“Laila. When I return from the war, I’ll love only you. I promise.”

It was that promise that carried Laila through the storm of battle.

The blood-soaked battlefield, littered with corpses, was not a place for someone as graceful as her. However, she had no choice but to endure it for the sake of love.

‘Now I can finally see Carlo again.’

As she stepped through the palace gates, the light returned to her eyes.

What would she say when they met? Should she playfully complain that it had been hard and that she had missed him terribly?

He would surely smile, pull her into his arms, and tell her that she had suffered enough.

Laila entered the grand hall beside the commander who had led the victorious army. Inside, the returning soldiers were being celebrated by the assembled nobles.

‘Where is Carlo?’

It was strange — he was nowhere to be seen. A man with such striking looks and a tall stature would usually be hard to miss.

Then she spotted him at the very front of the hall, standing stiffly and solemnly.

It was Carlo, holding Lady Roselina’s hand.

“Why… why?”

Neither the commander’s triumphant report nor the emperor’s words of praise reached her.

Carlo, the man who had sworn to love only her, was holding another woman’s hand.

Laila’s world began to waver.

It felt as though her time had stopped while everyone else’s had moved on without her.

And then—

“The union between Lord Carlo Siren and Lady Roselina Crussian is not only a joy to their houses, but a great blessing to the Empire.”

Marriage.

When the emperor spoke those two words, Laila’s brief moment of happiness shattered.

Even as Carlo knelt before Roselina, Laila’s gaze remained fixed on him.

The man who had once promised to love only her was now looking at someone else.

“Lady Roselina, it is an honor to stand by your side—the most precious of all. I vow to love you for life and make you the happiest woman in the world.”

“Carlo…”

Roselina’s cheeks flushed, and tears of joy welled in her eyes.

They were such a perfect pair that Laila’s eyes turned bloodshot.