“A fitting measure,” 

Rigel said with a sneering chuckle. The girl forced herself to meet his gaze, her composure rigidly maintained. She braced for whatever further words might come, unwilling to let her guard down until Rigel left. What if he declared that the mad dog must be put down? The thought crept insidiously into her mind.

“Impressive,” 

Rigel said unexpectedly, breaking her anxious speculation. The girl blinked in surprise. 

Did he just… compliment me? 

Before shock could fully set in, her thoughts jumped to the wager Rigel had placed, staking her life and the throne.

“…You flatter me.”

She quickly bowed her head, feigning humility. The notion of receiving praise from such a man made her stomach churn, but that hardly mattered. What mattered was gaining even a shred of acknowledgment from him, no matter how small. She couldn’t afford to harbor any lofty ideals about refusing his validation. In reality, the man before her held the only power to grant her the throne. That fact alone made her capable of bowing as much as necessary.

As Rigel watched her, his smirk widened, but the girl didn’t notice. She steeled herself inwardly.

I will survive. Until the day I ascend the throne.

If I can’t have you by my side, I’ll create a kingdom where you can live.

***

Returning to the Rose Palace, she immediately acted on her words. Summoning her staff, she ordered Duke Effenberg to be barred from entry and expelled should he attempt to visit. While some of the staff were puzzled by the sudden shift in her stance toward the duke she had once adored, they quickly attributed it to one of her whims, which were hardly unusual.

The girl then retreated to the study. There would be no tutors to guide her—her father would never grant her such a privilege—so she would study alone. Fortunately, the previous mistress of the Rose Palace, her mother, had been an avid reader, and the shelves were well-stocked. Over the next two days, she scoured the library, gathering books on the art of governance.

Perhaps her mother had initially read these books to offer advice to her father, only to realize he was beyond reform.

In hindsight, her mother’s choices seemed more understandable. She had been wise but fragile. The faint light that had always surrounded the queen, visible to the girl’s eyes, now seemed a source of sorrow. She had often felt unable to grasp her mother’s hand tightly, knowing how delicate it was.

But I won’t fade away so quickly.

Though she couldn’t see her own light, she was confident it wouldn’t flicker like a candle in the wind.

Even without hope, she had resolved. Even without light, she had a future. Though her life now depended on a fleeting whim of Rigel’s wager, she was alive. That was enough. It had to be.

She returned several books to her room, not letting the maids notice. They were her father’s eyes and ears, after all. While she doubted her father would care much about her reading, she chose caution. She hadn’t anticipated, however, that her father might learn of her estrangement from the duke and consider using it as an excuse to eliminate him.

Thus, she vowed to be careful in everything. She read secretly at night and reviewed by day. This routine slowed her pace, as she often had to cross-reference books and learn additional background knowledge to grasp complex ideas.

Still, she persevered. She couldn’t afford to give up merely because she lacked a teacher. If nothing else, she had to endure and fill her mind, even with fragments of knowledge. More accurately, she had no choice. Without something to focus on, despair threatened to consume her entirely.

A month passed, and she finished the first volume of a beginner’s guide to governance. One day, she asked a maid, “Has Duke Effenberg visited recently?”

“Not once, Your Highness.”

He had never left her alone for so long. But she accepted it, assuming his anger was deep. She nodded indifferently.

Months passed. Then, a year. Each time, the maids gave the same answer. At first, she thought he simply needed time to cool off. Even after his oath of fealty had been rescinded, she doubted he could entirely ignore her. Indeed, he would come eventually.

But as time stretched on, her unease grew. The intervals between her questions shortened—from once a month to once a week, then every day, until finally, she questioned the maids hourly. Her voice grew sharper with each inquiry.

“Any word from the duke?“

“Not yet, Your Highness,“ the maid replied hesitantly.

“Not yet? You aren’t hiding his visits from me, are you?”

“Never, Your Highness! I swear on my life, I’m telling the truth.“

“What good can you do by wagering your worthless life?”

Crash. A glass cup shattered at the maid’s feet, its sharp shards grazing her ankle. Yet, the maid, trembling before the monstrous figure in front of her, had no time to register the pain. Her reddened eyes looked like she might burst into tears at any moment, but everyone knew her fury wasn’t directed at the duke who refused to come to her.

