“Who told you that you were enjoyable to embrace? Was it the emperor?”

Divlik interlaced his fingers with Eva’s, holding their hands together as one, then kissed the back of her hand. Eva seemed too distracted to answer and remained silent.

“Seeing you become shy bit by bit during this, it seems you haven’t taken any aphrodisiac. This isn’t all an act, is it? Why did you reject my initial proposal? I can’t find any trace of the wariness with which you were rejecting me until just before.”

“Do you dislike it?”

“How could I? I’m saying I like it.”

Divlik smiled despite thinking he shouldn’t. Was it merely pleasing? Just her breath being close made him feel dizzy.

“Let me ask one last thing. Will you answer honestly, Eva?”

“Please do, Lord Divlik.”

“Did you love your emperor?”

Eva couldn’t see with her covered eyes, but Divlik’s eyes, waiting for Eva’s answer, shook mercilessly, unable to settle anywhere. They were eyes that didn’t want either answer.

Eva recalled the past while taking deep breaths.

—Stop asking to be sent back to your hometown. Your lover is dead! I killed him! Do you think you could find even a trace of that man if you returned there?!

When Eva, who had belatedly heard that Leon had died, cried asking to at least be allowed to properly collect his body, Fabian had become angry. Far from feeling guilty about killing someone, he didn’t even apologize in the face of Eva’s grief.

Did she love him? Not even once. If she could have looked into her own heart even a little, she would never have thought that the death she requested was because of love for the emperor.

Isn’t that right? How could she possibly love, even a little, the man who had killed the man who was like her very breath?

“I did not love him.”

Divlik’s gaze, which had been desperately wanting and wanting and wanting Eva to the point of breathlessness, changed color at that.

“I see.”

So that’s how it was. I thought maybe, but indeed this woman didn’t love the emperor. That fact awakened Divlik’s reason, which had been sinking into a haze, completely immersed in her. In the end, Eva was merely an empress, and the emperor was just someone necessary for her to become empress.

“Now I’ll remove the cloth covering your eyes.”

But the desire that had already grown to the point of bursting didn’t disappear on its own. It didn’t matter anymore. He was too tired now. Let’s end this by embracing Eva here, thought Divlik as he gathered his loosening resolve.

She should scream, she should crumble, she should be thoroughly broken to the point where she could never live with a sound mind again.

—I don’t want to show myself to you before taking you. I don’t have a taste for embracing women who have fallen for me.

That was a lie. The reason Divlik had kept Eva’s eyes covered until now was that he had been waiting for the moment when Eva would deliberately loosen her body and smile in his arms.

Now, look. See who I am, the one you’re gladly accepting while begging for your life.

And he had intended to show his face with endless mockery. Unlike his initial thoughts, Eva didn’t throw herself into his arms crying and begging for her life, but he thought Eva would receive the same shock this way too. She hadn’t begged for her life, but the situation was set.

Would she scream, or would she cry in terror as if seeing a ghost?

“Look at me directly, Eva.”

Divlik spread Eva’s legs and placed her body on top of his own. Without needing any preparation, Eva’s already heated body seemed ready to accept him. Divlik positioned the tip of his manhood at the entrance of Eva’s womanhood, which was coated with a sticky fluid different from the clear water filling the tub, and pushed it into Eva.

“Hnng.”

Despite being this wet and releasing such aroused moans, Eva’s insides were so tight that Divlik couldn’t enter all the way in one go. As Eva slowly lowered her waist, struggling to somehow accommodate the rest of Divlik, he untied the black cloth covering her eyes.

Divlik intended to thrust into Eva’s center relentlessly while savoring her agonized expression as she faced him in shock, realizing who was taking her while wetting his lower body.

But…… when the worn string loosened and eyes he had never faced before met his…

“Your…… eyes……?”

The one who screamed was not Eva but Divlik. Beyond the black cloth, Eva’s unfocused eyes couldn’t see him.

* * *

The rumors about Eva’s beauty, which had always been abundant, had recently spread throughout the empire with some exaggeration. It was because of Eva’s mysterious eyes.

“Look at this. If you look closely, there are thin gold threads melted into her amethyst-like purple eyes, resembling your eyes.”

When Eva was first born, her eyes were purple like the marchioness’s, her mother. Even in that state, they were beautiful enough to enchant anyone who faced her, and the marquis loved Eva’s eyes that perfectly resembled his wife’s, but the marchioness was disappointed. After giving birth to Eva, she could no longer have children, and her only daughter had inherited only her appearance, not the golden eyes of her husband, Marquis Cloud, who was like the sun.

