“What?”

“You married me because I’m the daughter of the Etoile family.”

Kasiax clicked his tongue in disbelief and lifted Rosé’s chin.

As he tapped her head with his other hand, he said,

“Don’t fool yourself. It’s not like you have noble blood—you are just the daughter of a lowly merchant family. Why would I ever be desperate for someone like you? Watching you flaunt your wealth as if it meant something has always been utterly repulsive.”

Rosé’s violet eyes stared straight at him.

Only now did she fully understand why her father, Count Jared Etoile, had been so concerned about her marriage to Kasiax.

Only now did she realize why her brothers always spoke ill of him in front of her.

Her father and brothers had already foreseen this.

“Look at yourself, Rosé. Where did that lovely, flower-like Rosé Etoile go? Back when you shyly smiled, trying to catch my attention, you were at least tolerable.”

His gaze swept over her from head to toe before he shook his head with a look of disappointment.

Her once vibrant red hair, glossy like ripe pomegranate seeds, had turned dry and brittle like straw.

Once smooth and luminous like a ripe peach, her skin had lost all vitality.

Her once soft, plump cheeks, reminiscent of a baby’s, had hollowed, leaving her cheekbones painfully prominent.

Her violet eyes, which used to sparkle depending on the light, now looked dull, as if she had already lived a lifetime.

In just a few years at the imperial palace, she had changed so drastically that it was hard to believe she was the same person.

As Kasiax clicked his tongue and gazed at her disdainfully, Rosé let out a calm, bitter laugh.

“Even if you went through what I did, you would still be beautiful, wouldn’t you?”

His brow furrowed.

“Even if your parents and blood relatives were slaughtered mercilessly, you wouldn’t even blink. Not a single strand of your hair would be out of place. Because you’re a cold-blooded creature with no warmth of humanity.”

Kasiax tilted his head slightly as he listened.

He seemed to ponder something for a moment before giving a short response.

“Is that a bad thing?”

A response so typical of Kasiax.

Rosé let out a bitter smile, her face resigned.

Why hadn’t she realized sooner what kind of man he was?

Thinking back, there had been many times before their marriage when she sensed his cruelty.

His platinum-blond hair fluttering in the wind, his striking green eyes curving into a charming smile.

His lips curled up as if painted with a brush, revealing immaculate white teeth.

His sweet whispers of love tickled her ears.

Before their marriage, why had she only seen those things?

Now, everything about him made her skin crawl.

Even the breath that brushed her ear felt revolting and filthy.

“Divorce me. I’ll join a convent if I must.”

Rosé turned her gaze away from him entirely as she spoke.

“There you go again. Who do you think would benefit from that?”

She had asked for a divorce countless times, but it was always dismissed like this. And his reason was as vile as ever.

He feared people might sympathize with her if she entered a convent after losing everything.

Her family was dead, but the people of Solstern had long respected the Etoile name.

Given time, people might come to pity the last surviving daughter of the Etoile family.

So, rather than show her even a shred of mercy, he planned to keep her trapped in this palace until she withered away.

“There’s a much simpler way to end this miserable tie.”

Kasiax whispered in her ear, making Rosé instinctively step back.

He slowly advanced toward her with a smirk lifting one corner of his lips.

She kept retreating, stepping backward until she had nowhere left to go.

But instead of feeling the cold touch of a wall behind her, she only felt the empty air.

For some reason, he had led her to the wide-open window.

It was the largest window in the castle, located at the very top of the building.

“You…!”

Rosé glanced down outside the window, then back at him in shock.

His eyes, gazing at her, were eerily calm and composed. His golden eyelashes lazily drooped, giving him an almost serene expression.

In a voice only she could hear, he whispered,

“What if you just jump from here? I’ll make sure your funeral is grand. I promise.”

The moment he finished speaking, he pushed against her chest.

On instinct, she reached out, grabbing onto his collar.

But even that was coldly brushed away.

Ah.

Before she could even scream, her body was already airborne.

It happened in an instant.

“No! Rosé!”

Kasiax reached out his arms, desperately crying her name—as if she had thrown herself of her own will.

He clutched his head in anguish.

His desperate scream was chillingly real, incomparable to the clumsy performances of court actors like Sasha.

As she fell, Rosé thought,

‘The moment I hit the stone pavement, my body will shatter into pieces, and my blood will spray like a fountain.’

Even at this moment, she felt sorry for whoever would have to clean up her broken body.

Death did not scare her, but the fact that she had been deceived by her husband until the very last moment filled her with sorrow.

The fall felt endlessly long, as if time had stretched.

At some point, Sasha, lying on the ground pretending to be in pain, stood beside Kasiax, covering her mouth with her hand as she looked down at Rosé.

It was impossible to tell whether she was genuinely shocked or secretly smiling.

If only she had never become entangled with Kasiax through marriage.

If only she had heeded her father’s warnings back then.

If only she had not been deceived by that cheap imitation of love.

She hated herself for being foolishly used by her husband, and her heart ached with unbearable regret.

‘If only… if only I had been a little wiser.’

Thud!

A deafening crash shook the ground, loud enough to tear through her eardrums.

‘I really died. This is how I die, after all.’

The sound of her body hitting the stone pavement was overwhelming, yet strangely, she felt no pain.

Was it so excruciating that she had lost the ability to feel it at all?

She had a bizarre sensation in the pitch-black darkness as if something was pulling her downward.

Her body was being dragged deeper and deeper.

There was no air, no sound—only complete darkness.