If Kasiax shone arrogantly under the sun, as if he owned the world, then Maxim Lankert was like the ruler of darkness—mysterious and with an air of dangerous decadence.

His mere presence, even for a fleeting moment, felt like the cold north wind sweeping over to where she stood, sending chills down her spine.

Now, she could somewhat understand why people called him a monster or a demon.

“Oh my! Did you see that, my lady? They say he’s a monster, but he’s incredibly handsome!”

Natalie’s face lit up as if she had just been relieved of a great fear, as though she had truly believed the rumors that the castle’s master was some kind of beast or half-human creature.

“He doesn’t have horns on his head or a tail on his back! I saw it with my own eyes!”

“As if that were ever possible. A monster, really?”

“Oh, come on, my lady, you were worried too,” Natalie pouted, noticing how unbothered Rosé seemed even after seeing Maxim in person.

“Still, we can’t let our guard down. I’ve heard that men like him are often the craziest ones.”

“He’s like a merciless wolf.”

Rosé murmured to herself.

“Huh? Well, he’s completely black, but still, he’s more human than beast, don’t you think?”

“…I wonder if, in trying to escape Kasiax, I’ve ended up with an even worse hand.”

She muttered under her breath.

* * *

As she sat writing a letter home, Rosé lifted her head to glance out the window.

Whooooosh!

A fierce wind blew, making the curtains billow wildly into the room.

Heavy raindrops began to splatter against the window frame. She set down her quill and walked toward the window.

‘A storm is coming.’

The moment she gazed into the darkened sky—

Flash!

A bright streak of lightning split across the heavens, illuminating the surroundings instantly.

And in that brief moment, she saw something move.

‘What was that just now…?’

BOOM!

A deafening crash followed the lightning, shaking the ground.

Rosé leaned forward, searching for traces of what she had just seen. But the black shadow had vanished in an instant.

Closing the window, she folded her arms and paced the room, deep in thought.

‘They said the building next door was a chapel. Could it be a priest?’

During her stay here, aside from the maid who delivered their meals three times a day, no one else had come near the annex.

She hadn’t been officially confined, but she hadn’t expected to be left entirely alone like this either.

There weren’t even guards stationed outside their door to keep watch.

Seeing the wolves prowling around the castle grounds as if they owned the place, Rosé and Natalie had long abandoned any attempt to step outside.

She had assumed that now that Maxim Lankert had arrived, he would summon her immediately. But even after several days, there was no word from him.

She couldn’t be sure whether he was deliberately ignoring her or using this to insult Solstern. But she couldn’t simply wait here forever.

Regardless of whether the figure she had just seen was a priest or the steward who had visited before, she needed to meet someone—anyone.

And if that wasn’t possible, she’d have to create some sort of commotion outside just to get Maxim’s attention and make her presence known.

The thought of it spurred her into action without hesitation.

‘I can’t just sit here and rot!’

Rosé grabbed a robe from the wall without delay and threw it over her shoulders.

Since discovering Maxim Lankert was just an ordinary man, Natalie had been at ease, sleeping soundly in the room across the hall, even snoring.

Steeling herself, Rosé stepped out into the night, quickly disappearing into the rain.

She felt uneasy being alone, but nothing could happen in a sacred place like a chapel.

Creak—

She pushed open the heavy, black chapel doors. The only movement inside came from the flickering candlelight on the altar.

“What the… there’s no one here.”

Not a soul in sight. The tension drained from her, replaced by disappointment.

‘Then what was that shadow I saw earlier?’

Holding up her lamp, she scanned every corner of the empty chapel.

‘Huh? What’s that?’

A small entrance led to a stone staircase descending downward on one side of the chapel.

Should she turn back or go down?

Rosé hesitated at the entrance momentarily before stepping onto the stairs.

The air grew damp, and the stairway was dark, but she descended to the bottom, where a long corridor stretched before her.

It wasn’t unusual for noble estates to have underground passages connecting different buildings, so this didn’t seem remarkable.

‘Nothing here either.’

At the far end of the corridor, she spotted an antechamber. Such places were usually used to house the remains of ancestors, and Rosé had no interest in peering into someone else’s family crypt.

As curious as she was, she had no intention of prying into the tombs of the dead.

‘I must have mistaken something blowing in the wind for a person’s shadow.’

She decided to abandon her pointless curiosity and turned back toward the staircase.

‘Wait, what’s that?’

Rosé’s amethyst-like eyes gleamed as she caught sight of something.

Along the corridor walls, large portraits hung at regular intervals.

‘Hanging ancestral portraits in a place with no light? How utterly tasteless.’

Muttering to herself, she raised her lamp to get a closer look.

She was curious about the so-called great ancestors of the Lankert family.

According to history, the first emperor of Solstern rewarded the kings who had fought against foreign invaders by granting them sacred swords and noble titles.

But the king of Hellevant at the time, Yogos Lankert, had famously thrown his rewards to the ground and laughed like a madman before proclaiming before all:

“The Lankert family bows to no one! I do not recognize you as emperor! I will gladly accept the challenge if you wish to declare war!”

Then, in a single night, he led his army back to Hellevant.

Whether one chose to believe it or not, it was a well-known, almost legendary story.

When Rosé first heard the tale from her father, she was fascinated by the eccentric Lankert family.

Every time she imagined the emperor and the nobles’ stunned faces at that moment, she couldn’t help but chuckle.

‘Let’s see how impressive they were.’

As she examined each portrait, she found their arrogance palpable.

Pale skin, so white it was almost ghostly—a distinct feature of northern bloodlines. Golden eyes that looked down upon the world as if everything beneath them was insignificant. High noses, tightly pressed lips brimming with stubbornness.

The Lankert family had been called monsters and beasts.

But despite the fearsome rumors, they were undeniably handsome. Their cold, expressionless faces held no warmth, no kindness—so much so that their lack of emotion was evident even in the paintings.

Rosé thought back to the face of Maxim Lankert, whom she had glimpsed from afar.

‘As expected of his lineage. He fits right in among them.’

Shaking her head, she moved on to the next portrait. This time, it was a woman.

The moment she saw it, a gasp escaped her lips.

The woman in the portrait was undoubtedly the youngest daughter of the Marquess family, a military branch of the Solstern Imperial lineage.

Her thick golden-blonde hair, tinged with red like Rosé’s, was elegantly pinned up, and she gazed ahead with her head tilted slightly.

Her deep sapphire-blue eyes reminded Rosé of Kasiax’s, sending a sudden chill down her spine.

She had long heard rumors of the woman’s breathtaking beauty.

Now that she had seen the portrait in person, it was clear that the woman was even more stunning and noble than Rosé had imagined.

There was something empty in her gaze, something eerily similar to the atmosphere Maxim Lankert exuded.

‘Since she was a distant relative of the Imperial family, Maxim Lankert also has some Imperial blood in him.’

That thought left Rosé with an odd feeling.

Because it also meant that the same blood ran, even if just a single drop, through both Maxim Lankert and Kasiax.

In the brutal world of power, where even parents and children waged bloody battles over the throne, kinship meant little.

Whether cousins or distant relatives, blood ties were weaker than between strangers.

Neither Kasiax nor Maxim could exist under the same sky.

Before long, the two would have their swords at each other’s throats.

Imagining that moment, Rosé smirked to herself—

Then…

“A little cat has snuck in, I see.”