Previously
Crown Prince Caesar returns from a two-year war against demons and immediately searches for his wife, Irenia. While he is misled by servants and greeted at the victory ball by her half-sister Giovinetta, Irenia is actually weeping in a tower, watching him from afar.
An overwhelming urge seized me to run to him that very instant, to scream and beat his chest with my fists, emptying all the agonizing hurt and bitter resentment inside me.
You were never like the ones who hated and despised me from the start. You weren’t like them. You shouldn’t have treated me this way.
Back then, I dreaded people and trembled at thunder, lashing out at everyone around me like a wounded beast, yet your arms were the only refuge I could hide in. You were my haven in a world that offered no safety.
Then, the moment the curse broke and you returned to who you once were, you cast me aside and walked away.
In Caesar’s absence, I lived like an exile within the palace walls. I was rarely permitted to step outside, and even the relief missions and state visits abroad were entrusted to my half-sister, Giovinetta, instead of me.
At first, I refused to believe the rumors about what was going on between them.
I wrote to him every day, using the foresight fate had bestowed upon me to warn him of impending dangers, to ask after his well-being, and at times… to ask whether he still thought of me.
Yet not a single reply ever came.
For two long years, all I received from him was silence.
Did he look upon me the way the others did? As something vile and outcast?
Did he now feel ashamed of having married me once the curse was gone?
Me, the pariah of the Flores family, a maidservant’s daughter, flawed and lame… the wife everyone believed was fit only for an accursed prince who had slaughtered so many women.
Yet now that he had become a whole prince with the bearing of a king, I was nothing more than an unsightly blemish beneath his station.
“I’m pregnant, with Caesar’s child.”
That was what Giovinetta, my half-sister, had told me.
She told me Caesar had chosen her, and that there was no longer any place for me in his life.
She said,
“He carved his name onto my neck. Isn’t that proof enough of love?”
Then she added mockingly,
“Being the prince’s wife was never a place suited for you. Things are simply returning to where they belong.”
Then she demanded that I give up my place.
While I wandered the halls of the palace like a faded shadow, enduring the sneers and derisive whispers of the queen and the noble ladies, Giovinetta shone at court balls, basked in admiration and attention.
She was the legitimate, pampered daughter who had enjoyed the love and doting of our parents, living a life I had never tasted even a fraction of.
And now… she had my husband, too.
Soon, a grand celebration would be held in the palace to honor Caesar’s triumphant return from the war.
And who would stand at his side, dressed in an elegant gown with a radiant smile? Giovinetta, of course.
I knew it would come to this.
I tried to convince myself to accept it, but my tears refused to obey my will and kept spilling over nonetheless.
At that very moment, the carriage lurched violently and ground to a sudden halt.
A clamor erupted outside, so I peered out the window, but the rain was pouring in sheets and the darkness was too thick to make out anything.
The coachman slid open the small partition window and shouted in a panic,
“We’re under attack!”
“A—an attack?! Are they bandits?” I asked, my face freezing in fear as I looked between the escorting knight and the driver.
They shook their heads in grim silence.
“Stay inside. I’ll see what’s happening.”
The knight drew his sword without waiting for my answer, threw the carriage door open, and leaped outside.
My heart hammered as if it were trying to break right out of my chest.
I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle a scream.
From a distance came rough, harsh shouts… Perhaps it was a raid by bandits, or perhaps… they were sent specifically to assassinate me.
Terror washed over me, and my limbs began to tremble.
I remembered the knight’s warning to stay inside the carriage, but my heart gave me no peace.
I heard the clash of iron striking iron, and shouts drawing steadily closer.
What if staying here posed an even greater danger?
What if the knight himself was in league with the attackers?!
Then came a scream… a brief cry from close by.
It served as my cue; I shoved the carriage door open and bolted outside.
The darkness was pitch-black, and the rain poured ceaselessly.
I dragged myself toward a dense thicket of woods nearby, ignoring the throb in my bad leg, until I had lost myself among the trees.
“The carriage is empty!”
“Search every inch!”
