“Are you all right?”

My lawyer, seated beside me, asked. Seeing me trembling, he seemed to think my condition had taken a turn for the worse.

“I’m fine.”

More than fine, actually. An emotion I had kept buried for so long was coming back to life with vivid clarity.

Right. I am a person too. A person capable of feeling affection, anger, and hatred.

Not merely a non-ability user cited in an ancient prophecy as the seed of a kingdom’s ruin, but a person with feelings.

At last it was my turn. My lawyer kept sending me anxious glances, but my mind had never been clearer.

All the tangled thoughts that had been blocking my emotions fell away, and what remained was hatred. Hatred for Lewian, who had tortured me my entire life, and for Delmir, who had tormented me over a one-sided infatuation and left scars on my body.

Right. I despise you both. I despise you so deeply it makes me shake.

“I despise Lewian with every fiber of my being.”

My words cut through the murmuring that had filled the courtroom, and it fell silent in an instant.

“You all know it, I’m sure. That I am the seed of ruin named in the Rodencian royal prophecy. Under the pretext of developing my ability, I spent my entire life being tortured by Lewian.”

I pulled away the fichu covering my neck. It was already summer and too warm to wear a jacket, so I had put on the fichu to conceal the scars on my back that showed above the low-cut back of my dress.

“My body bears countless scars like these. Even if Lewian were to die right in front of me this very moment, I would feel nothing.”

The moments I had spent fretting over hiding my scars from others suddenly seemed absurd.

Does hiding them make the scars disappear? Does it restore the broken version of me? No.

I am still nothing more than a handful of ash, shattered to dust. What does it matter if a few scars show?

“Since coming to the capital, especially after articles about me began appearing, I have been under constant surveillance even inside my own home. Letters thrown over the wall kept finding their way in no matter how careful I was. The soldiers assigned to watch over me, the journalists, and the citizens of this city know better than anyone that I have no connection to Lewian whatsoever.”

The lawyer beside me moved to drape the fichu back over my shoulders, but I refused.

Let everyone see these deep, ugly scars. Hiding them won’t take me back to who I was before I was hurt.

I turned my gaze to Delmir. She had apparently not expected me to come at her like this, and the corners of her mouth were beginning to tremble.

“I stake my life on it once more: everything I heard is true. I can testify to these facts again and again, not to damage Miss Delmir’s honor, but to restore Miss Elise’s. Well, I might get stabbed again for it, but one more wound on a body already covered in scars won’t make much of a difference.”

At last the fairy’s mask fell away completely, and the human face beneath it was laid bare.

“Shut up! What do you know about honor? You’ve been sold off from place to place like livestock. What do you know about anything? Someone like you never deserved to be His Majesty the Emperor’s wife! You are nothing but the cursed daughter of a mad king who invaded Frianc!!”

To think that kind of force could come from such a slight frame. The power of emotion truly is something. Delmir shook off every lawyer trying to restrain her and lunged at me.

I stood still and watched the tide of emotion crash toward me, genuinely fascinated by the raw hatred blazing in Delmir’s blue eyes as she charged.

Unfortunately, the soldiers guarding the courtroom stopped her before she could reach me.

Should I call that fortunate or unfortunate? If I had to choose, I would lean slightly toward unfortunate.

She should have lunged at me one more time and wrapped her hands around my throat. That would have buried her completely in the eyes of society. She would never again have been able to trouble Heliones with her obsession.

A little disappointing, but this seems to be enough. The courtroom illustrators were already rapidly sketching Delmir being dragged away by the guards.

I felt laughter welling up inside me. I wanted to shout with joy, but I was still inside the courtroom.

In front of everyone, I had to remain a composed victim for as long as possible.

I put the fichu back on and sat down calmly. To keep the corners of my mouth from twitching, I dug my nails into the back of my hand under the desk.

Ah, moments like this are when I resent having a body so accustomed to pain. It barely works.

Well, nothing to be done. This feeling is new to me. I have never learned how to handle it.

Forming a plan and carrying it through with my own hands was something I had truly never done before.

Making someone who hurt me face the consequences was also a first.

Just as I had planned from the beginning, I had exposed the truth about Delmir, who had run that petty public opinion campaign painting me as the Emperor’s mistress and putting Heliones in a difficult position, and I had buried her socially so she could no longer cling to him.

Whatever the verdict, no one would ever again name Delmir, now with a criminal record for *ssault, as a candidate for Empress.

Elise would no longer be seen as a flawed bride, but as the blameless victim of a one-sided attack by a woman with no character.

I protected her. This time, I did.

I could never protect a small bird, or a cat, or anything at all, but this time I protected what I wanted to protect.

My eyes, no longer easy to control, shifted slightly and found Heliones and Elise.

Elise had her head bowed and I could not see her expression, but Heliones, even amid all this commotion, remained every bit the composed ruler.

What did I tell you? I told you that you would find the perfect partner, one made just for you.

A partner so perfect that your shameful past of having been married to someone like me would be completely eclipsed. A partner filled with that white, transparent emotion I do not know and likely never will.

Not someone like Delmir.

Delmir received a sentence of six months in prison. The sentence was light, but the mere fact that a criminal record now followed the daughter of House Balthar was enough to mark the end of her social life.

The moment the trial ended, cold sweat began pouring down my entire body.

The pain I had been ignoring through sheer tension came crashing down on me all at once. Ah, right. I was still a patient.

I lost consciousness as I was making my way out of the courtroom.

* * *

The woman was excessively calm. Unsettlingly still and quiet.

He found himself suddenly wanting to throw a stone into that strange lake where not even a small ripple ever formed.

He was curious whether even a surface as hard and polished as a well-buffed mirror would show a ripple when struck.

‘It’s delicious.’ ‘It suits me.’ ‘I’m fine.’

Over two years of marriage, that was the extent of what Lucian had said.

Even when food she clearly did not enjoy was served, she ate without a word. Even when she wore a robe that looked uncomfortable at the shoulders, she never complained.

Had it not been for the slight tightening at the corners of her eyes when she ate something with a fishy smell, and the faint twitch of her brow when she moved her arms, she gave so little away that he might never have noticed her dislikes at all. Lucian always had only one thing to say: I’m fine.

Did she have feelings at all? Beneath that perpetually detached surface, the surface of someone who seemed to have given up on everything, was something boiling and stirring underneath?

Rodencian royalty were known for their ability to wield fire, and for their distinctive red hair and red eyes.

True to that, most members of the royal family were equally known for their fiery temperaments and burning passion.

But Lucian fit neither description.

Despite being born with the most vivid red hair and red eyes of anyone, she looked like white ash with not even a trace of warmth left.

Heliones had always wondered. Whether any embers still remained in that cooled white ash.

Whether there would ever come a moment when her emotions boiled over.

He lingered around that pile of ash with no warmth remaining, like a stray cat shivering in the cold.

‘No! The fault is mine. It is all my fault, so blame me!’

Lucian had lived as though she barely existed, but there had been a few moments during their marriage when she raised her voice, and one scene among them had left the deepest impression on Heliones.

After a clumsy maid broke an imported porcelain piece his mother had treasured, his mother flew into a rage and berated the maid harshly.

True to her usual nature, his mother immediately struck the maid, and upon hearing of the situation afterward, he moved as quickly as he could to intervene.

When Heliones finally arrived at the scene, what he found was not what he had expected.

‘Move! Do you have any idea how precious this is?’

‘Managing the household staff is my responsibility as the mistress of this house. Please direct your reproach at me!’