Chapter 2
Lüsenford was a vast territory dominated by rugged mountains, and as it occupied the northern part of the empire, it was bitterly cold. Snow poured down even at the end of October.
That day was no exception. Even sturdy horses were useless for reaching the North Tower, far from Lüsenford Castle, so the duke had to leap up to that tower himself where the fierce wind prevented snow from piling up and instead whipped it into flying flurries. It was a brutal blizzard.
She would still be alive. Even though he had imprisoned her himself, he wanted to believe that woman was still alive. He had never ordered her death, so she had to be alive no matter what.
That woman. His wife, forced upon him by the emperor. The Duke’s Daughter of Ostein and Duchess of Lüsenford, or the emperor’s spy.
‘She’s not a spy. She never was.’
The conviction—or brainwashing—that had clouded his mind for over twenty years had shattered. It was a curse so powerful that it could only be shaken off after catastrophe struck. The belated shock made his entire body tremble.
He had confirmed it multiple times, with all sorts of material evidence, even that his wife was a spy, and he had ordered her disposal himself. But far too late—now, with the emperor’s army advancing right to his doorstep—had he finally uncovered the truth.
The real traitors had sold all the information and pinned every crime on her. The truth had to be that horrific for the brainwashing to break, for the curse-like restraint to shatter.
So he raced to save her at least, leaving the burning Lüsenford Castle behind. He had nothing left anyway. He shoved hard at the door that should have been firmly locked from the outside. But now, as if mocking him, it opened easily.
The moment the door swung open, the duke felt once again that something was terribly wrong.
“……B, ……Kael, Kaella!”
The name he had never properly called her once during their marriage tumbled out like faint gray ash, too late. Calling it had been so hard, but once he started, it brazenly felt all too familiar. He had called it so many times in his mind.
“Kaella!”
The duke rushed inside through the open door. Blood dripped steadily in the wake of his footsteps. The decrepit door was practically nonexistent. Even a frail woman, no matter how sick, could have escaped through it. She should have already left.
A foul stench enveloped him.
“Kaella…….”
He tried to tell the figure lying on what couldn’t even be called a bed to get up. No, if she couldn’t, he would just carry her out.
Kaella was so small—the wife he had ignored and shunned throughout their marriage, believing her to be a spy sending all sorts of information to the emperor.
“Kael……!”
But the woman didn’t stir even as this giant of a man entered in clanking armor. That tiny woman lay there with her eyes wide open. In this freezing weather, her exposed arms were blue with frostbite.
Her lush platinum hair had fallen out in clumps from malnutrition, and her gaunt face was utterly ruined. Kaella, who was barely twenty-five, lay curled on her side, nothing but bones left.
It was a corpse he had created. A corpse that had starved to death, curled up and staring at the door—her only escape—as she died.
The Duke’s Daughter of Ostein, with the precious imperial blood flowing through her veins, was dead. Pheon, who had seen more than his share of bodies, immediately knew the cause of death.
She had starved to death. Her frail body had collapsed under the cold and hunger. He hadn’t ordered food to be withheld, but Lüsenford had already fallen apart completely, ignoring even the duke’s commands.
No, he had wanted her dead, even if it meant ignoring orders.
“Oh my. She’s dead.”
Pheon turned his bloodshot eyes to look behind him. Silver hair disheveled, Beatrice Lavalle stood there panting, her eyes bloodshot like his.
She had been his first love, his only love, the childhood friend with whom he had shared dreams and hopes. And the biggest reason Kaella had been ignored. Or so it had been.
“Starved to death. How pitiful. She was innocent.”
But Beatrice Lavalle was the vanguard sent on the emperor’s orders to capture the traitor. Or perhaps a pawn the emperor had used to check and oppress Pheon before discarding her.
“The noble and righteous Your Highness starved the innocent duchess to death? Is this the justice you always talked about, Pheon? Is this what’s righteous? You said innocent people shouldn’t die. What was our Kaella’s crime?”
Sometimes words hurt more than swords or magic. Pheon couldn’t even respond to the onslaught. He stared blankly down at his wife, who hadn’t even properly closed her eyes. So young and fragile, and not a single part of her left intact in death.
“You’re a hypocrite. A brainless idiot. If you’re so noble and superior, you shouldn’t have kept saying you loved me after marrying her.”
The woman who had once whispered sweet nothings of love with him now stood apart, condemning him, then widened her eyes with an “Oh?”
“Ah, I made you that way, didn’t I?”
What noble lady, looking utterly unconnected to war, would be at the vanguard? In her hand was a shortsword, soaked in blood and gleaming blue, surrounded by swirling crimson smoke.
It was eerie. Eerie meant she wielded strange powers as a sorceress. From her lips dripped the black poison that had filled Pheon’s mind.
“What a shame. You were my first test subject, the spell I put the most effort into. The sturdiest restraint I built to never break, so foolishly simple.”
Once broken, yes, it had been foolishly simple. He had to protect Beatrice.
Why? Because he loved her. Why? She was already the flower of high society, they rarely met anymore, and every time they did, she’d prattle on with ‘Pheon, you can’t betray me. You have to protect me. I love you.’ Why?
In the end, those three phrases had been a spell reinforcing the restraint she’d placed on his mind.
“Pheon, you can’t betray me. I protected you by fawning over Vincent in Kline with all sorts of flattery!”
With those words, black poisonous smoke poured from her red lips and stretched toward Pheon. It had always been like this.
