It wasn’t Eve who was stabbed by Lyudmila’s knife, but Victor.

He willingly offered his back.

“Ahhhhh!”

Lyudmila hastily withdrew her hand and fell on her backside.

The fingers of the Duchess, who had held a knife for the first time in her life, were deeply cut.

She fainted at the sight of her bleeding hand and the knife stuck in Victor’s back.

Meanwhile, the knights dragged her down from the stage.

Lyudmila Lurie would not escape execution, having committed the crimes of royal kidnapping and attempted royal assassination.

“Ah, I feel dizzy.”

“Don’t… speak.”

Eve’s voice was choked.

Despite the pain, the man smiled again.

“…Eve, are you… alright?”

“D-don’t speak! I’m fine, I’m, I’m-.”

Victor couldn’t support himself and staggered forward.

Eve mustered her strength to pull his arm and hold him in her arms. Then she sank to the floor.

Her pearl-colored voluminous skirt spread widely on the floor as Victor fell into Eve’s embrace.

Her hand touching his back was warm from the blood.

“Ah…”

“Just when my back was getting better… ugh.”

“Please, I beg you. Don’t… speak. The royal physician will come.”

Eve’s lips trembled.

“I’m glad… that you weren’t… hurt.”

“Sob.”

Transparent tears began to flow from the corners of Eve’s eyes.

His golden eyes were gradually closing.

Like the light of the setting sun in the west, they were losing their radiance.

“J-just once… smile… for me?”

“Yes, Victor.”

Eve barely raised the corners of her mouth to show the most beautiful smile in the world.

Not acting, but sincere.

“…Beau… tiful.”

Victor’s eyes closed completely.

With a curved line still on his lips.

Her white dress was soaked with the red blood flowing from his body.

* * *

Sadly, the grand banquet ended in bloodshed.

The guests left in shock, returning to their respective places, while those who knew Victor and the people of Hessen sat anxiously in the corridor of the royal palace, waiting for the results of the surgery.

Servants busily carried chairs, and maids went in and out of the guest room that had been set up as an operating room, carrying hot water and white towels.

Duke Kay, who had brought the decisive witness, the former carriage rental shop owner, leaned against the wall with a gloomy face, looking at the ceiling and furrowing his brow to hold back tears.

The King and Queen also sat in chairs brought by servants, unable to take their eyes off Eve, their mouths closed.

Monica, too, was worried about Victor and Eve and couldn’t say a word. Joan, with reddened eyes, was also holding the wheelchair handle, watching the place where the royal physicians and Dr. Edmond were.

The urgent shouts of doctors and other doctors running with blood packs.

Eve sat among them with a blank face.

Tear marks had dried on her face, which had turned pale.

‘This isn’t why I sought revenge.’

When he closed his eyes as if dead, it felt like her heart was shattering into pieces.

She held him as he trembled and bled, crying.

Ah.

‘I still loved him.’

The fact that the traces of wounds received from someone are large is also evidence of how much one loved that person.

That’s why the more she tried to forget Victor, the harder it was to shake off the wounds she had received from him.

She thought she had barely forgotten him with desperate effort… but she hadn’t forgotten.

‘I just needed time to accept it, but this is too cruel.’

“Victor, please live. Because of me…”

Eve muttered, burying her face in her palms.

She wanted to tell him while looking at his beautiful face.

She wanted to say that she liked him too, that she would forgive him because she loved him.

Eve clasped her tear-soaked hands together and prayed desperately.

‘God, please give Victor and me one more chance.’

“Eve, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

Someone crouched in front of the waiting chair, holding Eve’s clasped hands with both hands.

“Abigail…”

‘You came.’

She hadn’t been able to contact Abigail all this time.

She hadn’t even apologized for deceiving her.

But instead, Abigail, with reddened eyes, spoke with a tearful voice:

“I’m sorry, Eve. You must have suffered a lot because of the Former Queen, no, my mother.”

The King and Queen of Aria, Herod, and Former Queen Isabella were sitting upright in chairs at a distance from the operating room.

“Abigail.”

And Lord Alberto stood beside Abigail.

The master offered his condolences by bowing his head.

Eve just nodded in response.

‘It seems they’re doing well together.’

And there was another person patting her shoulder.

Countess Zinnia sat calmly beside Eve.

“Zinnia.”

“Abigail and I were fine with you being Eve.”

“Ah.”

Hot tears welled up in Eve’s eyes.

At that moment, the door to the guest room where Victor was undergoing surgery opened.

“The surgery is complete.”

Edmond came out of the room with Hessen’s royal physicians.

The desperate gazes of everyone wanting to know the results of the surgery poured onto them.

“We were worried because of the unusual curve of the knife, but that turned out to be fortunate. The knife grazed his side and instead of penetrating his back, it caught on his ribs. He lost a lot of blood, so we performed a transfusion, and the suturing went well.”

“Is his life in danger?”

King Peter asked. Edmond’s voice grew quieter as he answered.

Choked with tears.

