She had walked outside barefoot.

Her sigh turned into a hollow laugh. She must have gone mad. It wasn’t enough that she walked barefoot through the snow—she had also entered Douglas Forest, which was under a strict no-entry order.

All those years spent trying to prove she wasn’t insane felt meaningless now. How else would people see a woman who rejected help and ran blindly into a snowstorm?

Leaning on her heels, avoiding her injured soles, she carefully walked over to the window. She pulled aside the heavy curtains and took in the view outside.

It was beautiful, as always.

In winter, snow became nature’s predator. It covered everything that couldn’t survive the harsh season.

Not even the strongest or most noble humans could resist it. Not even the fiercest animals. Snow was the true ruler in nature’s chain.

Even the sun’s brilliance faded before it. The storm was so strong that not much could be seen beyond the glass. The world outside had disappeared into white.

Natasha turned her head in the direction of Douglas Forest but couldn’t see it. The blizzard was too thick, hiding even a place as vast and towering as that.

That’s where I died, she thought. Gloriously, and maybe even happily.

Staring blankly out the window, she suddenly caught sight of her own reflection in the glass. She let out a faint, bitter smile. Her large eyes were wet with tears.

“Foolish woman,” she whispered to herself.

You promised to forget the past life.

It had already been two years.

Two years since this life’s Natasha chose to go on living, after dying ten times and finally deciding to survive.

Wasn’t it time to let go of the past? At first, she had managed to feel nothing. But as time passed, the weight of old memories pulled her back in. She couldn’t have been more foolish.

She moved away from the window, still walking on her heels. She was about to call for Meliana, who was likely waiting nearby, when she heard footsteps on the other side of the wall.

They were strong and steady, like a knights, but not loud or harsh. Despite the man’s fierce appearance, there was always a strange grace in the way he moved.

His pace was always the same. With every breath Natasha took, his feet stepped four times. His strides were measured and even.

He always covered about twice the distance she did for every four steps she took.

These small details, so familiar to her, hit her all over again.

Sieghart…

But today, something about it felt different. She knew it was Sieghart, yet it gave her the strange feeling that someone else was approaching.

It was him, and yet, it wasn’t.

In that moment, memories returned like pages from a book. The story of her and Sieghart Aschart began to replay in her mind, from the very beginning.

“I was planning to visit soon, but I’m honored you came first.”

Their first meeting had been in the region of Vyle, when she was known as Tisha Winter and he was a new resident.

“I know what the princess is worried about. I know what threatens you. I’ve come to protect you from those things.”

“Let’s get married.”

And then, they met again as Natasha Charlier and Sieghart Aschart.

Whether she was Tisha Winter or Natasha Charlier, he had always treated her as someone familiar. At the time, she thought it was just him being overly polite. But now, she wasn’t so sure.

After that, his strange behavior became harder to ignore. Sieghart somehow knew all her preferences without ever being told.

Her favorite flowers, books, food, dresses, jewelry—everything.

And that wasn’t all.

Most of all, the man standing outside now—

“…You.”

“…”

“Natasha…”

There was fear on Sieghart’s face. Not the pride or arrogance that usually defined him, but something much more vulnerable. Something real.

His hair and clothes were a mess. The cold, composed man who never lost his dignity, not even in battle, was gone. It was clear he had rushed here.

He must have heard that she had disobeyed him, run into Douglas Forest, and collapsed as soon as she returned to the mansion.

But his reaction now was different from before.

Just like one of his cryptic remarks, Natasha sensed something was off.

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