Yerena spoke in a firm voice, completely unaware of the man’s expression. In truth, she didn’t want to burden him. If she told him she was having nightmares due to guilt from becoming close to him, this kind man would worry about her even more. She hated that idea.

But did the princess know? That the face of the man she thought kind had transformed like a monster with blue blood at her words about keeping distance.

‘……I have the power to force you right now if I wanted.’

Experiencing the emotion of disappointment toward someone for the first time, the man reacted extremely. Conflict swirled in his red eyes as they alternated between her fragile body and the bed.

“……I’m sorry for hitting you. It must have hurt.”

What calmed the man, who seemed about to be consumed by emotion at any moment, was Yerena’s touch. As her small hands traced his face as if trying to gauge its shape, he felt his surging emotions scatter, replaced by ecstasy.

‘What a fool I am.’

He silently reproached himself. Then immediately became an obedient dog, bowing his head to the woman.

“I will follow as you say. But please tell me whenever you need me. I’ll do anything you ask.”

Hot breath touched Yerena’s fingers as they traced the man’s face. He playfully bit and sucked the tips of her fingers.

Yerena relaxed despite flinching at the man’s heat felt through her skin. Her body, chilled by the nightmare, grew not just warm but hot.

‘So hot.’

It felt like she would burn up if she fell any deeper. But having already experienced the cold that froze to the bone, she couldn’t turn away from the fireball that provided warmth. After a moment’s hesitation, Yerena burrowed into the man’s embrace like a child whining to a parent and whispered,

“……Then lie beside me tonight and sing me a lullaby. And promise me you won’t leave until I fall asleep.”

The man stiffened at Yerena’s request. A lullaby. It was a word that might as well not exist in his mind.

‘Your Highness. Can’t you sleep? Don’t worry. I’ll sing you a lullaby.’

The man traced his memories far back. Only when he recalled Liz, James’s mother, did a song that had been a lullaby finally echo in his mind.

A song he had never sung before awkwardly flowed from his lips. The lyrics, about a boy chasing stars in dreamland who climbed a high ladder to grasp a star but fell and died, could be somewhat shocking for children. He felt the princess in his arms flinch momentarily.

“……This is the only lullaby I know. Should I stop?”

The man immediately stopped singing and asked. Yerena, still with her face buried in his embrace, shook her head. What did it matter if the lyrics were unexpected? The man’s embrace was as solid as her father’s had been long ago.

Not only that. Yerena could also feel a sense of kinship in the awkward lullaby the man sang.

‘A lonely person.’

Yerena recalled the man’s troubled family history that he had briefly mentioned before. She sympathized with him, who had gone through a difficult past and was still threatened by his half-brother. Though it might seem ridiculous for her to pity someone in her situation, what could one do about emotions? Yerena felt that both the man without a proper family and herself, who had lost her family, were lonely people.

‘……Of all people, to meet me. To hold me in his heart.’

Yerena felt sorry for the man. She found it sad that he had embraced someone as unstable as herself, whose fate was uncertain.

Yerena silently mouthed “I’m sorry” in the man’s embrace. But suddenly she felt a gaze. She gently opened her eyes. And in that moment, she, who had her face buried in the man’s embrace, discovered someone’s shoes standing beside them.

In the golden world, the shoes were strangely clear in both form and color. Yerena pulled away from the man’s embrace. He also noticed something strange about her and stopped singing the lullaby.

Beneath the clearly visible shoes was the pool of blood she had seen in her nightmare. Yerena, who had stiffened, raised her head and faced the owner of the shoes.

‘Yerena.’

Her father, who used to sing lullabies like the man, stood in the pool of blood, glaring at her. The blood flowing from his neck was bright red.

“Ah!”

A scream burst from Yerena’s lips. The man immediately embraced her. But he couldn’t stabilize her trembling body.

“Yerena. What’s wrong?”

The man asked the pale Yerena. Instead of answering, she only raised her gaze slightly and glanced. And only after a long while did she shake her head.

“……It’s nothing.”

Both the pool of blood and her bloodied father had disappeared. Yerena looked at the world that remained only golden, then closed her eyes and muttered inwardly.

‘I’m going mad.’

* * *

Vincent, the emperor’s servant, couldn’t sleep well these days. This was because the condition of the master he served was becoming increasingly serious.

