“Aah! Leon! Ah!”

That was probably the first and last time. Leon didn’t stop what he was doing despite hearing Eva’s pain-mixed moans. When his thing fully entered Eva and the base of his flesh met Eva’s p*ssy with a wet sound, Leon could no longer hold back. He grabbed Eva’s waist with both hands so she couldn’t retreat and instinctively began moving his hips.

“Leon……! Ahck! Ahah!”

It definitely hurt at first. Each time Leon’s thing went in and out, her thighs burned and the feeling of fullness in her stomach was overwhelming and unbearable. This feeling rising from below, she didn’t know what it was, felt confused wanting to know yet not wanting to know, but…… she could see Leon, who seemed somewhat out of his mind, still checking her condition and trying not to rush.

You like this, don’t you?

Thanks to Leon’s efforts, Eva’s body gradually began to loosen. Eva started to like that unknown feeling more and more. The fullness that seemed about to burst from being so filled no longer felt overwhelming. The heat she felt when Leon sucked her br*asts earlier now rose from below, and Eva unconsciously embraced Leon’s back and moaned.

“Ahh! Yes! Ahck! Leon……”

This act, which had seemed grotesque when she heard about it, didn’t feel that way at all. With each movement of their naturally interlocked bodies, Eva’s heart felt like it would burst with fullness. She was happy that the owner of this broad chest she was embracing was Leon.

“Is it…… okay now?”

“Yes. Ahh. It’s…… so good. You like it too, right?”

“I feel like I’m going crazy from how good it is.”

Eva felt the same way about this act making her head feel like it would break. The creaking sound of the bed, her own moans, each of Leon’s rough breaths—all felt stimulating. Each time Leon thrust up from below, an indescribable pleasure wrapped around her entire body.

“Ahck. I love you. Leon, I love you. Ahh.”

“I love you. Eva. I love you.”

After a moment that was both overwhelming and difficult, Eva cried because it felt so good. So, so good. Her toes curled inward at Leon’s aggressive hip movements. All her senses seemed to concentrate where she and Leon were joined.

Finally, Eva trembled, feeling something burst inside her from Leon’s relentless thrusting. At the same time, Leon also cl*maxed inside Eva.

“Eva. Why are you crying…… Did it hurt? Did you endure the pain?”

“You fool. I’m crying because it feels good.”

As much as the unknown ecstasy she felt for the first time, the thought that she would be forever connected with Leon like this moved Eva to tears. She and Leon were destined to become one like this from birth.

Naturally, that sentiment wasn’t Eva’s alone, so Eva had to tremble in Leon’s arms until dawn.

“My goodness! Leon! Didn’t I strictly warn you! There must be no dishonoring Miss Eva’s honor!”

The next day, after falling asleep together in bed and getting caught and scolded, the corners of their mouths remained upturned, making it quite an ordeal. If both Leon and Eva were asked when they were happiest, they would have given the same answer. It was that night when they became completely one.

* * *

Eva was a lover and friend, a sister, a protector, and the reason for his every breath.

Divlik didn’t tell Finn much about his history with Eva. He simply said that Eva, whom he had loved like his life itself and who he believed loved him just as much, had seen the emperor who visited Florin and, blinded by the position of empress in an instant, turned her back on him in a way he could never have imagined. She abandoned her homeland and tried to kill him, that was all he said.

“Is the scar on your neck from that time?”

“Yes.”

As Divlik recounted the story as dispassionately as if telling someone else’s tale, various indescribable emotions crossed Finn’s face.

“Was the former empress such a cruel person? If she didn’t want you, she could have simply left you behind and gone…… Why did she have to kill you? Why did she have to burn down her entire homeland like that…… Why did she have to do that?”

“She probably didn’t want any traces of her past to remain.”

“Even so, that’s too much. My goodness, I was completely fooled. With such a benevolent face, speaking kindly to servants and standing up to protect them, I thought she was genuinely a good person.”

Finn shook his head in disbelief.

“It’s not so surprising. I was deceived for a lifetime, not knowing she was that kind of person, and was buried in the ground before coming back out.”

Divlik stroked his neck as if the scar there bothered him anew.

“Can someone deceive another for a lifetime?”

