Strong sunlight poured through the iron bars. Her cracked throat and gaunt body felt unfamiliar, starved of even a single sip of water.

She had endured a week inside a filthy prison where rats and insects crawled across the damp stone floor. The brutal conditions she had never once experienced since becoming High Priestess still felt utterly foreign to her.

Outside, there was commotion. She dragged her legs, which could barely hold her weight, and forced herself toward the window. People wearing all manner of different shoes moved in a single, unified direction, their destination seemingly fixed. The words passing from mouth to mouth were mostly the same.

“Today is the public execution of Rachie Aedis, the witch who wore the mask of a saint! Everyone, bring your handkerchiefs! They say that getting Rachie Aedis’s blood on them will bring a miracle!”

The voices of merchants hawking their wares rang loudly through the prison walls. Each one competed with the others to sell handkerchiefs. People stopped in their tracks and bought one each.

‘Getting my blood on them will bring a miracle?’

She let out a hollow laugh. There had once been talk that even a touch of her hand could cure illness and bring blessings. And it had been true.

For someone who possessed tremendous magical power and divinity, removing the burdens of people’s problems had been effortless. Yet now, on the verge of mounting the guillotine as a condemned witch, they claimed her blood would bring miracles?

‘Come to think of it, it has been a long time since I last saw my own blood.’

After becoming High Priestess, she had received the divine protection of the gods and gained divinity, so nothing had ever drawn blood from her. Even poison was nothing more than meaningless water to her. Even black magic, the only thing capable of harming her, had been legally banned, making her all but a half-immortal.

But now, having lost her divinity, she was nothing more than an ordinary human.

There were other methods—strangulation, burning at the stake—yet they insisted on the antiquated guillotine. The reason was clear: it was a deliberate declaration that she, once a servant of the gods, had become a powerless human.

“Pay your respects to the Sun of the Empire, His Majesty the Emperor!”

At the chamberlain’s voice, the Emperor appeared, dressed in a dazzling uniform. Behind him, armed guards descended in formation.

His brilliantly golden hair was neatly arranged, revealing a broad forehead. The bridge of his nose descended below it, smooth and finely sculpted. The corners of his mouth, which always curved slightly upward, made his charm all the more striking.

He gave off a warm air overall and was undeniably handsome, yet within his gray eyes lay a coldness that only she could read.

Beside him, Sati watched her with a sorrowful expression. Her brown hair and dark eyes called to mind warm earth, and her flushed cheeks were lovely, like pink paint dissolved in water.

“Did you come here just to mock me?”

She spoke irritably toward Mecato and Sati. The knights’ expressions turned cold at her insolent words, but Mecato simply looked at her with an impassive face.

“Everyone, leave us.”

Once the knights disappeared, only she, Mecato, and Sati remained in the cold, half-underground prison.

Even on the day his former lover faced death by his own betrayal, Mecato showed not a single crack in his composure. And that fact made her feel all the more wretched.

It felt like confirmation that her death was nothing more than a trivial matter to Mecato, one that stirred no emotion in him whatsoever.

“Mock you? You remain insolent until the very day you die, Rachie Aedis.”

“Mecato, it’s the last time. Don’t be so cold.”

Mecato spoke to her in a sinister tone. With no watching eyes, he dropped the gentle smile and voice he always wore and revealed his two-faced true nature.

It was Sati who stopped him. But she was smiling happily. That was no expression to show in front of someone about to die that very day. A fresh chill ran down her spine at Sati’s wicked nature.

“If only you had cooperated with my plan, none of this tragedy would have happened. You brought this death upon yourself.”

“Did you think it was fitting for the High Priestess, sworn to protect the Keadi Empire, to take part in a rebellion born from your petty greed?”

She stared at Sati with sharp eyes. A sinister black aura radiated from Sati’s body. It was the curse that came upon those who used black magic. Sati had started by awakening the faint magical power she possessed and had gradually dabbled in black magic.

And though their relationship had been one of political convenience, Sati had betrayed her own fiance Arbo, joined hands with Mecato, and taken part in a rebellion to seize the imperial throne.

“Sati, to think you used your own father as a sacrifice for black magic, then killed the former Emperor and your fiance the prince—all just to claim the title of Empress. Do you really think you’ll walk away unscathed after committing such terrible acts?”

“Why would I not walk away unscathed? Look. The one dying right now is you, Rachie. Not me.”

