Chapter 2: A Strange Day

Although it was rife with painful memories, Cherott was Eden’s hometown. Strolling through the imperial palace gardens after so long filled her with a nostalgic ache.

“The roses are especially lush this year. Beautiful.” 

Liam trailed two or three steps behind Eden. His deliberate distance was unmistakable. Occasionally, she felt his reluctant gaze flick toward her, but Eden ignored it.

“Do you remember? It was around this time, in this very place, that we first met.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Liam sighed irritably, his boredom plain. A walk with Liam, such a mismatched pairing. A man like him, always so busy, would surely feel uneasy at this rare moment of leisure.

He strode ahead of Eden, the cold wind slicing between them. As his sable hair fluttered in the breeze, a strangely sweet scent bloomed around him.

“Come on. Just walk, don’t stop.”

Liam glanced back, urging Eden forward with slow impatience. He paused often, glowering at her, though he said nothing more.

Eden plucked the reddest, most sumptuous rose and tucked it behind her ear. Liam let out a soft scoff, whether derision or amusement, she couldn’t tell. Eden looked up at him.

In that moment, her vision flooded with red: the fiery sunset, the full-bloom roses, a man’s eyes the color of blood. The intense hues stabbed sharply into her chest.

“You… stand there so perfectly, it’s like a painting.”

Eden whispered softly. Indeed, under the red sun, Liam’s face was achingly beautiful.

In Eden’s last memory, his face had been harder, colder. His presence alone was suffocatingly decadent. Like a beast, he was cruel, but unforgettably sensuous.

Now, though his face still bore a youthful softness, it was undeniably beautiful. The delicate, gemlike lines of his face were belying the chill beneath.

How could such burning red eyes feel so icy? Eden studied him closely, there was nothing to fault.

“It’s cold with the sun setting. Let’s stay a little longer before heading in.”

“Go back to the palace at once.”

Liam tossed his cloak to Eden like a casual gift. She hesitated a moment, then draped it around her shoulders.

Yes, even he could be gentle sometimes. Though it was cheap kindness, tossed like charity.

Suppressing her discomfort, Eden offered a polite smile. 

“Thank you, Liam.”

She stepped closer and slipped an arm through his. He stiffened. After years on the battlefield, he was hyper-aware whenever someone drew too near.

“You’ve grown brave after your illness. This ends here.”

His words came with a faint edge of displeasure as he shrugged off her arm. The aura around him sharpened to a point.

Eden felt primal fear, as if confronting a wild creature. His eyes, ice-cold, radiated a chill that could freeze the world. Her heart raced and her legs began to tremble.

Liam leaned down, a half-smile playing on his lips, as though he’d expected this reaction. In that moment, the man before her overlapped with the man from her past life. Her pulse steadied, the tremors ceased, and anger rose.

“Liam.”

Eden moved toward him slowly. He stared down at her with arrogant confidence, as if daring her. Only a breath separated them now. His eyes bored unflinchingly into hers.

She looked up at him, innocence in her smile.

“Am I supposed to fear you?”

His eyes flickered in agitation, clear evidence of inner turmoil. The deeper his disturbance, the brighter her smile.

“Edenastie.”

He rolled her name off his tongue, low and gravelly, like an animal’s growl.

Eden hesitated, then reached out. His once-ice eyes suddenly burned with heat.

“I am not afraid of you, Liam. Will you punish me?”

Gently, she brushed his wind-tossed hair from his face, her smile soft.

Liam gazed back at her with an enigmatic expression. The aura of danger around him remained, but he made no effort to push her hand away.

“Liam will always be Liam to me.”

Eden’s touch was tender, as if coaxing a flower to bloom; her eyes, honeyed and sweet. Yet anyone could see the cold hollowness beneath her guise of love-struck devotion.

She plucked the rose from her ear and tucked its thorny stem into Liam’s shirt, its prick leaving a crimson mark on his skin.

He took a step back. Eden finally faced him fully.

“As a child, now, and forever.”

Stepping closer, she closed the last inch between them.

Liam’s gaze traveled over her small, fair face. Now a fully-grown woman, she shone brightly enough to give pause even to one as aloof as him. It was unlike her usual self, like a stranger before him. The scent of soap at her throat, the soft warmth of her breath against his chest, her unwavering gaze.

Eden smiled at his rigidity. Immediately, Liam’s gaze flicked away. It was a strange day.

* * *

Back in her room, Eden slumped over her desk with a heavy sigh. The delayed onset of fatigue made her want to hurl herself into bed that very instant.

“You can’t be this worn out already, Eden.”

Muttering under her breath, she barely managed to steady her mind and reached for the pile of letters stacked untouched in the corner of her desk. 

They all felt like relics from a distant past, familiar names, familiar greetings, and a curiosity-soaked malice she never wanted to grow used to. So many letters, all asking in tiresome detail how ill she was, where, and how badly. The sheer volume of them was suffocating.

Not one of them came from genuine concern. All they wanted was fodder for gossip.

Eden readily admitted to herself that she made for easy prey.  Over ten years at the Emperor’s side, yet never once graced with his favor, a pitiful woman.