“Damn it! Move fast!”
Their voices rose as they tore through the spot I had just abandoned.
So my decision had been the right one… at least for now.
Yet… how long could I possibly stay hidden?
I reached into my clothes and pulled out a small dagger, one I had kept close to me for as long as I could remember.
I remembered my mother, Anariza… She had always said,
“Live. Survival is strength.”
She had always said that… to stay alive, no matter the cost.
What a fool she had been, swept away by the plague before she could achieve a single thing.
And yet, until her very last breath, she had repeated those words to me.
Suddenly, someone caught the sound of my movement.
“There she is, in the bushes over there!”
The blood froze in my veins as the assailants closed in.
I screamed, brandishing my dagger,
“Stay back!”
Yet I knew how utterly pathetic I looked.
A tiny dagger barely large enough to see, waved in the face of men armed to the teeth with swords.
One of them smirked with open contempt.
“No time to waste. Finish it quickly.”
Their hands were smeared with blood, which the rain washed away into crimson streams across the earth.
A pang of guilt struck me for ever doubting the knight.
Then I felt something cold graze against my neck.
The attacker said,
“Don’t blame us too much.”
I asked in a trembling voice,
“Wh—who sent you?”
I wanted to know, yet at the same time I was terrified I might hear your name.
“It’s―”
He never finished the word.
In an instant, a strange, sickening sound tore through the air.
Something drove deep into his flesh.
I knew at once it was the sound of death.
A blade punched through his chest from behind, blood gushing forth in a torrent.
“Ah…?”
My mind could not process what had happened.
Only moments ago he was about to slaughter me, and now… here he was, collapsing before me in a pool of his own blood.
Nausea surged through me.
I retched, then lifted my head… only to see that every single one of the assailants had fallen.
Then I saw you.
You were standing there.
“Cae—Caesar…?”
You walked toward me with steady, measured steps.
I stood rooted to the spot, staring at you in utter disbelief.
Weren’t you supposed to be in the banquet hall right now, by Giovinetta’s side?
What brought you all the way out here…?
Did you come to save me?
Or was there something else entirely…?
Suspicions coiled one after another, like a serpent devouring its own tail.
“…Why did you come?”
I asked him. Giovinetta had told me Caesar was the one who chose her. If that was true… what if you had come to witness my end?
To see with your own eyes that I, your sole blemish…
The blood clinging to Caesar’s blade looked terrifying, a crimson the color of pure dread.
· · ·
Yet he did not utter a single word. If only he would say something, anything… Why this silence?
My head spun. My body, wound tight with tension the entire time, had finally reached its limit.
The sound of the rain began to fade little by little, though it had not truly stopped; rather, my ears felt as if they were submerged beneath water.
My vision grew clouded, as though veiled behind a heavy curtain of darkness.
Then, as if being pulled down into the depths of the blackness, I collapsed and fell. Frigid drops of rain struck against my cheeks.
On that day, too, the rain had poured just like this…
The beginning of it all, yes… had been our wedding day.
‘They say a bride who weds on a rainy day is destined to shed many tears…’
Ever since morning, the rain had been falling in torrents.
The dressing maids dusting pearl powder onto my cheeks had not ceased their whispers that this marriage was an ill omen.
Yet I paid no mind to their mockery. It was not out of deliberate indifference, but because the pain boring into my ankle like an iron nail driven straight into the bone demanded all my focus.
On damp, rainy days such as this, the ache always flared worse.
My mind was entirely consumed by it, to the point where the presence of that familiar agony offered me a strange sort of comfort.
Even so, I was not used to sitting alone in this desolate, silent chamber.
Then again, what bride in this world could ever grow accustomed to the bridal suite? Even a woman married ten times over would surely feel out of place on this particular day.
Patience is a virtue, and endurance brings its reward.
I kept repeating to myself, “All of this was my choice.” I had no choice but to deceive myself with those words.
Holding my breath, my hand reached down, searching for the dagger hidden beneath my undergarments.
I felt its unyielding chill against the delicate fabric.
FADE OUT