Emerging from a hazy consciousness, she slowly opened her eyes. Her body slumped as if the blood had completely drained from the severed artery.

Hinael sobbed, clutching her belly.

“My baby… are you alright? My baby.”

She barely managed to lift her soaked eyelashes. Without even trying to clear her blurred vision, she first checked on the safety of the fetus.

But there was no perceptible movement, and her swollen belly was now flat.

Did she hit a rock when she fell off the cliff?

But it was quite strange. There was no pain at all.

As she carelessly wiped the tear-stained face, she heard a sound.

“Are you awake?”

Dea, carrying a basin of water, rushed to the bedside, startled by the sight of Hinael’s face.

“Your Highness, why are you crying?”

“Dea… is that really you? When did you return?”

“What do you mean? Did you have a nightmare?”

“A nightmare…?”

Could it really have been a nightmare?

No. It couldn’t be.

The marriage, the husband’s infidelity, the pregnancy. None of that could have been just a fragment of a dream.

Even if everything else was a dream, the deflated belly was impossible to believe. The baby that would have been born next month, the baby she would have held in her arms, never existed from the start — this was such a bizarre situation…

Hinael grabbed Dea, who was wiping her face with a wet cloth, and poured out questions incoherently.

“Where am I?”

“In the palace, of course.”

“But we were on the way to Smao.”

“Smao? What would Your Highness have to do in a place like that. It’s practically a place of exile?”

It felt like she had been hit on the head.

What in the world had happened?

“But we were definitely going to Smao.”

She was about to ask where Chetter was, but quickly shut her mouth. The puzzled look on Dea’s face made her realize something was wrong.

The sight of her final moments faded away, and the familiarity of the Princess’s quarters filled her vision.

“Where is Mother?”

“The Fifth Consort? Of course she’s in her quarters. You go greet her every morning, don’t you?”

“Then… what about His Majesty?”

“You’ve been quite strange today. Are you really alright?”

“His Majesty the King, Her Majesty the Queen, and… even Princess Seila are all in the palace?”

As she blurted out the names that came to mind, Dea tilted her head in puzzlement.

“Why do you keep asking about such obvious things? Do you perhaps have a fever?”

This was indeed a strange situation.

Hinael was perplexed by all of this, but she decided to first confirm the date.

She grabbed Dea’s hand, who was about to check her forehead, and asked again.

“What’s the date today? I mean… how long has His Majesty been reigning?”

“According to the Sarr Kingdom calendar… since it’s year 275, then it’s been about 25 years.”

Even as she gave strange questions, Dea answered them readily, looking at Hinael strangely.

‘Year 275?’

When she had fallen off the cliff at the verge of childbirth, it was year 277.

She had gone back two years in time. Could she have somehow time-traveled?

It was hard to believe, but judging by the circumstances, it seemed she had been revived.

Even in this situation, she automatically wrapped her arms around her belly, covering her mouth with the other hand.

“But why are you asking about that?”

Dea’s question snapped Hinael out of her thoughts.

Hinael quickly removed her hand from her belly and took a deep breath.

The way Dea was looking at her, like a person babbling nonsense, made Hinael worry that if she kept this up, the palace physician would be summoned, thinking she had gone mad.

As if being the child of a lowly consort wasn’t bad enough.

“I, I was just disoriented from a dream.”

“Ah, I see.”

Hinael pretended to be composed, pushing her disheveled hair with her fingers. She didn’t care whether Dea wiped her face or not; she quickly organized her thoughts.

‘Dea became a maid here just a few months ago, and then I married Count Phil. But I’m still living in the palace, so it must be before my marriage. Which means the current time is when the Sarr Kingdom was defeated in the war with the Trycas Empire.’

She needed to confirm it.

Around this time, the atmosphere in the palace would have been grim, so she could quickly figure it out by going outside.

She started in a languid voice, as if she had just woken up from sleep.

“I’d like to take a walk.”

“Please wait a little. Prince Viant is coming with an envoy in a week, and the palace is in an uproar. If you wander around now, a curfew might be imposed.”

Her guess was correct, as expected.

Hinael discreetly exhaled, caressing her empty lower belly. The life she had carried was too precious, but to be reunited with the baby, she had to marry Chetter again.

