‘No, no!!!’

A single streak of light swept through the dark prison.

Her vision spun.

Through eyes she could not close, she saw the Empress.

Cold. Arrogant. Not a trace of guilt in those eyes.

Then the terrible pain arrived.

But worse than the pain of her body was the guilt over the life that had vanished before it ever had the chance to enter the world.

‘There is no god. If there were, this could never have been done to me……’

Even as the deep darkness slowly swallowed her, her yearning for revenge did not fade.

‘If there is a god, or even a demon, it makes no difference. If you give me just one chance…… I will return everything that was done to me. Whatever price I must pay……’

Her crimson pupils, burning like embers, went slack. Her dry hand, grasping at empty air, fell.

Complete stillness arrived,

and beyond eyelids she could not close, the world went dark.

Continental Year 529.

A day in December, when the cold had been unusually brutal.

In an underground cell running with filth and crawling with rats.

Crown Princess Seraphiel met her wretched end.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

The day Alfred, the Grand Ducal heir, came to the Darlington domain in person.

That day was one she could never forget for the rest of her life.

‘……Miss Seraphiel, I propose to you, a woman as beautiful as this flower. Will you marry me?’

A composed and careful manner of speaking. Yet his eyes had been full of anxiety. He was the one meant to inherit the grand ducal seat, carrying on the will of his mother Helena, the Grand Duchess, but he had not been enough to capture Seraphiel’s heart.

‘He seems far too introverted. No confidence at all.’

But what changed Seraphiel’s mind was not Alfred, the Grand Ducal heir, but his mother, Helena.

‘You lost your parents at such a young age and had to carry on alone. You poor thing……’

She had come to the ruined Windmore comital household in person and held Seraphiel in her arms with kind, gentle eyes. Helena’s comfort had not been mere words.

‘Marry my son. Let us live together. I will help you take revenge for your parents as well.’

For Seraphiel, who had lost her parents and endured hardship alone, it was a warmth she had not felt in a very long time.

She had thought of it as a new family.

Seraphiel held onto that thread of hope, which had come to her with such difficulty, and slowly nodded.

‘I will accept the proposal.’

Only then did a smile of relief appear on Alfred’s face.

He slowly extended his hand, and it came to rest gently on hers.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

“No, no!”

Seraphiel shot upright with a sharp cry.

She clutched her own hands and drew ragged breaths.

“Hah, hah.”

The hand of Alfred, the Grand Ducal heir, that she should never have taken.

That proposal had become the shackle that bound her life.

Seraphiel’s hand moved slowly down to her lower abdomen.

The death of a child she could not forget even with her eyes shut pierced her chest.

‘I’m sorry, my baby……’

A fragile life she had never even given a name.

Hatred for Helena, who had shattered her life down to its very roots, surged through her.

Then, in that moment, a fact she had forgotten came back to her.

‘But wait, how am I alive?’

She touched the area around her neck.

She should have been dead, her neck severed, yet it was perfectly intact.

She steadied her pounding heart and looked around. It was not the stench-ridden underground cell. It was certainly not the run-down bedchamber of the northern exile where she had spent over a year. This was a bedroom surrounded by fine, luxurious furnishings. And the texture of the blanket beneath her hands was vivid and real.

‘Where on earth is this?’

But her thoughts did not have long to continue.

A moment later the door burst open and maids came rushing in.

“Oh? Oh, Miss!”

A maid with chestnut hair and a round figure cried out and came running. Faced with a stranger’s sudden appearance, Seraphiel quickly pulled the blanket to her chest and tensed.

“Goodness…… you’ve finally come to your senses. I was so startled when you collapsed out of nowhere.”

A flood of unfamiliar information poured from the maid’s mouth and threw her mind into confusion. Seraphiel determined the situation was not dangerous and asked carefully.

“……Who are you?”

“Pardon? I’m Rina. Rina, you maid, Miss Alicia. Are you…… all right?”

Rina was startled by the state of her mistress.

In the meantime, Seraphiel had cause to be startled in an entirely different sense.

