The cargo ship’s horn blared loudly.

“I should go now.”

Rael stepped back from Melissa’s embrace. The pier connecting land and ship rattled. The weather was a bit humid and stuffy, and white seagulls circled above the ship in the blue sky as though it was cheering for the upcoming departure.

“Please take care of my sister, brother-in-law.”

Reizen nodded with a picture-perfect smile. As Rael boarded the ship, the sailors raised the anchor. A coal-covered worker ran down the ship’s stairs, shouting loudly to increase the speed.

The massive ship loaded with cargo made creaking sounds as it turned in place. Once the swaying ship found its direction, it created waves as it moved away from the dock.

It was the moment the twins were separated the farthest since birth. As the ship grew smaller beyond the horizon, Reizen asked from beside her.

“Do you feel sad?”

“Sometimes there are emotions you can’t put a name to.”

He naturally wrapped his arm around Melissa’s shoulders as they walked. When he opened the passenger door, Melissa took his hand and got in the car, continuing to speak.

“I feel both sad and relieved. It seems we were binding each other because we’re family. I tried to take responsibility for Rael when I could barely take care of myself, and Rael tried to protect me thinking I couldn’t adapt to a new life because I was fragile.”

“Such good sisters.”

“Foolish sisters, rather.”

Melissa corrected Reizen’s words with a gentle smile.

“We collapsed because we tried to carry each other on our shoulders when we couldn’t even handle our own lives. We should have stood up straight ourselves first.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, that was the best you could do then.”

Reizen glanced at Melissa while turning the steering wheel. Melissa wore a heartaching expression and appeared to be about to cry before composing her lips.

“You’re right. We did our best.”

It was a past that couldn’t be changed unless they could turn back time. There was no meaning in regretting it now. There was no need to keep stabbing her heart by recalling those times.

Even knowing this, the pain from then wouldn’t fade. It seemed it would affect her throughout her life, following her around to torment her and bring up regrets.

Melissa couldn’t find a way to manage this pain.

It felt like living with a time bomb in her heart that could explode at any moment.

She wanted stability, but having decided to stay by that man’s side, she couldn’t shake off the anxiety that this bomb would explode someday.

Especially after becoming certain about his involvement in the revolution…

‘Rael said I need to face reality and become stronger.’

Melissa steadied her heart, remembering Rael’s words. From now on, she really had to become strong.

The car wound along a different coastline than the one they came on. Taking off her hat and holding it in her hand as the wind blew, Melissa took in the vast sea with her eyes.

The sunlight was hot.

At three in the afternoon when the sun’s glitter on the water was most beautiful.

Silver powder seemed scattered across the sea, sparkling. She remembered the villa where she went on vacation with her grandfather long ago. The fish scales under the sunset there had been this beautiful.

Like this man’s golden hair.

Melissa’s eyes quietly took in Reizen’s profile in the driver’s seat. His blue eyes, glimpsed unexpectedly, were unbelievably calm. As if all the smiles he’d been wearing all day were lies.

This was the best they could do.

The two of them were now doing their best to hide from each other while pretending everything was fine.

* * *

After Reizen left, the Empress’s palace never knew a quiet day.

“Get out! Get out of my sight!”

Along with the Empress’s thunderous command, vases shattered and maids’ crying wouldn’t stop.

The Empress’s words ordering someone to bring a cane to personally teach the maids proper manners, along with a maid’s sobbing pleas, could be heard even in the corridor.

“Mother is healthy today as well.”

Owen, the second prince who came out of the library dangling a single book, lifted the corners of his mouth in satisfaction.

The attendant assigned by his mother looked at the prince with desperate eyes, asking if he shouldn’t try to stop this.

“Since you’ve come this far, why not pay your respects in person? A poor maid must be waiting for her savior, Your Highness.”

Is that really so?

Owen shrugged his shoulders with playful eyes.

“I don’t want to.”

The man with short silver hair and glasses had quite a pretty face, though not as much as his two brothers.

A body that had been driven from the palace at fourteen for being lame and spent a lifetime wandering foreign lands.

He was closer to being a commoner outside these constraints than someone with the identity of a royal family member and the Empress’s son.

