She couldn’t bring herself to look at the emperor’s face. He was the man who crippled Rowen’s real father and cast him out to Atleta, just to take Erin as his wife. The figure she’d only heard about in fearful whispers now stood right before her.

She knelt and bowed to the ground, barely catching Erin’s frantic pleading to the emperor. Holding onto her senses was the best she could manage.

To give the conclusion first, Rowen and Erin didn’t die that day.

The emperor sneered at Erin’s frantic excuses, finding them beneath contempt. Then, as though they weren’t even worth killing, he let the terrified mother and daughter go. Instead, to make sure nothing like this happened again, he killed Noma as a warning.

The day the guards dragged them back to their cold, poor palace, Noma couldn’t speak, yet without her, the place somehow felt even quieter.

The eerie silence made Noma’s death feel real, and Rowen and Erin clung to each other and cried. Their palace stood in such an isolated spot that no one passing by would ever hear them anyway.

If they had actually succeeded in escaping, would Noma still be alive right now?

Failing to serve one’s master properly naturally invited punishment, but Rowen missed Noma so much that she couldn’t stop dwelling on this pointless question.

Perhaps if they’d truly gotten away, Noma wouldn’t have died. They were just an obscure mother and daughter living in a remote palace, so if the guards hadn’t caught them, no one would have even known they tried to flee.

They pushed Noma into mortal danger and fled without a thought for the consequences.

Rowen found herself so horrifying that she cried. And crying only made things worse when she realized she’d unconsciously felt relieved that Noma, being mute and illiterate, couldn’t reveal her identity.

Rowen survived only because the emperor’s mood wasn’t foul that day. If his temper had been even slightly worse, she and Erin would have died.

That fact terrified her. She feared the emperor. She feared the guards who dragged her along with such merciless hands. And she dreaded having to enter the Crystal Palace soon, now that she’d failed to escape.

She feared everything that made up the Hydra Imperial Family.

That night felt like the longest night of her life. Her eyes stung from crying and rubbing at them so much.

Before that escape attempt failed so miserably, Rowen’s goal was simply to flee the palace before turning fifteen. But now, having been caught, met the emperor, and tasted the terror of death, her goal changed.

Only three months remained until she turned fifteen. She’d spent so long planning down to the very end before making that attempt, so it made sense that little time was left.

Entering the Crystal Palace had become unavoidable now.

Once someone entered the Crystal Palace, there were only three ways to leave for good: die, prove one’s ability and become the emperor’s heir, or quietly survive until an heir was confirmed.

Given the circumstances, Rowen decided to try surviving in the Crystal Palace until the emperor’s succession was settled, in that terrible place crawling with monsters just like the emperor himself.

* * *

Rowen left the building with an unmistakably tense look on her face. In her hands she carefully held an envelope holding a letter. The envelope felt thick, as though several pages were folded inside.

The letter was addressed to Erin.

Rowen clutched the letter and hurried with quick steps toward the front gate of the Crystal Palace. Anyone who entered the Crystal Palace couldn’t leave except on special occasions. So handing a letter to the attendant guarding the front gate was the only way to communicate with the outside world.

“…..”

Four years had already passed since Rowen entered the Crystal Palace. Fifteen back then, she’d stubbornly clung to life all the way to this day, now that she’d come of age.

Just as she’d expected, the Crystal Palace swarmed with men who, like the emperor, weren’t quite sane.

Some ruthlessly poisoned whoever lived in the room next to them to become emperor. Some openly killed rivals and used their mothers’ influence to cover it up. Some flattered the strongest heir candidates. Others fixated on crushing anyone weaker than themselves.

Such behavior was tolerated only because this was the mad Crystal Palace. Outside these walls, plenty of these same men would be branded lunatics.

But regardless, Rowen somehow survived in that insane place all the way to adulthood.

How carefully she had to live, all these years, just to stay alive.

On her first day arriving at the Crystal Palace, Rowen desperately begged an attendant for the most secluded room available.

Of course, since the area housed princes, no such obscure room actually existed. So she simply cleaned out a corner storage closet herself and fixed it up to use as her room.

Watching her clean it herself instead of having a servant do it, the attendant gave her a look like this was the strangest thing he’d ever seen.

But she had no choice. Her mother, a former dancer who never flattered the emperor, had no money. That meant Rowen never had a maid besides Noma even before entering the Crystal Palace.

To avoid drawing attention, she never took any classes related to power, like statecraft for future rulers. Swordsmanship training was the same. She couldn’t risk stepping into a training ground full of madmen only to meet some senseless, violent end.

She also rarely left her room unless absolutely necessary.

Whenever she happened to cross paths in the hallway with the men who were, on paper, her brothers, she bowed so low her face nearly touched the floor, greeting them with excessive politeness. She acted as though she were a servant rather than a prince.

Rowen once overheard some princes calling her shameless and laughing about it. Since it wasn’t exactly wrong, it didn’t anger her much.

They had strong backing, so they couldn’t understand how Rowen felt. But having a dancer for a mother meant no backing at all, leaving her no choice but to grovel endlessly before them.

Still, that was how Rowen survived four whole years. And she would definitely keep surviving until the emperor confirmed his heir, so she could leave for Atleta with Erin.

Living while avoiding people as much as possible meant she had no one to talk to at all. Maybe that was why exchanging letters with Erin was her only source of joy.

Rowen often walked to the front gate and stood before the attendant. The one who originally handled letter delivery was an older man with a warm face, but he’d recently been replaced by someone younger. The new attendant’s face looked sharp and irritable somehow.

As Rowen approached, the attendant narrowed his eyes sharply at her. Undeterred, she offered a faint smile and held out the letter to him.

The attendant snatched the letter roughly, tore open the seal, and checked its contents. Rowen was flustered but didn’t let it show.

“What language is this?”

The attendant asked after quickly skimming the letter’s contents. His tone was as rough as his sharp gaze.

“Oh… that’s Atleta.”

“I can’t inspect it if it’s not written in Hydra script.”

But the previous attendant never inspected the letter’s contents…

Rowen glanced at the basket beside the attendant. The other princes’ letters inside all had intact seals. That meant this attendant was being difficult only with Rowen’s letter.

“But my mother is from Atleta, so she can’t read Hydra script.”

The attendant looked Rowen over from head to toe and clicked his tongue as though that explained everything. Then he thr*st the letter right up to her face and said,

“I can’t send this.”

“What?”

Rowen asked as though she hadn’t understood, and the attendant’s face twisted with irritation.

“Does it make sense that someone living in the palace as His Majesty the Emperor’s wife still can’t read Hydra script? I’m saying I can’t deliver a letter sent by the son of someone unqualified.”

Rowen was left speechless with disbelief.

Did the emperor take her through any proper process to make her his wife? Did he ever treat her as a proper wife of the emperor? The emperor had merely toyed with Rowen’s mother Erin a few times before discarding her in a corner of the palace.