“You asked me just now. What I intend to do to you.”

With the back of the hand covering Clodine’s mouth, Ahazan leaned so close that his lips nearly brushed his own knuckles. The more she resisted, the closer he pressed. Before long, she stopped struggling, her shoulders rising and falling as she fought for breath.

“I will make you the empress of this country.”

At those words, Clodine twisted violently once more. Like someone who had heard something she never should have, she jerked in shock. Ahazan repeated it, driving the words in like a nail.

“I’ll make you empress. You.”

“Mm—!”

“You’ll live here as my wife. For the rest of your life.”

It was a savage proposal, one that did not consider her will in the slightest.

Her tears ran down his hand and along his forearm.

“You used to sing about wanting to become my woman. You’re not about to say you refuse now, are you?”

For a brief moment, his grip loosened. Clodine seized it and screamed.

“Murderer! Scoundrel! How long will you keep bending me to your will?!”

When Ahazan released her completely, she collapsed helplessly to the ground.

“How long?”

He laughed faintly and looked down at her with cruel amusement. Their gazes tangled in the air like something stained and broken.

“It’s only just beginning.”

His low voice trampled mercilessly over the heart she had dropped onto the dirt.

***

Ahazan entered his chamber and slammed the door shut behind him. One hand braced at his waist, his shoulders rose and fell with sharp breaths.

“Foolish woman.”

The image of Clodine’s face from moments ago ignited anger he could not contain.

He exhaled the words as though venting fury, though the fingertips of the man known as the War Demon trembled faintly.

[Clodine, I miss you terribly. I know it is an unreasonable request, but could you come see me just once?]

Seven years ago, that had been the first line of the first letter he wrote to her from the battlefield.

It had been his first reply to the letters she had written without ever truly expressing her longing, struggling merely to restrain her desire to see him.

After three years without writing, he had asked her to come to a place of danger without even offering a greeting.

He knew it was shameless. But at the time, an enemy’s spear had pierced his side, leaving a hole through his waist. He had thought he might die at any moment.

If he did not see Clodine then, he feared he never would again.

He had sworn that unless he could return alive, he would not disturb her heart.

He had fought like a madman to end the war quickly for that very reason.

But when the path back to life grew uncertain, he could no longer remain sane.

[Clodine, I miss you. Please, come see me.]

Never in his worst imagination had he thought her reply would be so merciless—

That she had fallen in love with another man.

“Love?”

That worm of a man?

In a sudden surge, Ahazan swept both arms across his desk, sending its contents crashing to the floor.

Wood splintered. Glass shattered.

The chamber erupted in chaos, yet no one dared enter. He had given strict orders that none disturb him.

‘How long will you keep bending me to your will!’

Those had been Clodine’s words.

He had shaped her life to his will countless times in his thoughts, but never once had he spoken it aloud.

It had been no different from a confession of love he had guarded all his life.

And yet, what had he ever truly forced her to do?

Why did she look at him with such burning hatred?

Because they were no longer friends?

Because he had destroyed her kingdom?

Because he had killed the husband she had loved so dearly?

‘I never intended to kill him.’

Rotermann was a sizable kingdom bordering both the Van Helsing Empire and the Beneiro Empire.

For the future of his empire, it would have been wise to seize Rotermann before Beneiro did.

But at some point, Ahazan had abandoned that desire.

For one reason alone.

Clodine.

As long as she sat upon Rotermann’s throne as queen, its peace was his peace.

He had even pursued peace with Beneiro to preserve that land for her.

And more—

When Clodine had fallen in love with Rotermann’s crown prince and requested the dissolution of their engagement, Ahazan had personally written to congratulate them.

Even though his world, barely sustained in the darkness of war, had collapsed in an instant, he had never once shown the agony that felt like his entrails were being torn apart.

Time had dragged on.

After her wedding, time had ceased to exist for him.

A war that should have ended in seven years had stretched to ten.

‘If I had known it would come to this… I should never have ended it.’

He should have let his bones remain on that battlefield.

He regretted it bitterly.

On his way back to the Empire after the war, he had only wanted to see Clodine once more, to share a drink and speak openly.

He had not foreseen this.

When the man reeking of incompetence from head to toe greeted him as her husband—

When a simple probe confirmed his suspicions—

“Her beauty is famous even in the Empire. You must be weary from your long journey, Your Majesty. If you desire my wife to attend your bed, you need only say the word.”

“Between us, she cannot even bear a child. She is to be offered to Beneiro soon anyway. In exchange, we are to receive the Hiamel Mine. The Hiamel Mine, no less!”

That man had spoken so in Clodine’s absence.

Ahazan’s only regret was that he had been able to cut him down only once.

It gnawed at him, how regrettable it was that the life of the man who had drunkenly flattered him, offering even his wife to warm the emperor’s bed if he so wished, was worth only a single neck.

If that neck had been a hundred, he would have severed it a hundred times. If a thousand, a thousand times, and still it would not have been enough.

How dare he speak of Clodine that way.

She had been a woman he once cherished so carefully that he feared she might scatter if touched, break if embraced.

He had lost her.

If he could sell his own heart to turn back time, he would have done so without hesitation. He had regretted, to this day, sending her to another man.

To think that someone so wretched had truly captured her heart left him speechless with disbelief.

He wanted to demand, what about that man had turned her unwavering heart away? What had caused her, who once vowed to wait even a thousand years for his return, to write only a month after her final letter that her heart had been completely taken?

Was it truly that man?

Was it for someone so worthless that she now looked at him, her childhood friend, her former fiancé, as if he were her mortal enemy?

[I have come to truly love him, Ahazan.]