Not that she hadn’t tried lying. Once, trembling with fear of punishment, a maid stammered a claim that the duke had visited. But the princess didn’t believe her. Instead, she berated the maid even more harshly, spouting incomprehensible accusations.

“Your feeble eyes are filled with deceit.”

Anyone could see that the young girl was not in her right mind. Muttering cryptic words while glaring at the maid, she seemed utterly deranged. The staff began to believe the princess had finally gone mad, just like her father, whose bloodlust had made him notorious. Her infamy spread far beyond the walls of the Rose Palace.

Yes, perhaps they were right. But how could Helia Bailey have endured without losing her mind? She was desperately waiting for someone who would never come. Anyone who had experienced the torment of longing that scorched the heart would hesitate to judge her.

Yet she was growing weary. The time spent waiting for him became, for her, a slow persuasion of herself that he would never arrive. Each day, each hour, she swayed between resignation and hope, plunging herself into hell countless times. Eventually, she realized she wasn’t merely traveling back and forth between hell but had been living there all along. How many sleepless nights had she spent, unable to face that truth?

She wanted to see him, but she didn’t want to see him. She wanted to meet his eyes, but she wanted to avoid them. She wanted to hold his hand, but she wanted to push it away. Thousands of emotions surged through her daily. That was her hell.

From the moment she opened her eyes until she closed them again—and even then—her unstable emotions consumed her entirely. She could do nothing. She couldn’t explain how she endured the mornings when she was forced to take greetings from the maids, sitting with an unopened book in front of her, unable to read a single word.

Another year passed like this. The princess’s inquiries about the duke’s well-being grew increasingly sporadic until she stopped asking. The once-chaotic Rose Palace descended into a deathly silence.

Seeing the now-quiet princess, people whispered that she had lost her mind entirely. But those words held no value to her. The only thing that mattered was the one truth: he wasn’t coming back.

“You abandoned me. You’ve abandoned me forever.”

She had to admit it. He would never again call her name tenderly. He would never smile at her. He wouldn’t even look at her.

Admitting it brought her peace. But then, an immense wave of loss overwhelmed her. She felt as though all her organs had vanished, leaving her hollow and incapable of doing anything. Words on a page blurred; voices became noise; food tasted like ash. She felt herself disintegrating, like grains of sand scattering in the wind.

Reassembling her fragmented self took another three years. The agonizing years blurred in her memory, a time when she had let go so thoroughly that even her mind seemed to cease functioning.

“…The sunlight feels warm.”

One spring day, living in numbness, she felt the warmth of sunlight on the back of her hand. That was the beginning. One day, she suddenly regained a sense of life.

Though unread, the book she had held out of habit began to make sense again. After that, she devoured books obsessively. Was it because her heart was empty? The sense of the world expanding through reading was gone. She simply absorbed knowledge relentlessly.

Still, she kept reading. She pored over every book on statecraft until they were worn thin. She had to walk a path different from her father’s. Even if she could never be hailed as a wise ruler, she must avoid being called a tyrant.

She began living anew. As she had always done, she periodically dismissed servants and consumed the poisons they brought. At night, she read; by day, she acted the part of a subdued princess, ensuring she remained invisible to her father’s spies.

She rarely participated in social gatherings, but when she did attend national banquets or balls, she dressed as extravagantly as possible. This was essential to project dominance and authority and ensure no one underestimated her. 

The plain modesty befitting a successor was not an option for her. What others saw as social events were, for her, stages to assert her strength and her kingdom’s stability. Though she might be accused of excess, she ensured no one could perceive her as weak or insignificant. As she had predicted, people might disparage her privately, but none dared to ignore her.

Occasionally, she would catch sight of him at such events. Like her, he attended grudgingly. Why did her eyes always manage to find him? She lamented this but never once exchanged a glance with him. On those nights, returning home felt like floating through the mist, a ghost unnoticed by anyone. Dreams in which everyone passed her by, oblivious to her presence, left her waking with a start, shaken by the reality that she was still alive.

“Leave.“

“Yes, Your Highness.”