“Princess! Stay conscious! Please, please look at me!”

The moment Erenia met Seirn’s gaze, the final moments of her previous life flashed through her mind.

The sight of his red eyes, always so cold, trembling with desperate urgency.

Perhaps because she remembered his anguished cries so vividly, a sharp ache spread through one corner of her chest.

Seirn’s gaze now was dry and impassive, entirely unlike it had been then.

And yet, his eyes were unmistakably fixed on Erenia.

As though the two of them were the only people standing in the middle of the noisy banquet hall.

Neither looked away from the other across the dance floor.

Erenia soon composed herself.

She still did not know why he had tried so desperately to save her.

But one thing was certain.

‘If the Grand Duke wants me again this time, then I’ll give him what he wants and use him in return. That’s all there is to it.’

No.

Even if Seirn had no interest in her, she would have to make him want her somehow.

Just then, Seirn took a step forward as though intending to approach Erenia.

But at that very moment—

“His Majesty Emperor Maximilian, the great sun of the Empire, is entering!”

Of all times.

The chief attendant announced the emperor’s arrival.

Erenia immediately joined the nobles in forming orderly ranks, preparing to pay her respects to the emperor.

Of course, meeting Seirn was important.

But Emperor Maximilian—the current ruler of the Empire and her own father—was another target of her revenge.

She had no intention of merely watching until the day he died.

Before his death, she would do everything in her power to hasten the Empire’s destruction, so that he could witness with his own eyes the utter collapse of the nation he clung to so obsessively.

If accomplishing that required her to hide her claws until the right moment came, then for now, she was willing to lower herself.

“Eternal glory to Hyen. We greet His Majesty the Emperor, the great sun of the Empire.”

Emperor Maximilian looked upon the sight of everyone bowing before him with satisfaction.

Before long, his gaze settled on Erenia standing in the center of the banquet hall.

‘How tiresome.’

Unlike Joanna, who had inherited Emperor Maximilian’s ash-blond hair, Erenia possessed flawless platinum-blond hair just like the founding emperor of Hyen.

The emperor found Erenia unbearably irritating for flaunting the very symbol of legitimacy that even he himself did not possess.

Fearing that she might threaten his authority, he had framed her mother and maternal family for treason, stripped away her political foundation, and kept a firm hold on her leash as though she were his spoil of war.

Yet as the years passed, that platinum hair and those teal eyes only seemed to grow more striking, almost as if in defiance of him.

‘For some reason, she’s even more unpleasant to look at today.’

Erenia’s unusually different appearance was enough to stir an uncomfortable sense of wariness in him.

But this was an occasion meant to display the grandeur of Hyen before envoys from foreign nations, so he could not reveal his displeasure.

‘Besides, even the Demon of Troka is here today.’

The Troka Empire had been founded roughly a century before the Hyen Empire.

Standing alongside Hyen as one of the two great empires of the Solend Continent, Troka had long reigned as the continent’s true foremost power.

And attending tonight’s banquet was Troka’s sharpest sword—the head of House Devlin.

Not even the slightest weakness could be shown.

So Emperor Maximilian feigned complete composure and approached the place where Erenia, Joanna, and Lucius stood side by side.

“My beloved princess, Joanna. I sincerely congratulate you on your engagement.”

He deliberately excluded Erenia in full view of everyone, lavishing all his attention on Joanna instead.

“Thank you for your blessing, Your Majesty!”

Joanna answered with a bright smile.

What a truly lovable child she was.

The Second Princess, born to an imperial consort from an insignificant baronial family, without even the capability to dare covet the throne.

She had inherited neither the distinctive features of the Hyen imperial family nor the commanding spirit of a sovereign.

She was simply a lovable child.

And that was precisely why he favored her all the more.

Unlike Erenia, who was threatening in so many ways.

“Sir Lucius. Our Joanna is my one and only treasure. See to it that you make her happy for the rest of her life.”

Once again, the emperor completely ignored Erenia.

“Your command shall be obeyed, Your Majesty.”

Even as the emperor nodded in satisfaction at Lucius’s answer, he watched Erenia’s reaction from the corner of his eye.

Normally, whenever the emperor excluded her this openly, Erenia would grow visibly anxious and nervously watch his every expression.

But today, she looked perfectly calm, as though she could not care less.

