Korenca, the capital of the Hyder Empire, a city that boasts a glorious history.

Korenca is divided into four districts, north, south, east, and west, centered around the imperial palace at its heart. To the west of the palace, elegant mansions and gardens line the streets in abundance.

This western district serves mainly as the residential quarter for the central nobility of Hyder, and the lights never ceased there, with lavish banquets unfolding every night. Yet among those noble estates in the west, the Sivert Marquis Mansion, situated at a considerable distance from the imperial palace, had long since shed its former grandeur and fallen into a state of quiet dimness.

“Haa, ha……”

In the solitary room at the far northern end of the third floor of the Sivert Marquis Mansion.

Untouched by any warmth.

From within this room, draped in cold, biting darkness, came the sound of breathing that had reached its very limit.

“Wait.”

“Why?”

“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“No, over there, that sound……”

“Don’t. Don’t look.”

A maidservant who had been ordered to clean the entire third floor well into the late night heard a sound that clearly came from a room tucked away in the corner, and stopped in her tracks for a moment.

But her words quickly died on her lips, because of the stiffened face of the maidservant beside her.

The other maidservant, receiving a puzzled look, continued.

“You know who’s in that room. Even if you know, you pretend you don’t. You forgot?”

“Th… that’s right.”

“Let’s go quickly. Before the head maidservant scolds us again.”

They began to move, as though they had never stopped at all.

And then, once more.

“Hah, ugh……”

Unlike the first and second floors of the mansion, bustling with people.

The sole occupant of the solitary room on the third floor, where not even moonlight reached, could no longer hold back her increasingly burning breaths.

She was even aware that the thin linen blanket covering her was already soaked through with sweat from her own body, and yet she could not throw it off.

Whether summer or winter.

The curtains had been fixed shut under the pretense that she needed to rest, and so there was no sign of the cold ever leaving the room.

Within that cold, the only thing she had to cover herself with was this thin blanket.

‘Cold……’

The woman’s name was Eleanor Sivert.

The only daughter of the late Sivert Marquis, Arthur Sivert, she was also the wife of the current Sivert Marquis, Marcus Sivert.

How on earth had a woman who had once been admired and envied by all, praised by many, come to find herself in such a lonely and wretched state?

Everything traced back to five months ago.

* * *

“Your…… child?”

“That is correct.”

Five months prior.

Eleanor felt her legs give way beneath her at Marcus’s answer, delivered without a moment’s hesitation.

‘Ah……’

Her body swayed. A sudden wave of dizziness crashed over her, and she could not stand properly.

Even when Marcus had struck her just moments ago, it had not been this bad.

The pain in her left cheek, where his cold palm had landed, vanished completely. The throbbing in her head, which had gone beyond aching to a full numbness, had swallowed the pain in her cheek whole.

‘Ethan is His Lordship the Marquis’s child! Not some distant relative like you think, my lady, but the fruit of our love, born between His Lordship and me!’

At the time of the incident, Eleanor had summoned Devlin directly to reprimand her, as the maidservant had continued to overstep in ways unbecoming of her station.

Eleanor had been steering the conversation carefully, trying to keep both of them calm so that Devlin would not feel too wounded, and reminding her of her proper place once more.

Devlin had been biting her lips in silence, pretending to listen to Eleanor’s words, until at last she could no longer hold back her fury and let slip a single remark. Who could have known it would cause such a devastating ripple?

Her entire body trembled.

A surge of rage coiled around her whole being and sent a wave of scorching heat through her.

She had thought that Marcus and Devlin seemed unusually close, but Devlin had been Marcus’s personal maidservant since before the marriage. She had always assumed it was only natural that Devlin would share Marcus’s time.

“Devlin, are you hurt anywhere?”

“Hic, Your Lordship! I… I was so, so frightened! My lady… my lady, she, hic!”

“Don’t cry, Devlin. I’m sorry. This will never happen again. I swear it on my name.”

‘I swear it on my name, El. I will love only you for the rest of my life.’

The two of them paid no mind whatsoever to Eleanor, who stood there unable to speak another word after witnessing this unbelievable scene.

What was more, Devlin, nestled in Marcus’s arms and letting tears fall one by one with a frail, delicate air, was a far cry from the venomous creature she had shown herself to be toward Eleanor.

‘Do you still not understand why His Lordship never spares you a glance, my lady? His Lordship has never loved you, not for a single moment! Every word he ever said to you was never sincere!’

The way Marcus now treated Devlin was far too gentle and tender to be simply the behavior of a master toward a weeping maidservant. It was enough to make the watching Eleanor doubt her own eyes, and that said everything.

