“Don’t say such things.”

Valentine, who had always been gentle and obedient, now spoke words of reproach.

“Tina.”

“Why are you killing a living child?”

If anyone else had spoken to Astaire like that, he would have cut off their head immediately. But even for Astaire, it was a moment when he couldn’t utter a single word.

Valentine’s greatly widened gaze trembled.

“Why… Why on earth…”

Her trembling hand grasped Astaire’s. Her hand, moving as if groping empty space, touched Valentine’s flat lower abdomen. An anguished voice continued.

“In, in a few months, it would have been born. With eyes that resemble me so much, and my beloved you…”

Unable to continue, Valentine stopped speaking. Shocked, she couldn’t even shed tears. Only the light in her once-brilliant eyes had disappeared.

Unable to offer any words of comfort, Astaire held Valentine in his arms and soothed her. It seemed as if her deep sorrow was being fully transmitted.

A few days later, when the physician came to check on Valentine’s condition…

“Madame Marguerite, how are you feeling?”

“I’m fine.”

Valentine, who had been organizing her thoughts for the past few days, murmured. Her fingertips brushed her now-empty womb.

“The child… I can conceive again.”

It wasn’t that she truly believed this. It was just something she said to comfort her wounded self.

The child who had left would not return, but it was impossible to undo what had already happened. Also, there was nothing that would change by being immersed in sorrow. Above all, the longer Valentine remained dejected, the more Astaire would run wild with no one to stop him during that time.

That wasn’t what Cassian wanted.

But…

“…Madame Marguerite.”

The physician’s voice was intertwined with a deep sigh and anguish. The physician whispered calmly.

“Regrettably, Madame Marguerite, you will not be able to conceive a child again.”

Valentine blinked once, doubting her own ears. After a beat, she asked again.

“What? What did you just say…?”

“Your womb was already weak to begin with, and this miscarriage has had an adverse effect. I must regretfully inform you… that life will never again take root in your womb, Madame Marguerite.”

The physician, speaking in an utterly professional manner, added one more comment as if to comfort her.

“A child isn’t everything in life. I hope you won’t hurt yourself further. You must collect yourself and stand up again.”

“……”

The physician rose from his chair and quietly left. Valentine sat in her place for a while, rolling her unfocused eyes.

The physician’s words echoed in her ears.

‘Regrettably, Madame Marguerite, you will not be able to conceive a child again.’

No one had ordered it. There wasn’t particularly any consciousness that something needed to be done. But purely, instinctively, her trembling hand moved toward her lower abdomen.

An empty, coldly abandoned body.

Cassian’s beloved child had been here. Though it would have been pointed at as an illegitimate child, it was a child that carried the blood of her most beloved person and continued her bloodline.

She had lost such a child forever. Moreover, they say she can never again carry a child that resembles him and herself.

The merciless sun was setting. The shadows of the room’s decorations tilted, making sounds that echoed. At the moment when even noises that didn’t exist in reality felt cruel…

“Ahhh!”

At some point, a scream burst from Valentine’s lips, who had been watching all of this. If she didn’t scream, she couldn’t bear this situation, this reality.

Her wandering, lost hands overturned the neat table. The vase flew and the table glass shattered. The well-decorated room became a mess in an instant.

Valentine’s body collapsed onto the messy floor. Even though sharp glass fragments scratched and gouged her body, she couldn’t feel the pain.

“Ah, ahhh! Ah!”

Like a beast, she just cried and wailed. Tears and blood mixed as they flowed down her snow-white cheeks.

The cry of a mother who has lost her child is the most sorrowful thing in the world. Everyone just watched her wailing like a beast with pitying eyes. No one dared to reach out to Valentine’s sorrow and despair.

Until Astaire, who had heard the news belatedly, burst in, only Valentine’s sorrowful crying echoed distantly, following the sound of the setting sun.

“Valentine!”

As dusk was falling, Astaire stepped into the chaotic room. Astaire whispered, inappropriately calm.

“Please calm down. It’s alright.”

At Astaire’s words, Valentine shook her head continuously, trembling. She didn’t want to hear such words from Astaire right now.

