“His Majesty the Emperor is entering!”

With Lily’s cry, the doorknob rattled.

Remembering that she herself had locked the door, Diana dropped to her knees and moved to undo the latch. Outside, voices shouted to bring a key, the handle twisting again and again.

Click. Click. Click.

“D*mn it! Move!”

Bang!

Before her hand could reach it, the doorknob snapped off. One more kick, and the door would burst open, connecting the space beyond.

“Your Majesty!”

“Licht!”

Thud!

Just before Diana could finish his name, a chair came flying down at her head.

Her small body crumpled limply to the floor, and the door burst open as if torn apart.

“Hah… hah…”

Henry, who had struck Diana with the chair, panted for breath.

Kicking the door open, Licht pushed through the dust filling the reception room, and found Henry smiling at him.

Madness flickered in Henry’s blue eyes, clouded by magic.

“Your Majesty the Emperor. It’s been a while. Though… it seems my daughter has been hurt.”

“Shut up! Diana! Diana! Call the physicians—now!”

“She probably won’t be able to speak for a while. That’s rather fortunate, isn’t it?”

Blood poured endlessly from Diana’s head.

“Diana!”

Licht cradled her head, but the blood kept surging forth.

The Empress died instantly—
in the Empress’s own palace—
after being struck on the head by a chair wielded by her father.

It was an absurd, horrific death.

***

“Lately, I’ve been trading with the Peril Merchant Guild. They’re on the rise.”

“Oh? Wilhelm, you really do have an eye for that sort of thing.”

“As you know, I’ve had many chances to meet merchant guilds since I was young.”

Diana lowered her gaze to the teacup in her hands.

Across the table sat Prince Enoch and her elder brother, Wilhelm, deep in discussion about business.

Just as Enoch and Diana had been close since childhood, Enoch and Wilhelm, too, had long shared an easy familiarity.

Sitting with them, Diana narrowed her eyes slightly, comparing the present to memories of the past.

“There’s another merchant guild besides Peril that’s gaining traction—”

Only a week earlier, Diana had woken trembling from sleep, drenched in cold sweat, shut away in the Empress’s palace.

It had felt as though Henry might burst in at any moment and smash her head in again.

If not for Lily noticing something was wrong, Diana might have continued shaking for several more days.

In any case, thanks to Lily, Diana learned the date she was now living in, and confusion was inevitable.

Licht’s birthday.

One month before the kidnapping.

She could not tell whether the rebellion and her death had been a dream, or whether this moment now was.

Everyone else was the same.

The only thing different from that dream—or memory—was herself.

Was it nothing more than a nightmare?

To my beloved Diana—

Yet as if mocking her desire to dismiss everything as a dream, a letter arrived from Henry.

The moment she saw his handwriting, a terrible intuition struck, what she had experienced might not have been illusion, but memory.

My one and only daughter, Her Majesty the Empress of Harzen.
Have you been well? Your imperial marriage was already a month ago.
Your father had matters to attend to in his territory and traveled to Greenvale last week…

Then we shall meet again at His Majesty’s birthday banquet next month.
If I were to receive joyful news then, nothing could please me more.

Affectionate words written with the knowledge that letters were inspected, formal titles, and pressure for a grandchild woven in.

It matched her nightmare—or memory—perfectly.

Diana tore the chilling paper to shreds on the spot.

Lily stared at her in shock. Understandably so.

Before the rebellion, Diana herself had been one of the actors participating in Henry’s farce, decorating the “close bond” between a father and a daughter raised without a mother into something that seemed acceptable even to her own eyes.

But now, Diana had no intention of stepping back onto Henry’s suffocating stage.

Even if everything she remembered was illusion, even if being beaten to death had truly been a dream, one thing was clear:

Henry Schuettmann had been cruel to her.

Henry’s afterimage wavered on the surface of the reddish tea.

With Enoch and Wilhelm before her, Diana nearly shook her head violently.

“I think I’ll skip worship this week.”

“Isn’t the Prince being rather irreverent? If I recall correctly, you skipped last week’s service too.”

“Oh my. How rude, Wilhelm.”

“You only put on airs at times like this.”

“Hahaha!”

The loud laughter of the two men, Henry’s letter, their invitation to tea, and even this very conversation, Diana’s heart began to beat unevenly.

Now, she would ask.

“I heard His Majesty is returning today. Depending on the circumstances, I may have to visit again tomorrow.”

“Seeing how busy the attendants are, it doesn’t seem like there’s been word of a change in schedule.”

Listening to the two of them speak about Licht’s whereabouts, Diana tipped the scales fully toward memory rather than nightmare.

