After six months of silence, a letter arrived from her father.

Leaning against her bed, Irena skimmed through the letter with impatient eyes.

[14:00, Imperial Palace, Crown Prince Ikart Asteion.]

The characters printed by some foreign hunk of metal had sharp edges at the ends of each word. It smelled like iron.

‘A typewriter, was it called?’

They said it was a new technology that had ushered in a new era.

‘How diligent of him.’

Irena twisted her lips as she gazed at the buildings jutting up beyond the window.

‘What kind of expression was on his face?’

Had he been delighted, thinking the time had finally come? Had he been grimly calculating his next move? Or had he felt relieved, thinking it was time to put his forgotten livestock to use?

‘I sincerely hope he was happy enough to die from it. Or he could just go ahead and die for real.’

So that her eventual betrayal would be all the more effective, Irena wished the Duke well in his joy. A crooked smile slipped out.

“Cough, cough.”

“Miss!”

Parcha calmly rubbed Irena’s back.

“You’ve been coughing all night, so your throat must hurt. Please take your medicine first.”

Parcha, the sole other occupant of the small annex, handed her a cup filled with a dark liquid. Irena drained the cup in one go.

‘Bitter…’

As the thick, warm liquid slid down her throat, the turmoil inside her settled.

“Haah…”

Color returned to her cheeks along with her exhaled breath. It was a remarkably quick recovery for someone who had been sleeping as though dead just moments ago.

“Did you write the observation log properly?”

Irena asked, chewing on the candy Parcha had given her.

“I recorded everything you told me to. Heart rate per minute, respiratory volume, body temperature, nervous system response, and the consistency of the blood you vomited, all of it.”

“Good.”

Irena probed her own body and added a few more items.

“Add tinnitus, rapid increase in blood flow, fever, and headache… The sore throat is probably from the coughing.”

“Yes. On the first day you collapsed, you were coughing up blood in your sleep as well.”

What she had created was a poison.

Nothing too extraordinary, just enough to make it look like a distressed bride-to-be had collapsed from a heart attack at the engagement ceremony.

To achieve that, she had personally brewed and consumed the wretched poison eighty-four times.

Just when she had thought she was crossing into the river of the underworld, her research had finally borne fruit.

She had at last discovered the formula she was looking for.

“The stimulant effect seems to have been too strong. I’ll need to adjust the amount of stimulant a little… How much rachichi is left?”

“Three and a half pieces.”

“Oh dear, I’ll have to go out and buy more rachichi.”

Rachichi was the most important ingredient in the formula. Expensive, finicky, difficult to obtain, and

‘Naturally, illegal.’

A tiresome day was already unfolding in her mind, but Irena pushed the bothersome task aside with a glazed look.

Future matters were for her future self to handle. Right now, it was time to deal with the annoying letter.

“Let me go see just how remarkable the face of the so-called War Demon is, given how widely his good looks are rumored.”

Irena sprang to her feet.

Pretending not to notice Parcha’s expression, which looked as though she had bitten into something foul, Irena smiled brightly.

Under her father’s orders, the only thing she had ever been permitted to do was obey.

For now, at least.

***

Upon arriving at the imperial palace, Irena understood what it was that Parcha had bitten into.

Curiosity, shock, anger, mockery, displeasure, pity, disbelief.

The emotions of others exploded like bombs within the sharp gazes scrutinizing her.

‘It was a good idea to leave Parcha behind.’

If she had brought her along, Irena would have exhausted herself trying to stop Parcha from bristling and charging at people like a hunting hound.

‘Why on earth does that girl have such a foul temper? Whoever raised her to be like that. Tsk, tsk.’

That girl had a tendency to occasionally act as though her mistress were someone remarkable.

Of course, the Walterburg Ducal House was a distinguished family that had produced chancellors for generations, but Irena was a half-blood illegitimate child.

Even her lodgings were in an annex far removed from the main house, close to the black forest where they said a witch lived.

‘Are you sure there isn’t some other young lady besides me?’

Pointless thoughts had a way of eating up time remarkably well.

It was just as Irena, sitting stiffly like a sack of grain left in the parlor, lifted her teacup.

