Prologue

The Emperor, Astaire III, was assassinated.

“Farewell, Astaire.”

As Valentine’s whisper faded, Astaire’s trembling hand brushed against the glass. The powerless glass flew through the air.

Crash! The sound of glass fragments shattering and scattering was sharp.

“Val… entine……”

Astaire muttered, squeezing out his last strength. His desperately outstretched hand rummaged through the glass shards. His bloodied fingertips, scratched by glass pieces, became entangled in the hem of Valentine’s red dress.

But it was only for a moment. Soon, Astaire remained motionless with his eyes wide open.

“……”

Valentine, looking down at Astaire, added a bitter smile.

Even a tyrant who had ruled the world was no different from the countless humans he had harmed when it came to dying. When stabbed with a sword, he bled the same red blood, and when he drank poison, he suffered in pain. Then he stopped breathing.

Eventually, Valentine intertwined a farewell with a low sigh.

“Goodbye.”

Without lingering, Valentine took her eyes off the corpse, straightened her back, and stared out the window. It was the promised time. The army was approaching.

Now is the time for rebellion.

* * *

Astaire III was a tyrant.

Ascending to the throne at the young age of ten, he was cruel from birth. He knew nothing of forgiveness or tolerance, only resentment and hatred.

He cut off the wrist of a maid who accidentally spilled tea on his knee. During a famine, he executed all the subjects who came to the government office begging for food. He tore out the tongue of an official who advised that Astaire’s actions were too cruel.

Everyone shuddered at his cruelty. But because he was still young, just an immature boy, they tried hard to guide him on the right path, believing he would improve with age.

But Astaire grew up just as he was in his childhood. The Emperor plunged the once prosperous empire into ruin with his brutal tyranny.

Those who could no longer endure the Emperor’s tyranny finally raised the flag of rebellion.

“─For Sehera.”

People gathered around the Emperor’s uncle, Grand Duke Cassian Pendragon. Those who rose solely for the reconstruction of the Empire of Sehera invaded the imperial palace without hesitation.

The imperial castle, once like an iron fortress, opened its doors to welcome the rebels. Believing that even this was God’s protection for them, the rebels penetrated deep into the palace at once.

Thus, they reached the Emperor’s bedchamber. There, the rebels encountered the Emperor’s maîtresse-en-titre, Valentine de le Blumir, known as the notorious seductress. The Duchess of Blumir and Marguerite, commonly called Madame Marguerite.

“……”

It was a strange─ atmosphere.

On the luxurious red carpet lay a corpse with blood trickling from its mouth.

The state of the corpse was ridiculous. The ill-fitting bright golden crown was half-removed and dangling, and the red silk cape was crumpled on the floor. The bloodied fingertips barely grasped the hem of his beloved concubine’s dress.

The Emperor, who had been the rebels’ target, was already dead.

In this situation that no one could easily understand, the Emperor’s maîtresse-en-titre, who was sitting calmly, suddenly smiled.

It was as if the surroundings became dizzyingly bright. A sweet and dreamy sensation rushed in like a tidal wave, as if in a dream.

She, who brought all these hallucinations, gracefully rose from her seat. Looking at one of the rebels who had suddenly burst into the bedchamber, she opened her red lips.

“Brother.”

Her clear, ringing voice was incredibly pure. At her sudden action, people finally took in the breath they didn’t realize they had been holding. A belated thought invaded their minds.

Could a person be this beautiful?

Her radiant golden hair swirled. Her elegant features seemed as if they would shatter in the morning sunlight. The gaze of Liam, the rebel leader, who was staring at her, so dazzling as if she didn’t belong to this world, became mysterious.

Click, click. The elegant sound of footsteps soaked the quiet room. The hem of her red dress fluttered with her stride. A bizarre presence as if she alone existed in this world.

Her red lips, standing in front of Liam, trembled like flower petals.

“I’ve been waiting.”

Her voice directed at Liam was warm. Her enchanting purple eyes curved beautifully. She even welcomed him in this situation.

Unlike the widespread rumors of her being a notorious villainess, she now looked like a saint welcoming a god.

A white hand slowly reached out and caressed Liam’s cheek. In that terrible warmth, Liam de le Blumir blinked once, heavily.

When there was no answer, she asked, urging him.

“Where’s Cassian?”

……Liam knew.

Valentine de le Blumir was the prime contributor to this rebellion.