“Look, Leon. More gold has appeared in my eyes, hasn’t it?”

Then, in the year she turned twenty while preparing for her marriage to Leon, gold gradually melted into Eva’s two eyes. It was only noticeable if one looked closely from a short distance, but because of it, Eva’s eyes sparkled from afar as if the sun itself emitted light.

“Eva.”

“Yes?”

“Can’t you stop becoming more beautiful? I’m worried some man blinded by you might snatch you away somewhere without my knowledge.”

“No need to worry, Leon.”

The high mountain densely populated with trees beside the wave-washed beach was a place Eva visited daily with Leon after meeting him.

Sitting next to him under the shade, Eva bumped her shoulder to his.

“If you disappear from my side, this light will vanish.”

“Vanish?”

“Oh, Leon. If even you don’t know why my eyes became like this, what am I to do?”

“What?”

“This all happened because of you.”

“Me? What did I do?”

“Oh my.”

Eva fidgeted for a while as if embarrassed to speak, then took one of Leon’s hands and placed it on her chest.

“Do you really not know?”

Leon smiled as he realized what Eva was trying to say, feeling the soft touch along with Eva’s pounding heartbeat.

“Because of…… me?”

“Yes. I wonder if my eyes will become completely golden like Dad’s if I marry you?”

The light that bloomed in Eva’s two eyes was like the embodiment of the overflowing joy Eva felt after becoming a woman in Leon’s arms.

So it was like a medal to Leon and…

“In that sense…… can you make…… one more line?”

“Here?”

It was also proof of their love for each other.

* * *

Divlik urgently grabbed Eva’s chin in surprise, wondering if he had seen correctly. He pulled Eva’s face so close that their eyes almost touched. He thought he might have seen wrong because of the darkness, but he hadn’t.

Eva’s eyes weren’t just missing their light. Her purple eyes, which should have been brilliant like jewels, looked like purple paint applied to dull stones, with even the color faded away.

Why? How?

“Why are you stopping, Lord Divlik?”

Eva’s appearance, breathing heavily, wasn’t stimulating at all. Divlik’s mind was filled with confusion. He tried to suppress this confusion by gritting his teeth while persistently examining Eva’s clouded eyes, but it was useless.

Rumble, boom! As lightning struck again, Eva’s blurred eyes appeared even more clearly in the momentarily brightened view. Seemingly unaware of Divlik’s confusion, Eva stroked his thick arm muscles and lowered her hips to accept him deeper.

“I thought we were just getting started, Lord Divlik.”

Eva smiled despite having such eyes. Despite having a face devoid of light, of any trace of joy.

“Can you see who I am?”

“I can tell that the person embracing me here is you, Lord Divlik.”

“I’m asking if you can see my face properly.”

Eva smiled awkwardly as if she had been asked a difficult question. It meant she couldn’t see.

“When did your eyes get injured?”

Divlik bit his lip lightly. It meant there had been no need to cover Eva’s eyes from the beginning. Even without covering them, Eva wouldn’t have recognized who Divlik was.

“Tell me. When did your eyes get injured?”

Eva answered with the same awkward smile.

“One month before you entered the castle.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t think there was any reason to mention it.”

“If you couldn’t see anyway, there would have been no reason to cover your eyes with cloth.”

“Though dim, I can see roughly. You exude such masculinity that just seeing your form like this could make me fall for you, Lord Divlik. Covering my eyes was a very good decision.”

Eva tried to continue their act without knowing Divlik’s confusion.

This isn’t right. This isn’t what I wanted. I, you…….

“Did the emperor do this too?”

“What does that matter? Quickly, quickly, deeper inside……”

“You were locked in the tower many times, weren’t you? Starved multiple times, and while he treated you well sometimes, he tormented you constantly.”

“So you’ve heard.”

“Weren’t you living well as empress? Wasn’t it just Fabian’s strange personality that briefly tormented you out of simple caprice? Did Fabian torment you so badly that you lost your sight, that you couldn’t live properly?”

Divlik poured out questions as if exhaling breath, and a look of bewilderment rose on Eva’s face. It was a face that didn’t understand why that was important or why he needed to ask such things. Just embrace her and be done with it.

He knew, he knew. Divlik knew all too well how nonsensical it was for him to be so shaken by Eva’s unfocused eyes. But Divlik simply couldn’t calm that agitation.

“You should get dressed.”

Divlik lifted Eva’s waist, withdrew himself from her body, then grabbed her shoulders and pushed her away from him.

“Lord Divlik!”

Eva, who had been flushed as if embracing a beloved man, instantly erased her languor and screamed in surprise at Divlik’s words.