The sentence from that long-ago letter passed vividly before his eyes.

He remembered, too, how she had carefully returned even the necklace he had given her on the day of her debut, ensuring there could be no doubt.

Why.

Why did you love him instead of me, Clodine?

Ahazan shut his eyes tightly and ground his teeth.

***

Beneath a clear sky,

Clodine sat on a wooden bench in the garden, staring blankly into the air.

She had collapsed on the ground moments before; her dress was streaked with soil, and dried tear tracks marked her cheeks.

‘I will make you empress of this country.’*

‘You used to sing about wanting to be my woman. You’re not refusing now, are you?’

Yes.

I always wanted to be your wife.

No—if she were honest, she had still missed him only weeks ago.

Since she was five years old.

He had been her precious friend, the only man she ever loved.

She had wished to become his wife, to be the object of his love.

Yet not once had he accepted her confession.

While he was away at war, she wrote letters every day, but never received even a formal reply.

Even so, she loved him without asking for anything in return.

And the reward for that foolish, devoted love had been a merciless broken engagement, and a marriage urged for political sacrifice.

[Marry the crown prince of Rotermann.]

Perhaps he could not promise he would return alive.

Perhaps he had been out of his senses in some perilous moment.

She had tried to deny it.

But the paper bore the texture he always used. The handwriting was undeniably his. The seal, unmistakable.

In reply to her heartfelt confession, his letter had been brutally cold.

With a single sentence, their long engagement ended.

She had cried for days. Spent days half-mad.

Locked in her room, refusing food and water, writing replies only to crumple them and write again—

Until at last, she faced the day she could do nothing but obey.

‘Depending on Rotermann’s stance, this war may be decided.’*

‘If Rotermann sides with Beneiro, victory will grow far more difficult.’

The day she overheard the adults speaking outside the audience chamber, she resolved to marry Rotermann’s crown prince, just as Ahazan wished.

If it could give him even a fragment of strength in that terrible war, she would do it.

She loved him that much.

Almost pitifully so.

Of course, she had not grown attached to Rotermann from the start.

The crown prince, who soon became king, was a man enslaved to women.

He kept countless mistresses and took pleasure in spending his nights among them.

Half a year after their marriage, she was declared infertile. Only then was she freed from his foul hands.

But that did not erase the nights of humiliation.

And then came news of Ahazan’s new engagement.

Charlotte Langham, precious only daughter of the Marquis of Langham, had become the next candidate for empress.

Charlotte had grown up with her like a sister. Clodine could not even bring herself to resent her.

The world had been particularly cruel to her.

Each morning was hell.

What kept her alive in that hell were the people of Rotermann.

Because of them, she endured.

Gradually, even O’Neil Penelope as king became tolerable.

Though he had grotesque tastes, he possessed a keen political mind.

After she had lost her worth as a woman, he began treating her like a distant friend.

Not affectionate. Not attentive.

But they could speak without grimacing.

For a marriage without love, that seemed enough.

She learned much about governance from him and followed what she believed was right.

The people revered their king and queen.

Clodine loved them sincerely.

Even if she could not live her life as the wife of the man she loved, she could still find meaning in a world where her people smiled.

The tears she had dried began to fall again.

Seated on the bench, she covered her face with both hands and wept.

Empress?

Why now?

She had been another man’s wife, even if he was dead.

A queen who had failed to protect her people and led them into ruin.

And at the center of it all stood Ahazan.

[The reason for our broken engagement must remain absolutely secret.]

When he had urged her into that forced marriage, he had even asked her to pretend she loved O’Neil.

He had pleaded, so unlike himself, that the dissolution of their engagement and her marriage be seen as her own whim.

Beneiro was watching, he said. If it became known that Van Helsing was maneuvering against Beneiro, another war might erupt.

After sending her reply, Clodine had collapsed in her father’s arms and cried until she lost consciousness.

Count Helario Ramier, knowing the truth, never once blamed Ahazan in the face of national necessity.

Instead, he comforted her, insisting it must remain a family secret.

Those had been unbearable days.

Clodine pressed a small fist against her chest and sighed.

Why does he wield my life as he pleases?

She had imagined their reunion many times.

But never like this.

Loving him now felt like a calamity, like desiring something she never should have touched.

She had arrived at the palace moments after Ahazan killed O’Neil.

‘You should have come sooner.’

His face had been seized by madness as he wiped blood from his sword.

‘I already killed him.’

It had felt like ice water poured into her heart.

Ten years had passed.

She had run to the palace, heart pounding foolishly at the news of his arrival—

And had not been given even a moment to greet him.

She had collapsed before O’Neil’s decapitated body, muttering only, ‘Why?’

And Ahazan had answered calmly:

‘He seemed unworthy of receiving your love.’

To see the man she had once loved return from war as a monster—

It had been devastation beyond words.

Even now, she dreamed of him, blood-soaked, drinking wine beside O’Neil’s corpse.

‘How long will you keep bending me to your will!’

It had been a cry she had suppressed for years.

From childhood, her heart had been bound to him.

She had always tried to become the woman he wanted.

The result of that life had been too cruel.

‘So you became the wife of such a man?’

She could not forget the way he had smiled at her as she wept over O’Neil’s body.

Clodine slowly closed her tear-filled eyes.

‘Then you should have loved me.’

Even not love, mere pity, something common enough to be kicked aside—

I would have loved you to the end.

If you had, I would not have become another man’s wife.

An innocent man would not have lost his head by your hand.

[I do not believe I will ever love you.]

The sentence from his long-ago letter flashed vividly before her.

In that moment, Clodine’s heart collapsed completely.