Even the half-blooded Gerion, called the worst bloodline in this empire, had risen to the position of judge in the imperial palace, yet he, with the noble Rovellion royal blood to his bones, could never return to his homeland because of his disability.

His father, the Emperor, had tried to kill him for not being beautiful, and his mother was so ashamed of his disability that she cut off his healthy siblings’ ankles.

Seeing Owen’s situation fall into the abyss in an instant, Selheim had used him as an example to desperately protect his own safety.

His crippled brother was sent overseas with no care whether he lived or died, never responding to letters, and when he returned after 13 years, he forcibly branded the little sister they had been close to as children.

What kind of madman does that?

Moreover, Mel was already married to Reizen.

Enraged by this, the Empress had called in Owen as a counterforce against Selheim.

‘The son she had abandoned overseas for 13 years.’

Was she in her right mind? There was no way he could be a match for Selheim after wandering abroad for 13 years.

‘Are you telling me to die, or what?’

This palace was insane. It was full of nothing but madmen.

So he hadn’t wanted to return.

‘Why would I come here?’

Owen turned his back on the Empress’s palace with cold eyes.

“Your Highness.”

When the attendant behind him babbled the same thing, Owen cut him off sharply.

“Don’t dare command me. You’ve been by my side since the library, so you know the circumstances of this situation, don’t you? How can you overlook my mother’s fault and ask me to save a maid?”

The flustered attendant bowed his head restlessly.

“But, Your Highness.”

He had been uncomfortable with the attendant’s attitude of looking down on him more than other royals. He was about to get angry and say he would find his own way now that he remembered the palace layout.

“Owen.”

A gentle voice was heard.

“It’s been a while.”

The brother he met after 13 years was beyond imagination.

The man standing below the corridor was beautiful as if a god had descended. If the beauty the Emperor always muttered about existed in reality, it would be exactly this person.

Owen bit his lips hard.

“Yeah, it has been a while since seeing you in person?”

Though I’ve often seen the assassins you sent.

At Owen’s words, Selheim smiled with longing eyes. Then he stepped closer and pulled Owen into an embrace.

Owen tried to stand his ground to avoid being dragged, but because of his bad left leg, he ended up awkwardly falling into Selheim’s embrace.

“So.”

Selheim stroked Owen’s head and spoke in a choked voice.

“Why did you come, you fool? You shouldn’t have come.”

“I didn’t want to come eith-!”

“I lost Mel because of you.”

“…What?”

Owen wore a genuinely dumbfounded expression, unable to understand what he’d just heard.

“Mother is too much, isn’t she?”

“Let go!”

Owen tried to break free as he sensed something wrong, but Selheim held him tight and grabbed his hair, refusing to let go.

“She called you to the palace to provoke me. To make me this angry.”

“Y-you, what are you doing! Why aren’t you stopping His Highness!”

Owen had been physically weak since childhood. Moreover, with his bad leg, he avoided movement and only read books. It was impossible for him to match Selheim, who had trained his body his whole life.

Selheim was insane. Not knowing what this man might do, Owen pleaded while his hair was grabbed.

“Wh-why aren’t you pulling him off, I say!”

However, the attendant pretended not to notice and left the scene.

‘I’ll deal with that bastard later!’

Owen ground his teeth and turned his gaze. Suddenly Selheim’s face was close to his nose. He strangled Owen’s neck with one hand.

The frightening thing was that Selheim’s expression remained incredibly peaceful while doing this.

“Kh, ugh!”

His feet left the ground as his neck was strangled. It felt like his neck bones would be crushed at any moment. Not only could he not breathe, but his face turned dark red as blood couldn’t circulate.

Just as Owen’s eyes were about to roll back white, the Empress approached and slapped Selheim’s cheek.

Slap!

“You’ve crossed the line now!”

But Selheim didn’t stop and instead strangled Owen’s neck with both hands.

“Since you wish to remove me, Mother, I am merely carrying out my means of survival.”

“Selheim!”

“This is what you taught me, Mother.”

Selheim smiled, showing his teeth with an angelic, perfect smile painted on. The Empress’s face turned white at the sight, which was quite grotesque.