“It was only because she never had a reason to reveal her desires. If she could change so mercilessly when she wanted something, it only shows that’s the kind of person she always was.”

“Then why does she stand up to save the servants?”

“An empress needs servants to follow her. Eva wants to remain an empress until the end, even if she loses her name.”

“So that’s why she rejected your offer at first. Saying she would die as a noble empress. No wonder she doesn’t seem curious about what happened to her husband, the emperor.”

Finn muttered, then asked with a serious expression,

“But why didn’t you kill her immediately when you saw her? What have you been struggling with all this time? Did you want to hold such a woman in your arms again? If it were me, I would have cut her throat the moment I saw her.”

Divlik let out a melancholy laugh.

“You’re right, why didn’t I?”

“Pardon?”

“Here I am. I, who once said I would become emperor if she wanted me to, have truly appeared as emperor. If she wanted to be empress, she should have asked me. Regret your choice, curse your foolish self, and wail in remorse for not trusting me. I would kill her after seeing that. That was my initial thought.”

“And now…… is it different?”

At Finn’s question, a bitter smile tinged with nostalgia appeared on Divlik’s lips.

Yes, that was the plan.

—How is it, Empress? To attend to me at night starting today.

From the beginning, he expected Eva to beg him for her life. He planned to make a false promise to spare her, embrace Eva who willingly offered her body, then remove her blindfold to reveal who he was.

After Eva realized who stood before her, who she had moaned for in whose arms, and watched her collapse in despair…… he intended to mercilessly cut her throat.

Did you tremble in the arms of the one who came for revenge? He would sneer and kill her while watching Eva wail in agony—that was his plan.

“You asked why she had to go so far as to kill me instead of just leaving.”

“Yes.”

“I suppose I was curious about that too.”

But Eva didn’t act according to Divlik’s expectations.

—I wish for death.

Eva asked for death without the slightest hesitation. At that point, Divlik thought he couldn’t let Eva die like that, maintaining her dignity as empress.

“Why she had to go that far. Despite knowing that the Eva I faced again wasn’t the Eva I once knew…… the woman standing before me was clearly Eva, but not the Eva I loved—I couldn’t believe it.”

But the more he faced her, who never showed him any vulnerability, the more his heart wavered. Yes, Eva was exactly the kind of woman who would give her life to maintain her loyalty to her lord. The more he faced Eva, who showed the same behavior and appearance as the Eva in his memories, the more confused he became.

“Perhaps that’s what I wanted to ask.”

You should have been the evil Eva who killed me and reduced our homeland to ruins, yet why do you stand there with the face of the Eva I always knew? With the endlessly warm yet resolute face of my Eva.

“Kill the former empress before the coronation, Lord Divlik.”

When Divlik finished speaking weakly, Finn spoke with unprecedented firmness.

“The former empress is nothing but a ghost that should disappear from your memory. I don’t know what happened last night, but thanks to that, she’s crying, isn’t she? Even if that’s not the submission you wanted, it’s enough. Cut her throat and free yourself from that woman.”

If Eva’s tears were truly from the shame of being embraced again by the Divlik she had abandoned, Divlik might have done so. Even if he couldn’t bring himself to cut her throat, he could have expelled her from the castle and let her live the rest of her life in tears.

“I still have unfinished business with Eva.”

“Lord Divlik!”

“Not yet, not yet. If I send her away feeling like this, Eva would truly remain as a ghost in my mind, never disappearing from within me for the rest of my life.”

He should be satisfied if Eva wailed and cried for any other reason, but he didn’t know what lingering attachment remained. For now…… yes.

He couldn’t just ignore how Eva, who had reduced her homeland to ruins and left it behind, cried in shock as if she knew nothing about it, claiming she missed her homeland so much she wanted to die.

And perhaps…….

“At this point, I wonder if anyone who becomes emperor of the empire becomes stupid.”

“What? What did you say?”

Divlik shook his head with a bitter smile. “Perhaps” was nonsensical.

“It’s nothing.”

There was no possibility that Eva didn’t know I had died. She said with her own mouth that her lover had died.

Hoping that Eva didn’t know, that there was some circumstance…… that was just the lingering attachment of someone who survived a near-death experience, and Eva’s desperate calling of my name was merely regret from being tired of life in the castle that differed from her expectations, nothing more.