3.

The sun rises without fail. The day, which becomes desperate for the sick and a blessing for the happy, begins equally for everyone. It was the same for Nian. The sorrowful emotions of that day burned in the fire of time, eventually turning to ash, leaving only dark traces as they scattered.

After their farewell, he no longer visited the cottage.

Like a wave, he had rushed in without giving her a chance to push him away, drenching her completely, then receded like the tide, and afterward, not even a fingertip was seen.

It wasn’t surprising. Meeting him had always been beyond Nian’s will.

It was his will that had abandoned her in solitude for the past five years, and it was entirely his will that suddenly appeared and persistently sought her out despite her refusal.

The past few weeks felt like eons of time, distant and long.

Nian still spent her days confined in the palace and her nights in the herb garden, while Dade spent his days in the Main Palace and his sleepless nights sipping strong whiskey.

Thus, the two pretended to ignore what had happened between them, like a midsummer night’s dream.

‘It’s better this way.’

Nian swallowed the sigh that was about to escape as she rummaged through the herb garden. At first, it felt refreshing.

She welcomed the herb garden becoming wholly her domain again, free from the irritating intruder. But the refreshing feeling soon turned to disappointment, and eventually to resentment.

Tears flowed from the spring of emotions she thought had dried up after years of shedding them following her becoming Empress. She resented his irresponsibility for coming uninvited, stirring her up, and then vanishing without a trace.

If she hadn’t gone to the ball that day. If he hadn’t recognized her. If she had still been purely Ilena in front of him, would her heart not feel so empty now?

As pointless lingering attachment rose like smoke, Nian shook her head with a bitter smile.

Their relationship had been wrong from the very first step. No amount of hiding and concealing could have moved it forward. It was she who couldn’t bear him not recognizing her true self. Perhaps that was why she accepted the Empress Dowager’s order, which she could have refused again, pretending she couldn’t resist.

Please recognize me. Please tell me it’s okay that it’s me. Nian had desperately wished for this. Of course, it was a pathetically hopeless wish.

Nian let out a small sigh. She moved her hands, which had slowed while lost in thought, more diligently again. Cain would come soon. She needed to finish what she was doing by then.

Yes, focus only on the task at hand. Then, like breaking waves, the persistent lingering attachment would fade away into the distance.

Behind her, the peaceful—no, sorrowful—sun was setting slowly.

Night fell.

Dade picked up the bottle placed on the bedside table. The amber whiskey inside sloshed. As he opened the lid with practiced ease, the strong scent of alcohol wafted out. It was too strong to replace herbal tea, but Dade tossed it into his mouth without hesitation.

Dade had been in a bad mood for days. This unpleasant feeling spread slowly like a drop of ink in water, tormenting him gradually and steadily. His existing insomnia worsened, and he hadn’t been able to sleep for days.

Those black, sorrowful eyes embedded in his mind became more deeply engraved the more he tried to shake them off, driving him mad. As time passed, with each day spent without her, the inexplicable feelings, far from fading, grew stronger, leaving him quite perplexed.

‘How unpleasant.’

He frowned his straight eyebrows mercilessly. At first, he was merely curious and intrigued by her coldness toward him. She had a pretty face, but that was all.

The curiosity stemming from not knowing her identity was completely uprooted when he learned she was the Empress, and it should have been something that would just pass by like a passing breeze.

But somehow, he still found himself curious and intrigued by her, despite the fact that the woman he wanted to possess was the Empress, not Ilena. This feeling he couldn’t shake made him kiss her under the pretext of saying goodbye, even after being deceived.

‘Damn.’

What exactly was this feeling?

Emptiness? No, something bigger than that……

‘What a terrible fate you and I share.’

He smiled bitterly.

***

“So you’re saying it’s difficult?” 

Nian asked with a look of disappointment. Cain hesitated with a troubled expression before speaking.

“Since we need to move discreetly, we can’t get clues from the people in the palace, and outside the palace, no one knows about His Majesty’s lover. Unless we have even a small clue, we’re making little progress.”

Nian closed her eyes tightly, unable to hide her disappointment. Given his typically meticulous character, she had expected it wouldn’t be easy, but she hadn’t anticipated that they wouldn’t find even a single clue.

