“Your Grace, we’ve finished securing the inside of the castle as well.”

“Good work, everyone.”

Rian stared down at Arthur, who had finally broken and begun screaming in agony, with nothing but contempt before lightly patting the shoulder of the knight who approached him.

“Arthur von Orva, king of the defeated nation, heed His Majesty the Emperor’s decree.”

“…Khngh, a defeated nation?!”

Arthur, who had become the king of a fallen kingdom on the very day of his wedding, tried to resist, but the hands restraining him moved faster.

“Because you dared harbor disloyal intentions toward the Empire and His Majesty the Emperor, it has been determined that further mercy is unnecessary. Therefore, King Arthur von Orva is hereby stripped of his throne, and the Kingdom of Orva shall be annexed into the Empire.”

Everything unfolded seamlessly, as though the entire sequence of events had been decided long ago from the very beginning.

‘Arthur may have viewed the Empire as a thorn in his side, but he would never openly rebel against them.’

Dearlin knew the Arthur she remembered. He feared the Empire too much to ever do something so reckless.

Which meant even this imperial decree likely carried Rian’s influence behind it.

‘Just how long have you been planning this, Rian?’

The blatant mockery on Rian’s face as he looked down at the despairing Arthur was painfully clear to Dearlin.

He looked utterly satisfied.

“Take the criminal away.”

At the casual wave of his hand, Arthur was dragged out across the floor.

The moment Dearlin tried to move toward the direction Arthur was being taken—

“Hngh.”

Rian’s hand pulled her back first.

Before she could even resist, she was dragged straight into his broad embrace.

“Let go… please, let go…”

She pushed helplessly against his chest in an attempt to escape, but her strength was nowhere near enough to move him.

‘Everyone is watching. Why are you doing this?’

The High Priest, who had been officiating Dearlin and Arthur’s wedding just moments ago, was watching openly from nearby, and the knights who followed Rian surrounded them as well.

To anyone witnessing it, the sight was impossible to comprehend—a woman who had become queen of a defeated kingdom less than an hour ago, and the man who had destroyed that kingdom holding her in his arms.

“…Duke Sinaster. What exactly is the meaning of this?”

The previously silent High Priest finally spoke.

“Ah, right. It has been a long time, Your Eminence.”

Even with the High Priest’s gaze fixed directly on the hand wrapped around Dearlin’s waist, Rian remained completely unfazed.

If anything, he deliberately smiled as he greeted him, which only made the situation more unbelievable.

“Even if this was carried out under His Majesty the Emperor’s command, to commit murder during a sacred wedding ceremony… Are you truly unafraid of incurring the Goddess’s wrath?”

The High Priest’s stern voice sounded as though he were passing judgment upon a follower walking a sinful path.

At his severe reprimand, Dearlin and the surrounding knights who had been whispering among themselves all fell silent.

“My apologies, Your Eminence, but…”

Rian smiled faintly.

“I do not believe in gods.”

Rian alone remained completely unconcerned by the High Priest’s fury.

Without the slightest hesitation, he boldly declared before the High Priest himself that he did not believe in gods.

‘…Is this really the Rian I knew?’

The Rian Dearlin remembered had once been a devout believer.

Ever since childhood, he had visited the temple so often that he was close even with the priests.

She could still vividly remember the times they visited the temple together for blessing prayers, when even His Holiness the Pope would personally come out to greet them warmly.

“My dream is to become a Holy Knight.”

When she once asked what he would have wanted to do if he had not been the heir of House Sinaster, he had answered without a moment’s hesitation.

And yet that same Rian had changed into someone unrecognizable.

The fact that she did not know what had happened to make him this way left her feeling utterly helpless.

“If gods truly existed, they would never have taken everything from me.”

“Duke Sinaster.”

“I have shown enough respect for Your Eminence. My patience is not particularly generous, so I suggest you cooperate.”

His tone remained gentle and polite, yet the meaning behind it was unmistakably a warning.

The High Priest soon pressed his lips tightly shut.

Then, following the knights, he quietly left the wedding hall.

Rian sent the remaining knights away as well.

“Now it’s just the two of us.”

Only Dearlin and Rian remained standing inside the bloodstained wedding hall.

“It’s been a long time. Aren’t you even going to say you’re glad to see me?”

“……”

A smile filled with contempt.

Eyes sunken coldly into darkness.

He looked like a devil from scripture whispering false kindness into someone’s ear.

“W-Why are you doing this…?”

Dearlin had to steady her trembling voice several times before she could finally force out a complete sentence.

Even then, her voice still shook violently with fear.

“I told you already.”

