“Ngh, Your Majesty……!”

“Let’s go back, Lucretia.”

Embracing Lucretia strongly as if wanting to become one body, the Emperor said.

“I was wrong.”

“Stop……”

“I shouldn’t have let you step even one foot outside.”

With wet lips, the Emperor whispered as if speaking sweet nothings.

“Yes. I shouldn’t have given you something like freedom from the start.”

Under that blazing red gaze, Lucretia froze like a deer before a predator.

The man before her eyes was unfamiliar.

Madness flashed in the eyes of the man who, while pushing Lucretia to her limits every night, had always maintained a shred of composure.

The Emperor tried to lift Lucretia into his arms.

That was the moment. The moment Lucretia’s fingertips turned pale as if melting into thin air.

The magic cast the moment it absorbed Lucretia’s blood was activating.

“This is…”

The Emperor also looked down at her body with hardened eyes as if sensing the anomaly.

Lucretia’s body slowly, without stopping, turned pale. Soon the dirt ground began to show through her body.

“Lucretia. D*mn it, f*ck!”

The Emperor tried to grasp her fading body. But the body already absorbed by magic could no longer be caught.

Lucretia suddenly wondered if all of this might be a dream.

Because the Emperor’s face was so unfamiliar.

‘Why do you have that expression?’

A distorted face, drained of color.

Lucretia didn’t know this face of the Emperor.

This face of the Emperor, who had been composed and cold even when punishing traitors.

It must be because he found her fleeing detestable. Even thinking that, Lucretia thought his face was strangely twisted.

As if wounded.

A moment later, the Empress’s body completely disappeared from the clearing.

As if nothing had existed there from the beginning.

※※※

“What a splendidly raised lady.”

“There’s a reason the Marquis praised her until his mouth went dry.”

The nobles each threw compliments toward Lucretia.

Lucretia bowed her head shyly, befitting a well-educated noble lady.

Lucretia Larenne. The only lady of the Larenne viscounty.

That was the public story.

However, the truth was that Lucretia was the Marquis’s illegitimate child. The illegitimate child of Marquis Zepher, who was now introducing her like a new product at a boutique.

The Marquis had hastily pushed Lucretia, born from a sl*ve, into the Larenne viscounty, and the viscount died in a carriage accident before he could properly spend the money the Marquis had given him. The vacant viscounty title was to be temporarily held by Marquis Zepher until Lucretia came of age.

Afterward, Lucretia publicly lived as Lady Larenne, but in truth lived as the Marquis’s hidden daughter and his puppet.

“But, is that rumor true? Did the Marquis really put this lady on the imperial marriage proposal……?”

“Haha, that’s correct.”

The Marquis laughed heartily.

“As she’s a child I’ve sponsored and raised, I guarantee she’ll be sufficient to assist His Majesty the Emperor.”

“I see……”

With that ambiguous response, countless gazes stuck to Lucretia.

‘How dare you?’

Those gazes carried that meaning.

It was natural. The Larenne viscounty, known as her family home, was an insignificant family that had barely managed to build a townhouse in the capital.

Countless families coveted the seat beside the young, robust Emperor. Naturally, the Empress’s position should have gone to the precious youngest daughter of the Zepher marquisate, the nation’s premier marquis family, but…

‘But, Eleonoa is……’

Eleonoa Zepher, Lucretia’s half-sister, had been diagnosed as infertile as soon as she came of age. A fatal disqualification for an Empress.

But the Marquis wouldn’t give up the opportunity to become the Emperor’s maternal family.

Lucretia became the new Empress candidate as Eleonoa’s replacement.

For the Marquis, it wasn’t a bad alternative. Lucretia was publicly his virtuous ward, and secretly his utterly obedient biological daughter.

Even as Empress, Lucretia would follow her biological father’s words like her life depended on it. As she always had.

The Marquis looked back at his daughter with a satisfied smile.

“Lucretia. Rather than just standing there, why don’t you show these people your abilities?”

Saying this, the Marquis pulled a pocket knife from his collar and handed it to Lucretia. Everyone made puzzled faces at the sudden appearance of a blade, but only Lucretia accepted it obediently.

“……Yes, Marquis. Excuse me for a moment, everyone.”

Lucretia brought the blade to her palm.

Shock soon filled the eyes of those watching with curiosity about what she was doing.

“Kyaah!”

“Oh my!”

Ngh.

Lucretia frowned slightly.

Bright red blood flowed from her palm cut by the pocket knife.

It hurt. Naturally. But…….

Lucretia closed her eyes and concentrated all her nerves on the wound with a deep breath.

She felt the burning pain vividly. And gradually, a creeping tickle caressed the wound.

“Oh……!”

“This is……”

Admiring whispers came from here and there.

Lucretia opened her eyes slightly and witnessed the wound healing about halfway.

‘I succeeded……’

Lucretia thought blankly as she looked at the half-closed wound.

“It’s holy power!”

“Oh, to handle holy power so freely at such a young age.”

“You have a most devout ward, Marquis.”

“The Marquis raised Lady Larenne well after she lost her parents at a young age. As expected of the Marquis.”