Sati looped her arm through Mecato’s with an innocent expression. The ominous energy of black magic spread, seemingly seeping into Mecato as well. But unaware of this, Mecato gazed at Sati adoringly and stroked her face.

“And in the end, it wasn’t me who killed Arbo. It was you.”

“That was because Mecato used the Blood Pact to control me! Aedis cannot defy the command of a Keadifar!”

“So what does that change? Arbo died by your hand. That is undeniable.”

Mecato coldly dismissed her argument. Those were rich words coming from the very person who had manipulated her into k*lling Arbo. Thinking of Arbo on that day made her hands tremble uncontrollably.

Arbo, who had accepted her invitation without suspecting a thing, was found by the guards that day, cold and lifeless. He had drunk the poisoned tea she handed him and collapsed. As his breath faded away, Arbo reached out his hand, calling her name.

—Rachie……

He had called her Rachie, not Aedis. Even within her hazy memories, that detail alone remained vivid.

After that, Arbo had whispered something, but she had not heard it clearly. What in the world had he been so desperate to say to her?

—Arbo!

By the time the Blood Pact’s control released her and she came to her senses, Arbo had already closed his eyes and breathed his last, like a delicate wax figure.

She had tried to use her divinity to save Arbo. But the gods had sealed their blessing from her the moment she took a life, whether she had willed it or not, and her divinity had already vanished entirely.

Realizing this, she had tried to heal Arbo with her magical power, but that too had disappeared like a mirage.

—Kyaah! A-Arbo, Your Highness the Prince!

—What is the meaning of this!

And then Mecato and Sati had opened the door, seemingly having waited for exactly this moment, and witnessed the scene.

The overturned table, the shattered glass, and Arbo lying there with blood at the corner of his mouth. To anyone’s eyes, it looked like she had killed Arbo.

Sati screamed and fainted, and Mecato cried out in a furious voice.

—Detain Rachie Aedis for the m*rder of the Prince!

She had not even had time to process the shock of having killed Arbo without knowing it, nor the loss of both her divinity and magical power. The escort knights dragged her away and locked her in this dark prison.

And today was the day of her execution—for cursing and k*lling the former Emperor and Prince Arbo with black magic.

She gripped the iron bars between herself, Mecato, and Sati with both hands. The clanging sound startled neither of them. Sati wore a contemptuous smile, looking as though she was daring her to try harder.

“Mecato, answer me! How did I survive after breaking the Blood Pact and k*lling a Keadifar? Death is the only fate for one who violates the pact. So why am I still alive!”

Under the Blood Pact, she should have died on the spot the moment she killed Arbo. Yet she had only lost her magical power. The pact she had staked her life on had somehow passed her by.

“What use is knowing that when you’re about to die anyway?”

Mecato sneered unpleasantly. Sati snickered along with him. Mecato and Sati had already noticed the loophole in the Blood Pact. The words Mecato had said to her just before he took control of her kept coming back to her mind.

—You can do it. It’s only possible because it’s you.

But Mecato and Sati only laughed at her desperate outburst and offered no real answer. The two who had been mocking her soon stopped laughing. Mecato called out in a booming voice to the guards waiting outside.

“Bring the prisoner forward!”

At Mecato’s command, the guards bound her and dragged her to the execution grounds. The guillotine, set up in the center of the plaza, loomed with terrifying presence. When she appeared in the plaza, the crowd erupted in outcry.

“K*ll that witch already!”

“The witch who deceived the Empire and sold her heart to a demon!”

At last, the cloth covering her face was removed, and the full scene of the plaza came into view. The sight of the enormous crowd gathered to witness her death sent a chill through her. They looked gripped by collective madness.

The tens of thousands of eyes fixed on her with hatred frightened her more than death itself. She did not resist. She knelt obediently and placed her neck against the blade.

“The criminal Rachie Aedis, though charged as High Priestess with the sacred duty to protect the people of the Empire and guard the Emperor, abandoned that duty and placed a curse upon His Late Majesty the Emperor and His Highness the Prince. Furthermore……”

The executioner recited her charges one by one. None of them held any truth. She had no choice but to listen to the torrent of condemnation from the crowd with hollow eyes.

She shifted her gaze to Mecato and Sati, who looked down at her from the highest vantage point. They watched her death with benevolent smiles.

Her eyes met Mecato’s. He was saying something to her.

‘Farewell, my love.’

No sooner had she read the shape of Mecato’s lips than Sati broke into a wide, bright smile. And then, in an instant, the blade of the guillotine sliced through the air and fell upon her neck.