Chapter 1

Tetsu Square, located in the heart of the imperial capital of the Lesgerham Empire.

At the center of the square stood a fountain, the pride of the capital, decorated with a statue of Freya, the goddess of love and magic. It was a place where the cheerful laughter and shouts of people could always be heard, but today was different.

The people gathered around the fountain spat at the woman inside the makeshift prison and hurled curses at her. A courtier who had been glaring at the woman visible between the iron bars with contempt soon unfolded a sacred decree.

“Criminal guilty of attempting to assassinate the Empress! Elenor Swan von Lesgerham, the Imperial Consort, shall be hanged, and her corpse shall be abandoned in Jafr Forest to become food for the wolves!”

“Kill her! Kill Elenor Frihosen!”

“Kill her! Kill her!”

The people’s voices only grew louder as time passed.

Elenor raised her empty, hollow eyes. She had become thoroughly accustomed to the contemptuous and hateful gazes of countless people, but she could not help the bitterness that welled up inside her nonetheless.

Just then, the knights roughly dragged her out.

“Get up!”

The clothes she was wearing were so worn that they looked as though they would tear at the slightest force. When the knights who appeared behind her lifted her like a piece of luggage, part of the fabric finally tore with a loud rip.

When her shoulder was left completely exposed, a faint light returned to Elenor’s eyes. But as if her feelings were of no concern to them, the knights simply threw her into a filthy, foul-smelling wagon.

The rattling carriage soon came to a stop, and once again, she was dragged away by the knights, who held both of her arms. She was not even wearing proper shoes, so the feet dragging along the ground had long since become covered in blood.

At last, the knights stopped. Only then did Elenor have enough strength to look around. They had arrived at a place that was very familiar to her. The Imperial Palace. The place where the very thought of a certain person made her tremble with hatred. In Elenor’s eyes appeared the back of the Emperor, draped in a red cloak.

“……”

Ten years had already passed since the day she first met Joshua.

Wondering if all those years had been leading to this very day, Elenor gave a hollow smile. At that moment, the knights threw her onto the floor, and a pain so intense that she felt as though she might die came surging through her. She involuntarily squeezed her eyes shut with a groan.

When she struggled to open her eyes, a cold, beautiful face came into view. Somehow, Joshua had approached her without her noticing. Tilting his head, he looked at Elenor with unfamiliar eyes.

Looking at his twisted lips, Elenor pulled the corners of her mouth upward as much as she could. She absolutely refused to let him pity her.

But the sight of the scarred flesh bearing the slave mark on one cheek moving up and down made her face look even more grotesque.

She could clearly hear the surrounding knights drawing in their breaths. Along with the insults hurled at her.

Having already given up on everything, Elenor could do nothing but glare at the person standing before her. The cold, impassive eyes of Joshua, now the noble Emperor, came right in front of her. Elenor twisted her lips into a smile. His gaze grew colder.

“You can still smile at a time like this.”

“……”

Then what was she supposed to do in this situation? Cry? Unfortunately, her tears had already dried up, and she could not shed even a single one.

Elenor had never been in love with Joshua, to whom she had become engaged at the age of ten at her father’s suggestion. But since they were both in the same position as illegitimate children, she had believed that they would at least spend their lives together as partners who respected and supported one another. Her father must have thought the same when he arranged their political marriage.

When their wedding was approaching, it was revealed that Joshua was the son of the Emperor and the former Empress, who had been a princess of a fallen kingdom. A struggle for the throne broke out, and the Grand Duchy of Frihosen, which had always maintained neutrality, supported Joshua.

There was only one reason Elenor’s father, the Grand Duke of Frihosen, supported Joshua.

For his daughter’s happiness.

Joshua wanted the throne, and Elenor believed he was worthy of it. The fact that Joshua was the Emperor’s illegitimate son was not a problem for her.

Because Elenor wanted to see the empire Joshua would create. Joshua wanted to create a world where everyone was equal.

A world where people were not discriminated against because they were weak, poor, or women, but where everyone could pursue their own dreams and ambitions. Elenor wanted to see the kind of world Joshua had once described with a smile.

But how was he treating her now? The person who had once embraced her with tears in his eyes, thanking her and promising to treat her well for the rest of their lives had disappeared long ago. Elenor gave a self-deprecating smile.

‘I was an idiot to trust a beast without realizing what kind of person he was.’

Her past self had been terribly foolish. And all she could do was feel sorry for her father, who had died because of that foolish daughter.