Perhaps that was why the emperor went so far as to say something he normally would not have.

“It seems the First Princess has finally learned her place today, just as I ordered.”

He wanted to make it clear that Erenia remained completely under his control.

But then—

“I have merely conducted myself with the dignity expected of the imperial family, befitting the stature of the Empire, Your Majesty.”

Erenia gave an answer he had never expected.

The same Erenia who had always been so afraid of falling further out of his favor that she could barely answer when spoken to, let alone talk back, had responded without hesitation.

There was not even the slightest tremor in her voice or gaze.

The emperor’s eyebrow twitched faintly.

Erenia’s unusual demeanor was enough to make Emperor Maximilian freeze.

“Of course, all of this is thanks to the grace of Your Majesty the great emperor.”

But with so many eyes upon him, the emperor could hardly reprimand Erenia when she had observed perfect decorum.

In the end, he had no choice but to let the matter pass, carried along by the atmosphere.

On a night like this, when the eyes of foreign nations were especially fixed upon him, there was simply nothing else he could do.

* * *

“…Grand Duke Devlin came in person. Quite unusual, isn’t it?”

With Joanna and Lucius, the stars of the evening, opening the festivities with their dance, the banquet began in earnest.

The nobles chatted among themselves about all manner of subjects. Some gathered in small groups of three or four and strolled through the sprawling gardens.

As time passed, talk of Erenia’s transformation gradually died down, and people began whispering instead about Seirn, who so rarely appeared outside the grand duchy.

“I heard rumors that he came looking for a bride.”

“Well, judging by his rank and appearance alone, he would be the perfect husband.”

“What good is that? No matter how long he lives, that curse will keep him from ever reaching thirty-five.”

The noblewomen were right.

House Devlin, one of the founding houses of the Troka Empire, possessed immense fame and wealth thanks to the extraordinary power passed down through generations.

Yet without exception, every head of the house died young, never living past the age of thirty-five.

Because of that, their power was sometimes called the “Devil’s Blessing.”

“Oh, even so, that isn’t necessarily such a problem. Living as husband and wife in name only, then becoming a widow and enjoying all that wealth and prestige afterward doesn’t sound so bad.”

“True. But I suppose there is another reason the position remains vacant.”

There was, in fact, a different reason why the position of Grand Duchess Devlin had become especially undesirable during Seirn’s generation.

The Devlin family’s magical power had been identified as the sole cause of the previous grand duchess’s death.

The fact that Seirn’s mother, once young and perfectly healthy, had withered away day by day until she finally died had been more than enough to terrify everyone.

“If you’re unlucky, simply staying by his side can shorten the lifespan of a perfectly healthy person. How horrifying.”

“Exactly. Even if it depends on a person’s constitution, there’s no way to know whether you’ll end up being one of the unlucky ones. Who would willingly take that position?”

The noblewomen kept their voices low as they spoke among themselves, but their conversation was still loud enough to reach Erenia, who had been quietly resting just beyond the nearby hedge.

‘What are they going to do if Grand Duke Devlin overhears them?’

Even if there was hardly anyone who did not know about it, openly gossiping like this was another matter entirely.

‘Then again, if they all avoid him first, that only makes things easier for me.’

The place beside Seirn that everyone else feared.

That was exactly what Erenia wanted.

‘There’s no guarantee I won’t be one of those unlucky cases either. But I don’t care.’

She had already died once.

And in this life, she was prepared to risk everything for revenge.

‘At this rate, the banquet will end before I do anything. I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to meet him in the same place after tonight. I suppose I’ll just have to approach him first.’

Having made up her mind, Erenia turned back toward the banquet hall.

Just then—

“Ah!”

She collided with someone.

The other person’s body was so solid that Erenia was knocked backward and lost her balance.

Just as she desperately tried to steady herself—

A firm arm wrapped around her waist.

“Thank y—”

Erenia looked up to thank the person who had caught her, only to draw in a breath without realizing it.

The man before her was none other than Grand Duke Devlin, Seirn—the very person who had been occupying her thoughts all night.

And unlike when their eyes had first met in the banquet hall, he was now glaring at her with unmistakable anger.

“You. Who are you?”

Like a predator growling before its prey, his red eyes burned with such fierce desire that it seemed he might devour Erenia at any moment.