It was during the time Delilah used to accompany her mother to the imperial palace. In a small annex beside the palace lived a beautiful boy, confined and unseen by the world. Delilah was the only outsider permitted to visit him.

The single year she spent with that boy remained an irreplaceable memory. A happiness she could never forget, and a despair she could never speak of.

The chill touch on her skin pulled her back to the present, and her blurred vision slowly came into focus. Before her stood the man that boy had become.

His dark hair. Black as a twilight sky. Fell loosely along his neck. Between his thick, upward lashes gleamed eyes filled with an intoxicating heat, beauty sharp enough to wound. He seemed impossibly vivid, standing there amidst the darkness where nothing else could be clearly seen.

The face of the boy she once knew overlapped with this new image, the boy who had once known no freedom now stood as the Crown Prince of the Adenbarque Empire.

The man gazing down at her, expression unreadable, was Vicente Delmar Adenbarque, the empire’s one and only heir.

Delilah had not even been invited to his investiture ceremony; a reunion with him had never once crossed her mind. A fallen noblewoman and a crown prince had no reason to ever meet.
In truth, it was better that way. To show herself to him now, like this, wretched and disgraced, was far crueler than never meeting again.

And yet…

Unlike the suffocating fear that had weighed on her moments ago, her heart now pounded violently. Delilah bit her slightly parted lip, trying to come to her senses. Only then did she hear Luan’s faint breathing beside her.

This wasn’t the time for such thoughts.

Tearing her gaze from the man who had changed beyond recognition, she tried to turn her head away. But Vicente’s hand still gripped her face, making even that futile.

When he finally released her and straightened, his shadow fell over her completely. There was nothing left of the boy she once knew, only a cold, impassive face that made her shudder.

His eyes swept over her, lingering where her wounds marked her skin. His fingers brushed the tender flesh, prying slightly, as if testing her pain.

Delilah flinched, her brows knitting, but no answer left her lips. Her silence grated on Vicente’s patience.

“You should tell me what this misunderstanding is, only then can I decide whether you live or die.”

The boy she had once known, the one who spoke kindly, who listened earnestly, was gone. The Vicente before her had changed not only in face but in soul. His voice still carried the same low gentleness, but now it commanded, controlled, overpowered.

That difference made something deep in Delilah’s chest ache with a strange, sharp pain.

***

The Imperial Palace of Adenbarque hid many secrets. Among them, two rumors persisted, whispered only behind closed doors.

First: the late empress had not died of illness. Second: Emperor Basilir had a hidden child.

They were the kind of scandals every kingdom knew. A ruler entangled with a mistress, such gossip barely raised an eyebrow. No one condemned the emperor for keeping multiple consorts; after all, he was a man of power.

But an illegitimate son, that was different.

Children born of concubines could never be recognized as royals. And yet, Emperor Basilir’s reaction to the rumors was… extraordinary. Every family that dared to whisper about the hidden child was wiped out completely.

The emperor, once known for both his ferocity and fairness, showed no mercy toward those who insulted his bloodline.

When His Majesty finally dismissed his many lovers, one woman, the lovely Giselle Bruggen, entrusted her personal maid, Katarina Earl, with a secret task: to bring her own child into the palace.

Loyal Katarina could not refuse her mistress’s command. To disobey was to defy the emperor’s will itself. Even if it meant endangering her family and her child.

“Del, remember this. Whatever happens in the palace, whatever you see or hear, you must never speak of it to anyone.”

Katarina tucked a loose strand of her daughter’s pale hair gently behind her ear. Delilah, giggling softly at her mother’s touch, had no idea why her mother’s eyes looked so heavy.

Katarina could not erase the guilt of her decision, though she tried to believe it was the only way.

And so, Delilah came to meet the child whispered about in secret.

Vicente Delmar Adenbarque. The emperor’s hidden son.

She had first seen him perched on a window ledge, swinging his legs idly. His skin was so pale it seemed translucent, his hair dark enough to swallow light. They were almost the same height, two children of similar age. One was summoned regularly by Giselle, the emperor’s mistress.

Among the dull-faced servants who obeyed only his orders within the secluded annex, the girl had been different. She neither approached him with false sweetness nor shrank away in fear.

Instead, she blushed faintly, her pale eyes shining with curiosity, as though daring to look at him, to see him.