She had to accept it now.

In one month, they would raise a rebellion to seize the throne.

Her relationship with Wilhelm had never been good.

When others were present, as now, they exchanged polite conversation. But once inside the ducal residence, they were little better than strangers. Diana had no way of knowing what Wilhelm truly thought or how he lived.

Even so, she had believed he was better than Henry.

At least Wilhelm had looked away when Henry beat her, if nothing else, he had not joined in.

To a young Diana, that alone had mattered.

Now that she thought about it, Henry and Wilhelm were the same, no different at all.

But Enoch—

The Enoch she knew—

“Hm. It may be difficult to see him right away. The journey from Yvon to the imperial palace isn’t an easy one. Even for my brother, it must be exhausting.”

At times mischievous and playful, Enoch was fundamentally a good person.

More than anything, though he did not show it openly, Diana believed he took pride in his brother. Even now, he was gauging Licht’s condition with quiet concern.

At present, Licht was returning from Yvon, a border region plagued by unrest, where he had gone personally to conduct an inspection.

Even for Licht, visiting a small border city and returning within a week was an unforgiving schedule.

“I know. Still, even if he won’t see me, he’ll see Diana. I was thinking of joining her then.”

Wilhelm cast a sideways glance at Diana, deliberate enough to be noticed.

At that moment, Diana lifted her head, and met his gaze with eyes momentarily vacant.

Wilhelm wanted something from her.

In the past, Diana would have agreed readily, offering a polite, empty response.

But recognizing the stiffness of her own expression, Diana turned her head away toward the garden instead.

She had neither the intention nor the leisure to cooperate with Wilhelm’s plans.

“Hoo.”

When she openly ignored his meaning and even sighed, Enoch, caught between the siblings, naturally stepped in.

“Wilhelm, I don’t think that’s a good idea. If you’re going to bring up business permits and investments, a private audience would look better to others as well.”

“Is that so?”

Wilhelm’s gaze burned against Diana’s cheek, but she closed her eyes.

Feigning ease, she pretended to enjoy the warm spring sunlight, concealing her unease.

Such affectations, this superficial elegance, Diana was skilled at. Especially in high society, she had learned never to appear cowed. In this world, the smallest gesture or glance was taken as one’s answer.

“I’ll take my leave now. I should prepare to receive His Majesty.”

Diana set down her teacup and curved her lips into a faint smile.

If events continued as she remembered, Licht would not arrive at the palace until late at night.

With the sun still high in the sky, there was little she truly needed to do.

“Shall I help?”

As Diana rose from her chair, Enoch stood as well, asking softly. She gave a bitter smile at his kindness.

“It’s all right, Enoch.”

“Indeed, Enoch. What could you possibly help with? Don’t trouble yourself, finish your tea and go.”

Diana’s gaze met Wilhelm’s.

In his distinctly red eyes, so unlike her own blue, she saw her reflection.

Once, those eyes had frightened her.

Now, a different thought occurred to her.

It seemed Wilhelm knew what Enoch felt toward her.

Then since when?

“Shall we go inside, Your Majesty?”

An attendant of the Empress’s palace, who had been standing apart from the tea table, approached and held a parasol over Diana. She looked up at Enoch, who had risen with her.

Ignoring Wilhelm, who was trying to restrain him, Enoch was looking only at her.

She did not know how to name this feeling.

Enoch, the closest friend she had, who had become her family.

And yet, that same Enoch had abducted her.

During those three months, rumors about the two of them had swollen and multiplied.

In the end, Enoch had pushed her into an abyss.

And yet—then as now—Diana could not fully hate him.

She resented him, loathed him, but she could not bring herself to truly despise him.

Human emotions were complex.

A mother who had died young. A father and brother worse than strangers. In that childhood, the one Diana leaned on had been Enoch.

To her, he had been a friend, and an adult, and a shelter.

“Enoch.”

Diana called his name softly.

She thought of what would come because of him, but the point at which she had opened her eyes again was before all chaos began.

Then perhaps—just perhaps—she could save Enoch from dying by his brother’s hand, just as she herself had been killed by her father’s.

Perhaps there was a way for all of them—herself, Enoch, and Licht, who would otherwise lose both wife and brother, to avoid that horrific tragedy.

“Diana?”

The fabricated smile faded from Diana’s face as she looked at him.

Squinting slightly against the sunlight, she parted her lips.

Without thinking beyond the moment, the words come with me—leave Wilhelm rose to her throat.

At that moment, Lily hurried toward them from the end of the garden and whispered urgently.

“Your Majesty, the Emperor has just entered the imperial capital.”

Already?