“Ah. They say it’s the day to sleep early, my lady.”

Old castles come with their legends passed down. As is usual for buildings with deep history.

“Who is Rosinante?”

Melissa felt a chill but was also curious. Though she wasn’t sure if she would see the same day next year, it seemed better to know for now.

As they were reaching the bedroom through the second floor corridor, Laila chattered.

“They say she was a noble lady of the previous previous Miellin Count family. She suffered from madness since childhood and went around marking patterns with chicken blood all over the castle.”

Nora added that even now you can still find blood patterns drawn by Rosinante here and there.

“The noble lady said that hundreds of vengeful spirits of those killed during the Miellin Count family’s rise to power dwell in this castle. So when the spell to contain the spirits activates once a year, no one should come out.”

Melissa thought she shouldn’t have heard it. She tended not to believe in superstitions about ghosts and spells. Since she thought humans were the cruelest beings in the world.

But she also thought there was no need to go out wandering around at times like this.

“Well, believe it or not, there’s no need to risk getting cursed by wandering around outside unnecessarily.”

Melissa nodded at Nora’s words and lay down in bed.

“I’ll turn off the lights, my lady.”

When Nora turned off the lights, the surroundings darkened.

Laila arranged the blanket and stepped back. While doing so, she accidentally shone the light on Nora, and for a moment an eerie shadow fell across Nora’s face that almost made her scream.

“Are you alright, my lady?”

Thinking Melissa seemed scared, Nora spoke hurriedly.

“Should I leave the lights on?”

“No.”

Melissa shook her head.

She thought that as the lady of the house, she shouldn’t be afraid of such things. She was now responsible for all castle affairs in Reizen’s place, how could she be shaken by mere ghost stories.

Having steeled herself, Melissa said it was fine and ordered the lights turned off. Nora who had been worried also seemed reassured seeing Melissa’s strengthened gaze and turned off the lights.

But it was true that everything felt chillier when the lights went out.

‘Is His Highness on his way?’

After the maids left, Melissa burrowed into the cold blankets. She thought it would be better to fall asleep quickly on a night like this, but the more she tried, waves of thoughts kept rushing in.

Sleep didn’t come even after two hours passed.

The window rattled and crickets chirped in the grass. She closed her eyes accompanied by those sounds. It was just as she was about to fall into slumber.

The crickets chirped in a steady rhythm. Chirp chirp, chirrrp… Chirp chirp, chirrrp… Then suddenly all sounds stopped.

The wind blew and the curtains fluttered.

Melissa’s eyes flew open under the blanket. She had gone to sleep with the window closed, so wind shouldn’t be coming in. Yet what was shaking the blanket was definitely wind.

Anxiety swept over her.

Though her hands started trembling, she pulled down the blanket as calmly as possible. As she raised her upper body from the bed, she saw a dark figure by the window.

Melissa carefully opened her mouth.

“Erich?”

The shadow smiled.

* * *

The story from here goes back 13 years.

It was a tearfully beautiful summer.

On a brilliantly clear day when all of nature’s primary colors were vivid, fifteen-year-old Selheim wandered the forest with a rifle.

“Huff, hah.”

His mouth was parched from not being able to drink water.

His silver short hair was disheveled and soaked with sweat, and after wandering around for half a day, his legs kept giving out.

The cicadas’ sounds were loud enough to be irritating.

The vast forest had surrounded and trapped the boy with trees. They had gone hunting but scattered when a jaguar charged at them.

He got separated from the knights in the accident, and his horse ran away too. Selheim, who almost died falling from midway up the mountain, was lucky enough to save his life by catching onto a branch.

The weather was stuffy, and all the paths looked the same…

Honestly, there was no way he could find his way just by walking aimlessly.

If he were a nocturnal animal living in the forest that would be one thing, but wasn’t he a Crown Prince living in the Imperial Palace? He tied ribbons to trees and walked far only to return to the same spot again.

If he died stranded here, forget a funeral, he would be food for ant colonies.

The problem was second Prince Owen and Melissa who were left waiting nearby.

Selheim wandered the forest looking for Owen and Melissa. Only when he was nearly exhausted did he find the two by a stream.

The two were sitting close together covered in blood with eyes full of fear. Ten-year-old Melissa jumped into his arms as soon as she saw Selheim.