Was it after punishing the couple who dared to intrude into the emperor’s space during the Founding Day banquet? The emperor, who was already eccentric, seemed to have gone completely mad since that day. Screaming and breaking things was ordinary, he would giggle to himself then cry, and then get up and laugh. And like someone suffering from sleepwalking, he would roam the Central Palace all night, then enjoy pleasures with his concubines as usual.

‘I need to quit soon and go back to my hometown. Tsk.’

Vincent, who found serving as the emperor’s attendant uncomfortable, moved his steps thinking he would definitely quit his job within the next month. In his hands were the high-quality liquor the emperor had ordered him to bring and the drug he always smoked.

After walking down the corridor for some time, Vincent habitually started to head to the emperor’s bedroom but caught himself and stopped in front of a certain door.

Vincent had arrived at the emperor’s office. Normally, the emperor should have spent most of his time here. But since Emperor Kedrick rarely entered his office, the door to the office was unfamiliar to Vincent.

“Your Majesty. It’s Vincent.”

Knock, knock, knock.

Vincent knocked on the door. It opened immediately. He was about to enter when he hesitated, seeing how pale his colleague’s face was who had opened the door. His colleague put a finger to his lips, warning Vincent to be quiet.

‘Something’s happened again.’

Vincent moved his steps even more carefully at his colleague’s expression. In the inner part of the office, not easily visible from the entrance, the emperor could be vaguely seen standing with his back turned, reading something.

After placing what the emperor had ordered on a nearby table, Vincent stretched his neck to observe the emperor. He could now see several sheets of paper the emperor was holding in his hand and an envelope that had fallen at his feet, which had been hidden by the wall moments before.

‘That is……’

Vincent immediately recognized what the emperor was holding. It was certainly the letter that Empress Liliana had left for the emperor before she departed. Vincent couldn’t fail to recognize it, as he had placed the empress’s letter there himself.

Suddenly, the emperor turned around. Vincent quickly lowered his head as soon as his eyes met his master’s.

Cold sweat ran down. An expressionless face, devoid of any emotion. The emperor wore a face Vincent had never seen before. His entire body felt chilled by an inexplicable fear.

While Vincent was watching the floor with his heart in his throat, the emperor moved toward him. Vincent bowed more deeply at the emperor’s expensive leather shoes that stopped right in front of him.

“Vincent.”

“Y-yes, Your Majesty.”

The emperor called him. Vincent answered quickly despite stammering. Then the emperor placed a hand on his shoulder and asked in a voice filled with madness,

“I hear your father owns several large mines?”

* * *

‘My first daughter has gone blind. Just like you back then! Like your daughters!’

The king, who shook his confined sister, came back several times afterward, crying out. My second daughter has gone blind. My youngest daughter has gone blind, he said.

Following her four daughters, three of her nieces went blind. The once radiant queen, the once radiant princess, was greatly shocked by this fact.

‘……Is it not over?’

Only after the third niece went blind could Helena realize. The hideous mage’s curse had not ended. As his curse dictated, the princesses of Sedas, regardless of whose bloodline they came from, could not escape the fate of going blind the moment they became princesses.

How terrible this was. Helena had not cared for her nieces as she had for her own daughters. They were merely the children of her half-brother, who had been a competitor but was defeated and banished to the frontier, and his overly gentle wife—children who weren’t even given the title of royalty.

‘That monster……’

But her teeth chattered. That damned mage, that man with red eyes who scattered gold light from his hands, that man whom she now dreaded to call a former lover—it felt as if he still remained by her side.

No matter how much he had helped her in the past, no matter that she had betrayed him, he shouldn’t have done this. After all, who had saved him when he was on the verge of death at the Harmona River? Who had saved his life? He once said he would not spare his life for her sake, yet with that hideous curse still…… Helena bit her lip with her terribly damaged teeth over the shabby meal.

‘I cannot lose to you until the end.’

The eyes of the radiant queen, who had lost everything, burned one last time. Though a princess of Sedas, she was the only one who still had her sight. Anticipating that her descendants would continue to suffer from the mage’s curse, she had no intention of admitting defeat.

Bang, bang.

For the first time, Helena stood in front of the door of the room where she was confined. And knocking on the door, she said,

‘Go and tell your king. Tell him I have something to say about the blind princesses.’