“Do you feel relieved?”

The corridor fell silent as everyone stepped back. Shed stopped walking and spoke. Liana slowly lifted her head. At some point, the man had turned around, and was now towering over her.

The grey sky suddenly cleared, sunlight streaming through the windows. This accentuated the features of his face, making his anger stand out all the more. The brightness cast his features in stark contrast — one side was lit white as bone, while the other was swallowed in shadow. Even his violet eyes seemed divided: one shimmered as if ready to weep, while the other burned with a deadly gleam.

Fixing her eyes on his face, Liana finally spoke.

“I will not go to Ideana.”

With each movement of her lips, she felt a stinging sensation in the corners of her mouth, a prickling in her cheeks and a throbbing in her jaw. Nevertheless, she enunciated every word clearly.

At this, a deeper shadow swept over the man’s face.

“You cannot defy my command.”

“I am still willing to remain a maid of the ducal house, I—ugh…!”

Before she could finish, Shed shoved her back against the wall. Pain rippled through her spine where it struck the stone.

“Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re some noble lady.”

With the light behind him, his face was completely hidden in shadow. His eyes blazed with unrestrained fury.

“I’ve never fooled myself. I only mean I have the right to choose.”

“Choice…?”

The word curved his lips into a cold, disdainful smile, as if it were a cruel joke.

“Since when did someone of your station ever have that?”

He gripped her shoulders so tightly that she feared her bones might shatter.

“Did I ever have such a choice, Luise Ideana?”

The man’s voice lowered to a crushing, merciless tone, bearing no trace of his former life as a slave. Her eyelids trembled and her defiance wavered.

“Was my opinion ever considered when it came to entering or leaving the Indiana household? Not even once?”

The question cut into her heart like a blade. Confronted with the past that he had revealed, Liana was unable to defend herself or protest. Her green eyes shook, restless like leaves caught in the wind.

“So you finally understand.”

His large hands slackened against her shoulders, the strength draining from them.

Shed slowly stepped back.

“Now that you understand your place, stay quiet and obey. After all, you’re just going back to your homeland, aren’t you?”

The casual cruelty of his words unsettled Liana’s expression. He knew full well what Ideana meant to her, and yet he mocked her with it. Ideana—the land where her family had been annihilated for heresy and treason. Her ruined home.

Her small shoulders trembled, but Shed spoke again with cold detachment.

“So rejoice.”

Rejoice in returning after so many years!

At those words, Liana bit her lip hard. He turned away from her, striding off with long, unhesitating steps until he vanished from sight.

Left alone in the silent corridor, Liana slumped against the wall and sank to the floor. Her hands, clutching at the folds of her black skirt, trembled violently.

🌺⟡───⟡🌺 🌺⟡───⟡🌺

“You intend to go straight to Ideana?”

Eclace’s brow furrowed slightly, but he remained silent. All this time, Shed Lester had been staring only at the play of light and shadow reflected across the table. The wineglass distorted the rays passing through it, scattering them in wavering ripples.

Ideana. That name had consumed his thoughts. It was both the name of the land and the name of the woman. The more he savored it, the sweeter it became. Whether the land or the woman, they both now belonged to him, stripped of their former glory and sullied and broken.

He recalled her, crouched and trembling like a bird with its wings torn off.

‘Luise Ideana.’

She had always been small, but the years had made her even smaller. Gaunt and wretched, buried in filth, she looked pitiful and insignificant. She was easy to break — just as he himself had once been eight years ago as Shed Lupus.

This thought brought a flicker of irritation, yet also a dark satisfaction.

‘Back to Ideana. I’ll take her there.’

Even the idea of it made Shed Lester’s blood thrum. When the emperor first granted him the Ideana lands, he felt no joy, only disgust, as the place held nothing but foul memories.

But the moment he found Luise Ideana, he recognized destiny. Ideana was the perfect stage for revenge.

He wondered what expression would be on her face when they arrived. Would she cower again, trembling with fear? Or would she break down in tears? Would she beg for forgiveness, kneeling with her hands clasped together in supplication? Or would she rage defiantly at him, shameless in her anger?

He could not picture her face. Too much had changed in eight years. Luise Ideana had changed, too.

“Lord Shed Lester. Are you listening to me?”

Eclace called his name again, this time in a firm and deliberate voice. Only then did Shed lift his heavy eyelids at last. The duke’s silence, lost in thought, seemed to displease Eclace, whose brows furrowed in irritation.

