“Gasp!”

Erenia awoke in pain that felt as though her entire body were being torn apart and dragged in the breath that had seemed to stop.

Her dulled senses gradually sharpened, as though she had been submerged underwater and had only just broken through the surface.

Then, instinctively opening her eyes, she saw a faint light filtering through the deep darkness.

“This place…”

The cramped room that came into view was painfully familiar.

Old furniture with its gilding peeling away here and there, and a room where hardly any sunlight entered even after morning came.

It was the bedroom Erenia had stayed in as a child.

It was shabbier than the rooms assigned to servants in the Imperial Palace, so wretched that no one would ever believe it belonged to a princess.

‘Why am I here?’

After her father’s death, Joanna had become emperor and moved Erenia to somewhat more respectable quarters, so it had been years since she had last seen this room.

‘More importantly, how am I alive?’

The spire Erenia had jumped from was so high that no one could have survived an unprotected fall from it, no matter how fortunate they were.

Yet her body felt light, without so much as a trace of injury.

Uneasy at the strange sense of incongruity, Erenia looked around the room more carefully.

Then she spotted a familiar necklace lying on the table.

“This is…?”

Seven years ago.

It was the fake ruby necklace that had humiliated Erenia at the engagement banquet of her former lover, Lucius, and Joanna.

Joanna had secretly gifted her the necklace, only for it to fall onto the middle of the dance floor and shatter into pieces.

Afterward, Erenia had endured endless ridicule for wearing a cheap imitation necklace made of glass.

There was no way this necklace should still be intact.

And then—

“What?”

Erenia happened to glance into the mirror and immediately sensed that something was wrong with the reflection staring back at her.

* * *

‘Did I really come back? Seven years into the past?’

Only after examining her younger face and the clues scattered throughout the room for a long while did Erenia finally grasp what had happened.

Just then—

“Your Highness! How long do you intend to sleep? I clearly told you that today’s engagement banquet is an important occasion and that you need to start preparing early!”

A middle-aged woman flung open the door without even knocking and snapped at her irritably.

She was a maid who had once been assigned exclusively to Erenia.

‘She died of a drug overdose the same year Joanna and Lucius became engaged… The fact that she’s alive means…’

She really had returned to the past.

At least seven years into the past.

“If you’re awake, then get moving. Why are you just sitting there staring into space?”

At the arrogant maid’s shout, the confusion in Erenia’s teal eyes slowly settled into calm.

If Erenia had truly been given a second chance, if she had really returned to the past, then this time she wanted to make different choices.

The truth was, she had not wanted to die.

She wanted to live and find a far more certain way to utterly destroy Joanna and the Hyen Empire.

And she had to restore the honor of her maternal family, which had been unjustly annihilated.

Her life was far too precious to waste worrying about the opinions of people who would never love her no matter how hard she tried.

“Your. Highness!”

First, she needed to get rid of this maid who had forgotten her place and dared to raise her voice.

Having swiftly calculated her priorities, Erenia turned a cold expression toward the maid and spoke.

“Why are you being so slow? Can’t you hear what I’m—”

“Shut your mouth. How dare you raise your voice in my presence?”

“Y-Your Highness?”

Faced with an Erenia so different from usual, the maid muttered in bewilderment, as though she could hardly believe what she was seeing.

It was understandable.

‘I always treated her leniently, hoping that if I was kind enough, she might come to like me even a little.’

But Erenia no longer wanted anyone’s love or affection.

It was time to make people obey her in a different way.

“I can smell Mortic on you.”

“W-What…?”

At Erenia’s chilling words, the maid sucked in a sharp breath.

“How dare you burn a hallucinogen His Majesty has strictly forbidden? Have you forgotten the emperor’s decree that anyone caught using Mortic is to be banished?”

Thinking back to her previous life, this was already around the time the maid had become addicted to Mortic.

“T-That can’t be! H-How could I possibly…? Your Highness must be mistaken…”

As expected.

With her life at stake, the maid denied it desperately.

But the obvious panic on her face was enough to convince Erenia.

“Is that so?”