‘Meeting face to face like this, rather than through letters, is a first for us today. Just as I had expected, you are beautiful, Lady Sivert.’

‘I must surely have received the blessing of the gods, El. For I have taken you as my wife.’

‘Come here, Eleanor. My Marchioness. My one and only love.’

Golden hair that shone like the sun god, and blue eyes that held the sea within them.

Eleanor’s husband, Marcus Damel, was a man so beautiful that women passing by on the street would turn to look at him at least once.

Whenever that bewitching man courted her and whispered his love, her mind would grow hazy and the world before her eyes would blur, leaving her unable to collect herself.

Naturally, the Eleanor of ten years ago had fallen for Marcus in an instant.

After that, Eleanor chose Marcus as her ‘Live-in Son-in-Law’ to inherit the next marquisate title. In that choice, there had not been a shred of hesitation.

‘You dare call this a snack?’

‘I believe I told you. Do not enter my study without permission. I have no need for refreshments you make.’

‘A handkerchief? What is this supposed to be…… My lady would do well to learn embroidery from Devlin.’

‘What exactly did you do right, that you’re crying? Instead of wasting your energy weeping like that, go and properly train the maidservants.’

‘There is truly not a single thing about you that I find pleasing.’

Immediately after the wedding, Eleanor had drawn nothing but envy from those around her for having gained a husband so fine he seemed too good to exist in this world. But that sweet honeymoon came crashing down half a year into the marriage.

The moment he received a personal letter from the Emperor formally recognizing his succession to the Sivert Marquisate, Marcus began to ignore and disregard Eleanor, and even to treat her with contempt.

At first, Marcus had picked at trivial things to vent his anger at Eleanor. Gradually, the humiliations he inflicted on her grew more frequent, not only within the mansion among the household staff, but at social gatherings as well. At some point, invitations to parties stopped reaching Eleanor altogether.

‘Marchioness Sivert? Why have you not departed yet? His Lordship the Marquis appears to already be at the banquet hall.’

Once.

When Eleanor belatedly learned that Marcus, invited along with his wife to the wedding of a distant noble relative, had hidden the invitation from Eleanor and taken Devlin in her place, dressed up to pass as Eleanor, even that had not been this great a shock.

And yet.

‘Ethan is His Lordship’s own flesh and blood?’

Ethan Sivert was the adopted son Eleanor had taken in a year ago, and Marcus’s nephew by relation.

Eleanor had been left with no choice but to take in a husband as a Live-in Son-in-Law for the sake of the Sivert Marquisate, which had run dry of male heirs even counting those from collateral lines. After Marcus became the new Sivert Marquis, she had gone years without bearing a child.

No effort toward pregnancy had been of any use, and after suffering several miscarriages, she had even received the sorrowful verdict of infertility from a physician.

‘Among my relatives, there is a child named Ethan. Perhaps that child could answer your wish, my lady.’

To Eleanor, who had been tormented by guilt that she had brought in a live-in son-in-law to carry on the family line and still failed to produce an heir, Marcus had extended an unexpected proposal.

Though it meant naming a child without the blood of her ancestors as the successor, the current head of the Sivert family was already someone who had come from outside.

After long and drawn-out deliberation, Eleanor ultimately accepted Marcus’s proposal, and so she had been raising Ethan for the past year as the future Sivert Marquis.

But now, that child was not merely a distant relative of Marcus. He was Marcus’s own flesh and blood, and a child born between him and Devlin at that.

“You…… deceived me.”

A truth so hard to accept drained away the last thin thread of strength she had left.

Each word she forced out took everything she had, and Eleanor clenched her fist tight and barely managed to move her lips.

Marcus did not even bother to respond. But Devlin, smiling with smug satisfaction from within his arms, opened her lips in his place.

“Do not worry, my lady. Even without your presence, the Sivert Marquisate will be protected by His Lordship and me, and our son.”

“Devlin, you…… cough, cough!”

Eleanor had opened her mouth to respond to Devlin’s brazen words, but a sudden fit of coughing made her press a handkerchief to her mouth, and her face went rigid in an instant.

‘This!’

The center of the pure white handkerchief she had brought to her lips was stained a deep, vivid red. At the same time, the thick scent of blood filled her mouth.

Marcus, who had been watching Eleanor with an irritated gaze as she went pale, furrowed his brow.

“Pathetic.”

“Cough, cough!”

“I’m leaving.”

“Wait, cough, cough!”

Once it began, the coughing would not stop. Marcus looked down at Eleanor with cold indifference, clicked his tongue, then turned and walked out.

“Wait.”

Eleanor was wracked by a coughing fit too severe to even stop her cold, cruel husband. She noticed Devlin pause mid-step and turn back.