“…I’ve already sent the important instructions through Hedrick. A delay of a few months will hardly matter.”

Shed’s words fell in a flat, unhurried tone.

From early on, he had spent much of his time away from Muenher Castle, either fighting in wars or hunting beasts. There were plenty of capable stewards and retainers to manage affairs in his absence. Besides…

Shed’s eyes flicked briefly to Eclace.

‘I’ve got watchful eyes to keep guard as well.’

A pair of unsettling, glowing red eyes met his gaze, narrowing with displeasure.

“But everyone will be preparing to welcome you back at Muenher.”

Eclace pressed on. He recalled what the lark had reported the previous day.

“A week ago, the Marlheine carriage crossed the border. With the holy insignia displayed—it could only have been the High Priestess herself.”

The carriage of House Marlheine had entered Muenher. That house was one of the prince-elector families, holding the right to choose the emperor. And among its members, there was only one person permitted to bear the divine insignia of holiness: Giselle Marlheine, the High Priestess.

And more importantly, Giselle was Shed Lester’s fiancée.

She had undoubtedly come all that way to congratulate him on his victory. Yet he was going to abandon his esteemed fiancée to pursue Ideana instead. It was a decision that no sane man would ever make.

However, he merely rested his chin on his hand and idly reached for his glass, as though it were of no consequence.

“The victory celebration was noisy enough. I’ve no desire to suffer through another clamor in the name of a welcome feast.”

“I don’t mean to meddle, but leaving your fiancée waiting is ill-advised in every respect. All the more so if she is the High Priestess of Marlheine.”

At that, Shed’s fingers froze on the glass. For a moment, he recalled the woman he had entered into a betrothal pact with years ago for political reasons. The woman who had signed her name alongside his.

What did she look like, anyway? Of course he would have recognised her, but when he tried to picture her, he couldn’t remember what color her hair was. Instead, he was left with the impression of an ambitious woman.

But wasn’t she also a woman of strong convictions? Shed stroked his chin lazily, considering. Ambition and conviction: words that did not belong together. To pursue ambition was to forsake justice, and to prioritize justice meant sacrificing ambition. He must have misjudged one of the two.

Whatever it was, one thing was certain: she was a woman born and raised in greatness, and still accustomed to it. At the betrothal ceremony, she had been busy mingling with the other illustrious nobles, greeting and speaking with them. As one of the Empire’s few High Priestesses, she was surrounded by admirers on all sides.

So much so that, in his memory, Giselle Marlheine was little more than a figure blurred into the mass of people around her.

Shed brought the cup to his lips once more, his thoughts of his fiancée already drifting into the background.

“Her Excellency, the merciful High Priestess, will surely be generous enough to understand.”

And with that, he drank, indifferent.

Liana lay curled on the small, coffin-like bed, eyes shut tight.

Ideana. It was once called paradise. It was a beautiful, abundant land that prospered despite being neglected by the imperial center due to its distance from the capital. This peninsula was embraced by the sea, boasting lemon trees in bloom and golden wheat fields stretching along the hills, surrounded by the bluest waters. No land was more beloved.

To the north, the Prunig Mountains towered high, their peaks crowned with eternal snow. To the south, emerald seas and white sands unfolded in all their glory. Luise Ideana was born in this blessed land.

But the Ideana she remembered was no paradise. It was ruined—desolated by the curse of black magic, slaughtered beneath the charge of treason. And it was she, Luise Ideana, who had brought it to such ruin.

“Luise, you will live forever now.”

Liana shrank in on herself, her body curling tighter. The loathsome memory rose like a swamp, dragging her under.

‘How hard I fought to escape… Why did I have to leave…?’

She remembered why she had left Indiana behind. She could never go back. No — she couldn’t. Not for her own sake, not for the sake of the forsaken land and certainly not for Shed Lester’s.

After enduring great suffering, she finally found the resolve to move on.

Liana pushed herself up from the bed. The sun had set completely, but people were still bustling around outside, busy with preparations for the next day’s departure. She had brought no belongings and thus had nothing to pack. All she had gathered were a faded, yellowing skirt given to her by the head maid, a few coins for travel, and a small pocket knife tucked into her bodice – just in case.

When the noise outside had died down, she lifted the ash-grey hood from its peg and drew it over her shoulders.

Her worn shoes left uneven prints as she limped out of the room.