The Lady You Want to Kill 1: The Witch Beatrice (1/39)

1. The Witch Beatrice

“Miss, run away!”

Lily’s desperate voice erupted, nearly a scream. As her slender body collapsed, a crimson-stained blade glinted behind her.

Bright red blood began pooling on the grimy gray floor, and a pair of silver steel boots stepped into it. The man, standing over the lifeless body of the small woman, wore an expression of blatant disdain that he made no effort to hide.

At the grand staircase, a woman stood observing the scene with a detached air, as if it were unfolding in a realm far removed from reality.

Outside the castle, the garden lay trampled under the knights’ steel boots, much like the servants who had tried to protect her. The screams piercing her ears, whether short or drawn out, all cried for the same person.

“Miss, Miss. Run away. Please escape.”

But the very person they were calling for—Beatrice—merely looked at the man with his disdainful expression, her face devoid of emotion. She stood as if gazing at a cheap painting, unaffected. Her still, unyielding features resembled a death mask, made in the image of a deceased person.

“Witch Beatrice Ember, kneel before the divine and confess your sins.”

The man’s icy blue eyes burned like a flickering flame. Beatrice realized for the first time that such frigid eyes could still blaze with fury. No one with blue eyes like his had ever shown her such heat before.

Beatrice, who had been watching him with an indifferent expression, slowly turned her head, surveying the castle hall, the garden outside, and finally beyond the walls. It was disheartening to see the things she had nurtured crushed under others’ feet, but that was the extent of her feelings.

She harbored no sorrow for the servants who had died worrying about her safety. She felt no concern for her own life, either. To her, this entire situation was little more than a farcical play.

The man before her was the church’s most exalted holy knight. It was said he commanded over a hundred knights. Indeed, sending so many to hunt a single witch seemed excessive, but considering the infamy that surrounded her name across the empire, it wasn’t entirely incomprehensible.

“Kneeling and confessing my sins won’t erase them, so why should I?”

Beatrice Ember had been charged with one crime—murder. Over two hundred lives had been taken by her hand. If someone asked if the accusations were false, she would gladly shake her head.

She had killed them all. If asked whether she felt guilty, she would once again shake her head.

“Your sins are grave.”

“Do you think I’m unaware of the depths of my sins?”

“You are ignorant.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“You do not see humans as humans.”

Beatrice did not deny his words. They were true. She didn’t see humans as humans. Or, more precisely, she did not regard them as the same species as herself.

When their hollow exchange ended, the white-armored knights who had torn through her mansion entered the hall. It seemed her servants, who had fought to protect her, had all lost their lives. The knights, eyes blazing with intensity, fixed their gazes on Beatrice, the witch standing atop the stairs.

As if on cue, the man—the church’s most revered holy knight, Francis—drew his white blade and pointed it at her.

“Divine judgment shall befall you.”

“How can judgment delivered by humans be considered divine?”

Her response was no more than a dull retort, as if she had heard an unamusing joke. Her mocking laughter echoed lightly through the blood-soaked hall.

That laugh was the last she gave before she was dragged to the church square and forced onto the guillotine. No trial was held for her, despite her noble status, as would have been customary.

Over ten years of infamy ended that day with the death of Witch Beatrice, who had killed 182 commoner men, 32 commoner women, 13 noblemen, and 2 noblewomen.

The small misfortune that marked the end of her life was that her neck proved so resilient the executioner had to strike her five more times after the first blow only partially severed it before she was finally dead.

* * *

Beatrice opened her eyes. The familiar ceiling came into view. If she were to describe her current situation, those stale and tedious two sentences would be the most fitting.

She sat up amidst yet another instance of this endless loop. The sight of her room, with its faded red blanket that had long lost its life and the corners caked in dust from neglect, filled her with nothing but revulsion.

A profound sense of futility gnawed at her, this life that seemed destined to repeat endlessly without an end in sight. Without even glancing, she reached out blindly toward the bedside table, her hand brushing and knocking something off. A sharp crash confirmed it shattered on the floor.

She didn’t need to look to know what it was—the clock. That cursed clock, its hands eternally pointing to nine in the morning.

After several more failed grasps, she finally found what she was looking for. A matchbox, with only five or six sticks remaining. As soon as she had it in her hands, she struck a match without hesitation and tossed it onto the bed she sat on.

The blanket, old but far from cheap, caught fire in an instant. Even when caught as a witch, they never bothered burning her at the stake. Experiencing it once wouldn’t be so bad, she thought.

With a horribly twisted smile, she embraced yet another death.

* * *

Beatrice woke up again and got out of bed abruptly. Burning to death was not something she was willing to experience twice. She had expected it to be painful, but it was far worse than she imagined.