But doing so would mean not being able to escape the hellish life. Without the treatment befitting a princess, the faithfulness of a husband, or the warmth of a home — the end of that would be her husband’s betrayal. She could not be killed so wretchedly by his hands again.

‘No. I absolutely must not marry that murderer this time!’

The tangled thoughts dragged fear into the mix, making a mess.

In the midst of her despair, a person suddenly came to her mind.

‘Lutz Viant.’

He who would become the Emperor of the Trycas Empire…

He is coming to the Sarr Kingdom.

The Crown Prince of Trycas will soon pass away from his chronic illness. The one who will emerge victorious in the succession struggle is the Second Prince, Lutz Viant.

And on this visit, Lutz Viant will take a princess as a hostage to bring back to the Empire as a condition for peace.

As Hinael recalled the memories, a glint appeared in her eyes.

‘His Majesty the King will not send his beloved firstborn daughter Seilla.’

Her father, King Varsel, kept his beloved eldest daughter, rather than ceding the canal city to Trycas. In the end, one of the consort-born princesses will be sacrificed as an offering for the peace treaty.

‘I’ll go instead. After all, as long as it’s not Seilla, anyone else doesn’t matter.’

It won’t be long before Lutz Viant becomes the Emperor, but his position within the Empire is not yet firmly established.

Lutz is the legitimate heir, but after his mother’s death, he was naturally pushed to the side. The Imperial House of Trycas only recognizes one Empress, and the power has been concentrated on the woman the Emperor favors as his consort.

In any case, givenLutz’s situation, there won’t be much of a problem even if a consort-born princess is sent from Sarr.

‘I’ll give the Prince the choice at this banquet.’

The King of Sarr summoned the princesses of marriageable age to the banquet and told the Prince to choose directly.

Hinael still couldn’t forget that gaze and expression. While he would carefully select even when choosing an object, when it came to finding a partner, he seemed indifferent, almost irritated, just randomly pointing a finger.

And from what she had heard, the life of Princess Mie, who was sent to the Empire, was truly pitiful. Now it was Hinael’s turn to bear that fate.

But she judged that it was better than being killed by Chetter.

“Dea.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll have a simple breakfast this morning.”

“I’ll bring in everything except red meat.”

Dea bowed and left the room.

Left alone, Hinael grasped her head. A flood of memories rushed in, and she was overloaded trying to reorganize her thoughts and find solutions.

After pondering for a while, she suddenly lifted her head.

“The first thing to do is to catch the Prince’s eye.”

That way, the chances of him choosing her at the banquet would increase.

Hinael tugged at the pillowcase, racking her brain.

Asking her mother for help was practically impossible. As a former maid, she had no powerful backing, and if she moved rashly, she might incur the Queen’s hatred.

Could there be a clue in her subconscious memories?

‘What happened around this time? The banquet, the peace treaty, and what else…?’

She rummaged through her mind, trying to find the lost fragments of her memory, but they soon became hazy like a foggy mist.

“Ugh, I’m going crazy. If I waste time pointlessly, that scoundrel Chetter will send me back again.”

It was at this very banquet that Chetter would formally express his intention to marry to the King. From the King’s perspective, there was no reason not to grant the request of the Count who owned the mines.

An image of her father, the King, smiling hypocritically about having to marry off two daughters in a row, flashed through her mind.

It was not easy to find useful information from her faded memories. In the end, she was on the verge of a headache from racking her brain.

* * *

A day had passed like that.

As she was standing by the window, trying to cool her throbbing head, Dea approached her warmly.

“It’s really chaotic outside today.”

“The envoy from Trycas has come, hasn’t it?”

“Yes. That’s why the head maid is on edge, scolding the maids like she’s catching mice. We can hardly even breathe.”

“So you’ve taken refuge in my room?”

“Hehe. Serving Your Highness is my duty, after all. Oh! Your Highness, try this.”

Hinael’s mother had been repeatedly summoned by the King and used as a s*xual plaything, simply because she was prettier than a common maid.

As she existed almost invisibly among the five consorts, Hinael, her child, was also treated as an unwanted child.

While none of the palace servants called Hinael ‘Your Highness,’ Dea showed her the proper respect as her mistress.

Hinael felt grateful, but also awkward, and smiled uncomfortably.