Crash!

The atmosphere at the early dinner gathering, where silence had settled all around, was like walking on thin ice.

With the sound of shattering dishes, the princess’s body crumpled to the floor.

Her eyes, rolled back as though she had lost consciousness, were unfocused, and her entire body began to tremble in fine convulsions like a shaking aspen.

Lindenel’s brow furrowed slightly as he watched the sight.

“What is she trying to pull this time?”

The princess, whose mind was not sound, had begun to throw another fit.

It had already been two years since the late Emperor passed away.

Though she had yet to be enthroned due to a series of circumstances that had left a long gap, the true owner of the abandoned throne was none other than the woman who had just collapsed.

Yet despite her lofty status, the attendants were too busy reading the room to even think of supporting her. This was because the Duke of Haimenwar, seated across from her, had given no orders.

They were confused about whose lead to follow, the princess who had started her performance, or the Duke who despised commotion.

Even as the princess rolled her eyes back, Lindenel remained calm. Wiping his mouth with a napkin and dismissing the meal was the full extent of his reaction.

Even then, the princess had not composed herself.

So it begins again.

On days when something displeased her or when she was in a foul mood, the princess would feign illness as if to vent her frustration.

He assumed today was one of those days.

“I would like to accommodate you if at all possible, but my schedule is busy today. Please get up now.”

Unable to bear listening to the Duke’s sarcasm any longer, the head attendant mustered his courage and spoke up.

“Your Grace. If the princess is truly unwell…”

Lindenel raised a hand and cut off the head attendant’s words. He then fixed a cold gaze on the princess lying on the floor.

He had not thought her a foolish person, yet the princess’s behavior of late had been difficult to understand.

Was she not the one who had been more humiliated than anyone by the disgrace of being called mad?

And yet lately, she had been acting as though her mind had truly deteriorated. As if the madness he had pinned on her had consumed her whole.

Lindenel looked down at her, still trembling in fine convulsions, and called her name as if in warning.

“Princess.”

It had been a long time since the princess had been addressed by Lindenel with a title of respect.

Ever since the banner of the Haimenwar Ducal House had been planted right beside the imperial throne, she had never once received proper treatment from the Duke.

The princess, knowing her own circumstances well, would normally feel shame when scolded like this and would bring things to an end at a certain point, but today, strangely, the performance of exaggerated suffering was dragging on unusually long.

In the meantime, the convulsions that had been shaking through her subsided, and even her rolled-back eyes slowly closed.

The attendants, who had been anxiously hovering and ready to drag the princess out if necessary, were just about to breathe a sigh of relief.

“Kugh!”

Along with a violent cough, dark, blackish blood burst from the princess’s mouth. It was an amount difficult to dismiss as nothing.

“Yo, Your Imperial Highness!”

The cries that had been suppressed burst out all at once.

One of the ladies-in-waiting, who had only been watching for cues, rushed over and turned the princess’s head to prevent the blood from flowing back into her airway.

It was at that same moment that Lindenel, who had been staring blankly at the blood for a brief instant, came to his senses.

“What is this?”

Seeing the princess, who had gone rigid as a corpse after vomiting blood, Lindenel shot to his feet and shouted.

“Head attendant! What are you standing there for!”

“Summon the palace physician at once!”

The attendants, who had belatedly realized something was wrong, moved in unison.

While they went to fetch a stretcher and wet cloths, Lindenel supported the limp body of the princess.

“Princess.”

“…”

The body of the princess cradled in his arms was strangely light.

He had always thought her a thin and slight woman, but today she felt so weightless that it unsettled him.

It felt as though he were holding a hollow shell from which the substance had vanished.

Holding the princess, who hung limp without the slightest movement, Lindenel hesitated for a moment before drawing out a name he had buried long ago.

“Astrid.”

It was a name he had chewed over and over inside himself for a lifetime.

How deeply he had despised this name.

And how desperately he had longed for it.