Relief washed over her like deep waves. Because she couldn’t know what punishment would have awaited if she had failed here.

It probably would have been as terrible as that first week when she first trained in healing arts.

After entering the marquis household under the name of ward, Lucretia had trained in healing arts day and night.

Naturally, to train in healing arts, there absolutely had to be wounds to heal.

Lucretia used wounds made on her own body as training tools.

The Marquis had ordered it so. Because wounds on one’s own body would make one train more desperately in healing arts.

Once she had made a really large scratch, and unable to heal it with her insufficient abilities, it remained scarred to this day.

Looking at the faint but white raised scar running long across her palm, Lucretia bit her lip.

The punishment she received then had truly stung. To the point where she thought she might never leave that closet…….

It was the moment she unconsciously recalled that pain.

“Ngh.”

Lucretia’s body swayed slightly.

The pain in her palm that had been disappearing revived. The wound that had been healing also bled heavily as if to show off. The amount of blood surging up was far more than before she attempted healing.

“Oh my, the blood……!”

“It’s not healing! The blood won’t stop!”

“Goodness! Shouldn’t we call a doctor?”

“……No, it’s fine. Lucretia, you can do it, right?”

The Marquis gritted his teeth and looked at Lucretia. Though his gaze appeared concerned at first glance, Lucretia knew. That gaze was full of warning toward her.

‘I have to succeed. Please…… please……’

Lucretia squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated again. She had to succeed in healing. She had to display splendid holy power according to the Marquis’s will and prove she was talent befitting an Empress.

However, perhaps she was too tense. Contrary to Lucretia’s wishes, the blood flowed more and more until it pooled bright red in her palm.

“This is too horrible!”

“She’ll die from excessive blood loss at this rate!”

One wouldn’t die from excessive blood loss over some blood from a palm.

Lucretia even hated the nobles making a fuss at this moment.

‘Ngh…… please……’

Her side profile burned from the Marquis glaring at her, driving her mad.

It was when she was desperately concentrating on her palm trying to salvage the situation…

“That’s enough, Lucretia.”

The Marquis spoke. In a voice that couldn’t hide its sharpness.

“Follow me to the terrace. Use this to stop the bleeding. You seem to need to calm down.”

Throwing her a handkerchief, the Marquis gestured with a seemingly concerned look. Lucretia’s heart pounded madly.

‘I failed.’

She had failed. And on such an important day as today. On the day she needed to catch the Emperor’s eye at the imperial ball.

The Emperor, who changed his mind as easily as flipping his palm, hadn’t attended today, but instead she needed to make an impression as the prospective Empress in the eyes of the nobles gathered like clouds. The Marquis had told her so again and again from the moment they entered the palace.

This punishment would probably be more severe than anything before.

It was when Lucretia was about to move her trembling steps with that premonition…

“There seems to be an interesting spectacle.”

“Hup!”

“Your, Your Majesty.”

Your Majesty?

Lucretia opened her eyes in shock.

“We greet Your Majesty the Emperor.”

“We greet Your Majesty the Emperor.”

As people bowed like waves, the presence of the man standing arrogantly alone rose like the sun.

Lucretia’s eyes widened.

The Emperor’s face, which she encountered for the first time, didn’t seem human.

It felt strange that such beauty was breathing in reality rather than on canvas.

His forehead, revealed clearly as his black hair was neatly swept back, looked as if precisely carved. The moment she met those blood-red eyes beneath it, Lucretia stopped breathing.

She was so frozen that she didn’t notice the Emperor’s gaze turning toward her palm, nor his perfectly shaped lips opening slightly.

“You’re bleeding, my lady.”

Ah.

At the calm rebuke, Lucretia’s cheeks turned bright red.

It was a disaster. To be caught by the Emperor of all people.

Lucretia hurriedly covered her palm with the handkerchief. She was ashamed that the Emperor—that beautiful person—had witnessed such an immature disgrace. Not to mention the Marquis’s fury would grow even greater.

“No.”

The Emperor narrowed his eyes, seemingly seeing something interesting.

He strode forward. People parted to both sides like splitting waves. Lucretia, standing in the center, still couldn’t breathe properly and barely managed to stand.

The Emperor reached her in an instant.

Do people with a large presence have strong scents too? A strange fragrance like a mix of animal musk and coniferous trees. Her heart beat rapidly at that smell penetrating her lungs in one breath.

“That’s not how you stop the bleeding.”

Was he mocking her immature gesture?

A low voice tinged with laughter tickled her ear.

Lucretia blankly watched the Emperor’s hand lift her palm.

Long, firm fingers tied the handkerchief securely over her bleeding palm. That solid strength, tight enough to hurt slightly, felt like it was gripping her heart.

“Like this. Make sure to tie it firmly.”

The Emperor said, slowly lifting the corner of his mouth.

Lucretia’s heart pounded madly.

The Emperor’s other name, unrealistically beautiful, was the battlefield’s murderer. A nickname attached since he was still a prince.

They said he always dove into the center of battlefields as an imperial family member, cutting down barbarians and monsters indiscriminately, and always reeked of blood.