The cold air clung to her entire body.

Her fine hairs stood on end and her fingertips trembled, but Roelia pressed her weight into the balls of her feet and stood as though none of it touched her.

A crowd jeering at her filled her field of vision, yet Roelia’s eyes held no one in them.

‘If the chance comes…….’

She repeated the thought she had been turning over all week and blinked slowly. She wanted to bite her lip, but she could not let them see her afraid.

Roelia fixed her gaze ahead with steady eyes.

“Carry out the punishment of Roelia, deposed Crown Prince¹The raw chapter uses the term 태자 instead of 태녀 (feminine equivalent). The case is the same with the chapter title. This simply means Roelia is the title holder, not the consort of a Crown Prince., criminal who murdered the late Emperor and cursed the sacred beast!”

It was time to begin that ritual again.

The guard who had brought Roelia out jabbed her in the back. His eyes held a base sense of superiority. The thrill of treating someone who had once been imperial royalty however he pleased wrapped around him and filled him with a kind of glee.

Roelia had not caught the guard’s lips curling upward in that strange way. She walked slowly.

“Kill her!”

“Boo! Execute her!”

“She killed His Majesty the Emperor just to get her hands on the throne first, the witch!”

“I heard that wicked witch put a curse on our empire’s sacred beast too!”

The citizens of the empire lining the path Roelia walked jeered at her. They hurled insults without end and threw cold water over her.

The rough stones laid into the ground tore open the soles of her feet, leaving red marks behind. But the onlookers were each too busy shouting to notice the dark red footprints dotting the ground.

Her vacant eyes turned toward the next emperor seated at the end of this path. Silena Wintergrass.

“Sister is going to go down in history as a witch. A vile criminal who must beg forgiveness until her hands become her feet and blood seeps out of her.”

Her one and only younger sister, the very person who had pinned crimes Roelia never committed onto her. Roelia’s jaw tightened as she took in Silena’s serene smile.

It had started when barbarians suddenly raided the empire’s borders without warning. There had been a plea for her to fulfill her duty as heir to the throne. She went to the border, drove back the barbarians, and returned to find strange rumors already spreading.

“I heard Princess Roelia was acting like an emperor out on the border where she suppressed the barbarians?”

“I heard the princess resents His Majesty the Emperor for sending her to the border to deal with savages like that.”

“Either way, she’s got a lot of nerve.”

And then there was Silena’s sudden change in attitude, a girl who had never had much to recommend her besides her gentle nature.

“Are you sure you actually defended the border? I heard those primitives were too busy running away for there to be any real fighting. Weren’t you just sitting there pretending to give orders, Sister?”

Roelia had taken it for the usual jealousy. She had brushed those words aside as nothing worth worrying about. Why had she taken them so lightly, when they had been aimed squarely at her all along?

One day, while she was running herself ragged trying to manage public opinion and track down whoever was behind the false rumors.

A message came saying her father wished to see her. She was hurrying to reach him when she lost consciousness for a moment. When she opened her eyes, she was sitting there clutching her father’s blood-soaked body.

A red pool had spread in a circle around Roelia where she held him with blood-covered hands.

The moment she came to her senses, she became, in an instant, a parricide whose name would live in infamy.

A witch who killed the late Emperor out of greed for a throne she would have inherited anyway, and earned the wrath of the sacred beast for it.

That was the title given to Roelia Wintergrass, the woman who had thrown herself into battle to drive back the barbarians and defend the border.

“Didn’t it ever strike you that everything moved too easily and too quickly? The truth is everyone wanted it. They all wanted to see Sister fall.”

Silena had mocked her freely while she sat locked in prison. And among the familiar faces beside her then was the man now standing guard at Silena’s side on the throne, dressed in a white uniform.

“The throne, the empire, and myself. All of it is yours now, Roelia.”

Russell Carpes, who had once whispered words of love to her.

He was now Roelia’s former fiancé and the newly crowned Silena’s betrothed, Lord Carpes. House Carpes had long been a close ally of the imperial family, and the betrayal of its heir had been devastating.

Roelia stared blankly as the man who had once shown her his affection now moved his lips toward Silena.

“Silena, you are truly as lovely as a flower.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. Her Highness has beauty on an entirely different level from the stiff Roelia. Far more graceful, and far more warm-hearted.”

His testimony had turned Roelia’s composure into arrogance. Her impartiality, the way she had never played favorites between factions, became tyranny.

And now, the inadequate princess and the fiancé who betrayed her had become the romance of the age. The most beautiful of lovers, who had struggled side by side against a depraved Crown Prince and fallen in love along the way.

Now they were staging this “atonement ceremony,” waiting for Roelia, stripped of everything, to submit to them completely.

To take from her what they had not yet managed to seize.

Roelia, who had stopped walking along the stone path, made herself move again. The citizens of the empire cheered at the sight of Silena smiling warmly from a distance. Voices rang out praising her brave resolve to witness her beloved sister’s atonement in person.

Silena, who had pushed forward the narrative that she was punishing her dearest sister against her own wishes for the sake of the empire, had quietly become a righteous member of the imperial family.

Roelia let out a quiet, humorless laugh at the voices praising how merciful Silena was for not having the deposed Crown Prince executed.

It was then.

Thwack.

A stone flew from somewhere and struck Roelia in the head. Her slow steps faltered, and stones came flying one after another. One stone became many, battering her body, but Roelia only walked more slowly.

Her bearing was composed and unhurried. Having committed no crime, Roelia did not lose the dignity of imperial blood. But the atmosphere was beginning to heat up.

Blood soaked into her silver hair, turning it red, and dripped down to scatter in drops across the ground. It was hard to keep herself upright, but Roelia did not stop walking. The light in her blue eyes only deepened.

“Welcome.”

The face of the woman who smiled at the sight of Roelia’s battered state glowed softly. Did the others know that behind the face drawn in soft, delicate lines lay something cruel and merciless?

A blade-sharp glint passed through Silena’s eyes.

Kneel. Now.

Roelia lowered her gaze at the silent command. Silena rose with Russell’s escort and lifted her arm to draw the eyes of every citizen of the empire to her.

“The rite of atonement, to appease the wrath of the guardian deity, will now begin.”

A white hand raised a small round object hanging from a necklace high into the air.

A walnut-sized gemstone with a mysterious red aura swirling around it. A sacred object containing the essence of the sacred beast.

Brown eyes flashed as they looked down at Roelia.

“The deposed Crown Prince will bow her head and atone before the guardian deity of the empire.”

Roelia knelt before the one seated on the supreme throne.

And then. Thud!

She drove her forehead into the ground.

“Repent.”

Following Silena’s cry, once more. Thud!

“You know not to just tap it, right? This is Sister performing the rite of atonement to appease the sacred beast’s anger. Make sure blood is drawn.”

Blood trickled down and her vision blurred, but Roelia could not stop.

“If you don’t do as you’re told, I will burn the late Emperor’s body and scatter it in the wasteland.”

That vicious whisper flashed through her mind, and she had no choice but to grit her teeth and press her forehead to the ground again.

Silena’s smile turned strange as she raised her voice.

“Before the solemn wrath of the divine,”

Roelia’s eyes blazed blue. She was doing as they demanded, but she had no intention of breaking.

She would sooner die than break.

Thud!

Red bloodstains spread around Roelia in a circle. Her silver hair soaked through with an intense red, the color of something plunged into open flame.

“Beg for mercy!”

Roelia squeezed her eyes shut. Even with pain making her head spin, one thing was certain.

The gleam of pleasure that had crossed Silena’s eyes was not something she would ever forget.