Blood droplets scattered along the sharp arc of a sword’s path. It had been a while since Maria had faced enemies directly, but her blade had never lost its edge. That was especially true when it came to threats against her liege.

“Don’t let them escape!”

Her shadow knight corps members, reacting on instinct to her killing-intent-laden cry, moved into action. All of them ordinarily disguised as palace ladies-in-waiting, they were swordswomen who moved solely for the emperor.

The attack had begun while they were in the midst of searching for traces of the witch.

‘For the past year, we couldn’t find so much as a rat’s trail. And now, of all times?’

Wasn’t the timing far too convenient. Maria’s pale yellow-green eyes flickered with a ferocity unlike their usual expression.

‘We must capture them without fail.’

Something may have happened to the Grand Witch, or perhaps she had sensed a change in the curse.

‘Cardinal Behil said the Oracle has not yet been fully completed. He said there is a decisive moment that must be endured after lying with all four men.’

Before that final day arrived, Maria had to find the Grand Witch’s trail without fail, then return to the imperial palace and be at Iberis’s side.

Just then, a grinding screech rang out, and something that was neither human nor puppet lashed out with attacks in every direction.

It was a ferocious *ssault that would separate human bone from flesh in an instant at even a glancing blow.

The members exchanged quick glances and hand signals and scattered in all directions in the blink of an eye.

Fortunately, this area was covered in dense coniferous forest, which prevented that grotesque witch’s puppet from running rampant unchecked.

Maria tightened her grip on the hilt of her sword, which felt colder than usual today.

By now, the time with Grand Duke Lionel would have ended, and preparations for the encounter with young Lord Kaian would be underway.

Maria ducked to avoid an attack flying for her throat and coolly pulled the corner of her mouth upward.

‘Right. The fact that the witch launched an attack the moment the curse-breaking began is…’

It was welcome news that breaking the curse through the Oracle was truly the right method. Maria raised the sword she was gripping straight up. Then she drew on every ounce of her strength and drove it down through the air toward the crown of the puppet’s head.

Crash!

With a thunderous explosion, the puppet’s head split apart. Maria knelt before what remained of it, breathing in ragged gasps.

As though proving it was not human, the fallen puppet’s nape was drenched in purple liquid. Maria steadied her breath, then reached out and pulled something from within that liquid.

“The Empress Dowager’s ring.”

The witch had worn all manner of dazzling rings on her ten fingers. It was only later, after learning that woman was the Grand Witch, that she had been able to realize the jewels were the medium for her curses and spells, but…

“Send a carrier pigeon to Her Majesty.”

She had to report immediately that the witch had shown herself.

Iberis, who had been dying. And the witch, grown anxious at the change in the curse that had bound her.

“We pursue the trail.”

The Grand Witch would certainly be at the end of this path.

* * *

Splash. At the sound of water being poured over her body and the touch of warm hands, Iberis snapped her eyes open and realized she had lost consciousness for a brief moment.

‘Lionel must have… left by now.’

Iberis confirmed the familiar faces of the ladies-in-waiting that Maria had trusted and assigned, and let the tension drain from her body. She exhaled a languid breath in the warm water, where her body felt like it was melting pleasantly. The ladies-in-waiting, who had quickly taken stock of Iberis lost in thought, fell silent, even careful with the sounds of their breathing.

She recalled the vivid memories of what had just transpired, indulged in a moment of self-mockery, then ended all that rumination with a quiet laugh.

The truth was, it still surprised her.

She had anticipated that those who held intense feelings for her would be called upon for her curse-breaking, but the Grand Duke had harbored something far deeper and more burning within him than she had expected.

That fierce gaze that drove into Iberis again and again, as though meting out punishment.

Those large hands that came at her with fervor, as though intent on giving pain rather than pleasure and leaving marks that would never fade.

The memory and sensation of her most sensitive and tender places being spread apart without mercy, forced to take in something large and burning, time and again.

‘You got what you wanted, Lionel.’

She had a feeling she would never forget those three nights. Who else would dare pin down the sovereign of the empire like a beast, and cling to her from head to toe as though devouring her whole?

“Hmm. Any word from Maria?”

The time with the first partner had ended.

Iberis’s animal-like instincts whispered to her. By now, the witch would be making her move. For a year, no matter what measures she took, Iberis’s lifeline had been whittled away little by little. That Grand Witch, hiding somewhere and cursing her in the shadows, must have been overjoyed.

