Chapter 1

“Haa, haa, haa…”

Gasping breaths rose to the tip of her chin. But Eva had no luxury to stop and catch her breath there. The final line of defense had already collapsed, and the distant view of Hael’s city center seemed to be burning entirely.

“Your Majesty the Empress! This way! This way!”

She had hoped that at least winter would be spared from this chaos and turmoil. The cold air clung to her exhaled breath. On this deep night with snow covering the roofs since evening, even the air inside the castle seemed frozen. Despite Charlotte’s urging, Eva’s stiffened body slowed her steps endlessly.

No matter how much she ran, the corridor stretching before her eyes seemed to go on forever, as if there was no telling when the stairs would appear. Like the most terrible day in Eva’s life.

“Please hurry, Your Majesty the Empress! Quickly!”

If it weren’t for Charlotte firmly grasping Eva’s hand and moving ahead, Eva wouldn’t have had to run through this corridor like that day. Her precarious steps, on the verge of breaking, continued thanks to Charlotte.

Ah, so this is how it ends.

The coat she had hastily thrown on without time to put her arms through the sleeves kept slipping down. Eva clutched the collar of her coat and turned her head towards the windows lining the corridor. The night sky, with a bright full moon and not a cloud in sight, seemed no different from usual, but all sorts of sounds that shouldn’t be heard on this night chaotically mixed and came through the tightly closed window gaps.

It was the sound of destruction, of someone dying and something collapsing.

When the ‘Blue Wolf’ appeared three years ago, raising a rebellion against the Emperor in the southernmost province furthest from the capital, did anyone imagine that the entire Yarden Empire would eventually fall into their hands?

Now, on the brink of the empire’s downfall, people were clamoring that it was the ignorance and incompetence of Emperor Fabian, who trusted only his brother Grand Duke Joseph, who was confident in warfare, without knowing the state of his own country rotting from within under the tyranny of the nobles.

Kwang, kwakwang.

A strong explosion that shook the ground was heard nearby. Eva’s amethyst-like purple eyes trembled greatly as she momentarily stopped her steps at the vibration that felt like the ceiling might collapse.

Had the Blue Wolf army already come this far? Charlotte hadn’t been able to escape yet.

“Your Majesty the Empress! You must not stop!”

The momentary hesitation that she should send Charlotte away first caused a reaction to Charlotte’s forceful grip. Eva’s pale golden hair, reaching down to her waist, became disheveled in the moonlight. After walking as if running for quite some time, they reached the fountain near the castle’s main gate, where fully armed knights were shouting and running about busily.

“Block the castle gates! We must protect the castle at all costs!”

Fortunately, it seemed the Blue Wolf hadn’t reached here yet. Charlotte let go of Eva’s hand and approached the knight commander.

“Commander! The carriage! Where is the carriage!”

“What nonsense are you talking about a carriage in this situation?”

“Earlier, His Majesty said he would escape to the Grand Duchy…”

“Stop talking nonsense and get out of the way! The back gate? Has anyone checked if the back gate is properly locked?”

“No way…”

Charlotte, with an incredulous face, grabbed Eva’s hand again and ran. When Charlotte quickly opened the door of the stable at the end of the eastern castle wall, there was no horse that should have been sleeping, no neatly prepared carriage, nothing to be seen in that stable.

Neigh…

As if on cue, a faint horse’s neigh was heard from beyond the castle’s back gate.

“Your Majesty the Emperor!”

Charlotte, having grasped the situation, led Eva running towards the castle’s back gate this time. But when they opened the back gate, all that greeted Eva and Charlotte was the dust raised by the departing carriage.

“Your Majesty the Empress…”

As hope vanished in an instant, Charlotte cried like a child. To think that such a timid child somehow managed not to cry and stood firm. It seemed clear that she had put all her effort into the thought of evacuating Eva.

She must have wanted to save me, Charlotte…

“Charlotte.”

If someone had to cry here, thinking that all hope of survival was lost, it should have been Empress Eva, who was about to lose the empire and crumble helplessly before the Blue Wolf army. But Eva, far from tears, comforted Charlotte in a kind voice, as if addressing an old friend, with her usual gentle smile.

“It’s alright. Charlotte, don’t cry.”

“Your Majesty the Empress. Sob, sob…”

She hadn’t expected it from the beginning. She knew from the moment Charlotte first took her hand that the ignorant and incompetent Emperor Fabian, without even the courage Charlotte had standing here, would have fled without a thought for her, whom he claimed to love endlessly, the moment his own life was in danger. And that this action of Charlotte’s did not come from Fabian’s orders.

“We can’t stay here like this. Your Majesty the Empress, if not here, you must hide in the mountains at least.”

Charlotte wiped her tears and once again took Eva’s hand. Though grateful for her desire to save her somehow, Eva decided to stop all steps there.

“I will not go.”

“What? What do you mean you won’t go?”

Charlotte’s eyes widened in surprise. Eva let go of Charlotte’s hand and stepped back one more step.

Eva thought this was enough. That I, who shouldn’t live any longer, who didn’t even want to live, have breathed until now thanks to the care and consideration of someone like Charlotte, and occasionally smiled, and sometimes welcomed small daisy flowers that bloomed in unexpected places — that was already enough.

“Where could an empress abandoned even by the emperor flee to? From the beginning, I was an empress only in name, but at least in this moment, I will face the end together with the people who were once my subjects as an empress. Charlotte, you should leave quickly.”

“What are you saying! You can’t! You must come with me!”

Charlotte shouted firmly, but couldn’t hide the fear rising in her eyes. She seemed afraid that Eva might die right away, and kept looking around nervously, perhaps fearing she might encounter Blue Wolf soldiers at any moment.

