She was slipping her legs into a pair of pants, then pulling a shirt over her upper body and buttoning it one button at a time.

Thud, thud. Someone knocked roughly on the door outside. Rowen stopped fastening her buttons and looked toward the door.

Michael usually locked and unlocked the door freely using magic, even from outside. So there was no reason for him to be knocking. Something about it felt wrong.

“Hey, are you in there?”

And soon her uneasy feeling became reality. The person outside wasn’t Michael. It was Tehern.

Tehern always summoned Rowen to his own room and never once came to hers. But over the past several days, Michael kept her too occupied to visit him. That was probably why Tehern came here in person.

But facing Tehern under these circumstances seemed unlikely to end well. Marks Michael left on her body still remained, and she had no idea how she would explain them to him. She also didn’t want to let him into this precious space of hers.

So Rowen decided to pretend she wasn’t there. She held her breath and only moved her hands, finishing the buttons on her shirt.

Soon, the sound of Tehern’s dry laugh drifted in from outside.

“…Her brother’s here, and my pretty little sister won’t even answer. I can sense someone’s in there.”

The chilling sentence carried through the door and struck Rowen’s ears. No sooner had he finished speaking than a cracking sound rang out and the door handle shattered.

Rowen felt every hair on her body stand on end. Turning the broken handle, Tehern opened the door and stepped inside.

“F*cking hell… I asked if you were in here. You think my words are funny?”

His face twisted with rage, unrestrained. At the sight of that monstrous expression, Rowen froze, gripped by overwhelming fear, unable to say a word. Her legs gave out beneath her and she nearly fell forward, but Tehern closed the distance and caught her shoulder in a firm grip.

“What the hell have you been doing that you couldn’t even come to my room for days…”

Tehern trailed off mid-sentence and frowned. His gaze fixed on the red marks left on Rowen’s neck. In an instant, he realized someone else’s hands had been on her.

“You… slept with some other bastard instead of me?”

He pressed her sharply for an answer. If what Michael did to her one-sidedly counted as sleeping with another bastard, then yes, that would be an accurate description. Seeing terror written across Rowen’s face, he took her silence as confirmation.

“Which f*cking bastard?”

The grip on Rowen’s shoulder tightened even further. Her shoulder felt like it might shatter under his hold. Unable to bear the pain any longer, Rowen finally answered, her voice tangled with sobs.

“M, Michael… Brother…”

“…What?”

The hand crushing her shoulder loosened slightly. Instead, he clenched his fist tight and ground his teeth. Veins bulged thick along his already threatening hand.

“That f*cking bastard…”

“Tehern, is that any way to speak to your brother?”

Another voice cut in between them just then. Both Tehern and Rowen’s gazes snapped toward where the voice came from. Michael, apparently having returned after handing off the letter to a servant, stood looking down at the ruined door handle.

“A civilized person would knock, instead of ripping the whole thing apart like some brute… I already knew you lacked good sense, Tehern, but shouldn’t you consider Rowen’s position too, now that her door is broken?”

This was beside the point, but Rowen once believed Michael showered her with such merciless insults because she had no backing and made an easy target. That assumption turned out wrong. He directed the same venomous words even at Tehern, who had a princess for a mother, no less.

“Hah…”

Tehern let out a hollow laugh and raked a hand through his hair. Michael’s words seemed to have infuriated him further, the veins along his neck standing out sharply. Unable to contain his fury any longer, he strode forward and seized Michael by the collar.

Tehern and Michael were two of the three strongest candidates for the throne. Just having men like that inside her room already left Rowen’s head spinning. And now, one of them had actually grabbed the other by the collar. Rowen wanted to die right then and there.

Of course, that was an exaggeration. She had no real intention of dying.

In contrast, even with his collar seized, Michael maintained an easy, composed expression. Tehern possessed considerable strength, and his grip on Michael’s throat should have been crushing.

“So it’s not just your manners that are terrible, but your hands too. I guess the poison you took last time was a little weak. Should I mix in something stronger this time?”

