Chapter 1.1

“What are you referring to, Your Highness?”

The Grand Duke’s low voice was as calm as a night lake without a breeze. It was the kind of expression that made people uneasy.

“Please, speak comfortably. I mean earlier—about the royal of Jenaire. The one you said you’d love as a person…”

Edgar waited for the Grand Duke’s reply with some anxiety.

The answer that came a moment later wasn’t too different from what he had expected.

“Does it matter whether I’m sincere or not?”

The Grand Duke tilted his head when he saw Edgar’s stiff expression.

“I thought you’d be pleased, Edgar.”

“…”

“Don’t tell me you actually wanted that woman to become Crown Princess. Were you prepared to start a war over it?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Seeing his cousin’s emotionless face, Edgar let out a sigh.

The Crown Prince of Jenaire and the Grand Duke of Eleanor had grown up together since before they were weaned. When no one else was around, they used casual names and speech, like now.

They were close. So, it wasn’t hard for Edgar to guess what the Grand Duke wasn’t saying out loud.

It was a lie. He wasn’t sincere.

Treat an illegitimate child as a person? That could never happen. Rayan Eleanor was the kind of man who could never accept an illegitimate child.

At least, not after seeing his parents’ bodies torn apart and hung from the duchy’s walls.

And now that same man had declared he would take a Jenaire royal as his duchess. From that moment, her fate was sealed.

Besides, to Rayan, marriage was just a political tool. Even if she wasn’t illegitimate, it would be nearly impossible to make him feel love.

Edgar chose his words carefully.

“…Perhaps another method would be better. What you’ve suggested seems far too cruel to her. If that’s not mockery, then what is…?”

“Edgar. You seem overly generous to a woman who could be a spy from an enemy nation.”

He had no argument for that.

Edgar bit his lip as the Grand Duke stood up. He looked as if he was about to walk away but instead circled the table and headed toward the wall.

“Mockery, huh. Not wrong. Then what other method would be better…”

Below the wall, a portrait had been carelessly left leaning. It was poorly painted.

The woman in the portrait had long black hair down to her waist and blue eyes.

Her gaze was weak, her cheeks lifeless, and her body was overly thin.

Maybe she could be considered pretty at best, but there were plenty of women more beautiful than her—just average-looking.

Rayan looked at the woman without averting his eyes and murmured quietly,

“Should I take her down to the palace basement then?”

“What?”

“I’m asking if I should torture her.”

His voice was completely devoid of emotion.

“Break her bones, cut her flesh, keep her awake for days… force her to change her mind that way.”

“…”

“It’s not a bad method. But why bother? There’s a more efficient way. It’s better for her too.”

“Being illegitimate is bad enough. I don’t want to make her crippled on top of that and then make her my duchess.”

Edgar had nothing left to say and closed his mouth. There was nothing wrong in Rayan’s reasoning.

In the end, this was the best outcome. As Rayan turned fully away, Edgar muttered in a low voice,

“She’s the girl we saw in Jenaire eight years ago, isn’t she, brother?”

“…”

“During the masquerade ball at the imperial palace.”

An old memory rose to the surface. Large eyes and a small voice brushed across Rayan’s mind.

<“Mister in the white mask, what’s your name?”>

“…Who knows. I don’t remember.”

But that was all. He didn’t remember things that held no value.

Still, Edgar seemed to remember differently.

“I remember her as a sweet and innocent child. Please treat her well. She is just another victim born of Jenaire.”

Rayan gave a faint smile at those upright words.

“What are you worried about, Edgar? That I might abuse her?”

“Do I look that emotional to you?”

Edgar fell silent. Rayan Eleanor was definitely not the emotional type.

“I don’t care. Whether she’s illegitimate or not, whatever kind of person she is.”

If anything, his human emotions were so dried up they seemed cracked and broken.

Rayan locked eyes with the woman in the portrait.

“As long as she stays quiet, knows her place, and lives like she doesn’t exist… maybe in a few years, she can leave the duchy in one piece.”

For a second, her painted blue eyes seemed to tremble.

When he glanced down casually, he saw the name written in elegant script at the bottom of the portrait.

‘Ines.’
The name of his wife and the future Duchess of the Eleanor Duchy.

Thud.

A small body, shoved roughly, rolled across the dirt floor.