A human being could never behave like this. How dare someone like you, who had thrown away even the slightest bit of conscience, think you were fit to sit upon the Emperor’s throne? If she could, Elenor wanted to spit those words in his face. She touched her cheek. Her fingertips felt the uneven surface.

On the day she was branded with the mark of a sex slave, Elenor had thought she could not live with such humiliation. She bit down on her tongue with all her strength in an attempt to take her own life. A guard found Elenor unconscious and bleeding from the mouth several hours later, and a skilled palace physician quickly reattached the half-severed tongue. But perhaps because the nerves had been damaged, her entire mouth still throbbed painfully whenever she even swallowed her saliva.

Seeing her remain silent, Emperor Joshua’s green eyes flashed coldly. He lowered his gaze, his eyes filled with sorrow.

“I still don’t understand.”

“……”

“How could you kill the woman I love with such a calm expression?”

“……Hrk. I… have… something… to say…”

A rasping sound, like metal scraping against metal, escaped her throat.

Her throat hurt terribly because of it, and Elenor strained her neck despite her contorted expression. She was exerting so much force that the blue veins stood out prominently. Joshua, who had been watching her, furrowed his brow as though annoyed.

“Seriously. You’re a woman who makes me sick.”

The Emperor loosely lowered the fine sword in his hand and stared silently into empty space, his gaze rather fierce.

With no change in his expression, Elenor had no way of knowing what he was thinking. Her blue eyes gleamed coldly.

“……D-do you… think I do?”

When Elenor managed to force out the sarcastic words, Joshua gave a derisive snort and shook his head.

“Ha. I feel sorry for Helena for trusting a woman like you so completely.”

He looked down at Elenor with icy eyes.

“Why did you kill Helena? And don’t tell me it was because you loved me. You don’t love someone like me, do you?”

“……”

When the Emperor referred to himself as ‘someone like me,’ the escort knights and imperial guards standing nearby all lowered their heads as though mortified by his words. Joshua, however, paid no attention to their reactions and cast a crooked glance at Elenor.

“Why? Are you not even going to make excuses anymore?”

“……”

“You really want to die just like this, don’t you?”

Even in the face of the Emperor’s threat, Elenor neither denied nor confirmed it.

In truth, he was right. Elenor genuinely wanted to die.

That desire had already taken root in her heart when her parents were beheaded and killed right in front of her.

Why had she poisoned Helena’s tea? Why had she attempted to assassinate her?

What could she possibly say to someone who had already decided she was the culprit and launched an investigation? Any explanation would have been pointless.

Joshua had never asked Elenor anything during all this time. So why was he asking these questions now?

Even when she screamed that she had done nothing to Helena, even when Helena’s parents fell to their knees and begged him to spare Elenor, and even when Elenor confessed to something she had never done in order to save her parents—he had never once asked why she had poisoned her.

Now that things had reached this point, Elenor thought she understood his intentions. Joshua had been waiting for an opportunity to kill her.

He did not need a reason for why she had killed Helena. He simply intended to get rid of Elenor while he had the chance.

It felt absurd that she had once considered someone who was only that kind of person to be a companion with whom she would share the rest of her life. A bitter smile appeared at the corner of Elenor’s lips.

At that moment, Elenor frowned as a violent pain surged through her chest. When Helena died, Joshua had ordered the guards to torture her. The guards had initially hesitated, but before long, they began torturing Elenor without the slightest hesitation, laughing and snickering as they watched her suffer.

She could have endured that alone, but one day, the people who came claiming to be physicians began injecting strange substances into her. Ever since then, the pain in her chest had continued without end.

She had truly reached her limit. Her upper body, which she had stubbornly kept upright through sheer willpower while kneeling, collapsed, and her exhausted body sprawled across the ground. Her worn prison uniform reeked from the pus oozing out of her wounds.

Blood, pus, and other fluids seeped from her battered body, mixing with the dirt on the ground. A foul smell spread through the air.

Her gaze fell upon the back of her hand and palm, scraped by the stones scattered across the ground. Her two hands were tightly bound with thick rope, and each finger was covered in calluses befitting someone who had held a sword for many years.

She had trained with the sword for a long time, and her skill had been exceptional. But from the moment Joshua told her to stop learning swordsmanship, Elenor had never held a sword again. She had given up without hesitation on the thing she had loved so dearly.

Lying still, she repeatedly clenched and relaxed her numb arms. The Emperor, who had been looking down at Elenor, soon seemed to have made up his mind. He reached inside his robes and pulled something out.

Elenor raised her fading gaze in an attempt to identify it, but she could not see clearly enough to tell what the object was.

The Emperor threw the object in front of her.