What a fine hand it was. Enough to make one want to curse. That hand lifted his blood-soaked hand and brought it up to right before her face, then clicked her tongue.

“How foolish.”

The tone, feigning concern, snapped him back to his senses.

“Get off! What do you think you’re doing!”

Smack. He knocked her hand away quite roughly, yet the woman blinked as though she had felt no pain whatsoever.

“Did you just hit me?”

The man ground his teeth and muttered darkly. His eyes were full of contempt and revulsion.

“You truly are like a monster.”

“I’ll return the words. You haven’t changed. If you had a gun in that hand right now, you’d have put a bullet through my heart on the spot, wouldn’t you?”

The whites of Lionel’s eyes flooded red. The intensity of his emotions threatened to burst his heart.

He wanted to kill that woman. He truly wanted to kill her. He wanted to wrap his hands around that white throat and twist. If he had been holding the magic gun, as the woman said, a scene fit to be written into the history books would have unfolded.

And yet.

D*mn it all.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

‘It wasn’t to save you.’

That was what he truly wanted to say.

‘It wasn’t to save you!’

If he could turn back the past, he would make a different choice.

A girl whose eyes never went out even in the most wretched of states. A girl who, not yet having properly awakened her power, stood guard over a knight who had taken an arrow meant for her and collapsed from the poison.

Her truly white and lovely skin, and her strikingly vivid, deep black hair were still clear in his memory.

‘Are you going to kill me?’

She had asked whether he would kill her, yet her expression made it plain she was not the least bit afraid. No, her resolve to resist by whatever means she could was firm.

It had been an opportunity earned after going without sleep for several nights and tracking her down. With his younger sister Elizabeth away to obtain food, the girl would surely fall easily into his grasp.

All he had to do was kill her. It was very simple.

And yet.

‘She asked if I would kill her.’

If the Snow Princess had been just a little more craven, if she had begged for her life unlike her usual self.

‘She dared to ask if I would point a gun at the imperial bloodline!’

Contrary to Elizabeth’s hopes, House Ires had not taken the princess’s side. But they had not followed the regent empress consort’s orders either.

Knowing that maintaining neutrality could itself be dangerous, he had made that decision anyway.

He was the Grand Duke of the North, but the will of a noble house was not usually shaped by the head’s command alone.

‘Watch and wait. For the sake of the empire.’

Setting aside the majority opinion that had come out of the council, Lionel had to decide. Left as things were, Elizabeth’s life would be in danger. Killing the princess with his own hands and bringing his sister back might have been the better choice.

Should he follow the regent empress consort’s orders and put a bullet through her heart. Or should he follow his sister’s wishes and let her go, even if he could not bring himself to help.

And in the end, he could not kill the princess.

Without knowing what would come after.

“Iberis, you’re looking well.”

“Am I?”

“You are!”

That spotless appearance, the skin gleaming with a healthy sheen as though she ate and lived well, the black hair flowing in smooth waves, the indecently thin clothing, and yet the body of a powerful bloodline that did not feel the cold in the slightest. She was beautiful, and that made him hate her all the more.

“You look damned peaceful. That’s what drives me mad. You, after Elizabeth died, did you ever shed a single tear? Did you ever offer flowers in her memory? No. Not once! Why did my poor sister have to die in place of a damned sovereign like you?”

If only that woman had grieved, if only she had suffered. Then perhaps he too would have had no choice but to console himself over Elizabeth and move on. There was no reason to go out of his way to clash with the emperor and widen the rift.

But the woman was still.

She did not cry.

Instead.

She reached out and touched him.

Lionel’s eyes, wide with raging fury, flew open even wider.

“What are you, have you lost your mind!”

Lionel grabbed her hand in alarm.

Something shocking had happened. It was not his imagination. The woman had touched him. Quite familiarly. To be precise, the tips of her fingers, stained with his blood that had dripped from his hand, had trailed down the nape of his neck.

“Wh, what are you doing!”

Unlike him, who was horrified, Iberis was perfectly composed.

“A verification, you might say.”

That turned his stomach all over again.

“Ha, what kind of mad talk is this?”

Lionel was so flustered that he clenched the very hand he had been trying to avoid touching and gritted his teeth. Now, on top of everything else, she was taunting him like this?

Why? To make him so furious he’d drop dead? Or to use his crossing the line in a fit of rage as a pretext to take the Grand Duke’s head?

“Iberis!”

At that moment, a flash went off before his eyes. A sharp pain struck the back of his knee as he dared to shout the emperor’s name.

“Gugh!”

“How dare you call the emperor by name.”

By the time he came to his senses, the woman had moved behind him, and her foot had swept out his knee, leaving him kneeling on one leg in humiliation.

The woman tilted her head.

“There are limits to my indulgence, Grand Duke. Yes, just like that. Kneel and hear what I have to say.”

“You, you damned.”

A monster. A true monster. A monster with a heart of ice that did not look back on who had helped her in her weak and helpless past!

He should have killed her. He truly should have.

As he ground his teeth in fury, his hair was seized in a firm grip. His head was wrenched forcibly upward.

“Ngh.”

“Lionel.”

“Get. Lost.”

“Yes, I know your stubbornness.”

The woman smiled down at him like a painting. Why had Elizabeth given her life for a woman like that? Why had she made that choice until the very end?

And also.

Why had his foolish past self been so captivated by that face that he could not look away? D*mn it all, had he harbored the feelings of a young infatuation. Was that why he had let her go?

“I will give you an opportunity.”

Those red lips parted.

What did she want, putting him through this humiliation?

“I will give you my first.”

“……?”

At those words, dropped so languidly, Lionel failed to understand the situation for a moment. He was so utterly dumbfounded that even the fury that had been turning his vision white cooled in an instant. What did that woman just say?

“What?”

He stared at her, unable to comprehend, and the woman smiled bewitchingly and pulled one corner of her lips.

That smirk she always wore when looking at him. With a soft whisper of movement, the ends of her flowing black hair brushed against his cheek. A pleasant scent drifted from it.

“You heard correctly.”

“What do you…”

“I will give you my first. Your blood has an effect. Lionel, you are the first remedy. So if you agree, I will grant you the honor of receiving the emperor’s first. As for the reward, shall we say my death?”

“……”

He let out a hollow laugh.

“What kind of nonsense is this?”

This woman had clearly and truly lost her mind.

* * *

Iberis had nearly burst out laughing the moment she laid eyes on the man.

The Grand Duke was still a man of fire. The only one who would dare wear that look in front of Iberis, who had become the foremost person in the empire, and hurl those words at her, would be none other than Lionel, master of the North.

Sirak and Maria would be furious seeing his attitude, but in truth Iberis did not find it unpleasant. Amusing as it was, that was how she felt.

‘He is transparently honest, is he not?’

When she had tried touching his blood as a test, the throbbing headache had dulled considerably. The man before her was the first of the Oracle, one of the men who could undo the damned Grand Witch’s curse.

‘A more thorough verification will be needed.’

Iberis wet her lips with her tongue at the rich scent of blood that reached her sharply, and narrowed her eyes.

The man glaring at her as though he wanted to wring her neck that very instant was a devastatingly handsome person. One could describe him as perfect from head to toe.

‘Meeting me was your misfortune.’

That arrogant man, of a great noble bloodline possessing the powerful land and strength of the North, where else would he have tasted such humiliation. Where else would he have experienced such despair.

From birth, the Snow Princess had brought all manner of misfortune down upon herself, and in becoming entangled with her, Lionel had lost his sister and gained deep regret.

And yet.

‘You may despise me to the bone, but I remember the moment you saved me.’