So I should have expected it. Life can always take turns you never anticipated.

Right. Like an ex-husband who became emperor suddenly coming to find me. That sort of thing.

Another two years passed. Now twenty-eight, I was living the most peaceful days of my life.

“How can your hair be this thick and still so soft? I never get tired of brushing it, even after doing it every day.”

Hanna had been brushing my hair for two years now, and she said the same thing every single time.

“It’s just a nuisance having so much of it. All it does is give you extra work.”

“No, it doesn’t! Ma’am has wavy hair, so even with all this volume it’s easy to manage! If I had hair this pretty, I’d wear it down long every day!”

“Ha. Can’t do that. I’d get paint in it.”

Her suggestion shot down once again, Hanna pouted and deftly twisted my hair up into a bun.

A vivid red. The hallmark of Rodencian royalty, who carried the blood of the divine beast that symbolized fire and rebirth.

I wasn’t the only person with red hair, but mine was an unusually deep shade that drew stares wherever I went. Keeping the volume down as much as possible was the better way to avoid standing out.

Oh, and of course, to keep paint out of it when I worked.

After a simple breakfast with Hanna, I prepared for class.

The morning sessions were mostly for housewives with free time during the day. When the hour came, four students arrived one by one.

“Good morning, Lady Belzen!”

“The weather is especially lovely today!”

The students’ expressions shifted as they stepped through the front door, from seasoned housewives into novice painters.

“What shall we paint today?”

“How about tulips? I spotted some blooming in the flower bed and potted one to bring for you, Teacher!”

My students called me either Teacher or Lady Belzen.

I had no desire to become someone’s wife again, but using my real name felt too risky, so I went by my first ex-husband’s surname instead. Unlike my first ex-husband, who remained in our fallen homeland, my fictional husband had died in battle a few years ago, which made me a young widow, a woman to be pitied.

“I brought a pie. Made it with strawberries I picked in the hills. It turned out quite nice.”

It wasn’t something I had planned, but there was something about a young widow who seemed a little helpless and out of step with the real world that stirred the sympathy of the neighborhood housewives. My students always brought something with them whenever they came.

I answered them with a genuine smile and began the class.

Paper, charcoal, and paint. The modest tuition barely covered the cost of materials, but I looked forward to these hours.

The idle chatter with people who had no ulterior motives, and the languid morning light.

This quiet, peaceful feeling, something I had never known when I lived as a princess or a duchess, had become my joy these days.

“Did you see the article about yesterday’s enthronement ceremony?”

“Of course I did! They say nobles from other countries all attended. It must have been an enormous affair!”

“Well, it was the imperial family’s resurrection after four years. You can imagine how much went into it.”

Ah. A topic I had no particular wish to hear about. But lately, there was no avoiding it.

It was only natural that people would talk. A member of the imperial family had occupied the enemy nation that had destroyed his homeland, reclaimed the territory his empire held at its height, and ascended the throne as emperor. Of course it was on everyone’s lips.

Rumors drifted through the village like whispers on the wind: the young emperor, only twenty-four, was said to be breathtakingly beautiful; still unmarried, with no apparent interest in women; a born military genius, yet overflowing with dignity.

I knew most of it was true. But it had nothing to do with me anymore.

I calmly ignored my students’ eager chatter about my ex-husband’s name and picked up my brush with the same bright expression I always wore.

Two months had passed since the great event that had stirred even this quiet seaside village into a frenzy.

People had largely stopped paying close attention to the new emperor.

Word still reached me now and then about the increasingly tangled international situation and the fallen Kingdom of Rodencia, but nothing troubling enough to unsettle me.

“Do you think the blue flowers will bloom again this year?”

Hanna looked at the hydrangea, its buds no bigger than a fingernail, and asked.

“We haven’t changed the fertilizer, so the color should be the same, I’d think.”

Waiting for the flowers that bloomed with each season in the narrow little garden, barely two pyeong wide, attached to the house, was another of my small pleasures.

The spring flowers had already faded, but as early summer crept in, Hanna and I crouched in front of the garden for a long while, chattering away as we waited for the roses and hydrangeas to open one by one.

“I should get ready for the morning class.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Hanna wiped her wet hands on her apron, stood up, and answered brightly.