Her coarse black hair, grown to her back, tangled with the dusty ground. The slim woman staggered to her feet.

“Don’t act like an idiot here in Lezan too. Ines, you remember what you were taught, right?”

“…Yes.”

The soldier, who had dragged her out of the cage and thrown her to the ground, looked down at her with disgust.

‘What a cold girl.’

In the two weeks it took to travel from Jenaire to Lezan’s capital, she hadn’t bathed, eaten properly, or slept well.

She was technically an adult, but so thin she looked younger. There was no way she could’ve endured the soldiers’ forced march.

And yet, Ines didn’t cry or even groan. Not once did her breath hitch. Even when she was thrown onto the stone floor, not a single scratch marked her body.

Seeing that, it was easy to believe the rumors—that she was born with a cursed fate.

The soldier’s tone grew rough.

“Lucifer will hand you over to Lezan. Recite His Majesty’s order one last time.”

“Go to Lezan. Marry the most noble man there, and make them admit their worthlessness to the entire continent,” she said.

There was no focus in her blue eyes. The gentle, soft-hearted illegitimate child had lost all vitality since arriving in Lezan.

“Good. Now go with Lucifer. Move!”

Ines stumbled at the harsh push and began to walk. From beneath her shabby sleeve, a thin black mist escaped with a small whisper.

[Are you okay?]

“…Yes. Thanks, Kian.”

The black mist that curled gently around her body didn’t seem reassured by her words, continuing to swirl around her shoulder and chest.

[I want to kill them all. Ines, it hurt a lot.]

“Kill them…? You know we can’t do that. Do you want to get me killed too?”

Ines gave a bitter smile. Kian, who lived attached to her heart, was her only ally—and the reason she was slowly dying. He fed off her life force.

But still, he was the only one who worried and cared about her. Ines whispered weakly to the mist settling on her palm.

“I’m really fine, so go back in. Someone might see you and get suspicious.”

[…Okay.]

Reluctantly, the black mist sank back into her left chest. Her delicate heart thudded, then began beating slightly irregularly.

Ines took a deep breath and looked around.

She had finally arrived in Lezan.

The imperial palace of the enemy country was less flashy than Jenaire’s golden palace, but it had an elegant, timeless dignity.

The aura of a thousand-year-old empire, something Jenaire could never replicate, lingered in every corner of the palace.

But in this beautiful palace, there were only two places Ines was allowed to go.

First the prison, and then, in a few days, she would be taken to the palace’s grandest hall.

There, she would declare that she would marry the Crown Prince.

‘And after that…’

After that, she didn’t know.

Following Lucifer, Ines thought bitterly.

Jenaire hadn’t just ordered her to choose a husband. She had been dragged into a lavish room for the first time in her life and taught many things—most of which she never wanted to know.

Ines never had a say in anything in her life. It had always been that way, so it was nothing new…

The words of her grandfather, the old emperor of Jenaire, echoed in her ears like a hallucination.

<Men are all the same. They go weak in front of a skilled woman…>

<Blind their eyes. Plant your dark seed in their land. Bear an heir born of misfortune, Ines. Let them rot from within.>

That didn’t mean she was willing to go that far.

To seduce a man, bear an unwanted child, and destroy a country…

Tears she had been holding back welled up in her blue eyes. No matter how much she blinked, her vision stayed dark with despair.

‘…Maybe I should run.’

She looked desperately beyond the palace walls. If she borrowed Kian’s power, it wasn’t impossible.

If she gave up about ten years of her life, maybe she could escape to a place where no one knew her. But she’d probably already lost that much time just by surviving this long.

So she never knew when or how she might die.

If so, wouldn’t it be better to live freely, even for a short while…?

While Ines was lost in that distant thought, Lucifer handed her over to one of Lezan’s imperial knights.

“This is it? The one sent from Jenaire?”

The knight, dressed in armor trimmed with gold silk, grabbed her face with one hand. Ines flinched and snapped back to reality.

The knight turned her head left and right forcefully, speaking with contempt.

“Filthy. Disgusting. Did they send her like this on purpose?”

“Knight of Lezan, watch your words. She will soon hold the highest position in this country.”

Lucifer replied with a mocking tone. The knight cursed and shoved Ines away as if throwing her aside.

“Ah…!”

Her frail body staggered. As black smoke began to rise sharply to support her—

Someone caught Ines from behind.