“If someone found and assassinated the Crown Prince’s lover whom he had hidden so secretly, it’s not something an individual could accomplish. It must be someone with considerable power. Also, someone from a family close enough to the imperial family to immediately notice changes around the Crown Prince, and someone who found the existence of the Crown Prince’s lover uncomfortable enough to risk danger. I’ve narrowed it down to families of count rank or higher based on this, but I can’t track further than that.”

His words made sense. Moreover, it was a matter between a man and a woman.

“Only the parties involved would know, I suppose.”

“……”

“Brother Cain. With just a small clue, we should be able to figure it out. I’ll…… I’ll look into it myself.”

“You, Your Majesty?”

The Empress had no close connections with noble families and thus no inner circle. Cain had felt quite sorry for her, thinking how desperate she must have been to ask him for help after years of not meeting.

How could she find clues that even he couldn’t discover? Cain looked at her questioningly, but Nian didn’t answer and quietly stood up.

‘Your Majesty. Who is that woman you love so much and miss?’

Nian murmured, looking toward the Main Palace.

***

The night, dimly lit by moonlight, had deepened, shining as black as her eyes.

The forest in the palace was as green and lush as any forest, but it smelled more of people than trees. Looking at the trees planted and tended in perfect alignment, almost solemnly without a hint of error, it seemed almost ridiculous.

Dade was walking through that forest. He needed to calm his mind even in the forest. For days, ‘it’ had been tormenting him, dully and slowly coloring him, and finally seeping in.

It didn’t fade with glasses of alcohol tilted in the early dawn when sleep wouldn’t come, nor with heart-pounding runs; rather, it grew stronger. Dade continuously questioned to define this emotion.

‘What exactly are you?’

He asked.

‘It’s anger.’

His polite thoughts answered.

It made sense. She was the Empress he had hated so much. The cruel woman who had taken away his pitiful former lover. He had cursed her countless nights, grinding his teeth in hatred. In fact, the easiest solution would have been to round them all up and punish them.

Spilling the Empress’s blood on his lover’s lonely path to the afterlife would have been the easiest and surest way, but he didn’t do that.

He didn’t want her to pay for her sins so easily. He wanted her to be ignored and excluded, living her entire life as an Empress in name only before dying. Just like his lover had. Alone and lonely.

That Empress had deceived and betrayed him, so it was perfectly reasonable.

His ‘thoughts’ continuously murmured.

It sounded quite plausible, but upon closer inspection, it was a hopelessly wrong answer.

Her scent still lingered at the tip of his nose. Like someone intoxicated by drugs, he couldn’t hide the emptiness in his heart every night due to her absence. Several times, he had barely restrained himself from rushing to the herb garden when inexplicable emotions surged. A persistent woman who kept haunting him no matter how much he tried to shake her off.

Anger? If it were such a simple emotion, if it were just that kind of feeling tormenting him, it would have been easier.

He could have seized her, punished her, and burned down that damned fragrant herb garden completely. He certainly had enough power to do so.

But he never did.

The excuse of anger with lingering attachment was so ridiculous even a passing dog would laugh.

“Damn it.”

Even in the forest he had sought to clear his head and heart, the thoughts continued. Dade, who had been walking calmly, finally couldn’t contain the rising nausea and spat out a harsh word.

It was that night when Dade encountered Nian again.

Perversely, it was Nian who came looking for him.

If it had been the bedroom in the Main Palace, his attendants would never have let her in, but the place Nian came to was the study in the Main Palace. As if she already knew about his sleepless nights, she came to the study and revealed her calm face. Dade looked at her coldly.

Surprisingly, it was Nian who broke the long silence.

“I heard you couldn’t sleep, so I brought some herbal tea.”

“Were we close enough to worry about each other?”

“……”

“Drop the shallow pretense and get to the point. You seem to have something to say?”

“……”

He continued to corner Nian relentlessly. If they had been close enough to worry about each other, if that had been the case, would it have been easier to speak? She had come to him thinking that only Dade would know the clues about her that she couldn’t find.

How should she begin?

At first, she had considered confessing the truth. That she hadn’t killed her. That she knew nothing about it.

But she soon gave up. Even if she claimed innocence without evidence, he wouldn’t believe her. And if she heard his disbelief directly, she felt she might lose the rationality she was barely holding onto.