If it weren’t for Astaire, none of this would have happened in the first place. She would have safely married Cassian, conceived a child, and the child would have been born amid everyone’s blessings without ever being called an illegitimate child.

“My child… who killed… who…”

Valentine stammered with endless despair flowing through her eyes. The answer was clear. The Empress and Astaire had killed it. Her child, the child she could never have again in her life.

She wanted to see Cassian. She needed the father of her child who could understand this pain, who could empathize with her feelings.

“My first and last… ah… ahhh!”

Tears rolled down from her delicate violet eyes. Her sorrowful shoulders heaved.

Astaire just stared at Valentine for a while. Her hair, wet with blood, tears, and sweat, was messily scattered. Valentine’s face, which had always been beautiful, was stained like a beast’s.

A woman half-mad with her own pain and despair, wailing, was truly an ugly sight. Nevertheless, it presented an odd sensation to the man who believed he had lost his offspring.

“Please dry your tears.”

Astaire, who had suddenly embraced Valentine, murmured.

“Don’t hurt yourself. Don’t grieve. I am a person who drowns in your tears and suffocates even in your sobbing breaths.”

Though it wasn’t intended, at this moment Astaire fell even deeper for Valentine.

“I will share your pain. I won’t let those who hurt and troubled you go unpunished.”

The tyrant of the world made the most dangerous vow. That cruel oath immediately manifested in action.

Upon returning to his palace, Astaire’s order fell.

“Execute the Empress who dared harm the Imperial Prince.”

Thus, the Empress who had been with Astaire since before his ascension was beheaded. The Empress’s family, the Ingrid County, was butchered together.

Astaire displayed all the cruelty he could show. Therefore, even the Empress’s pitiful corpse could not rest in the ground.

Astaire made wine from the dead body. Even that alone was an outrageous act, but he went one step further.

Astaire ostentatiously displayed that wine in the middle of the Imperial City and even bestowed it upon visitors to the Imperial Palace. Many nobles trembled at Astaire’s cruelty.

“……”

However, Valentine, who had gone half-mad after learning about her physical condition, watched it all impassively.

Until just recently, she had felt pity for the Empress.

She felt sorry for the Empress who married Astaire because of their betrothal in the womb, who couldn’t even breathe freely, who lived as Astaire’s shield.

‘How dare I.’

Now it was just a distant mockery of cheap sympathy.

All humans were selfish beings. Valentine was no exception. Everything paled in the face of her own misfortune.

She couldn’t bear her hatred for the Empress who had prevented her from meeting her child, her only joy in this hell, and made it impossible to ever conceive again.

In the face of her own terrible hell, the tragedies of others didn’t register in her eyes. Rather, she considered it payment for what they had done.

That incident completely changed Valentine into a different person. Ironically, the one who most rejoiced in Valentine’s change was Cassian.

“I couldn’t… protect our child. I’m sorry.”

At a noble banquet where they met again after a month, Valentine embraced Cassian’s neck. Cassian, stroking Valentine’s red and delicate eyes with his fingertips, whispered.

“It’s alright. As long as you’re safe, that’s all that matters.”

“Even if I can never have a child again?”

Valentine’s eyes, looking up at Cassian, were brimming with tears. A woman who couldn’t give an heir — it was one of the reasons for divorce that even God permitted.

Cassian gently caressed Valentine’s cheek.

“Such things are not more important than you, Belle. Haven’t I already sworn to live my life loving only you?”

Cassian’s hand slid down. His hand, following her neckline downward, traced the contours of her feminine body.

“To me, you are more precious than any unborn child. Only you are precious.”

“Cassian…”

At that warm voice, Valentine cried and smiled. With Cassian by her side, she feared nothing.

While imprinting himself on Valentine, Cassian whispered softly.

“This year has seen a record-breaking famine.”

“Ah, yes. I’ve heard about it.”

“Suggest to Astaire that he should create a forest of meat and fill the pond with alcohol instead of water.”

Now that the Empress was gone, their next target was Astaire, who had dug his own grave.

* * *