Chapter 1

For some reason, she felt unusually unsettled that day. Perhaps she should have noticed it then.

Janette deeply regretted her complacency in lowering her guard under the excuse that enough time had passed.

When she had first arrived, it had been a beautiful and peaceful village, but now it no longer felt like a comfortable home.

“A man with black hair and red eyes came and suddenly started looking for someone, and the person in the portrait looked so much like you. You have no idea how shocked I was.”

That couldn’t be.

I’ve lived so quietly here.

She repeated it to herself over and over, trying to remain calm, but her vision spun as though her breath might stop at any moment.

“You know I’m terrible at lying, right? Maybe he could tell I was flustered, because he started questioning me like a madman, and his eyes had completely gone crazy….. Janet! Are you okay?”

Alice hurriedly asked as she supported the staggering Janette.

Her stomach churned. A chill ran through the body that had felt feverish since morning.

But something like a slight fever was not important right now. Janette gripped Alice’s shoulders tightly.

“So what did you tell him?”

“For now, I pretended I didn’t know anything and sent him away, but…..”

“Thank you, Alice.”

It might not be him.

But what if it was?

If she was caught here, everything would come to nothing.

Then there was only one thing Janette could do.

Without hesitation, she pulled on the large cloak hanging near the door.

Then she took the emergency money from beneath the bed and put it in her pocket.

I have to hurry.

She had no idea when he would find her. She could not waste any time.

If there was one fortunate thing, it was that she had almost no luggage to take with her.

Then again, in this wretched life, she had never really owned anything in the first place.

When she hurriedly finished preparing to leave, Alice looked at Janette with puzzled eyes.

“Janet, where are you going in this weather?”

“I’m sorry, Alice. Something urgent came up, so I think I need to leave right now.”

“What? Where?”

“I’ll explain everything later. So for now, just let me go.”

It was a lie.

She would never return here again.

Perhaps Alice realized that as well, because she stared at Janette with a complicated expression.

The longer the silence continued, the drier Janette’s mouth became.

I’m sorry, Alice. But I have to leave right now.

“….I don’t know what’s going on, but be careful, Janet.”

“Thank you.”

With those final words, Janette left the house and began running down the narrow path leading into the dark forest.

As the houses gradually grew farther away, the darkness deepened.

Her breathing grew ragged.

She had barely managed to flee deep into the forest, but it was still too soon to relax.

She had to get farther away somehow.

That was the only thought in her mind.

“Ah!”

Had she been in too much of a hurry?

Janette stumbled over a stone and fell with a groan.

The moment she raised her upper body while clutching her throbbing leg, she sensed a presence in the previously silent bushes.

And then….

“Kill her.”

The men who suddenly appeared surrounded Janette and swung their swords at her.

She had forgotten.

The fact that her location had been exposed.

If he had found this place, that meant others knew about it too.

Even after running so far, was this where it would end?

She wanted to rest now.

In the end, Janette closed her eyes as though giving up.

“Aagh!”

But what came for her was not agonizing pain that made her wish for death, but a dying scream.

What’s happening?

Before she could even understand the situation, she heard footsteps nearby.

“So this little countryside is where you chose to run away to.”

At the familiar yet captivating low voice, Janette held her breath and raised her trembling head.

Standing before the fallen assassins was none other than Zeke Alion Leonhardt.

That man.

“….Your Majesty.”

At Janette’s trembling voice, the man frowned.

Zeke stepped one pace closer to her and slowly opened his mouth.

“You said you were abandoning me to become happy.”

He was trying to appear calm, but Zeke looked furious to the very tips of his hair.

“You didn’t run away from the Imperial Palace just to die at the hands of small fry like these, did you……”

Zeke’s cold gaze slowly swept over Janette.

“Did you come out here hoping to find some damned happiness?”

Happiness.

It was something she had longed and yearned for her entire life.

But now she knew.

She did not even have the right to speak of happiness.

Unable to say anything, Janette tightly pressed her lips together as Zeke approached until he stood right in front of her.

The expression on his face was cold as one corner of his mouth curled upward, but his gaze burned hotly.

