Strangely enough, the timing seemed to align.

Shortly after Jaina became the Grand Duchess, Violet started receiving gifts from Cadel.

‘Then… did he buy that necklace this time?’

As Jaina allowed her thoughts to drift back to that moment, picturing Cadel choosing the necklace with Violet, and remembering how Elysion had blocked the teleportation stones, sealed the northern roads, and interfered with the communication orbs, she felt a painful tightening in her throat.

She swallowed with difficulty and forced herself to look away from the necklace.

At that moment, Cadel walked towards her.

“Jaina.”

His expression was openly concerned as his eyes swept over her from head to toe.

“Are you hurt?”

“No. More importantly—”

“That first, you foolish human.”

Before she could finish, Elysion clicked his tongue and jerked his chin toward the shrine.

Cadel turned his gaze in that direction.

“Can you see them?”

“Of course.”

“I assumed as much, but I ask out of caution. Can you handle them alone?”

“It’s better not to ask what’s obvious. It only tires our mouths.”

Cadel drew his sword and cast Elysion a brief glance.

“Be care—”

“Please be careful!”

Just as Jaina started to speak, Violet’s anxious voice rang out loudly from behind her, drowning out her words.

However, it seemed that Cadel had already heard Jaina’s warning. He turned towards her and smiled.

“Don’t worry.”

After speaking to Jaina, he ran straight to the shrine.

There, he began to fight the evil spirits that were visible only to Elysion. Unable to see the spirits themselves, Jaina, Violet and Shar could only observe his movements with the blade from a distance.

“Looking at that, it seems as though he’s playing by himself.”

Shar remarked quietly. For some reason, he found it faintly amusing. Fixing his gaze on Cadel, he murmured something under his breath, his voice carrying a hint of laughter.

Elysion immediately clicked his tongue in sharp reprimand and both Jaina and Violet shot Shar disapproving looks.

Although they could not see it, Cadel was locked in battle with a swarm of evil spirits — so many that his life was in real danger. This was no time for careless humor.

Realizing he had misjudged the situation, Shar rubbed his chin awkwardly and his earlier levity faded at once.

“No, it’s just that I can’t see them. Still… are you the one who assists Cadel at night?”

As if to change the subject, he turned his gaze to Violet.

“I—I greet the Star of the Empire. My name is Violet.”

“Ah, yes. I see.”

Shar nodded once or twice.

As a close friend of Cadel’s, Shar knew all the details of his circumstances, even before his regression.

“Then I suppose the Grand Duchess and this young lady are not particularly close.”

He used to make tasteless jokes like this in the past as well.

“Not particularly—”

“Hmph. With differences in rank and position so vast, is there any reason they should be close?”

Before Jaina could finish, Elysion scoffed and cut in with open mockery.

“Haha, true enough. Grand Duchess, I have asked an impertinent question.”

Shar laughed heartily and apologized to Jaina. It seemed that he rather liked Elysion.

At that moment, Violet smiled faintly at Elysion and said something.

“That is correct. I merely attend to His Grace in his bedchamber on rainy nights. There has been no opportunity to grow close to Her Grace, the Grand Duchess.”

It was an easily misunderstood remark. Jaina, Shar and Elysion all turned to look at Violet at once. Violet continued to smile softly, her gaze fixed on Elysion.

“You would do well to be more careful with your words, Violet.”

Jaina’s voice was low and sharp.

For a moment, embarrassment flashed across Violet’s face. However, she quickly composed herself and looked at Jaina.

“Pardon?”

“Fortunately, everyone present understands the full circumstances. If someone who didn’t know about his condition had been here, your words could easily have led to a misunderstanding.”

Jaina met Violet’s gaze steadily.

“One might even think you were his mistress.”

At the word mistress, Violet’s expression hardened instantly. Without taking her eyes off Violet, Jaina continued, addressing Elysion.

“She is the one who assists him on nights when the rain falls and he suffers from the curse.”

“I see.”

Elysion, quick to grasp Jaina’s intention, nodded smoothly.

“We should properly investigate your husband’s curse.”

“Investigate the Grand Duke’s curse? It is a curse to begin with. Even if you examine it, would there truly be a solution?”

Shar responded at once to Elysion’s remark.

