Part 1. 

Chapter 1. A Second Chance

“Albus!”

In the heart of a raging inferno, a young woman in her early twenties screamed, her face streaked with tears.

“Albus Hamil, you! Did you ever truly love me, even once? Or at least… at least, did your heart ever flutter because of me?”

Jet-black hair. Bewitching crimson eyes. The man standing tall in the garden regarded her with nothing but cold indifference.

He was Albus Hamil, the most handsome man in Astra and Crown Prince of the kingdom.

“Ophelia Lares, what is the meaning of this. How dare you try to harm Elia!”

Albus’s icy gaze cut toward Ophelia like a blade.

He drew the trembling Elia gently into his arms, the girl shaking like a frightened fawn, and cruel words poured from his lips.

“I never should have taken you in to begin with. You want an answer? I’ll give you one right now. Listen well. Not once have I ever thought of you as a woman.”

Crack! Thud!

A beam crashed down from the ceiling. Ophelia’s heart collapsed with it, just like the charred wood.

“Ha, hahaha! So this is the love I chased for two years.”

She howled like a wounded animal.

“Albus Hamil. I love you. And that’s exactly why I despise myself for still loving you. Hahaha, ha… hic, hic…”

“Ophelia, I’m ordering you. Get out of there right now!”

“No, I won’t! I refuse! I’m going to burn everything I am right here. Until there’s nothing but ash, so I can never burn again!”

Ophelia beat her own chest with her fists, over and over.

In the scorching blaze, the man’s striking face shone all the more dangerously.

Albus’s brow twitched, barely perceptible.

There was no more time to hesitate. He stepped forward without thinking, and a pale, slender hand caught his sleeve.

“Your Highness!”

He turned. Elia’s emerald eyes were brimming with tears.

Albus forced down his urgency and spoke gently to the woman he loved.

“Elia. I’ll be right back. Wait here for me.”

Elia grabbed him from behind, arms wrapping desperately around his waist, clinging to his back with everything she had.

“I don’t want that. I don’t want Ophelia to get hurt, but I want even less for Your Highness to be in danger.”

Boom!

While Albus hesitated, half the ceiling caved in.

The fire had become unstoppable, devouring the house whole.

“Ophelia!”

Albus cried out in alarm.

“No! Miss!”

Someone sprinted headlong into the collapsing building.

“I’ll save you. Please, just hold on a little longer.”

Through the scorching, acrid smoke, a small silhouette flickered at the edges of Ophelia’s fading vision.

“Ti… na…”

“Ugh…”

Ophelia grimaced in agony.

Her skin burned with searing pain, and the sharp smell of char stung her nose. She was on fire.

“Aaah!”

Thrashing in her bed, Ophelia screamed and jolted upright.

“Haah!”

She wiped the cold sweat from her brow with her hand and looked around.

The pre-dawn darkness was dim and still.

She hurried to strike a match and lit the candle on the nightstand.

Tap, tap, tap.

A gray-brown moth outside hurled itself against the glass again and again.

The image of her past self, who had thrown herself headlong at a love worth nothing, overlapped with that foolish moth and its frantic obsession with the flame.

Her head throbbed.

Ophelia pressed both hands to her temples and murmured quietly.

It’s alright, it’s alright. I can do better this time. There’s still time. There’s still……

Four days had passed since she returned to two years before her death, and every night she was tormented by dreams of burning alive. Vividly, every single time. Everything was chaos.

Albus Hamil. His name slipped out of her like a reflex.

Whispering the name of the man who had destroyed everything she was, Ophelia walked to the large mirror standing against the wall.

“Your tumbling black hair is like the night sky unraveled, and your eyes hold the mystery of amethysts.”

She could almost hear his voice. It was the finest compliment he had ever given her.

She studied her reflection and ran her fingers gently through her dark hair.

Ordinary. Taken feature by feature, she could be called pretty, but she was nowhere near Elia’s breathtaking, kingdom-toppling beauty.

