Read I Can't Fall in Love with the Duke

⚠️ Content Warning: This episode contains mature themes, emotional trauma, and implied violence. Reader discretion is advised.

“They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die. I wish that were true. I would’ve liked to see something beautiful before the end.”

The cold marble floor bit into my back as warmth drained from my body. It was strange—the numbness creeping up my limbs, the way everything slowed to a crawl. The world narrowed to a single figure.

Him.

His silhouette stood in the doorway, cast in pale candlelight. Not frantic. Not regretful. Just... calm.

“Why?” I rasped. My voice sounded foreign. Broken.

He knelt beside me, not to comfort me, not to weep for me, but to watch. His fingers—those same fingers that once brushed my hair so gently—were now stained red.

My blood.

He said nothing. His eyes were empty. The same man who once whispered that I was everything to him had just murdered me without a second thought.

The lie of love cut deeper than the blade.

I blinked. Once. Twice. The edges of the room blurred like watercolors bleeding from the page.

This is how it ends.

But it didn’t.

I gasped. Air seared my lungs like fire. My eyes flew open.

Curtains fluttered in the breeze. Sunlight spilled across my bed.

My bed.

The damask canopy above me. The lavender oil wafting from a ceramic diffuser. The distant sound of bells from the merchant square beyond the garden wall.

This was my room in House Valemire—one of the oldest merchant houses in the empire, perched on the high terrace roads overlooking the capital's west gate.

No guards. No blood. No death.

Only the scent of lemon water from a nearby tray, the rustling of tapestries on the wall, and the overwhelming silence of a world that hadn’t yet turned against me.

I stumbled out of bed and stared into the mirror.

It was me—as I had been five years ago. No scars. No haunted eyes. My youth returned to me like a cruel joke.

This isn’t a dream. It’s a second life.

A knock sounded at the door.

“Lady Aria?” came the voice of a servant. “Your father requests your presence in the atrium.”

My father. Lord Hadrian Valemire—the Art Baron of the Western Courts. A man who could appraise a masterwork with a glance, or dismantle an aristocrat with a single, well-placed word.

I pulled on a high-collared navy gown—fitting for a daughter of trade, not nobility—and descended the staircase.

House Valemire’s manor was unlike any noble estate.

Where others displayed crests and war relics, our halls held paintings, porcelain, and sculptures like currency. Every item had a story. Every hallway was a gallery. Father said art was the only truth money couldn’t fake.

That was the Valemire creed:
“We deal in what endures.”

In the atrium, my father was inspecting a new delivery: a painting of a goddess surrounded by fire, calm even as the world burned.

“You slept too long,” he said without turning.

“I had... dreams.”

“Then wake up. The Elaran circle arrives tomorrow. If the emperor’s steward bites, we double our price.”

His gaze flicked to me, sharp and calculating. “Don’t speak unless it benefits the deal.”

“Understood.”

Later that day, I wandered into the old west wing—a quiet, unused corner of the manor. My footsteps echoed against the vaulted ceiling. Dust danced in the sunlight.

That’s when I heard it.

A whisper.

Not a voice, not quite. More like breath sliding across the back of my neck.

“You shouldn’t be alive.”

I spun. Nothing. Just old portraits with cracked frames and a half-burnt candelabra on a pedestal.

I stepped closer to the painting of a veiled woman—one I'd never noticed before. The plaque read:

“The Seer of the False Spring.”

Her painted eyes seemed to follow me.

Then the candle flared. Once. Twice. And out.

A chill ran down my spine.

As I hurried back to the main halls, I nearly collided with Selene Corvant—my friend and guest of the house. Her chestnut hair was windswept, and she held a sketchbook to her chest.

“There you are!” she grinned. “I went looking for you earlier but Father Hadrian said you’d gone off to ‘brood in the shadows.’ His words, not mine.”

I forced a smile.

“Look what I sketched!” she said, flipping her book open. “It’s that fresco in the eastern hall—the one with the veiled woman holding a candle. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

My blood ran cold.

That painting... it hadn’t been there in the last life. I was sure of it.

I nodded slowly, my voice distant. “She is.”

Selene cocked her head. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”