【 Prologue 】

“I’ll give you my father, Your Majesty.”

Empress Calie of the Pellion Empire calmly declared while looking at her husband, Emperor Leian. His green eyes trembled quietly.

“In exchange, please promise me one thing.”

Calie quickly added. Leian stared at his wife silently before speaking.

“What is it?”

“Divorce me.”

Calie answered as if she had been waiting for this moment, just as he asked. Leian’s gaze darkened.

“All you need to do is divorce me, Your Majesty.”

Finally, just as you wanted from the beginning.

【 The Couple’s Days and Nights 】

Calie was the Empress of the Empire, and Leian was the Emperor. Though they were married, in reality they were less than strangers to each other.

They hadn’t always been this distant. Looking back at the past, one could see they once had a very special relationship.

But that was now merely a memory of the past, and at twenty-five years old, Calie Lucaen had grown accustomed to being treated by her husband as less important than a pebble in the imperial garden. Quite bitterly so.

Of course, Leian was a responsible Emperor who didn’t neglect his duty as a monarch to produce an heir.

So despite their awkwardness, the couple faithfully shared a bed on predetermined dates each month.

But despite their diligent conjugal relations for nearly five years, there was still no child between them, and people had begun to whisper.

The arrows of unpleasant gossip were mainly directed at the Empress rather than the Emperor. People still lived in an unequal society where women were more easily criticized than men for anything.

Perhaps the Empress had fertility issues, maybe she was actually barren, the Emperor’s heart had drifted away because his wife couldn’t fulfill her duties……

“Oh my, Your Majesty the Empress. You look beautiful today as well.”

“Indeed. No one will be able to compare to Your Majesty at today’s ball. Though that’s always the case.”

“How could the Emperor possibly look at another woman when he has someone as beautiful as Your Majesty……”

The fact that people openly mocked her even at the imperial ball clearly showed how Calie was treated in social circles.

“Another woman, what?”

Calie smiled brightly. Her normally puppy-like round and kind eyes narrowed into a sharp impression with her cold smile.

“Why stop mid-sentence, lady? If you start a sentence, you should know how to finish it.”

“I beg your pardon, Your Majesty? I’m not sure what you mean.”

The noblewoman who had been maliciously smiling behind her fan immediately widened her eyes innocently as she looked at Calie. Calie’s smile deepened.

‘I wish I could just grab her by the hair.’

A rather fierce thought crossed her mind. But realistically, there was no way to put such thoughts into action. The powerless Empress could only smile.

This was the position of the unloved Empress Calie Lucaen. Nothing changed even though she was the daughter of Duke Lucaen, who boasted unlimited power in this country.

With the Emperor ignoring her and no child after five years of marriage, how could Calie assert herself in social circles?

To be honest, Calie thought it was a miracle she hadn’t been deposed yet.

Her husband hadn’t liked her from the beginning, and now that his imperial power was firmly established, he could discard her at any time.

‘Is he concerned about others’ opinions? But what would the Emperor have to lose?’

In this unequal society, the responsibility for divorce would be placed on the woman anyway. People would readily agree that separation was natural if a wife couldn’t produce an heir.

As Calie briefly contemplated divorce, she heard an unpleasant voice interrupting her thoughts. It was Duke Lucaen.

“Your Majesty the Empress.”

“…Duke Lucaen.”

Calie wanted to openly frown and turn away, but the eyes of others prevented her from doing so. Once again, she had to wear her mask.

“What is the Emperor thinking? When did he say he would send that woman away?”

It wasn’t just the sharp-tongued noblewomen who were annoying and painful. Calie was driven to madness by her father, the middle-aged Duke Lucaen, as well.

“Well, since he brought her in offering a position in the palace, I doubt he’ll send her away anytime soon. One can’t send someone hired to work at the palace away from the palace, can they?”

Calie responded indifferently to the Duke, who had approached under the pretext of dancing with his daughter and was now anxiously whispering to her. The Duke frowned deeply at her apathetic response.

“Is this really the time to be so nonchalant?”

‘Then what exactly do you want me to do?’

Calie wanted to scream out of frustration.

Everyone had always been like this, but why did they all seem particularly determined to devour her today?

In fact, Calie already knew the reason. The culprit was the Emperor, and the catalyst was his new maid.

Lillian Povel, a pitiful lady from a fallen baronet family, had recently come to the capital seeking employment.

The poor woman had accidentally caught the Emperor’s eye, and he immediately took pity on her. Thus, Lillian was able to work as a maid in the Emperor’s palace.

People whispered that the Emperor had taken a mistress.

For the past five years since his ascension, the Emperor had been as cold as stone toward women.