That a woman with such an appearance had become the mistress of Albus Hamil, the most handsome man in the Kingdom of Astra, was, in the words of others, “sheer luck itself.”

Prince Albus is just repaying a debt he owes you. That isn’t love, Ria. Please, wake up already!

Her friend Nea’s blunt words rang through her head and twisted her heart all over again.

Ophelia shook her head roughly, forcing Albus’s lingering image out with all her strength.

She turned back to the mirror and stared hard into her own eyes.

The small lips of the woman in the glass parted, and a single word came out.

“Money.”

“Power.”

More words followed, one after another, their meaning unclear to any onlooker.

“A proper wife.”

And the amethysts in the mirror, which had been trembling faintly, steadied and hardened.

Three goals she had sworn to herself on the first day of her return, vowing to see them through in this life.

With more money than she could count, wielding power so absolute that no one would dare lay a hand on her, she would protect the family she had lost so senselessly in her past life!

This time, she would throw that common, trivial thing called love to the dogs and hold the most magnificent wedding imaginable, living proudly as a true wife!

Knock, knock.

At the sound, Ophelia slowly unclenched her tightly balled fist.

The door opened, and in walked a maid with red hair and a cute face dusted with freckles across her nose.

“Tina!”

“Miss, you’re awake?”

Ophelia’s eyes stung at the sight of her.

“Oh my, Miss. You’ve broken out in such a sweat. And why is your face so pale? Soaking in warm water will make you feel better. Shall I prepare it?”

“Yes. Tina…”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. For always being by my side.”

“Oh, Miss, really.”

Tina blushed and went off to prepare the bath. Watching her go, Ophelia’s violet eyes curved into a warm smile.

❀❀❀

The warm bathwater slowly loosened her tense muscles, one by one.

“Tina, Father and Brother must have arrived safely at the ducal household by now, right?”

“I’m sure they have.”

Tina said, scrubbing Ophelia’s back.

Ophelia’s father, Jont Lares, was one of the many illegitimate sons of Baroso Lares, one of the three great dukes of the Kingdom of Astra.

Life as an illegitimate child in the Kingdom of Astra was not easy.

A hundred years ago, the western kingdoms, enamored with the culture of the eastern continent, had followed its lead in drawing distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate children, stripping the latter of their inheritance rights.

Her father, born of a concubine, had been given a meager sum for independence and a baronetcy as conditions, then practically driven out to Naris, a border city in a contested region.

That was why, if there had been any other way at all, her father would never have considered returning to the main household.

“Has there been no word from Father yet?”

“No…… The butler has been quite worried as well.”

“The butler?”

It lasted only a moment, but hatred and k*lling intent flickered across her eyes.

Samuel the butler. Not only was he a servant trusted by her father and mother, but someone Ophelia had believed in and followed like family.

If not for Samuel, she and her family would not have suffered so terribly during their time at the ducal household.

❀❀❀

Baron Jont was a noble in name, but Ophelia’s home was little different from the houses of ordinary commoners.

A two-story house with a small front yard that barely qualified as a garden, neat and tidy but with faint cracks here and there across the faded outer walls.

The household amounted to her father, her brother Leo, and Ophelia herself.

Their mother had passed away three years ago from tuberculosis, and the staff was equally modest: the head butler Samuel, the maid Tina, and the cook Bisha.

That afternoon, Bisha knocked on Ophelia’s door.

“Miss, Miss Nea has arrived. She is waiting downstairs.”

“I’ll be right down. Please serve her some tea first.”

Ophelia finished getting ready and hurried down to the first-floor sitting room.

Reaching the door, her outstretched hand paused at the handle. The thought that this would be the first time she had seen Nea since returning made her tense up before she even realized it.

She steadied her breathing and opened the door. Her long-awaited friend’s petite figure came into view. Nea was sitting on the sofa, bouncing her feet anxiously.