“You should have known it was impossible. From the moment you took the name Leonhardt. No…….”

“……”

“From the moment you betrayed me and turned your back on me.”

As he spoke, Zeke roughly wiped the blood from his sword with a handkerchief.

Flutter.

The handkerchief that fell to the ground looked miserable.

“Janette Leonhardt.”

The name she had not heard for some time echoed quietly through the silent forest.

“You’re not going anywhere. As long as I’m alive like this.”

There was a strange obsession in his vivid blue eyes.

Janette lowered her head.

“If you’re going to roll in that mud, then roll in it by my side.”

Where had we gone wrong?

Perhaps it had begun back then.

Janette recalled the day everything had started.

“Are you finished preparing?”

When Janette nodded, the maid tightened the dress around Janette’s waist even further and continued speaking.

“You must go out soon.”

Janette bit her lip tightly and slowly rose.

At the same time, the beautifully spread dress scattered across the floor as though spilling outward.

“All right.”

Not long after the deal was made, preparations for the marriage proceeded in an instant.

Everything had begun that day.

Yes.

The day Duke Kirschtein, unusually sober, had summoned her.

“You need to get married. To the Third Imperial Prince.”

Marriage.

She had expected it to some extent, so she was not particularly surprised.

Whenever Duke Kirschtein saw Janette growing older, he had always said that he would sell her off at the appropriate time.

Selling his illegitimate daughter to a decent noble in exchange for an appropriate amount of wealth, property, and honor.

That was surely the true intention of a man filled entirely with ambition.

There was only one thing that bothered her••••

“The Third Imperial Prince?”

He was the man the duke had chosen after careful consideration.

A war hero and the Imperial Family’s only illegitimate child.

It was strange.

Why would a duke filled with ambition choose him?

Hadn’t he always boasted that he would only establish ties with a family capable of paying the proper price?

“Yes. That bastard with the annoyingly persistent life.”

Zeke Alion Leonhardt.

The Third Imperial Prince and the hero who had led the war against the Finn Empire to victory.

Now he was recognized amid tremendous support and welcome from the people, but in truth, his life had not been an easy one either.

Lowly blood that could not even be entered into the Imperial succession.

That filthy illegitimate child, always treated like vermin, would surely die in the war and return as a corpse.

The nobles all said the same thing, and they were convinced it would happen.

The war, which had continued for five years, had seemed certain to end in defeat, and the people’s anger had reached the heavens.

The “Imperial family member” sent by the Imperial Family to resolve it was Zeke Alion Leonhardt.

Fake blood that had been entered into the Imperial Family only three days earlier.

If he was going to be used as a disposable piece anyway, were they telling him to become a sacrifice and die honorably?

Perhaps they meant for him to be grateful that there had at least been a brief moment when they acknowledged him as Imperial blood.

Though it should have been a meeting with his son, the Emperor disappeared after leaving behind only that command.

How cruel.

Janette felt pity for the Third Imperial Prince, whose face she did not even know.

But how could she have known?

She had never needed to pity him in the first place.

“The Third Imperial Prince won!”

Less than two years later, he returned proudly.

Along with news of victory.

How had the Emperor felt upon hearing it?

The nobles whispered among themselves while watching the Emperor’s mood, but Janette, to be truthful, found it rather satisfying.

It felt as though he had struck back at those people who used and discarded others like objects.

A man of remarkable courage, but someone she would never meet.

That was the extent of Janette’s thoughts about Zeke.

At least until then.

“Report every single detail of that man’s behavior to me. Even the smallest matter, without fail.”

But her expectations were wrong.

As always, Duke Kirschtein had simply informed Janette of what she would do.

“His Majesty has been in quite a foul mood lately. He says disloyal people are trying to eat away at the Empire.”

As though marrying a man she had never seen before were not enough, now she had to act as a spy.

The reason was laughably trivial.

“There is no harm in being cautious. And it would be even better if we planted His Majesty’s person inside that bastard’s household.”

He intends to use me for the rest of my life.

Then she had to gain something from this as well.

That was the way of life she had learned from Duke Kirschtein.

“Very well. But in return, you will have to grant what I want.”