“Rian…”

“I never forgive those who take what belongs to me.”

To be honest, when the nobles attending the wedding as guests began dying one after another, and when Arthur’s wrist was severed—Dearlin had felt a secret sense of satisfaction deep inside.

Weren’t they the very same people who mocked her father’s death?

The same people who laughed at her when she barely escaped Arthur and desperately begged them for help?

And considering everything else they had done, even calling it karma felt far too merciful.

Even so—

No matter how much she had once wished for their deaths, the sight of so many people dying before her eyes still made her feel nauseous.

It would drive anyone mad.

And yet, Rian…looked almost delighted, as though this were nothing more than a festival organized for his entertainment.

“How did you become like this?”

“……”

“The Rian I knew was never this kind of person.”

He had always been warm.

Always gentle.

His smile naturally put people at ease.

He had once been untouched by bloodshed.

The only scent that had ever clung to him was the fresh, woody fragrance that Dearlin remembered so vividly.

That was the Rian she remembered.

“And yet the very person who turned me into this is saying those words. How funny.”

“What…?”

“If you hadn’t abandoned me first, none of this would have happened.”

Rian slowly let his gaze travel over Dearlin, taking her in from head to toe.

No matter how hard he tried to deny it, she looked like the perfect bride in her pure white wedding dress.

The lavish jewelry.

The elegant tiara atop her head.

Even the ring on her fourth finger.

Everything before him was something he had once dreamed of giving her himself.

And that was precisely why he hated it all, especially the ring with the large diamond set into it.

The longer he stared at it, the stronger the urge became to regret sparing Arthur’s life by cutting his wrist instead of killing him outright.

“What exactly are you so dissatisfied with?”

From the moment Rian heard that Dearlin, who had once looked at him, was going to marry someone else, he had not been sane for a single moment.

In fact, he had gone mad five years ago when she disappeared without a trace.

His obsession with finding her again was the only thing that had allowed him to survive those hellish years.

“Why? Are you angry because the former lover you got tired of and discarded ruined your wedding? Or are you upset because you can’t enjoy the position of queen you wanted so badly?”

“Rian…!”

“Answer me, Dearlin. Ah, right. You were never very good at speaking honestly, were you? You were the same when you left the Empire.”

Rian’s words came without restraint, as though he had waited for this very day for years.

Every mocking remark he deliberately threw at her had only one purpose, to wound Dearlin as deeply as possible.

“That’s not true… I never wanted any of this. Not even once.”

From the moment she was reunited with Rian, Dearlin told herself countless times that he could not possibly still love her.

After all, how could anyone continue to love someone who had left them?

But she had never prepared herself for this cold, unfamiliar side of him.

It hurt far more than she had expected.

“You expect me to believe that? If you were hoping I’d still naively fall for your lies like before, you should wake up from that dream, Dearlin.”

At the voice cold enough to freeze her to the bone, at the words that pierced her like blades, Dearlin lost the will to defend herself.

No matter what she said, Rian would only see it as an excuse.

He no longer trusted a single word from her.

“…What are you planning to do with Arthur?”

She changed the subject because she could no longer bear watching him devote himself so thoroughly to hurting her.

“What, are you afraid your husband might die?”

Only after the words left her mouth did Dearlin realize she had stepped directly into the source of Rian’s fury.

“You know that’s not what I meant!”

No matter what she said, the conversation only kept circling back to the same place.

Frustration finally pushed Dearlin into raising her voice for the first time.

“As of today, the Kingdom of Orva will disappear from the map. No one will even dare speak its name anymore.”

“……”

“All of Orva’s nobles will be stripped of their titles and reduced to criminals. If they’re lucky, they might manage to keep their lives.”

Even as he calmly listed horrifying punishments that would strike fear into anyone, Dearlin merely stared at him in silence.

Rian could not read a single thought behind her blank expression.

This was not the reaction he had wanted.

He wanted her to be afraid.

He wanted her to regret the choices she had made.

Instead, however, she merely looked at him with distant, unreadable eyes.

A faint frown crossed his face as he reached for her left hand.

Unlike before, he spoke in a strangely calm voice.

‘…Huh?’

The warmth of his hand took her by surprise.

His grip on her hand felt painfully familiar, and because of that, she could not bring herself to pull away.

Rian slowly brushed his thumb over her wedding ring before finally speaking.

“And your husband will die.”

The moment the words left his mouth, her wedding ring fell to the floor.

Clink!

The sound echoed sharply through the silent wedding hall.

Rian had removed it from her finger without hesitation.

“How does it feel.”

He asked quietly, staring straight into her eyes,

“to become a widow on your wedding day, Dearlin?”