“Well, if I twist your neck right now, I won’t have to worry about eating that poison at all, will I?”

“But you know you can’t do that.”

Michael smiled easily and taunted Tehern. Then, as if to prove his own words, he used magic to shove Tehern’s body away with force, someone Rowen could never move no matter how hard she struggled against him.

Once he pried Tehern off, Michael calmly straightened his rumpled collar.

“Tehern. Let’s not cause a scene and just let this go quietly. Rowen isn’t your fiancée or anything of the sort anyway, so you have no real reason to be this angry over whether I sleep with her or not.”

“…”

“I’ve been enjoying life in the Crystal Palace again lately, after a long while, and I don’t want to lose that fun just yet.”

“…”

“You’re not going to cause a scene, are you?”

Tehern said nothing at all, yet Michael settled the matter entirely on his own. Judging by his hostile expression, Tehern clearly didn’t agree in the slightest. Rowen feared he might lunge forward and grab Michael by the collar again.

But whether Tehern agreed or not, Michael continued speaking as though his opinion didn’t matter at all. Once he finished, he tilted his upper body to the side and met Rowen’s eyes, previously hidden behind Tehern’s frame.

“Well then, Rowen. I’ll be waiting for that letter.”

Michael left Tehern and Rowen alone together, having turned her room into chaos, and walked out. The one thing Rowen felt grateful to him for was that he fixed the broken door with magic before leaving.

“…”

Tehern still said nothing at all. Rowen kept watching him carefully.

The silence from a man who always mocked her with careless, cutting words felt terrifying. A chill ran down her spine, like standing bare in winter without a single layer of clothing.

A moment later. Tehern, still staring at the spot where Michael had stood, turned his head. Under his gaze, Rowen flinched and trembled.

“What did that bastard mean just now? What letter?”

“Ah… Michael, Brother, told me to write him a letter.”

“Why are you writing that bastard a letter?”

“Because Brother told me to…”

“Then write one for me too.”

Rowen stood there, mouth hanging open like a fool, caught off guard by his unexpected demand. He snapped at her, irritated.

“Are you deaf? I said write me one too.”

“Brother, I mean, Older Brother, why would you need a letter…”

“Do as you’re told without all these questions. Say one more word here and I’ll snap your neck.”

Coming from Tehern, that wasn’t an empty threat, he was genuinely capable of snapping her neck. Rowen stopped pressing him with questions. Instead, she pressed her lips shut and nodded repeatedly.

“D*mn it…”

Still seething, Tehern muttered a curse under his breath and glanced once more at the spot where Michael had stood. Then he raked a hand through his crimson hair and stormed out of the room. Thanks to that, at least this time, Rowen avoided being taken by him.

“…”

After Michael and then Tehern both left. Rowen stood there blankly for a moment before stumbling and collapsing onto the bed. It felt like two violent storms had torn through her precious refuge, one after another.

Rowen trembled all over.

Those disgusting, tiresome bastards. Not content with using her body, now they demanded letters from her too. What possible use could they have for letters from her anyway?

Lying face down on the bed, Rowen stared at the door handle, flawlessly repaired with a single gesture from Michael.

She envied both Tehern and Michael.

She envied that they had strong backing and nothing weighing on their conscience, free to live without any fear of death. She envied Tehern, who possessed enough strength to crush a metal handle with his bare hands. She envied Michael too, who could fix a broken door and shove aside someone as powerful as Tehern with just a flick of his hand.

But alongside that envy, she also found them monstrous. Crushing a solid handle with bare hands wasn’t something an ordinary person could do. If Tehern truly used his full strength, snapping Rowen’s neck would take him no effort at all.

Rowen blinked her tired eyes slowly and thought. If she kept holding on like this, would she eventually escape this place full of monsters and make it back to Atleta?

That future felt impossibly distant. But without the confidence to keep fighting off sleep any longer, Rowen simply let her eyes fall shut. Worn down by monstrous men, both body and mind, she was utterly exhausted.