And now that a clear change had occurred, how anxious must she be. She might have revealed herself before those who were tracking her, or she might have made a rash move to divert their attention.

Iberis knew the nature of that arrogant and cruel woman better than anyone. Shallow patience, overflowing pride in her own abilities, and that strange obsessive fixation on her appearance.

“Yes, Your Majesty. A carrier pigeon has arrived.”

Iberis reached out her hand and read the note. A smile traced itself across her lips.

She rose from the bath, and water cascaded off her like jewels. Her white, smooth body, beautiful as a doll, gleamed with a fresh vitality. Iberis raised an eyebrow in what appeared to be surprise.

“My condition is good.”

If Maria had been here right now, she likely would not have been able to hide the joy plainly written across her face.

As the curse ate away at her entire body, Iberis had been losing her vitality. No matter how well she performed the pretense of being fine, the act of breathing itself had been agony, a process of pride being ground down.

“My condition is the best it has been in the past year. Someone, bring my clothes.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Even running her own hands over her body, her skin was noticeably better than usual. Though there was still a lingering foreign sensation, as though that large and burning thing were still buried inside her, the Oracle was evidently something special.

With that wretched cursed energy gone and her body feeling light enough to fly, how could this not be welcome?

‘It was not as bad as I expected, either.’

Even when she had been confirming the four men in order through initial contact, she had predicted that going through with the act in earnest would deal some degree of damage to her pride.

Iberis had never once knelt or bowed her head. Even under the pressure of that wretched Empress Dowager, her head had never turned downward.

‘And yet.’

Unable to hide the strange expression on her face, Iberis ran her hands over her own body. Her lips, soft and moist without a single crack. Her smooth neck. The hollow of her collarbone. Her full, soft chest and her slender waist.

All the places that Lionel, that large-framed man, had sucked at like an animal across three nights.

She had not known that mere physical contact could bring such great pleasure. Of course, the Oracle meant to break the curse had pushed the effect of pain’s disappearance and the sensation of pleasure to their extremes.

‘Is it because of those eyes?’

The man who had worn killing intent with stubborn constancy.

The Grand Duke who had looked ready to burn everything to ash with the guilt of having let Elizabeth die.

The one who had known that, and had deliberately stoked that hatred and turned his arrows toward herself.

‘Because I saw what lay beneath.’

The time with him had not been unpleasant. No, it had clearly been enjoyable. The process of spreading her legs and taking a man in had not been a death of pride, but rather something closer to a liberation she had never once experienced before.

A bestial stretch of time in which she seemed to forget every heavy burden, every cold reality that stretched on without end, every weighty duty of an emperor.

She looked in the mirror and saw a vibrant, water-drenched face looking back. The sight of herself smiling quietly at the memory of her contact with Lionel looked somehow indecent even to her own eyes.

“It seems I was born for it.”

Iberis gestured dismissively toward the ladies-in-waiting who had looked up as though wondering what she meant, then surrendered herself to the hands drying her off and exhaled a long breath.

At any rate, starting tonight, she would have to spend another stretch of time in pleasure. This time it would be that man with the peculiarly slick face, Kaian. The memory of him boldly pressing his face toward her and asking to be taken as her lover slipped a breath of amusement from the corner of her mouth.

‘Right, there is nothing to hesitate over.’

Lover or kept man, it made no difference.

Losing her dignity and crying out had not been so terrible, so what difficulty was there in clenching around a man’s member with her lower opening once more? Struggling through pain and pleasure that were quite difficult to endure within sensations that crashed over her like waves, and she would gain this same clean vitality again.

After filling the count to four that way, and seeing through the final night.

‘She would be fully freed from the curse.’

Iberis’s ice-like eyes shone with clarity. The scorching union had not yet melted the sovereign’s heart, hardened solid. But… it was certainly not the same as before.

Iberis, pushing her wet hair back, furrowed her brow in irritation. She thought she now understood what it meant that the Oracle said contact must be maintained without a single moment apart.

The vitality that had left her body feeling languid and pleasantly warm was disappearing again, like sand slipping through fingers.

The familiar lethargy, the wretched pain, a splitting headache and irritability, an anxiety that felt ready to strip away her reason, all of it came crawling up from her ankles.

The damned curse had started again.

“Let us begin preparations for the next one.”

It was time to invite the second man.