“Break off… the engagement?”

Liana’s eyes flickered at his unexpected words. They were so close that their breaths mingled and their scents entwined, growing heavier still.

“If that weight on your conscience were lifted…would it truly change anything?”

His violet gaze pressed down on her, suffocating.

Liana clung to her trembling heart with all her might. Guilt and fear were intertwined with an intense desire. It felt like a frozen flame, searing her flesh as it burned cold. These conflicting emotions wound together and consumed her heart. Her body tingled as though it were numb.

But she was not so foolish as to succumb to such reckless temptation. Even though her mind was clouded, she could not abandon reality.

Shed and Giselle were perfect partners, fitted to one another. Politically, too, he needed her. And even if he did cast Giselle aside, there was no world in which Liana could stand at his side.

Clutching at his arm, Liana exhaled a heated breath, but forced cold reality into her voice.

“Your Grace… you love High Priestess Giselle Marlhein.”

She carved the truth into words, dry and deliberate. If she did not, she feared she would be swallowed whole by his desire.

At once, a vein pulsed at his temple.

‘That woman? I love her?’

Did she know, and still pretend otherwise? Surely she was clever enough to see he did not love Giselle. Then why say it? To wound him? To blame him?

Liana was like a devil sent to torment him.

Her gaze set his whole body ablaze, yet it seemed that her only intention was to toy with him. She dangled food before him like a starving dog, savoring the sight of him writhing with hunger.

He wanted to shatter her calm facade. He wanted to see it crumble. To see her cry again.

But more than anything, he wanted her to desire him as fiercely as he longed for her.

“Love?”

Shed let out a hollow laugh.

“…Do you believe in such a thing?”

Yes. That grand, exalted thing people prattled on about. That beautiful, sacred emotion sung of by bards.

It did not exist.

All that remained was the burning desire that devoured him.

The only emotions that shook him were the thick scent flowing through his veins, the droplets falling from the ends of her wet hair like tears, and the shallow breaths spilling from her trembling lips.

Not love—only the desire to claim her.

“You just need to become mine.”

Love, that lofty and sacred emotion, had never existed. This passion was always base and greedy.

He seized Liana with rough, unyielding hands. He pressed deeper, forcing his way into the very core of her and the places she wished to hide most.

In the end, he found it.

From the deepest corner of her heart, he dragged out the Luise Ideana she had kept buried away.

Stripped bare, she felt as though she were standing n*ked before the world. Yet even that shame was soon consumed by him, leaving nothing behind.

An overwhelming sensation swept through her body, riding the quickened rush of blood. She had never experienced ecstasy like this before and had no idea how to endure it.

He kissed her roughly, shouting his triumph to the world.

‘See her. This woman loves me. She trembles in rapture at my kiss, shudders beneath my touch.’

Before he proved himself, she exhaled in pain and then in joy.

She could not deny his touch.

The marble torso on the bedside table creaked sharply. The white statue soon lost its balance and toppled to the floor. The sculpture of a woman’s form shattered on the floor.

And she realized.

Even torn and broken, it was still love.

Even as shattered fragments, it was love she could never cast away.

At that moment, Liana’s mind turned blank white. All her fears, all her doubts dissolved into nothing. Lost in the vanished boundary, she crossed the line that should never have been crossed.

🌺⟡───⟡🌺 🌺⟡───⟡🌺

Liana curled up with her arms wrapped around her body and leaned against the wall, trembling. Her legs were shaking so badly that she could hardly walk. She felt as though she might collapse into a corner of the corridor at any moment.

Her whole body ached as though it had been shattered, and she was damp with sweat.

She clutched at her dishevelled maid’s dress. Her body still burned with feverish heat.

But slowly, her waning reason forced her upright.

“Ah…”

Liana buried her face in her trembling hands.

She could not remember how she had managed to leave the room.

Outside the window, the night was pitch black. Liana had no sense of how much time had passed.

She was not a dreamer. And yet, once—perhaps for a long time—she had dreamed.

She dreamed of holding him close, of kissing him, of giving herself to him completely through the night. She dreamed of a dawn where nothing was hidden, where they could be utterly honest with each other, whispering words of love in the warmth of his embrace.”

But never—not like this.

Then—tap, tap. Footsteps echoed down the corridor.

Startled, Liana lifted her head from where she had been leaning against the wall. At the far end of the room, under the swaying lamplight, she saw a long shadow approaching. White shoes clicked against the stone floor.

Her heart plummeted.

Giselle Marlhein.

She was watching her.

“Ah…”

Tears spilled down Liana’s cheeks, streaming from her red, feverish eyes. Reality returned with cruel clarity as her betrothed advanced steadily down the dark corridor towards her, like fog parting to reveal the truth.