Always the same good-natured girl. Thanks to her, even I, who had known nothing about real life, like a child set loose near the water’s edge, had managed to adapt to my new life so quickly and safely.

Her deep golden hair, tied in two bunches on either side, struck me as oddly endearing, and without thinking I reached out and gently stroked it. That was when I noticed three men in neat uniforms approaching the house.

The only homes at the end of this alley were mine and old Grandfather Jango’s across the way. Neither of us had any business with men in uniform.

I fully intended to ignore them and go inside, but they dropped to their knees before me faster than I could close the front door.

“We present ourselves before the Duchess Lucian de Blaise Gertil.”

A name I hadn’t heard in quite some time. When had I last heard my full name? At the wedding, four years ago?

I glanced sideways and, sure enough, Hanna was glaring at the men with a look that said she was ready to hurl the hand trowel she was holding at them at any moment.

I had no idea what she could do against trained soldiers with a hand trowel, but the spirit alone was already something to be proud of.

“Go inside.”

“B, but…”

“It’s fine. I know them.”

At my words, Hanna fixed the men with a sharp warning look, her usually gentle brown eyes filled with suspicion, and slowly closed the front door.

Something about slight, small-framed Hanna working herself into a temper was rather like watching a small dog growl. Quite adorable.

Part of me wanted to follow her inside and finish patting her head, but first I had to deal with the men calling out my full name.

“What brings you here to find me?”

At my question, one of the men rose and bowed his head politely once more. I hadn’t recognized him at first glance after so long, but looking now, I could see he was Count Fonta, one of my ex-husband Heliones’s attendants.

“We have received an imperial command to escort you, my lady.”

My lady? We had been divorced for some time now. Surely he wasn’t addressing me?

“Me?”

“Yes. You are to be escorted to the capital.”

“Why?”

It had been two years since the divorce. Why now, after all this time? Even when we were married, hadn’t we spent the last six months barely crossing paths? What could this possibly be about?

“I don’t know the reason myself. I only came to escort you, as the imperial command dictates.”

Honestly, I didn’t want to go. It was a bother. Even by train, the capital was four hours away. If it wasn’t something important, a letter would have done just fine.

“I have to go, don’t I?”

“It is an imperial command.”

Right. That imperial command. I understood well enough that resistance was pointless.

“Do we leave right now?”

“Yes. A train has been arranged.”

And so, one morning more than two years after my divorce, I found myself boarding a train to the capital because my ex-husband had come looking for me out of nowhere.

I planned to return as soon as the business was done, so I packed nothing. I simply put on a modest going-out bonnet and wrapped a cloak around my shoulders.

Hanna threw a fit, insisting she come with me, but given my position as a princess of a fallen kingdom and a member of the royal family that had wiped out the emperor’s line, I decided it was safer for her not to accompany me, and I left her behind despite her protests.

The train was quiet. No, empty would be the more accurate word.

It seemed they had chartered the entire train, because aside from the security personnel, attendants, and crew, there was no one else on board.

Enjoying an unexpected luxury after such a long time, I sank into my thoughts.

Why was he looking for me?

A brilliant landscape of green fields still tinged with the pale, tender hues of spring unfolded before my eyes, but I had no room to appreciate it.

Was this revenge? When Rodencia fell two years ago, I had heard that all the remaining royals were executed. Has my turn finally come, as the last one left?

But if that were the reason, it didn’t explain why he had let me go without incident two years ago.

Then again, people’s hearts could change at any time.

I imagined the worst and steeled myself as calmly as I could.

Past noon. After stepping off the train, I rode a modest, inconspicuous two-wheeled carriage for about fifteen minutes before arriving at a small townhouse situated close to the imperial palace.

Small in scale, but it was the kind of townhouse nobles used when staying in the capital, and both inside and out it felt excessively ornate for its size.

It seemed to be a private property the emperor owned.

The men who had brought… no, escorted me all this way showed me inside and waited outside.

With no real alternative, I looked around and settled into the parlor, waiting for Heliones to arrive.

Before long, the door of the townhouse opened. A man wrapped head to toe in a black cloak stepped inside, as though wary of being recognized.

I knew who it was without him even pushing back the hood.

People who stood a full two spans taller than average height and projected the weight of authority from their silhouette alone were not so common.