At today’s party, Mel had seen the fervent gazes of many women directed at Genoa. Noble ladies who pretended to fall in front of him, dropped handkerchiefs, and swayed their waistlines beautifully, all to catch his attention just once.

All of them panted with desire for the empty place beside Genoa Ivanstein. If the jealous glances that pierced her with each step she took while receiving his escort had been blades, Mel would have collapsed, bleeding from her entire body.

Genoa seemed quite accustomed to such gazes from women. In some ways, he seemed to consider it natural. As if it were an inevitable fate. It was exactly as Mel had vaguely imagined Genoa’s future self when she was young.

Back then, on nights when she couldn’t sleep alone, Mel used to think:

If Genoa safely passed the test and became a young man, and if he attended parties and social activities like other nobles, he would probably shine alone even among beautiful women. Then one day, a wonderful woman who matched beautifully with Genoa like a painting would appear.

Then at that time, I would quietly pick a small flower from some corner and scatter petals in front of his path. If even one small petal stuck to his shoe, perhaps I could feel a little as if I were moving forward with him.

There were times when she would cry a little at the tightening of her heart while imagining such things.

“This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening……”

Mel paced around the room frantically, biting her nails. It wasn’t behavior befitting the princess of Reibritton, but Mel didn’t have the luxury to worry about such things now.

“I’ll give you plenty of time to think. I’ll be busy until the coronation ends.”

Mel stood by his side until Genoa fell asleep with a peaceful face, unable to give even a single answer. Without being able to say a single word more to him.

After staggering back to her room, Mel sat blankly on the sofa, staring into space. A small table mirror on the coffee table reflected Mel’s terribly stiff face. It wasn’t the expression a woman who had received a proposal from the most desirable man in the empire would make.

What had gone wrong? When and where had things gone wrong to end up like this? No matter how much she pondered, no answer came out. She couldn’t understand at all how Genoa had arrived at the result of wanting to place her in the position of mistress of the Ivanstein ducal family.

“……”

When she was young, she had been immature and spent countless days twisting her body while imagining herself standing side by side with Genoa. But now, Mel was too worn down by life to entertain such absurd fantasies while standing at the crossroads of life and death.

This was truly an absurd situation. If it had been someone else, yes, if it had been the Second Prince instead, she wouldn’t have felt this devastated. The moment she had imagined countless times was more terrible than what the young Mel had ever imagined.

‘Because he proposed to the princess of Reibritton.’

The person to whom Genoa had announced to become the mistress of the Ivanstein ducal family was “Amelia Reibritton.” Not Mel.

If Genoa had decided to keep her, riddled with lies, by his side, Mel probably wouldn’t be able to deceive him until the end. She would be discovered eventually. That she was the slave who had deceived him, was still deceiving him, and had no intention of revealing the truth in the future.

When that time came, Mel would truly not die peacefully.

“But why, why? What is it about the princess of Reibritton that……”

What was it about the position of princess of Reibritton that made glorious positions roll in even when unwanted, as long as one wore this falsehood?

Genoa had said this about his proposal: that it was a good way to peacefully end the war between the Raon Empire and the Reibritton Kingdom.

He had chosen the princess of Reibritton as the woman most suited to be by his side in his mind. Given his characteristic of moving within thorough calculations for even the smallest word or action, it was clearly a strategic proposal.

Thinking about it, there was no reason why he couldn’t choose the princess of the Reibritton Kingdom as the mistress of his ducal family. He needed a wise partner, and he also needed a justification to hand over the Reibritton Kingdom to the emperor while not losing his authority.

If he married Amelia, the princess of Reibritton, Genoa would have judged that he could easily obtain what he wanted. Not knowing that Mel was a fake princess.

“If I’m discovered, he’ll surely kill me.”

Genoa had no need for Mel, who wasn’t the princess of Reibritton. So this marriage must not happen. If she didn’t want to add one more reason to the many reasons why Genoa would have to kill her, she had to refuse somehow.

While she didn’t know what thoughts would go through Genoa’s mind as he killed her, one thing was certain: he would smile as he cut her throat.

He would be delighted. Genoa had regretted not being able to kill the runaway slave with his own hands, and now he had finally regained the opportunity. Moreover, she had even brazenly deceived him by pretending to be a princess all this time. It was clear there wouldn’t be a single ounce of mercy in his hand as he killed her.

“……Huu.”

Mel finally collapsed onto the bed as the strength left her legs. Tears threatened to burst forth from the sorrow.

If only Mel had revealed she was a slave from the beginning, if she hadn’t acted as Amelia’s stand-in as ordered, if she hadn’t worked at the Reibritton palace. If only she had died in the basement of the Ivanstein mansion. The various regretful hypotheticals only made Mel’s current predicament more terrible.

She wanted to experience life. The choices she made were because she wanted to survive somehow. She wanted to achieve a peaceful life where she could live with her mother without being oppressed by anyone.

Those choices accumulated to deceive the person she least wanted to deceive, to betray him, and ultimately turned what was once her most cherished dream into something dreadful.

All of this was a disaster she had brought upon herself. So Mel couldn’t even cry.

“Since I can’t be happy, I don’t deserve to feel excited, and since I can’t be sad, I can’t cry either.”

Having received Genoa’s proposal like this, she had to reject it and furthermore beg for the freedom to leave him forever.

It probably wouldn’t be easy. Even if Genoa were to reverse their deal now, there was nothing a powerless princess from an enemy country could do. She couldn’t even protest. It was natural, as she had barely survived what should have been certain death under the pretext of a deal.

This should rightly be called tyranny, but Mel didn’t want to call the situation that. She thought she had lost the right to complain from the moment she chose to deceive Genoa.

Ah, when she felt like she just wanted to disappear like this, Mel suddenly sat up. Because she remembered the face of someone fragile who would be left alone in this world if she died and disappeared.

“……Still, I need to think. I must think. How to proceed, how to survive. Quickly.”

Mel closed her eyes, trying to calm her reddened eyes while thinking this. Her breath still remained, and her attachment to life hadn’t been severed. If she had intended to die meaninglessly, she wouldn’t have prolonged her life so desperately until now.

‘Mother.’

She still had her mother. Her old and sick mother who now had no one to care for her or help her except Mel……

Thinking about her mother, who might be suffering all sorts of mistreatment while being dragged around by Amelia, the real princess, her will to not die so meaninglessly revived. Her mother’s existence alone prevented Mel from falling into self-loathing over the choices she had made.

“The young master doesn’t easily change his mind once he’s decided something. He told me I could refuse, but he’ll make me choose to become the mistress of the Ivanstein ducal family no matter what.”

Even if she struggled, now that Genoa had made up his mind to place the princess of Reibritton in the position of Duchess Ivanstein, he wouldn’t give her freedom anymore. Since childhood, she had practiced letting go of things she couldn’t have. So Mel cleanly discarded the possibility of freedom that would be useless to hope for.

Now two choices lay before Mel. Either reveal the truth and beg Genoa for mercy, or continue deceiving him until the end.

‘The latter is impossible.’

Mel coldly discarded the option of deceiving Genoa until the end. It was Genoa who taught her that nothing was more foolish than relying on near-impossible odds. He had trained her.

When she was young, he had told her:

“Rather than hoping for an impossible miracle to happen, choosing a certain misfortune and preparing for it gives you a better chance to expect a miracle. Remember that.”