Unconsciously, Liana wrapped her trembling arms around herself. What could she possibly say? There was no excuse. Would it be better to fall to her knees and beg for forgiveness immediately? Could spilled water ever be gathered back?

As she trembled, Giselle stopped before her. Liana froze, unable even to breathe.

Lowering her eyes, Giselle looked down at her. Those angelic golden irises seemed to weigh every sin she bore. There was no concealing the marks—everything was laid bare under the saint’s gaze.

Liana squeezed her eyes shut.

“Your Eminence, I…”

She was about to beg for punishment, about to drop to her knees—

“…You’ve had a hard time.”

The words that slipped from Giselle’s lips carried no reproach, no anger. Only a trace of irritation, dry and clipped.

With a sharp sigh, she tossed a heavy pouch onto the window ledge with a thud.

“I don’t particularly like dealing in prices for flesh, but better you take it than not.”

Lowering her long lashes, Giselle gestured toward the pouch as if to say: take it.

Liana’s mind went utterly blank.

She had never imagined such a response.

“It should be enough.”

Although her voice carried pity, beneath that she felt unrestrained contempt.

In that instant, Liana felt as if her world had collapsed around her.

She plummeted further than ever before into an unbearable abyss of wretchedness.

The emotions she had thought she had kept in check now spilled forth, unstoppable.

“Ah…”

Tears slipped down her face in heavy drops. She had believed herself accustomed to holding them back and hardened against weeping. But now it was as though her tear ducts had broken, refusing to obey her.

Giselle passed her without pausing, unmoved by her tears, and continued towards the room where Shed was.

The sharp, proud click of her heels echoed down the corridor, then stopped abruptly.

“And another thing.”

Her voice came from behind Liana.

“I’d like you to leave as soon as possible.”

A command disguised as a request bore down on her, suffocating.

“It can’t be pleasant for you. And it certainly isn’t for me. You understand, don’t you?”

Giselle’s words pressed against her back as her heels resumed their steady rhythm. She did not wait for an answer. Her footsteps receded without hesitation.

Before that sound had faded, Liana crumpled to the floor.

There had been moments in her life that were unspeakably horrific; moments that she had thought could never be surpassed by any other despair.

She was wrong.

She clutched her chest and swallowed the ragged breath that escaped her lips. A dark bruise spread inside her heart, like rot.

Without ever confessing her feelings, her first love was utterly crushed and left to decay.

What remained was no longer recognizable as love, but something wretched and grotesque instead.

🌺⟡───⟡🌺 🌺⟡───⟡🌺

When Shed opened his eyes, the space beside him was empty.

He pressed a hand to his head — the fever had subsided — and tried to remember.

Had he fallen asleep with her limp body against his? Or had that been a dream, too?

He looked down at his hands.

The memory was vivid: the feel of her, her trembling touch clinging to him and her shallow breath quivering against his skin.

“Luise…”

He had crossed a line that could never be taken back.

He had shown her everything — his feelings laid bare and unadorned, without restraint or pretence. They were raw to the point of savagery.

He had felt something like this once before. An emotion so violent and uncontrollable that reason itself held no sway.

And Luise had been there, too.

🌺⟡───⟡🌺 🌺⟡───⟡🌺

Eight years earlier.

“Don’t just kill him. Do as you please with him first.”

The voice echoed dimly in his fogged mind as Shed Lupus forced his heavy eyelids open.

His body refused to obey him, as though every nerve had broken down. Pain surged through him like muscles tearing and bones splintering apart. The taste of iron coated his lips, yet no groan escaped—only a ragged breath bubbling with blood.

He tried to shift his weight, but the sharp clank of chains rang out, halting him. His body caught fast, unmoving. Only then did he realize—his arms were shackled, suspended in the air. His feet barely touched the ground, burdened with heavy irons and weighted chains.

Through blurred vision, he discerned a barred wall enclosing a windowless chamber, a place he had never seen before. The air was thick with the stench of blood, laced with the acrid tang of strange herbs and smoke.

“Awake now?”

At the sound of a voice, he turned his leaden head. Two men, stretching idly, approached him.

And then—

Thud!

A fist slammed into his face without warning.

“These Lupus are tough. Still alive after all that, eh?”

They pressed a long rod into his abdomen.

“Khff—!”

Pain lanced through his gut; blood sprayed from his lips.

Her body was already ruined. Dark, thick blood pooled at his feet, staining his body scarlet.

Through the haze of pain, his mind cleared just enough to recall why he was here.

He had tried to kill Count Felix Ideana.

Because the count had slaughtered all his comrades—and his brothers.