“You can’t! Your Majesty the Empress! What will happen to you in the hands of the incredibly cruel Blue Wolf!”

“Charlotte.”

For the first time, Eva’s voice, which had been unwavering even in the face of her country’s end, softened for a moment.

“You’ve worked so hard, staying by my side without leaving for a moment from Florin to here.”

With a modest smile unbecoming of an empress at the corners of her eyes, Eva looked at Charlotte with a distant gaze, as if looking at some other place far away, not here and now.

“Escape quickly before it’s too late. Charlotte, you don’t need to die here with me.”

“Miss…”

‘Florin’, where colorful flowers of various scents and colors bloomed all over the ever-green hills. Her Miss Eva was famous for being more beautiful than the flowers there. Unlike then, there was an undisguisable shadow on one side of Eva’s smiling face now, but to Charlotte’s eyes, Eva was still dazzlingly beautiful all the same.

“Let’s go together with me, Charlotte. Please? Please, Miss.”

“If I disappear, trackers will follow looking for me. I can’t put you in danger because of me.”

“Miss Eva…”

“Those who are rumored to be so cruel, would they spare even a servant’s life? I can’t lose one of my people again. If you truly care for me, go now. Charlotte, hurry.”

“Sob, sob… Miss…”

Charlotte knew what was in Eva’s determination to stay here and not avoid her impending fate.

Miss still blames herself for that incident.

“They say the leader of the Blue Wolf and his soldiers are from the southern region, so the people of Florin should be safe. Will you return to Florin and convey my greetings to my parents on my behalf? I wonder if they are in good health.”

Just mentioning her parents, whom she hadn’t heard from even once since her marriage, made her heart ache, and Eva’s fingertips trembled as she pushed Charlotte’s back.

If she could, if only she could… It wasn’t that she didn’t want to take Charlotte’s hand and run all the way to Florin like this.

“If I had known this would happen, I should have packed my jewels from the bedroom first. But this necklace should be enough. Sell it for a good price and open that general store you’ve been dreaming of in your hometown. You have a good eye and meticulous hands, so I’m sure you’ll do well, right?”

But instead of that desire, Eva first unfastened a necklace with a small butterfly-shaped pendant that she had been wearing around her neck for who knows how long.

I, who was once an empress, was right to die here. I couldn’t put Charlotte, who had done nothing wrong, or the people of my hometown in danger because of a wish that a woman like me shouldn’t harbor — the desire to see my parents’ faces one last time.

“Miss! This necklace…!”

Charlotte, her face covered in tears, checked the necklace Eva had pressed into her hand and stopped crying in shock.

“If I’m captured by the conqueror here, it would be a useless item anyway, wouldn’t it?”

“But Miss. If nothing else, this necklace is the last remaining of Leon’s…”

“Charlotte!”

For the first time, Eva raised her voice. She judged that there was no more time to argue with Charlotte. After the explosion, the commotion that had started from the direction of Hael’s city center and felt distant had now come close nearby.

“Go now, Charlotte. Hurry. With the emperor gone, it’s only a matter of time before this castle falls. The emperor must have left the western side path open when he left, so take a detour and somehow escape from Hael.”

“Miss… sob…”

“Go now. Before the Blue Wolves swallow this castle too, hurry!”

Eva pushed Charlotte out the door with all her might, then came inside and locked the door handle.

“Miss Eva!”

Charlotte, standing outside the door, screamed like a child who had lost her mother’s hand and pounded on the door, but Eva leaned against the door and said nothing. She could only anxiously pray that Charlotte would give up and flee soon.

“Please… you must… survive. Miss.”

Charlotte, who had been pounding on the door for a while, must have realized that at this rate, both of them would die, and conveyed her farewell in a deliberately brave voice. Even through the thick door that Eva had to push with all her might, she could fully feel Charlotte’s warmth, and Eva clutched her collar, steeling her weakening heart.

“I’ll go back to my hometown and somehow find a way to save you, Miss.”

“Don’t worry about me and go quickly, Charlotte.”

And… there’s no need to come back. When you know I’m dead, you’ll be sad… I’m sorry. This is how it had to be for me.

Afraid that Charlotte might burst into tears again, Eva swallowed her last words in her heart.

“You must stay alive. You must!”

Soon after, Charlotte’s footsteps faded away. Leaning against the door, Eva, who had now lost even the strength to hold onto her coat, let go of her hands and faced the cold air rushing into her thin nightgown. Even at a time like this, Eva silently closed her eyes, trying to feel the moonlight touching her body as she looked at the unbelievably bright moon.

―But Miss. If nothing else, this necklace is the last remaining of Leon’s…

Leon.

Like the moon that shares its light while quietly keeping its place even in moments like this when everyone is too busy to even glance… My love with blue eyes like the moon, who embraced me with endless warmth, more than I deserved.

If you knew that I was going to meet a death befitting a greedy woman here, would you finally forgive me?

―You… Why… me…

Even if this tremendous event of rebels swallowing the empire hadn’t happened, Eva knew that her end would ultimately be like this. No, more precisely, she thought it should be like this. She believed that the moment she turned away, even for an instant, from her lover who bestowed only love, who was harmless like the moon, her final moments were destined to be like this.

Even if it’s a face resenting me and angry at me, if only I could face that face just once, even in death… Eva waited for the death approaching her, recalling Leon’s face that she shouldn’t dare to remember.

“Over here!”

Soon after, Blue Wolf soldiers burst in. Eva, her arms firmly restrained and eyes covered, was dragged somewhere like a package. Though she thought she would surely die now…

“Are you Empress Eva van Frentz of the Yarden Empire?”

“I am.”

What the blue-eyed conqueror who had become today’s master of this place desired was not Eva’s simple death.

“How about it, Empress. Starting from today, serve me in my bed.”