“I’d rather be facing a corpse.”

“…”

Her fiance seated across from her, Ikart Asteion, made no effort to conceal his displeasure.

Irena stared at the pale yellow tea. She pushed her true feelings down beneath her gaze.

“My father dragged me here like a dog. The nickname War Demon must have come from all the people you’ve killed with that tongue of yours.”

“You’re right, my hands and feet are cold. Just a little better than a corpse, I suppose.”

None of it was fit to be said to the Crown Prince.

So keeping her mouth shut was the best option available.

“They say you’re the blemish of Walterburg. Should I thank you for living up to expectations?”

The sharp words jabbed at Irena once again.

“Or should I tell you that your face, like a glass shell, is an eyesore and ask you to get out?”

He looked as though he wanted to throw Irena out of the parlor that very instant.

‘Ha.’

Irena swallowed a scoff.

‘Don’t engage with him. Just think about the formula. We’re going to part ways soon enough, so don’t waste your energy.’

His red gaze blatantly swept over Irena. A sharp chill rose wherever the man’s eyes passed.

‘Not yet. If I leave too early, it will raise suspicion.’

Irena tensed her legs, wanting to kick back her chair and bolt from the room that very second.

“Should I personally carry you out? You should have understood by now.”

No matter how breathtaking his looks were said to be, his constant jabbing with that sharp tongue had pushed Irena’s patience to its limit.

‘Bear with it… I must bear with it…’

However, Irena, who had mustered every ounce of painstaking patience, had made a few miscalculations.

First, her physical condition, already abnormal from the aftermath of the experiment, had long since hit rock bottom.

Second, she tended to be generous in her assessment of her own patience.

“Lady. This pointless time…”

The moment the Crown Prince furrowed his brow and chewed on his words, Irena did not hold back.

“What a splendid and dignified first greeting.”

“…What?”

“Since my wishes and Your Highness’s wishes align, I have no doubt we shall prove to be a well-matched pair.”

‘I dislike you too.’ The clear meaning was conveyed through her gaze.

“…”

“…”

“…Ha.”

Ikart, who had been a beat slow to catch her meaning, crumpled his face.

“The Lady is a very different person from my memory.”

It was a terrifying voice, as though he were holding something back. His red eyes drove into Irena like a harpoon.

Irena did not back down.

“It is unfortunate if Your Highness had expected a submissive woman, but I wonder, was that expectation ever my responsibility to meet?”

In that moment, those red eyes, said to carry a curse of death, seemed to waver ever so slightly.

“…”

“…”

Irena had never backed down from a fight brought to her door.

If she was hit once, she made sure to hit back twice. The debts she had yet to repay were carefully kept in memory.

But today, she was tired of all of it.

‘What am I even doing… Enough, I’ll be the one to let it go.’

One more addition to the hatred directed at her should not have felt heavy, yet the malice of a man she had met for the first time today was quite burdensome.

“You are welcome to leave first if you wish, Your Highness. Even if the blemish of Walterburg lingers a little longer in a parlor abandoned by its master, who would dare insult Your Highness for it?”

Irena added this as calmly as ever and took a sip of her tea. The lukewarm warmth dulled the tension she had been holding onto.

‘When I get home, I’ll tease and torment Parcha to my heart’s content. I’ll tell her there was someone incredibly scary and infuriating who insulted me today, and then…’

Truth be told, her entire body had felt as heavy as water-soaked cotton for a while now.

‘But why…’

A sense of deja vu sent the first warning. Something she had failed to notice while locked in a battle of nerves with the man before her…

‘Why… does it taste sour?’

Her gaze drifted slowly downward. The pale yellow tea swirled clear and rippling.

“Ugh…”

A dull, stinging numbness pricked at her fingertips.

A tingling sensation, pale yellow color, a faint sour taste, sluggish blood flow. Familiar pieces of information flipped rapidly through her mind.

“Haibick…?”

The instincts of an apothecary supplied the answer first.

“Why is this…”

Before the suspicious question could even be completed.

Thud.

The body of the man seated across from her crumpled to the floor.