A curse varies depending on its nature. The idea that a human is required to sustain a human’s curse already deviates from the very foundation of what a curse truly is.

“……”

“…It does.”

“…Is that manner of speech a habit for you, Grand Hierophant?”

“His Holiness is not accustomed to using honorifics.”

Jaina quickly offered an explanation in answer to Shar’s question.

Elysion raised an eyebrow, clearly displeased with Shar. Meanwhile, Shar regarded Elysion with undisguised curiosity.

“In any case, you’re saying the curse can be looked into.”

“Looking into it is not difficult.”

“And if, while you’re at it, you could even lift my friend’s long-standing curse, that would be best.”

“That, too, is not difficult—so long as we find the one who cast it.”

“Your Holiness…”

Elysion continued to speak to the Crown Prince in an informal manner, discussing whether Cadel’s curse should be broken.

Suddenly feeling as though she were sitting on thorns, Jaina called out to him in embarrassment, hoping to stop him.

However, Elysion ignored her and continued speaking in the same familiar tone. Shar, for his part, made no attempt to correct him.

Standing a short distance away, Violet listened to their conversation and clenched her teeth.

She could tolerate being treated like a sack of barley abandoned in the corner — she could endure that a hundred times over. But to speak of Cadel’s curse without including her — when she was more closely tied to it than anyone — made her blood burn with anger.

They did not understand the curse the way she did. They had never witnessed his suffering on rainy nights when she was not with him.

Though it was called a curse, she believed it was more akin to trauma. It first manifested when the two of them were kidnapped together as children.

She was convinced that, deep within Cadel’s unconscious mind, there existed a need for her. Over time, she believed, that need had taken shape as a curse—one that made it impossible for him to endure rainy nights without her.

Knowing nothing of black magic or the true nature of curses, Violet clung firmly to that belief.

“It’s done.”

After some time, Cadel approached, flicking the blood from his sword toward the ground.

Jaina nodded and turned to Elysion.

“Shall I begin the purification?”

“Yes. You finished more quickly than I expected.”

Elysion cast Cadel a sideways glance, faintly surprised, then immediately instructed Jaina.

“Begin with the humans ensnared by black magic.”

“Yes.”

After answering, Jaina started walking towards the shrine.

Cadel, who had just caught up with her, turned to face her and said,

“I’ll go with you.”

Without replying, Jaina glanced at him as he matched his steps to hers.

Elysion watched the two of them for a moment, as though something had caught his attention.

“Is something troubling you.?”

Elysion lifted one brow and shifted his gaze to Shar.

“You were staring at the Grand Duke and Duchess with such a grave expression.”

At that, Elysion merely clicked his tongue and began walking toward Jaina. Shar followed him naturally. Only Violet remained where she stood, watching them head toward the shrine.

‘Why is no one paying attention to me…!’

Unconsciously, she gripped the hem of her dress tightly in her hands.

At the very least, either Cadel, who had brought her to this unfamiliar place because he needed her, or Jaina, who had urged him to do so, should have acknowledged her.

No matter how insignificant her position might seem to them, she was Cadel’s only salvation, wasn’t she?

Without her, he would never have been able to confront the evil spirits within the Imperial Palace. Without her, he would never have considered leaving the North.

‘So they cannot treat me like this.’

A spark flared in Violet’s eyes. She was furious at the way they treated her as though she were invisible.

Here, in the Imperial Palace, where she was setting foot for the first time, Jaina had humiliated her in front of the Crown Prince and the Grand Hierophant.

The resentment she had once felt towards Cadel slowly twisted and reshaped itself into hatred for Jaina. This hatred intensified into an intense desire for Jaina to disappear from Cadel’s life completely.

Then—

A voice whispered softly beside her ear.

‘Do you wish to kill that saintess?’

Startled, Violet jumped and looked around.

But there was no one nearby. In the distance, Jaina had begun the purification ritual at the shrine while the others looked on.

Although she told herself that she must have misheard, a chill crept down her spine and she began to walk towards the shrine.

Once more, the unidentified voice echoed in her ear.

‘Do you wish to erase that saintess from this world?’

Violet’s eyes widened.

‘I will grant that wish.’

At that instant, Violet realized exactly where the voice was coming from.

She turned her head sharply toward the source.