It was bitter and miserable.

She spent her whole life behaving meekly. She kept her mouth shut quietly just to be loved. Was this what she finally got in return, an ‘unwanted political marriage’?

Her face, shrouded in deep despair, would not ease.

She wept for a long while without noticing the dawn. When the shy morning sun rose, she made one decision.

“I’d rather just die.”

At the lonely tail end of autumn, she locked her door.

Unable to endure the misery, the despair, and the loneliness that followed her all her life, she finally chose to isolate herself.

* * *

Taran was her betrothed, the man every young lady and princess in the world coveted. He lay there listlessly, unaware of the grave situation on the other side.

The gorgeous chandelier hanging from the ceiling glittered finely in the light of the small candle on the table.

Taran picked up a beautifully drawn portrait from the bedside table, where he left it, and looked at it with indifferent eyes.

“I wonder how she grew up.”

He recalled the rabbit-like girl he often ran into at the festivals of various countries.

An unforgettable incident dug into his mind.

He couldn’t remember exactly how many years ago it was, but he once collided with her in a ballroom where a New Year’s festival was being held.

The accident was big enough that everyone noticed, and it was clearly Taran’s fault to anyone who saw it.

Yet she, the one who could be called the victim, blamed herself and even apologized to him.

“What a fool.”

Setting the paper down listlessly, Taran looked up at the beautiful chandelier.

He couldn’t remember clearly, but a pretty face that always seemed close to tears came to mind.

Did she have black hair like his?

“Well, it won’t be bad.”

From a young age, he felt no interest in whom he married, since it would be a political marriage anyway.

She would only be the woman who became queen. As long as she was reasonably obedient and didn’t nag him over every little thing, what did it matter who she was? Thanks to the genes passed between the already distinguished, they’d all possess some degree of beauty. As for refinement, knowledge, manners… as long as she had the basics, there’d be no problem communicating now and then, right?

To him, a spouse was like a small event, something to draw lightly, the way one draws lots.

There would be no blanks among them anyway.

But the situation was different now. The reason was the war of conquest last year.

Felix won the war, but stabilizing the conquered land and its people required time and a catalyst to speed it up.

In the judgment of many, that catalyst was the ‘help’ of a fairly powerful country.

Taran was nearing marriageable age and the territory had expanded greatly. If a princess of a wealthy country took the seat of crown princess, couldn’t it become the opportunity to leap into the empire they so longed for?

Perhaps before long, he, the king’s heir, might ascend to the emperor’s throne.

In this situation, the princess of Lucia, the nation holding the best gold mine in the west, was a perfectly suited candidate for crown princess.

Moreover, it was openly known that Lucia’s king was a man of tremendous ambition.

As expected, a reply arrived the moment the marriage proposal letter was sent.

[The beautiful nation of Lucia and I, Blair Rose Van Lite, will gladly welcome Taran Jin Sentineo as my partner. We will prepare a grand engagement ceremony lacking nothing, and we will be counting the days until we meet. -From Blair.]

It was the best combination both countries could wish for.

“Marriage, huh… There’ll be an uproar tomorrow morning.”

Taran let out a small sigh and slipped under the blanket. Thinking of a morning that wasn’t even here yet, his head was already noisy.

Thus, on a night of bright moonlight, two very different nights passed.

* * *

A quiet room where dim light seeped in.

In a place made languid by someone’s steady breathing, a small thunder suddenly rang out.

Taran fell asleep just before dawn, and the loud knocking pounding his ears from early morning irritated him greatly. Soon, however, he composed himself and put on the purple robe draped over the chair.

Standing at the door, he asked in a voice not yet composed.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me. Open the door.”

A sigh slipped out of Taran’s mouth. Last night’s worry was already coming true.

“Wait in the reception room.”

Finishing his curt reply without opening the door, he headed straight for the bathroom attached to one side of the room. After washing with cold water to wake his sleep-drugged head, he dressed quickly and walked to the reception room where the annoying uninvited guest waited.

“What is it this early in the morning?”

Striding into the reception room, Taran sat down before the surging blue sea.

The woman facing him was his old childhood friend and lifesaver, Ariel von Stefan.

Her face, coming all this way so early in the morning, was deathly pale.

“Marriage, all of a sudden. What is this, Taran?”

“The proposal Father sent, the Kingdom of Lucia snapped it right up. He must be preparing in earnest to proclaim himself emperor.”

Taran answered indifferently, shaking out his still-wet hair, and Ariel’s expression softly scrunched.

‘Are you kidding me right now?’

She herself was so anxious and burning inside, yet the other seemed completely unbothered. That provoked the woman’s temper.

“Why a princess of another country? When our internal foundation is this solid, why bother…!”

“They need justification to win over the people of the occupied land, I suppose. The justification being, ‘The royal family even marries a woman of a foreign land. Therefore, there will be no discrimination against outsiders, which you fear.’ Besides, when stabilizing a chaotic country, nothing beats gold, right? Then the country with the world’s best gold mine is Lucia. So bring its princess here.”

Taran spoke in a monotone while drinking the tea on the table.

Taran’s fleeting smile ruthlessly clawed at the heart of the woman sitting across from him. Even in a moment like this, he was making himself at home in her heart and running rampant.

Ariel hated him fiercely for being so carefree, oblivious to what she felt.

“So. Are you going to marry? Do you actually intend to?”

“What choice do I have? I have to.”

Taran shrugged and answered readily.

“Until yesterday afternoon, you were resting your head on my lap.”

“I was.”

“You said you’d give me a wonderful birthday present too! You said you’d give me everything I want!”

“So?”

“Then how can you say you’ll marry another woman overnight!”

Ariel finally couldn’t hold back and fumed. Her golden eyes burned intensely with rage.

“What’s wrong with that?”

Taran answered listlessly, frowning, seemingly unable to understand her reaction.

“You… you toyed with me?”

Ariel’s body began to tremble. She was pressing down the rage that felt ready to burst. With all her might.

“Of course not. I’ve always been sincere with you.”

“Sincere? If you were sincere with me, how can you do this?”

Ariel’s lovely face crumpled terrifyingly. Taran, however, didn’t blink an eye.

“Have you and I ever been lovers, even for a single moment?”

“What?”

“To me, you’re a benefactor and a friend. Not a lover.”

“But you know everyone who knows you and me saw our relationship as more than that. Are you going to deny even that?”

“Yes. Maybe. No, quite likely, in the far future we could have become a couple growing old together.”

“Right! We were a pair everyone in Felix acknowledged!”

“No. Say it properly, Ariel.”

Taran’s face, calm and languid until then, froze in an instant. Moreover, the voice flowing from his mouth held a terribly heavy chill.

“I never acknowledged it. You know that better than anyone.”

She couldn’t even part her lips. She could not help but concede to his words.

“You bastard.”

The sea raged violently from early morning, fierce enough to wipe out an entire village.

But that angry wave calmed in an instant.

Taran failed to notice. On the day the storm ceased, he failed to notice what the bottom of the seemingly calm sea was like, or how filthy it was. In the deep, deep sea below, where he could not see, the seed of a huge whirlpool was forming, one that would someday swallow even the royal ship. This he could never know.