“No.”

“Thank God.”

Everyone who had been waiting cheered.

“However, it will take a day or two for him to regain consciousness.”

“Yes. That makes sense.”

Peter nodded and took his daughter’s hand, who was sitting next to him.

Clara and Monica also embraced their daughter’s neck and kissed her cheek.

Afterward, people who loved Eve came forward and hugged her.

“Eve, thank goodness.”

“Don’t worry anymore.”

“Uh… huhuhu.”

Tears that she thought had dried up flowed from the corners of her eyes.

Only then did Eve begin to release the tears she had been holding back.

* * *

But Victor did not wake up.

It had been a week since the surgery, but he lay like a dead man.

The world was constantly talking about Hessen’s legitimate Princess, and rumors about the two twin Princesses were spreading everywhere.

Along with that, stories about the Princess’s guard knight spread far and wide.

Today, too, Eve visited Victor’s sickbed early in the morning.

She had laid him in her bedroom and stayed by his side day and night, except when she went to see Monette.

The royal physician and Edmond came for examinations at scheduled times, but it was Eve who nursed him.

Eve took his hand, neatly placed on the bed.

“At least it’s still warm.”

She hadn’t noticed before, but there was a long scar on his arm.

“This must have hurt too.”

There was no answer.

He seemed to be lost in his own dream.

“What kind of dream are you having, hm?”

Today, too, she sat in a chair beside the bed and talked to him.

Maybe if he heard her voice, he would wake up sooner.

“You said you wanted to be by my side. Wake up soon. Otherwise, I’ll really drive you away this time.”

“…”

“You called me a bear, but do you know what time it is now? It’s evening.”

“…”

“How can you sleep all day?”

Despite her continuous chatter, the man lying down was as quiet as a beautifully crafted plaster statue.

Eve got up and checked the IV bottle.

She confirmed that the fl*id from the bottle was properly flowing into the transparent tube connected to Victor’s arm.

The royal physician had shown her how.

Eve brought a warm washcloth and began to carefully wipe Victor’s body.

“You’re more of a baby than Monette.”

She was smiling because he had asked her to smile.

In truth, she had never genuinely smiled for Victor even once.

‘I’m sorry.’

She had been hurt by him a lot, and the scars remained deep.

But it seemed that his confession of love had brought warmth back to her cold heart.

Like the red Cordis berries, her dead heart had turned red again.

She wiped his face, pale like a wax doll, with the washcloth.

Like a fool, she wanted to hear Victor’s voice.

She wanted to hear it again, and she wanted to tell him too.

That she actually loved him as well.

That she had tried, but it was no use.

She wanted to smile for him.

“Sob.”

Eve covered her mouth with her hand, afraid Victor might hear.

The cameo necklace hanging around her neck dangled down.

Seeing it, Eve’s crying became more intense.

She hurriedly opened the bedroom door and went into the adjacent reception room.

“Huhuhu.”

And collapsed onto the sofa.

* * *

On the second day after moving Victor to this bedroom, a strange visitor had come.

Hearing a knock, she hastily wiped her tears with a handkerchief and answered.

“Come in.”

“Yes.”

The one who entered the room hesitantly was Knight Hogan, Victor’s colleague.

The man, who had cut his bob hair very short, had reddened eyes and a red nose.

“Your Highness. Knight Hogan here.”

Eve rose from her seat to greet him.

By status, she should have remained seated, but she had heard he was a friend who had shared mercenary days with Victor.

“You cut your bob hair.”

“Ah, yes. I offered it at the temple for this guy- I mean, for Victor.”

Looking closer, Hogan had a prayer book from the temple at his side.

Thinking, ‘This person has a rough way of speaking but is a good person,’ Eve calmly asked:

“Did you come to see Victor?”

“What? Yes. And I came to give you something.”

Hogan fumbled in his pocket and took something out.

It was a small gift box.

“Originally, Victor made this to give to you, and it seems it was in his suit pocket during the grand banquet.”

Eve received it and opened it without thinking.

“…Ah.”

It was a mysterious purple cameo.

The sculpture of a mother and baby in relief matched well with the gold string.

“Victor, when night came, would secretly get up and carve this. While crying.”

‘He carved me and Monette. Me and… Monette…’

Her throat tightened.

She couldn’t cry in front of the knight, so she just managed to nod.

“He said when he meets the woman he loves, he’ll beg earnestly and love her. That she had a hard time because of someone as ugly as him.”

Eve bit her rolled lips and slowly put the necklace around her neck.

“Look inside. He was scribbling something else later.”

As Hogan said, she examined the pendant.

Was it a locket pendant?

Tears flowed down Eve’s chin as she opened the cover with trembling hands.

Inside the lid, written in an elegant handwriting, were these words:

“Happy hundredth day. I love you. I miss you, Eve.”

* * *

“Sob, Victor.”

Recalling the day Hogan had brought the cameo necklace, Eve lay face down on the sofa, crying.

She buried her face in a cushion to prevent the sound from escaping.