Perhaps that was why the cold, aloof boy, who seldom smiled, had lifted the corner of his lips that day and spoken first.

“Hello. I’m Vicente. And you are?”

If anyone else had tried such a hesitant smile, it might have seemed awkward. But on that ethereal boy, even the smallest curve of his lips bloomed like sunlight.

That was how he looked to Delilah. A boy prettier than any girl, smiling at her.

Just that simple expression made her ears burn.

She had thought him a dream when his face was still and expressionless,  but when he smiled, she realized he was real. And that realization embarrassed her for reasons she didn’t understand.

“A-ah, hello… I’m Delilah Earl…”

Hello? Of all things, she said hello. Delilah’s cheeks flushed crimson. There must have been a more graceful greeting than that. Her nerves had betrayed her.

Fiddling with the edge of her skirt, she felt her face grow hotter as Vicente laughed aloud. But his laughter was so gentle, so bright, that she couldn’t help but laugh with him.

The young girl who had once made every onlooker’s heart tighten grew close to the hidden child of the empire. Vicente was never without Delilah at his side, and Delilah, in turn, felt her heart stir at the thought that she might be the only one he had.

Yet Delilah was merely the offering that Giselle, the emperor’s mistress, had chosen to send into the annex. The only success among many failures, a girl meant to shape the lonely prince into something perfect.

Her role was to teach him restraint. To carve away emotion. To make him into a flawless royal who trusted no one.

Giselle had rejoiced at the result, her pathetic, sentimental son growing into someone molded by her will. It was this ‘success’ that had raised the Earls’ family rank from barony to county.

Delilah, though, had been nothing but a frightened child. She hadn’t known what was right or wrong. She pitied Vicente, trapped as he was, and that pity had grown into something she couldn’t name.

And when Giselle discovered that affection, when she saw through Delilah’s heart, she punished her.

The wound that had left a scar across Delilah’s skin had not healed even after ten years. Sometimes, it still burned, as if reminding her of her sin: of the forbidden warmth she once felt for the boy who would become Crown Prince Vicente Delmar Adenbarque.

More than anything, she feared he might have learned the truth, that she had been nothing but a pawn. That even her feelings for him could be dismissed as another deceit.

And that fear, more than pain itself, had haunted her ever since.

***

“Do I need to repeat myself?”

Vicente’s voice was calm, but the indifference in it struck her harder than any blow. Delilah froze. Does he… not remember me?

The thought made tears sting her eyes. Had all those days they spent together meant nothing to him?
Or was this his revenge, for the girl who disappeared without a word?

A part of her thought it might be better if he truly didn’t remember. The memory of Lady Giselle’s punishment still throbbed beneath her skin, a scar that itched even after a decade had passed.

Vicente let out a quiet, humorless laugh. Then his hand shot forward, gripping her chin and forcing her head up so sharply that her knees nearly left the floor.

Her gaze, finally meeting his, wavered with a low, involuntary whimper.

Vicente’s eyes narrowed slightly as he studied her face,  her flushed cheeks, her trembling lips, her breath quick and shallow.

Every inch of her skin was tinged with color, her eyes, her nose, the cheek he had touched.

Suppressing a sudden impulse, he tapped her chin twice with his finger, silently demanding an answer.

Delilah’s lips parted. Her voice came out frail and uneven.

“Our family… we did not commit treason. My father, Count Marcel, doesn’t even have that kind of power. The Earl family has long since lost all its influence…”

Each word scraped her throat raw. To confess her family’s ruin so plainly before him was agony. She couldn’t read his expression, there was nothing in his face, nothing to cling to.

She’d thought she had already reached the lowest depths of humiliation. But humiliation, she learned, had no bottom.

“I see, that’s why your father sold the title so easily, then…”

The words struck her harder than any slap. Her head dropped, too stunned to react.

Sold… the title?

To whom?

“Marcel sold it to a traitor.” 

Vicente answered before she could even form the question aloud.

Even if he had, the explanation made no sense. Her father might have been reckless, even cruel, but not to that extent. To sell a title was treason in itself, a crime that would doom an entire family to ruin.

Delilah stared at him, disbelief flooding her gray eyes. Even though it was the Crown Prince who had spoken, she couldn’t accept it. She needed to hear it from her father’s own lips.

“I’ll, I’ll speak with my father. There must be some mistake!”