Devlin had been moving to follow Marcus, but stopped to stare at Eleanor, who was still coughing and coughing up blood. Then she smiled, slow and deep.

“Now that I think about it, there is something I never told you. Why it was that my lady could not bear a child in ten years, despite so many pregnancies.”

Eleanor flinched at those words, and Devlin mouthed her next words without making a sound.

We made it so you ‘could not.’

……What?

“Your Lordship, let’s go together!”

There was no time to ask what she meant.

Devlin flashed Eleanor a bright smile as Eleanor stared back with wide, stunned eyes, then left the room without another word.

“Wai…… cough, cough!”

Eleanor had tried to go after her, but the relentless coughing and blood would not let her, and she sank to the floor.

Haa, haa.

Her whole body shivered.

Cold had seeped in from every corner and wrapped around Eleanor, leaving her unable to move.

She had collapsed weakly onto the cold floor, doing nothing but coughing up blood, and soon tears filled the corners of her eyes.

‘My lady, the master sends his congratulations on your pregnancy and asks that you eat this to keep your strength up. Please, have some.’

‘It hasn’t been long since the misfortune. You need to eat and get your strength back.’

‘My lady, all of this is medicine the master prepared for you. Don’t leave a single drop.’

Every time Eleanor had managed to conceive with great difficulty, and lost the child with terrible ease.

Devlin had brought all manner of food and medicine before her.

She had even added each time that Marcus had prepared it himself. The Eleanor of the past had been grateful to her and had eaten every last drop without wasting a single bit, just as Devlin said.

‘All of it was……’

Looking back, she had always felt ill after consuming those things.

All this time, she had assumed it was simply because her body was weak, because it had become a body that could not carry a child.

A tear slipped from the corner of Eleanor’s eye and ran down her cheek.

Eleanor Sivert despaired.

* * *

“She was supposed to be dead already, and yet she’s still breathing.”

A voice thick with displeasure rang in her ears.

Eleanor, hovering at the edge of death, slowly opened her eyes.

‘Light……’

Sunlight was streaming in through the curtains, which had been drawn open at some point.

She stirred, trying to reach toward the sunlight that so rarely found its way into this room, but the man stepped between her and the window as though he would not allow even that. He looked down at Eleanor and spoke in a voice that was cold, even frigid.

Eleanor tried to open her parched lips.

“Your Lord……”

“You won’t make it through today.”

Before Eleanor could finish, those words reached her first.

“That’s what the physician said. Tonight will be the turning point.”

“The turning point? I’ve lost count of how many months they’ve been saying that. D*mn it all! You really are too stubborn to die.”

Marcus vented his irritation fully, then turned back to Devlin, who was murmuring ‘Your Lordship, please calm yourself,’ and said,

“She can’t still be alive tomorrow. Have you forgotten, Devlin? Someone is coming from the imperial palace tomorrow.”

“That’s right. I had forgotten. Then…… what should we do?”

Marcus did not answer Devlin’s careful question for a long moment.

“Haa, haa……”

Eleanor lay there listening to their monstrous exchange, unable to move her body or make a sound, doing nothing but drawing shallow, labored breaths.

“There’s no other way.”

Marcus’s voice came a few minutes later, as though he had made up his mind.

“Mmph!”

The moment his words ended, a dark shadow moved toward her, and Eleanor’s eyes went wide.

“What are you doing, Devlin?”

Marcus pressed a white cloth over Eleanor’s mouth and nose, and from somewhere it had appeared. He then gave an order to Devlin behind him.

“Get over here and hold down her arms and legs.”

Devlin hesitated for a brief moment, then gave a firm nod and grabbed Eleanor’s arms and legs as she lay on the bed.

No.

Stop…… mmph!

Eleanor wanted to cry out, but her open lips were smothered and no sound came out.

She tried to thrash with everything she had, but her strength failed her.

Tears full of grief and rage fell from both eyes, and though she weakly twisted her body, it was no use against Marcus bearing down on her with full force and Devlin holding her fast.

The chilling voice of Marcus Sivert poured into Eleanor’s ears, gripped by terror.

“Stop struggling, my lady.”

He whispered with a gentleness that bordered on tenderness.

“I will give my wife a funeral befitting her station. So―”

Slowly.

“Don’t worry about what happens here. It is time for you to go.”

Slowly, the world before her eyes grew dim.

“Hold her tight!”

Eleanor thrashing with everything she had to escape that horrific situation, Devlin gripping her arms and legs with all her strength, and Marcus smothering Eleanor’s nose and mouth with the white cloth.

The struggle of those three on the cold bed went on for some time.

Thud―

The frantic movement stopped the moment Eleanor’s arm, which had been fighting to throw them off, fell lifelessly over the edge of the bed.