She strode over to the table by the window, grabbed a water bottle, and drank hastily. The water, old and stagnant from who knows when, was as cold as if freshly poured. It showed how cold the room was, though the temperature didn’t matter to her at all.

With a loud thud, she slammed the bottle down and turned to pick up the matches on the bedside table again. This time, however, she tossed the lit match under the wardrobe instead of onto the bed.

Soft clattering noises came from inside the wardrobe, barely audible unless one paid attention. Having lived this life over and over, she already knew what was inside. Without even checking if the fire caught, she left the room in her nightclothes. A breath of fresh air seemed appealing.

She flung the door open, the heavy handle hitting the wall with a loud bang. A passing servant gave her a look, as though seeing something uncanny. Beatrice didn’t even glance at them as she walked down the corridor. Every servant and maid she passed either pretended not to notice her or openly displayed their unease.

Beatrice Ember. The blemish of the Ember Duchy. The illegitimate child of the late Duke Ember.

After walking for a while, she started descending the grand staircase. Behind her, she heard screams and frantic voices calling for water. A faint smell of burning followed. It seemed the fire had caught properly.

With an expression devoid of any emotion, she stepped out the front door. Barefoot.

A single carriage stood outside the main entrance. It belonged to her eldest sibling, who was preparing for an outing that morning. He frowned at the sight of her disheveled state—barefoot and still in her nightclothes—and gave her a once-over, head to toe.

She paid him no mind. Taking a slow, deep breath, she tried to calm herself. How many lives had she lived so far? She wasn’t entirely sure. It was probably the twelfth. Maybe the thirteenth. As she doubted her own memory, the sharp voice of a maid rang in her ears.

“Your Grace! There’s a fire in the young lady’s room!”

“What?”

Calrex, the current head of the Ember Duchy, immediately turned his glare toward Beatrice. His already fierce face contorted even further as he growled at her.

“What is the meaning of this, Beatrice?”

“There were rats in the wardrobe.”

Her voice was excessively dry and indifferent, not at all what one would expect from someone who had set their own room on fire.

The hurried footsteps of servants rushing to carry water echoed loudly. Realizing it wasn’t a good time to think quietly, Beatrice turned and began walking back toward her room. But Calrex, who had been standing by the carriage, was suddenly right behind her, glaring.

The height difference between them was barely noticeable, and their gazes naturally locked.

“Is that your excuse?”

“It’s not an excuse.”

The fierce glare met her unfeeling eyes for a long moment before a servant’s voice interrupted, announcing that the fire had been put out. Calrex, barely restraining his anger, issued a cold command.

“Have Felix take care of the aftermath. Don’t let Mother hear about this.”

“Understood.”

Having fulfilled his part, Calrex walked past her briskly, the sound of his steps sharp. The servant who had received his orders ignored Beatrice entirely as they disappeared into the mansion.

The servants, who had been busy running back and forth to extinguish the fire, gradually returned to their respective duties. As expected, no follow-up measures were taken after the flames were doused.

She felt hungry. With no expectations, she climbed the stairs and returned to her room.

Her door was wide open, and a smoky smell seeped out from within. Inside, the wardrobe stood partially collapsed, its remains charred. Marks left by the water used to douse the fire were clearly visible. Apparently, they didn’t want anyone dying from smoke inhalation, as the window was left wide open. But that was all the effort they put into handling the aftermath of the fire.

Passing the ruined wardrobe, she picked up the bell by her bedside and rang it sharply. The shrill sound echoed a few times, but no maid appeared. Slowly, she walked to the table by the window, sat down, and silently counted to twenty before her personal maid, Maya, finally arrived, dragging her feet.

Maya bowed, though her reluctance was plain as day.

“You called, miss?”

“Prepare a meal.”

Maya raised her head without hesitation. Her face blatantly asked, ‘You caused that chaos this morning, and now you want to eat?’

Still, whatever thoughts Maya had, she didn’t voice them. Instead, she turned to leave the room to carry out the order. The meal would take at least an hour to prepare, but waiting wouldn’t be boring. After all, there was still one more person she expected to see. They would appear soon enough.

“Beatrice!”

Exactly fifteen minutes later, a sharp voice cut through the room. It was her second sibling, Felix.

Striding in with an exaggerated smirk, he approached her without hesitation. His expression turned disgusted as he alternated his gaze between Beatrice, seated calmly in her chair, and the charred wardrobe against the wall.

“You’ve finally lost it for good.”

“Finally?”

“Like a broken clock missing a cog, your head’s been spinning in circles for years.”

It wasn’t inaccurate, so there was no need to react. Felix, perhaps encouraged by her silence, let out a crude laugh and approached the burnt wardrobe.

The wardrobe, though old, had been a high-quality piece befitting the duchy. Now it was nothing more than a thoroughly burnt hunk of wood, barely holding its shape. Felix examined it as though it were an art piece, then turned to her abruptly.