“Y-Yes, of course, Your Highness! This isn’t the time for this. You need to hurry and get rea—”

“Then how do you explain this?”

With an icy sneer, Erenia picked up the necklace from the table and threw it down before the maid.

The glass that had been gleaming red in imitation of ruby shattered into countless pieces and scattered across the floor.

“You dared to replace the ruby necklace Joanna gave me with a fake.”

“What? N-No! I never did such a thing! I swear! Why would I ever do that?”

“I hear smuggling Mortic costs a great deal of money. If you sold rubies of this quality, you must have been able to buy quite a substantial amount.”

“N-No! I swear I have never touched anything belonging to Your Highness!”

“Then I suppose you would not mind if I showed His Majesty the ledger hidden beneath the floor tile under your bed.”

“H-How do you know about…”

The maid’s face, which had been flushed with indignation as she proclaimed her innocence, rapidly turned pale.

“Did you truly think I had no idea that you’ve been siphoning off funds from this princess’s palace for years?”

The budget had been meager to begin with, yet this woman was the very person who had made Erenia’s circumstances even more impoverished.

“As if embezzling imperial property were not enough, you used that money to purchase illegal drugs. Such grave disrespect toward the imperial family could not be absolved even with the lives of you and your children.”

“P-Please spare me, Your Highness! I-I was wrong! I must have lost my senses for a moment! If you spare my life, I’ll do anything!”

By now, the maid was clinging to her and begging desperately.

It was a completely different attitude from the insolence she had shown when she barged into the room moments earlier.

‘As I thought. For those who refuse to listen to reason, fear is the best leash.’

She almost regretted not using this method sooner.

“Yes. People do make mistakes from time to time.”

“Y-Yes! Exactly!”

“Then you should clean up your own mistake, shouldn’t you?”

“Pardon…?”

“Didn’t you say today’s banquet was important? What are you doing? Go and bring me dresses and jewelry befitting the occasion.”

“Ah! Yes! I’ll go to the dressing room at once and—”

“Are you telling me to wear those gaudy things?”

If Erenia remembered correctly, there was not a single dress worth wearing in her dressing room.

They were all childish dresses Joanna had forced upon her.

‘In my previous life, I wore them gratefully because I thought Joanna had chosen them out of consideration for me.’

Now, however, Joanna’s intention was obvious.

She had filled Erenia’s wardrobe with clothes that did not suit her at all, solely to humiliate her.

“Not those outdated dresses in garish colors. Bring me several in pale shades. The fabric must be silk, soft enough to drape smoothly over the body.”

It was a style that would soon captivate every noble in the Empire.

“But the banquet is tonight. Where am I supposed to find—”

“My. It seems you still haven’t reflected enough.”

“N-No! Your Highness! I’ll be back at once!”

“Oh, and just in case. Don’t even think about destroying that ledger. I know every merchant you’ve dealt with.”

“I would… never dare even consider it.”

After the maid hurried out, Erenia was left alone in the room.

As though all the strength had drained from her, she sank back against the couch.

‘It isn’t easy, doing things I’ve never done before.’

In her previous life, she had spent all her time watching everyone else’s mood.

She had never raised her voice like this, nor had she ever seized upon someone’s weakness and used it to threaten them.

But now, she had to steel herself for revenge.

‘First, let me think about what I can use right now.’

As Erenia slowly steadied her breathing and sorted through the events of her previous life, the first person who came to mind was Seirn.

‘Why did he try so desperately to save me?’

She still could not explain why a man who had always been rational had fallen apart over the death of someone with whom he had barely shared any connection.

But one thing was certain.

‘He wanted me. And now, I need him too.’

There was a clear limit to how much Erenia could prepare for revenge on her own within the Hyen Empire.

After all, even the emperor who wielded absolute imperial authority—Erenia’s own father—was not on her side.

‘First, I need to escape this Empire.’

If Grand Duke Devlin Seirn wanted Erenia just as he had in her previous life, then accomplishing that should be easy.

‘And if my memories of my previous life are correct…’

Seirn was also scheduled to attend Joanna’s engagement banquet tonight, where envoys from foreign nations would be gathered.