“Selheim!”

Owen had lost his left leg and couldn’t move. Looking at the wound, it seemed like a beast had mauled it. He had fainted with foam at his mouth but Melissa stayed by his side.

At that time Melissa was only ten years old.

Though Selheim was young too, she was even more of a baby.

Even while trembling in fear, thinking she needed to help Owen, she applied pressure to stop bleeding as she had read in books and tried to help him regain consciousness.

It couldn’t have been a more admirable moment.

“Selheim, Selheim!”

“Yes, Melissa.”

As she jumped into his arms and cried uncontrollably upon seeing him, Selheim smiled and stroked her head. It was the first moment he thought he wanted to protect someone who relied on him so much.

Selheim sent up smoke signals, and the three were rescued by the Imperial army’s search party.

Later they found out it was a plot by one of his father’s concubines that made the horses run away. Honestly there were too many concubines to memorize their names. He couldn’t remember who it was, but they must be dead anyway so there was no need to remember.

But Owen who lost his left leg and trembling Melissa were different. He thought preparation for the future was needed to prevent such incidents from happening again.

‘Ah, I should kill those bastards who dream foolish dreams early on.’

He realized this after seeing Owen almost killed for losing his leg.

Aha. Father hates incompetent children. So if you mar them or cut off their sprouts before they can become capable, that solves it?

Once he knew the method, it was too easy.

Whenever he thought of it, Selheim would visit the rose maze and take care of the concubines’ children, and before he knew it, one or two would be thinned out and his surroundings would become clean.

Every time his surroundings were neatly organized, he thought he was protecting his future with Melissa who would marry him someday.

“Won’t you stop doing such things?”

Until Melissa took the side of some young brat.

“Mel, that child inherited dirty blood.”

“There’s no such thing as dirty blood in this world.”

“Then let me rephrase. ‘Low’ blood.”

The lowborn, if not suppressed in time, grow like weeds before you know it.

Like guard dogs ready to bite their masters at any time, not submitting to their lowborn birth, they break free of control.

Selheim deeply empathized with his father’s culling. If his father hadn’t thinned out the side branches, the main branch that was him would have died.

The Imperial family was the empire’s backbone. If the Imperial family, the foundation of the Sys Empire, crumbled, the backbone would shake.

This foundation must never be shaken.

The Imperial authority and power of the Imperial family is the nation’s dignity. Didn’t the previous emperor personally show how a powerful emperor could grip and shake world history?

Look. See how wealthy the empire’s citizens have become because of it.

Just going outside the castle, there were no more people dying of hunger, the labor force increased with colonial slaves, and open trade created a venue of peace between neighboring countries.

As there is light because there is darkness, there is happiness because there is misfortune, and people want peace because there is chaos and war.

So, Mel.

“This is absolutely necessary.”

You who are infinitely gentle don’t need to know about these things.

Though darkness and light, misfortune and happiness, chaos and peace exist in the world, he intended to fill Melissa’s world only with light, happiness, and peace.

She was Selheim’s little lamb in one of his few enclosures, and he had no intention of harming his cute lamb.

But there was no such thing as a predetermined future. How variable the future is.

The Grey family that had been solid for over half a century crumbled in an instant, and he faced separation in life from the person he thought would be together forever.

That was not what Selheim wanted.

The Imperial family was the empire’s backbone. And Melissa Grey was included in the elements that made up that backbone that was Selheim.

Well, think about it. Since she was born, when she was a baby who couldn’t even walk properly, everyone told me.

“Your Highness Crown Prince, this child will become your consort in the future.”

When she first walked, when she ran, when she hid behind Duke Grey’s legs, when she held out candy with her small fern-like hands, when she called “Selheim!” and jumped into his arms, how could I forget all those moments I remember.

“Forget it.”

How could I forget that, Mother.

“Now form marriage ties with a family that will truly support you. That’s the way for you to live comfortably from now on.”

Then all the future I’ve protected until now becomes an illusion.

Selheim quietly smiled remembering the Empress’s words. A gentle smile spread across his face.

His long silver hair that reached his waist scattered dazzlingly. The wind blew shaking the white curtains by the window, and Melissa woke up in an unfamiliar bed.

Seeing the woman blinking her eyes still drowsy with sleep, Selheim gave a cheerful greeting.

“Hello, Mel.”