“So, why’d you burn it?”

“There were rats.”

Beatrice repeated the same response she’d given Calrex earlier and turned her gaze toward Felix, though not with any particular intent to focus on him. It was more of a casual movement.

Felix’s expression twisted further as though he were looking at something repulsive. Of course, neither of them cared.

“You’re insane.”

She didn’t reply. It was true, after all, so there wasn’t much to say. Instead, she lifted the old water bottle she’d been sipping from, took another drink, and looked at him again. With no response from her, Felix turned his attention back to the ruined wardrobe.

Indeed, in this household, she was treated as less important than even an old piece of furniture.

The late Duke Ember, father to Calrex and Felix, had been a rare case of a nobleman marrying for love. He and the Duchess had been genuinely happy together, their family of four living an idyllic life until nineteen years ago, when the duke went missing while quelling a disturbance in a distant territory.

His sudden absence plunged the family into grief. Left with only the duchess and two young sons, the atmosphere in the Ember estate grew heavy, as though walking on thin ice.

Though they forced smiles, the mere mention of the duke would cause cracks to form, like a fragile sheet of ice splitting apart. Yet, miraculously, two years later, the duke returned alive.

The duchess and her sons were overjoyed, sincerely happy to have their husband and father back. It could have been a perfect reunion—if not for the one-year-old girl he brought back in his arms.

“Ahhh!”

Her train of thought was interrupted by a loud scream. Why was it that this household was always so full of interruptions? Sighing, she set the water bottle down and looked at the source of the commotion. Felix had opened the wardrobe’s charred doors.

Ah, that.

Her voice was flat, devoid of any reaction. Felix turned to her urgently, pointing at the inside of the wardrobe and raising his voice again.

“What the hell is that?!”

Inside the wardrobe were the charred corpses of rats—around ten to twenty of them. Collecting that many had been quite an effort.

“Rats,” she replied.

“I know they’re rats! Why the hell are they in your wardrobe?!”

“My maid must like rats. She does this often.”

Her maid, Maya, clearly had a fondness for rats. She always made an effort to gather the rodents from the estate’s underground spaces and release them into Beatrice’s room.

Beatrice had read once that cats sometimes brought their owners gifts, like dead mice, as a token of affection. She briefly wondered if Maya’s actions might stem from a similar sentiment, but ultimately dismissed the idea. Maya disliked her.

Well, humans and cats were different species, after all. Their behavior patterns were bound to differ. Having rationalized the situation to herself, she turned back to Felix, whose face was now a picture of sheer disbelief. What now, she wondered.

“Your maid regularly puts rats in your room?”

“Yes.”

“And you just let it happen?”

“What am I supposed to do about it?”

Felix shut his mouth, his golden eyes flickering faintly with confusion. Beatrice, uninterested in what might have caused his bewilderment, turned her gaze forward and resumed her quiet wait for her meal.

Moments later, the sound of heavy footsteps echoed out of the room as Felix stomped off. Finally, some peace.

Beatrice was the living proof of the duke’s betrayal of his beloved duchess. At first, the family had been satisfied enough just to have him back alive. But as time passed, her presence began to eat away at their relationships.

The duchess and her two sons weren’t inherently bad people. In the beginning, they’d treated Beatrice somewhat decently, if only because a child, no matter how unwanted, was innocent.

But as the years went by, they began to avoid her. And when she turned thirteen, the year the duke succumbed to an illness he’d contracted during his disappearance, their strained relationships irreparably broke.

At the duke’s funeral, the grief-stricken duchess had slapped Beatrice. Her sons, who had tried to stop her, had shown faint traces of shock and disgust in their eyes.

“Miss, your meal is ready.”

It seemed Maya had returned. Beatrice raised her head to see a bowl of limp noodles placed on the table before her. Maya always delivered her meals when they were completely cold.

Whether this was out of laziness or some sort of calculated mockery, Beatrice couldn’t say. Not that it mattered right now.

“Try it first.”

“Pardon?”

Maya blinked, her expression momentarily stunned.

If it had just been cold, overcooked food, Beatrice would have eaten it without complaint. She was used to that, after all.

Tl/N: I picked up a new novel, and it’s really interesting! I’m planning to post this in longer chapters and split it into only three parts per volume. I’m not a fan of cutting chapters into too many pieces, so I’ll keep it concise.

Since I’ve got this novel organized by volumes, we might be able to finish it sooner than expected—probably by March or June 2025. But we’ll see how it goes!

Oh, and just a quick note: I’m not following the old translator’s naming conventions because I haven’t read their work or used their translations. Please stick with the names I’m using from now on!

Hope you guys enjoy the story!

❃゜・。. ・°゜✼ ゜°・ . 。・゜❃

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