Nea Renat, the friend whose face alone was enough to make Ophelia’s heart warm with joy.

Nea’s father, Viscount Deys, was a collateral member of the imperial family Renat of the Apollos Empire.

He was a wealthy man who led the largest trading company in the Apollos Empire, and through his trade work had accumulated considerable wealth and connections in the Kingdom of Astra as well.

“Nea!”

Ophelia greeted her warmly and pulled her into a firm embrace.

Nea showed no surprise. She looked at Ophelia with a resolute expression and went straight to the point.

“Ophelia. I’ll cut to the chase. In two days, my family is leaving for the capital, Asri. Come with us. There are already rumors going around that people have been killed by bandits on the road out. I can’t leave you here alone.”

The current situation in Naris, the border city of the Kingdom of Astra nestled between the Kingdom of Batus and the Apollos Empire, was not good.

Even in the past, bandits from Batus had appeared in Naris in groups and caused trouble, but this year, dark rumors of war between the Apollos Empire and the Kingdom of Batus had spread, and Naris was overrun with thieves and brigands.

So Ophelia’s father had gone ahead to Asri, the capital of the Kingdom of Astra, to find a place to stay, and the situation in Naris had deteriorated far faster than he had initially expected.

On the road to the capital, countless nobles and merchants had been killed in bandit attacks.

But Viscount Deys, in her past life as well, had hired many mercenaries as escorts, which was how he had managed to keep his family safe from harm.

In her past life too, if Ophelia and Tina had not hidden themselves among the refugees after being left penniless because of Samuel, they would never have made it to the capital safely either.

Watching Nea’s small mouth move at a rapid-fire pace, as though daring her to refuse, Ophelia smiled faintly.

In her past life, Nea had always worried about Ophelia and looked after her.

When Ophelia had tried to become Albus Hamil’s mistress, Nea had opposed it fiercely.

“A second wife? Haven’t you seen what my father’s concubines go through? If the legal wife doesn’t allow it, you can’t even have children. And even if you do have a child, once they come of age they’re practically thrown out with nothing. That’s the fate of an illegitimate child. Can you really live like a shadow, serving another woman as the true wife?”

Her friend’s words had driven painfully into her chest. But blinded by love, she had been unable to leave Albus. Nea had wept and pleaded.

“Ophelia, please come to your senses. Stop clinging to him and leave the Crown Prince. Alright? Just look at yourself right now. Where on earth has my friend Ophelia gone?”

Nea had come to her even on the day her father and brother were executed, crying as though it were her own grief.

“I’m sorry. Even my father couldn’t do anything about what happened to your father and brother. The Crown Prince and the Lares ducal household had both washed their hands of it…… I’m sorry I couldn’t help…… hic, hic……”

Ophelia had thought it then. She should have listened to her friend. If she had, she would never have burned to death because of Albus, and she would never have returned like this.

“Ophelia, did you hear? Prince Albus got engaged to Elia Lares. That awful girl! I knew it would come to this. She drove a wedge between you and me, and now she goes and steals her own cousin’s man? I swear I’ll march over there and drag her by the hair…… Ophelia, if you want to leave the prince, just say the word. I’ll help you.”

Just as she had in her past life, Nea was willing to help her again.

Ophelia looked at Nea, whose eyes were fixed on her with desperate sincerity, and smiled brightly.

“Nea, thank you. Meeting you has been the greatest fortune of my life. Yes, let’s leave together in two days.”

“Really?”

Nea stared at her, trying to gauge whether she truly meant it.

“Phew…… Thank goodness. I was so worried you’d say no. Ophelia Lares, do you have any idea how many arguments I prepared to convince you?”

Before Nea could finish her sentence, the sitting room door flew open with a bang.

“You’re leaving! What do you mean by that? The master surely told you to wait for word from him.”

Ophelia slowly turned her head toward the voice.

Samuel the butler. The first wrong step of her past life. The number one target for removal in this one.