Yet the number of times he had actually spoken it aloud amounted to little more than the first year he had known her.

It had been so long since he had last said her name that he even found it strange to pronounce.

“Wake up.”

The princess remained unconscious.

Lindenel stared with trembling eyes at the blood that had soaked deeply into the chest of her plain white muslin dress, then gathered the princess into his arms in one motion and left the dining room.

The head attendant, who had witnessed this, followed after him in a panic.

“Your Grace! If you carry her like that, the nobility council will surely…”

“Be quiet.”

A grim voice, pressed low and heavy against the floor, warned the head attendant.

“I will bring the princess to her bedchamber. Round up every physician in the palace.”

“Y, yes, Your Grace.”

He turned to leave, then paused mid-step as though something had come to mind, and spoke.

“And summon Caleb.”

“Yes!”

The head attendant cried out with a face that, amid the confusion, held a measure of relief.

Pulling secretary Caleb from the succession team, which was in the thick of its busiest work, was as good as declaring that he would spare no effort to save the princess’s life.

The elderly head attendant, who had never once broken into a run even when the imperial palace was on fire, ran with everything he had and repeated the words to himself.

‘You must live, Your Highness. No matter how much one wallows in the mud, this world is still better than the next.’

Yet the pale fingertips that peeked out beyond the Duke’s broad back gave not the slightest twitch, as if unaware of the desperate hearts around her.

***

Late at night, when every soul within the imperial palace held its breath.

The courtyard was so still that not even the bark of a dog could be heard.

It was because Lindenel had killed everything that might disturb Princess Astrid’s rest.

Over the past several days, the necks of those who had murmured about whether the princess would live or die had fallen at Lindenel’s hands, regardless of their rank or station, for he had needed somewhere to direct his rage.

Within that cold silence, Astrid opened her eyes alone.

Her bloodless complexion, her cracked lips, and the dark red blotches that had spread from her body up to her neck as an aftereffect of the poison were grim evidence that her life did not have much time left.

Yet the light in her wide-open eyes burned with fierce clarity, as though kindling the final flame of her life.

Everything had been taken from her by Lindenel, and even her father’s death had left behind unsettling questions, yet this dreadful feeling she could not shake now felt like a curse.

At first, she had simply been curious about where his gaze was directed.

He was a person whose heart was always somewhere far away, even when they were together.

Born as the princess of a nation and accustomed to receiving more than enough attention, Lindenel had been a presence that stirred her curiosity.

[Are you not curious about me, my lord? I am curious about you. Where are you looking, who are you thinking of…]

When she had laid out such thoughts so honestly, she had been a guileless young girl who feared nothing in the world.

She had believed that if she tried, if she embraced him with this love that overflowed from her chest and could not be contained, it would be returned, if not in exactly the same measure, then at least in something resembling it.

It had been a naive and optimistic wish.

Astrid stepped down from the bed with bare feet.

Whether the paralysis had not yet lifted, her toes had gone stiff and would not move, and the soles of her feet felt nothing at all.

Still, she had to go. There was something she wanted to say to Lindenel one last time.

As she walked, limping and bracing herself against the wall, she felt as though she might faint again at any moment, but she held on through sheer force of will and forced herself to take one difficult step, then another.

She could feel clearly that her body’s time was drawing to its end.

Astrid recalled what had happened before she had collapsed like this.

***

When she had been served soup laced with poison, on top of the disgrace of being called a mad princess, cold sweat ran down her back and her lips went dry.

Astrid thought to herself.

[Does Valdemar truly intend to make me drink this?]

[Forgive me, Your Imperial Highness.]

He had been a loyal servant of her late father, and when her father died and the empire fell into the Duke of Haimenwar’s grasp, his once warm and upright nature had changed completely.

He had spared no sacrifice in his efforts to pull Astrid free from Lindenel’s grip, and when every method had at last failed, the last time they met, he had uttered those words and disappeared.

[I will free you from that place.]