Without her, this rebellion itself could not have been established. They couldn’t have had the opportunity to save the declining empire and comfort the backs of the suffering subjects.

A fact that the leadership of the rebel army couldn’t not know. The only truth.

Nevertheless.

“……I’m sorry.”

Liam, barely muttering, drew his sword. He pushed a few cruel words into her delicate ear that had come close.

As his words continued, Valentine’s eyes widened in shock.

Liam took a couple of steps away from her. Until then, she was frozen in shock and couldn’t move her body.

Soon, with a swish, Liam’s sword drew a chilling trajectory. With a cruel sound, Valentine, who couldn’t even scream, collapsed to the floor with a thud.

As Valentine barely moved her lips, Liam’s trembling voice echoed.

“The Emperor’s maîtresse-en-titre assassinated the Emperor.”

‘Why, how……’

Ridiculously, the cheers of many people could be heard.

Tears of blood dripped on Valentine’s pale cheeks as she was sucked into the pitch-black pit of death.

“Now, the tyrant, Astaire de la Flue is no more. A new era of the Pendragon dynasty will begin.”

Liam’s tear fell with a plop onto Valentine’s back as he recited coldly.

The tyrant’s mistress, Valentine de le Blumir, met her death like this.

* * *

The enchantress who ruined the Empire of Sehera, and the Emperor’s official mistress who assassinated the Emperor.

The corpse of Valentine de le Blumir, who bore all the dishonor in the world, was simply discarded in a barren place.

Fine dust accumulated on the abandoned corpse. The dust became soil and stones, forming a shabby pile that could barely be called a grave.

Those who followed and admired her during her lifetime, her brother, even her lover. No one visited her grave. Even those who used to curse her actions couldn’t come to her grave to spit on it.

The afterlife of a villain is lonely and desolate. Valentine de le Blumir, who was robbed even of her death, would forever be remembered as a villainess on people’s lips, leaving only infamy in history books.

However,

One day, as time flowed into years, someone came to visit the lonely grave.

Jet-black hair fluttered as if the night sky had descended. His red eyes, not seeming to belong to this world, were cold. His tightly closed lips made his impression even more chilling.

The man, who seemed to have risen from the abyss, was captivating. His unique decadent atmosphere drew attention.

The beautiful man gazed at the grave for a while with a lowered gaze.

After a long time, the dry soil mound of the grave roughly writhed. A thick dust settled on the overturned earth. The soil mound cried loudly.

Through that gap, a hand suddenly emerged.

The lonely protruding fingertips rummaged through the dry soil mound. The decaying flesh faded in the pure white moonlight. The exposed bone joints were pale to the point of being sickly.

It danced pitifully, wandering aimlessly in the sorrowful grave. Then gradually, it revealed its form.

A slender wrist, a bony forearm, a small shoulder, a slender neck, and a face……

The feebly struggling hand overturned the shabby grave. Finally, a person rose abruptly from the dust.

“……”

She, who took a rough breath, looked down at her hands. The black rose that had boasted its beauty under the brilliant sunlight now greeted the cold moonlight as a rotten figure buried in a pile of dirt. Maggots swarmed and flies flew around her decaying skin.

Nevertheless, she moved. As if alive. Although her once brilliant golden hair had lost its color, and her once lively purple eyes had lost their light, she trembled her hands and feet.

There was a cold gaze observing her miserable state. With a creak, her pale lips moved, twisting her head grotesquely.

“Who… are you?”

— Your wish to be saved, to live, called me.

It was a strange cry. Words that seemed to be conveyed to the heart rather than heard by the ears.

— Now, I’ve granted your first wish.

“Is this what you call saving me?”

She spat out fiercely, shaking her wrist. With a clatter, the exposed yellowish bones made a grotesque sound as they twisted. Soil dust and maggots flowed from the wounds that had not yet disappeared.

The man didn’t blink an eye at her grotesque appearance. He only asked back in a calm voice.

— What made you a vengeful spirit and called me?

‘What.’

Valentine chewed on the question.

Her ugly past, the future she couldn’t walk, flashed before her rotten eyes. Her eyes, having lost their light, sank coldly.

“I……”

Her pale lips parted. Beyond her sunken gaze, a rough flame bloomed with a flare. A gloomy, sunken voice squeezed through her lips.

“I will kill that person.”

In the frozen world, only the love that had turned to ashes remained, burning fiercely in that place.