* * *

“……Miss. Miss.”

Someone was calling her name.

The darkness before Eleanor’s eyes, deeper than pitch black, lifted and grew bright.

Ugh……

Blinding light flooded Eleanor’s vision all at once.

She furrowed her brow for a moment, then slowly lifted her eyelids, which had shut on reflex.

“You’re awake?”

The face of the girl who had pulled the large curtains to either side, letting in the light that had been blocked, was strikingly familiar.

Eleanor pushed herself up from where she had been lying in bed and stared blankly at the girl’s smiling face.

“An…… na?”

Was she seeing things?

Just minutes ago, or perhaps seconds, Eleanor Sivert had been held down by two people bent on k*lling her, teetering between life and death.

And yet, for some reason.

Just as she thought she had been freed from that terrible agony, her breath giving out and the world growing dim before her eyes, she found herself looking into the face of someone she knew.

“Yes, Miss. Good morning, isn’t it? The sunlight is especially lovely today!”

Eleanor stared at Anna in bewilderment as she spoke, as though she had been waiting to say just that.

The red-haired girl smiling brightly at her was Anna, a maidservant of the marquisate who had grown up alongside Eleanor since childhood.

But the Anna in Eleanor’s memory had died less than half a year after Eleanor married Marcus, in what had appeared to be a chance carriage accident.

‘Try not to grieve too deeply.’

Anna had been the only family Eleanor had, having guarded the marquisate alone without a single blood relative to her name.

It was only natural that Eleanor had fallen into despair for a long time when Anna died.

Marcus at the time had comforted the grieving Eleanor and traveled with her so she could find her way out of her sorrow, and those were the happiest memories Eleanor held from the early months of her marriage.

‘Anna had known about the master and me long before. That is why she died the way she did! Shall I say it again? Anna’s death was entirely your fault, my lady!’

When Eleanor later learned that Anna’s death had not been an accident, and that she had been silenced after witnessing Marcus and Devlin’s secret meetings.

Eleanor had shed nothing but tears under the weight of tremendous guilt.

‘Anna, how could……’

Her heart pounded.

Eleanor could only stare, transfixed, as Anna drew near, looking every bit like a living person.

“Miss? What’s the matter, really?”

“……”

“Miss?”

Could it be.

“Are you all right, Miss?”

The memory of losing consciousness under Marcus’s hands was vivid.

Eleanor had been gritting her teeth, unable to shake the image of Marcus’s cruel eyes as he pressed down harder and harder to stop her from breathing. She shook her head, then parted her lips to speak to Anna again.

“Anna.”

“Yes, Miss.”

“Am I dea―”

“Oh! What time is it right now?”

Eleanor had been about to ask ‘Am I dead?’ but Anna cut her off with a sudden outburst. Anna spoke in a fluster.

“Goodness. It’s already nine o’clock! Miss, you need to go wash up quickly. If we stay like this, you’ll really be late.”

“What do you……”

“Surely you haven’t forgotten too, Miss? The Baroness of Gotren is visiting today!”

Anna stamped her feet and called out to Eleanor, who was still sitting on the bed and only staring at her. Eleanor felt a wave of bewilderment at those words out of nowhere.

“What on earth…… are you talking about?”

Then she turned back to Anna, who was trying to pull her out of bed.

“More than that, Anna. Where on earth is this……”

Eleanor had been moving her body without thinking, and her eyes went wide.

‘How……’

Unlike moments ago, when she had been pinned helplessly beneath two people without managing even a proper struggle.

Eleanor could move her arms and legs of her own will!

And what was more.

“This is…… my room, isn’t it?”

She realized, belatedly, that the room she had woken up in was not the grim, lonely solitary room on the third floor of the mansion, but the bright, light-filled room on the second floor facing south, the room Eleanor Sivert had used before her marriage to Marcus.

“Miss?”

Marcus and Devlin had been slowly poisoning her, and Eleanor had spent her days lying in bed, coughing up blood without end.

She had lost count of how many nights she had wept, despairing over her own wretched body that had no strength left in it.

But now, Eleanor was filled with energy and vitality.

“Anna.”

Eleanor had slipped out of bed at some point and had been checking and rechecking this strange situation several times over. She turned to Anna, who was looking up at her with a puzzled expression, and asked.

“What did you say just now? Who is coming to visit today?”

Anna, who had muttered quietly ‘You’re really acting strange today, Miss,’ answered Eleanor’s urgent question.

“I said the Baroness of Gotren will arrive around noon.”

Then she added with a small, teasing smile, “Along with the young lord of Viscount Damel, whom you have been so eagerly waiting for, Miss!”