“Alicia……?”

The maid had called her by a completely different name without any hesitation. Confused, Seraphiel quickly got up and rushed to stand before the mirror. Her eyes grew wider and wider.

‘What…… is going on?’

What was reflected in the mirror was not herself. The silver hair and red eyes were the same, but the face belonged to a beautiful woman in her early twenties.

“My face……”

“Miss Alicia. Are you truly all right?”

In that moment,

hearing the name spoken once more, Seraphiel was able to understand the identity of the woman she had transmigrated into.

‘My name is Alicia? Could it be…… Alicia Windmore?’

It was a name Seraphiel knew all too well.

Alicia Windmore.

The only younger sister of her father, Count Gallien, which made her Seraphiel’s aunt.

She was synonymous with extravagance and indulgence, someone who had made the already struggling Windmore comital household even worse off. But there was a more astonishing fact than even that.

‘My aunt…… died before I was even born……’

Seraphiel’s eyes shook violently.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

“Anyway, I’m just relieved. I was so frightened when you collapsed so suddenly.”

Rina let out a sigh of relief and sat Alicia down before the mirror. She gently combed her hair and helped her dress. But the mind of the woman who had become Alicia was consumed entirely by a single question.

‘Why have I become my aunt of all people? If this was meant to be a chance at revenge, it would have been more than enough to send me back just a few years……’

If she had returned to at least the moment when Alfred, the Grand Ducal heir, had proposed to her, she could have undone everything. On top of that, the final recorded image of her aunt in history had been a terrible one.

By the original course of events, she should have died today.

Continental Year 499, April 1st.

The death anniversary carved onto her aunt’s gravestone was today, thirty years ago. The death of a young lady whose full circumstances had never come to light was not recorded in any detail in history.

An inexplicable trick of fate.

She needed to find out why she had inherited the life of a aunt who should have died.

But Alicia’s contemplation did not last long.

“There, all done. You may go now.”

“Go where?”

“His Grace the Grand Duke has arrived. He is already waiting in the drawing room.”

The Grand Duke?

Alicia’s mind grew even more chaotic. But having memorized a thousand years of continental history, she was able to call up the Grand Duke’s identity without much difficulty.

“Surely you don’t mean His Highness Grand Duke Evander Leonis has come?”

Rina nodded.

“What a thing to ask. There is only one Grand Duke in the principality.”

The color drained from Alicia’s face.

The most ruthless tyrant in the long history of the principality.

That was Grand Duke Evander Leonis.

“Why would His Highness…… come looking for me?”

“How would we know, Miss. How could we ever presume to understand the minds of those so far above us.”

An inexplicable return to the past.

And on top of that, a visit from the Grand Duke with no apparent reason.

Every single thing was a dizzying, disorienting series of events.

But reality did not wait even for her brief sigh. Rina, her face taut with nerves, finished tidying up in a hurry.

“Let us go. We must be quick. If we keep him waiting any longer, there is no telling what might happen.”

Rina’s frightened words reached her like sounds from a distant dream.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Practically pushed along, she arrived before the drawing room on the first floor of the manor.

Rina stopped and spoke with a grave expression.

“You’ve heard the rumors, haven’t you, Miss? You must not, under any circumstances, displease His Highness the Grand Duke. Miss? Miss? Are you listening to me?”

“Hah, yes. I’m listening.”

“I thought you were off in your own head again. Anyway, you must be careful, and then careful again, because there is no telling what might happen.”

She listened to Rina’s repeated warnings and stepped inside the drawing room.

Click.

The door shut, and silence settled over the room.

‘Of all people, Grand Duke Evander……’

She drew in a deep breath and gripped the hem of her skirt.

“You’re late.”

A low, heavy voice reached her, as though it had been waiting.

A dim interior.

A man sat there, with no indication of how long he had been present.

A man with hair and eyes as dark as the night. Eyes so cold that even emotions seemed frozen within them. He was dressed in military uniform, as though he had just returned from the battlefield, and a long sword hung at his hip.