Of course, he faithfully shared a bed with the Empress each time, but wasn’t that just a dry and obligatory duty as husband and wife?

And suddenly, this man brought in a woman as a maid because he felt sorry for her?

It must be love! He’s finally straying. He fell in love at first sight. Miss Povel must be extraordinarily beautiful.

Is this the beginning of imperial romantic intrigue? People eagerly awaited the next development as if watching an exciting match.

Above all, they anticipated the Empress Calie’s reaction more than the Emperor’s and Lillian Povel’s.

‘This is so tiresome.’

The beautiful Emperor and Empress bound by a political marriage, and a pitiful beauty who came between them. It was like the plot of a trashy romance novel.

While observers might find it thrilling, Calie, as the person involved, was simply annoyed. No, “annoyed” wasn’t enough to describe her feelings.

‘Besides, what nonsense about him being cold as stone toward women…’

She inwardly sneered.

People whispered that the Emperor was like a wooden block toward the opposite s*x, being completely indifferent to the Empress yet not taking a mistress.

But whenever Calie heard such talk, she wanted to burst into laughter. The essence of that laughter was mockery.

To say Leian Pellion was like a wooden block was an ignorant assumption made by people who knew nothing.

‘Well, how would they know? Unless some madman hid in the Emperor and Empress’s bedroom to spy on them.’

Leian Pellion was a lofty Emperor who strictly separated public and private matters, remained calm in all situations, and handled state affairs with sharp and cold precision.

That was the surface—the elegant and capable monarch that everyone knew, the face shown to all his subjects.

But Calie knew another side of him. A side permitted only to his wife, the Empress.

Usually, the couple used separate chambers, with the Emperor in the Emperor’s Palace and the Empress in the Empress’s Palace. But on the predetermined dates each month for their conjugal duties, they shared the marital bedroom in the Moon Palace.

Each time, the Emperor appeared with an extremely reluctant attitude, and the Empress maintained an expressionless face, not wanting to smile brightly at a husband who openly avoided her.

Looking only at this, one might easily assume that the couple’s nights were equally cold and bland. Calie also thought so at first.

‘Beast.’

She thought dispassionately, without particular malice. She didn’t specifically want to insult the Emperor. She was merely grasping an objective fact.

‘The Emperor is a beast.’

To be precise, he was a beast in heat. At least at night, he was.

Were all men such simple creatures? How could he so passionately mingle bodies with an Empress from a political marriage, the daughter of his political enemy, a woman he disliked?

Despite receiving thorough imperial s*x education as the prospective Crown Princess from long ago, Calie nearly fainted from shock on her wedding night. The gap between theory and practice was truly enormous.

The Emperor persistently bit, sucked, and licked his wife with shocking intensity, then thrust his manhood into her body until she begged him to stop, crying from dizzying pleasure.

Even after ej*culating hotly inside her, he wouldn’t let her go, gently caressing her limp body, devouring her br*asts, and kissing between her legs.

Calie was dizzy from this unexpected passion. She wondered how he could behave this way when he maintained a stiff expression until undressing, and still never uttered a single word of love or even liking.

Even more bewildering, the very next morning, the Emperor would treat the Empress like a stranger again. Respectfully, as one would treat an honored guest, but without a trace of affection.

The Emperor’s dual nature, so different between day and night, confused Calie.

“Father, I have no authority to dictate the personnel matters of the Emperor’s Palace. I may manage everywhere else, but not the Emperor’s Palace. You know that.”

Calie shook off her lewd reminiscence and focused on the present. The annoying father before her was as troublesome as her indifferent husband.

Between the two, Calie preferred her husband. The Emperor might be cold, but at least he wasn’t ugly.

“So whether His Majesty picks up a woman from outside the palace to make her a maid or a jester, I have no power to stop it. It’s entirely at His Majesty’s discretion.”

Although Calie was officially the highest authority on palace personnel as the mistress of the imperial household, the Emperor’s direct servants and maids were beyond the Empress’s jurisdiction.

“At least speak to His Majesty about it. As the Empress, you should be able to do that much.”

The Duke’s tone felt quite hurtful to Calie, as if criticizing: you’re the Empress, why can’t you even do that much?

“I understand.”

Calie responded calmly. Dealing with her father’s irritability was newly exhausting.

Even after the dance ended and she escaped from the Duke, her trials were endless. She soon faced the Empress Dowager, her mother-in-law who had never welcomed her.

The Empress Dowager was also today’s guest of honor. This ball was held to celebrate her birthday.

“I greet Your Majesty the Empress Dowager. Congratulations on your birthday.”

“Ah, Empress. You look particularly beautiful today.”