Since her distant cousin Shrayden inherited the dukedom, she’d become the discarded daughter of a ducal house, with no contact or influence left. A girl who never raised her voice in protest, no matter how she was disparaged.

Eden, out of habit, picked up her quill to draft replies but then suddenly, a wave of futility washed over her, and she set the pen down.

“These people aren’t who I should be thinking about.”

It was Liam. Eden’s brows knit tightly. This chance she’d earned, there was no time to waste placating meaningless people.

At twenty, it had been three years since the final battle of Cherott and Rodenberg. It was the very period when Liam’s edge grew sharper by the day, and when the Eden of her previous life had fallen completely under his spell.

A hopeless, one-sided love.

If only he’d never given her a shred of hope, maybe she could’ve let go.

But those rare, careless acts of tenderness from Liam, the offhand, loaded remarks, had swung her heart wildly between heaven and hell.

In her past life, Eden’s love had become the blade that pierced her. And now, she wanted Liam’s love to tear his heart to shreds in return. She wanted to see the man, who always seemed so devoid of emotion, break down in tears over love.

To become so wretched from loving someone that death would seem like mercy. 

That kind of suffering… Liam would never understand. To him, love had always been a trivial game of sentiment. But this time would be different. Eden vowed to use every last memory she possessed to make him fall for her.

And when Liam finally came to know love, when he was drunk on it, at his happiest, then she would leave him.

“After that, I’ll live my life. I’ll forget everything from my past and live by my own strength, by my own will.”

A fierce determination gleamed in Eden’s eyes.

* * *

From that day on, Liam became openly cold toward Eden. Even more than she’d anticipated. All she’d done was cross a single threshold, yet he pushed back as if she’d breached his inner sanctum.

“Go ahead. Push me away all you want. The more you do, the more you’ll regret it.”

She had never expected a man as young as Liam, yet already so cruel and sharp by nature, to be easy. But even so, Eden found herself taken aback by just how far his wariness extended.

“I’m sorry, but His Majesty has ordered that you not be allowed in.”

To be shunned so openly, Eden hadn’t thought he would go that far. If their eyes met from across the way, he would quicken his pace as if he’d just laid eyes on something repulsive.

‘Even a look cast at an insect would be kinder.’

Each time, Eden had to swallow her burning anger and put on the sorrowful face of someone wounded. It was humiliating.

Word of Liam’s frigid treatment spread quickly through the capital. The palace staff began looking at Eden with pity, while the imperial gates nearly wore thin from the footsteps of noblewomen bringing daughters of suitable age.

‘How ridiculous. They call him a tyrant and a war demon, but they’re still so eager to offer up their daughters.’

From her window, Eden watched the procession in and out of the Emperor’s palace with a cynical smirk. Now and then, she glanced outside while flipping open one of her favorite thick volumes.

“By now, they’ve probably all left.”

With a sharp snap, Eden closed the final page of the book and rose from her seat.

She had no desire to run into any of them. Their smiling faces and empty greetings, hiding selfish intentions, would only sour her mood.

Only after confirming the courtyard had quieted down did Eden finally leave her room.

“Ah…”

But the heavens were not on her side. She had to face the last person she wanted to see.

“…It’s been a while, Marquis Munach.”

She hadn’t seen him in ages, but not once had she missed him. His sharp, snake-like eyes swept over Eden’s face in an instant.

“A pleasure to see a familiar face on my rare visit to the palace. You’ve grown into a fine young lady.”

How delicately he managed to suggest she’d spent far too long clinging to the palace. Eden forced a smile, folding her eyes with practiced grace.

“I heard you were gravely ill, but you look well. That’s a relief.”
“Yes. Thanks to your concern.”

Their exchange was pure pretense, lacking even a drop of sincerity. 

After subtly gauging Eden’s expression, the Marquis added in a probing tone, “His Majesty must have been quite worried.”

When Eden didn’t answer right away, the Marquis’s lips curved in satisfaction. His eyes, full of ambition to make his daughter Empress, gleamed with certainty. The sight of it dampened Eden’s spirits.

He pulled a lavishly gilded envelope from his breast pocket and held it out. Eden didn’t need to open it to know what it was. She hadn’t attended in her previous life either, but she had received the same invitation.

“This is for my daughter Rosaline’s coming-of-age celebration. She’s very fond of you, My Lady. If you’re willing, we’d be honored to have you grace the occasion with His Majesty.”

For a brief moment, a chill passed over Eden’s face.

Rosaline had been Liam’s first lover. Whether there had been others after, Eden didn’t know, she’d been in Rodenberg at the time. But the fact that Rosaline had been his first was certain.

She’d seen it right away. Rosaline had known Eden was in love with Liam from their very first meeting. Ridiculously, Liam had remained oblivious for years.

Eden had watched them walk through gardens, share tea, dine together countless times.

She remembered all too clearly the way Rosaline’s lips would curl ever so slightly, as if to mock her, every time their eyes met. But that was all in the past. None of it would repeat in this life. It wasn’t even worth worrying about.

Quickly erasing any sign of discomfort, Eden gave a gracious nod.

“Of course. Thank you for the invitation.”

This time, the one smiling would not be Rosaline, but Eden.

……

T/N: Yes, hold your ground my Queen 👸🏻