Pheon swept the smoke away with his sword, stirring up wind. The spell, now powerless and a lie, vanished pathetically. Having lost its power meant it was completely broken—which meant Beatrice was helpless against Pheon.
Why else would the emperor send her as vanguard? She was useless now, meant to die by Pheon’s hand. Her face twisted horribly.
“What went wrong? I even personally fabricated evidence to make you believe that wench was a spy and sent it to you. And you locked her up here anyway. That should’ve been enough. You should’ve just kept your head down and stayed quiet—why prepare for war so arrogantly?”
Beatrice ranted at him with crazed eyes, but Pheon was no longer paying her any mind. With the fog and noise cleared from his head, the desolate, chilling surroundings came fully into view.
He unclasped his tattered cloak. His seven-year-younger wife, dead without closing her eyes, was far too small. She looked so powerless it was absurd to even think of her as an enemy.
“You idiot, why even think of rebelling! If that wench had just scurried off on her own, you could’ve lived like before, like when she wasn’t around! I went out of my way to play your closest, only friend from childhood, even family—and you dare ignore me?”
Pheon reached out and gently closed Kaella’s eyes.
“You should’ve only had eyes for me! I told you not to look away! With the restraint I put on you, you should’ve shut up and obeyed—why get swayed by that idiot wench, rebel against the restraint, and make this mess!”
The sinful husband couldn’t even give his wife a proper funeral. Pheon covered Kaella with his cloak, stained not just with others’ blood but his own.
Her soiled, tattered clothes caught his eye. He couldn’t hand her body over to the advancing imperial troops, so he wanted to at least cremate her, but there was no time.
“Like father, like son—your tastes are trash too. Blood will tell. Like your mom, one’s not enough for you? Test subject under restraint, and you dare push me away and turn to that wench? Know your place. When I deign to have you, you should be grateful—how dare you refuse!”
The man who had never refused now did so, and ruin followed. All that was left for the shrieking Beatrice was bravado. She knew this was the end for her here.
Pheon took some satisfaction in the fact that Beatrice hadn’t gotten what she wanted either.
“Since you’re not human, should I have made the restraint stronger? Should’ve put an extra leash on you since it’d end like this anyway!”
Pheon gripped his sword tighter, eyeing the imperial troops pressing in behind the babbling Beatrice. Branded a traitor anyway, he had nowhere left to retreat.
“Your house ends here anyway. Not that it was much of one—daughter-in-law’s already dead, son’s about to die, and your father’s been clueless all this time…….”
Then a massive roar echoed from afar. At the rage-filled sound, Beatrice’s face paled as she trailed off.
“Clueless…….”
It was the evil dragon rampaging.
The Lüsenford Duke, who had faced the evil dragon many times, didn’t rush to stop it but first cut down the enemy before him. Fighting to the death was all that remained. The evil dragon’s rampage grew louder in the distance. Arrows and spears rained down like a storm.
*
“Are you going to His Majesty?”
It was just something that happened. It lingered in his memory, but in this world now, no one knew—it hadn’t happened. So the Duke’s Daughter of Ostein who had ignored all protocol and dashed right in front of him was a stranger to him.
Not the Duchess of Lüsenford, not the emperor’s spy planted in Kline whom his precious Beatrice had zealously informed on and testified against, not the wife whose heart had been bruised by his contempt and neglect.
Much less the woman who had starved to death, curled up without closing her eyes. The sin he alone remembered was his to bear; it had nothing to do with the fine young lady before him.
Yet his shameless eyes were devouring her every inch. Had flesh returned to her once-hollowed cheeks? She must be healthy, of course, but was she all right? Then why was her face so pale? He wondered without shame.
“I-I also have urgent business to relay to my fa-, father. I don’t know what this is, but I’ll deliver it for you.”
Her young voice trembled. Her small, soft hand clung to the heavy box the duke held. Kaella had no time, no excuse.
The man before her was terrifying, intimidating. To someone as small and slight as her, this man towering like a door was a threat just by existing, but she desperately thought.
‘An excuse. What excuse can I use?’
If only she’d had time to prepare properly, but right now, all she could do was throw herself in the way with no plan.
Inside that box he held was the pistol that would kill her father. If it reached the emperor’s hands, Ostein’s duke would die, and powerless Kaella would lose her territory, title, everything, and be sold to this man.
Then ignored endlessly, framed, imprisoned, and forced to drink poison from her rival before dying.
“On my way here, I saw Lady Lavalle over there, near Aquitel Palace.”
In their four-ish years of marriage, she had loomed so large that Kaella could only think of her, so she used her as an excuse. That woman would make the Lüsenford Duke turn away, so it was a fabricated line. But saying it aloud brought a wave of misery.
She had always tried to look good, to do well. She believed that if she did her best as duchess, as wife, her efforts would be rewarded. Or wanted to believe it.
The feelings she’d once had for him were gone; now she just flailed to carve out a place for herself. So the habit lingered, making her grovel shamelessly before Pheon, a pitiful sight.
Well, a bit pitiful, but the right choice. Aside from Beatrice Lavalle and the empress mother, nothing got a reaction from this man. Kaella knew that much, at least.
“She seemed to be alone, though there were some gentlemen nearby.”
Kaella fabricated lies while grabbing the box with trembling hands. She absolutely wouldn’t let him take it inside alone. She couldn’t bear to see that happen again.
So Kaella shoved this man—who had never truly been her husband—toward the emperor’s mistress. Whatever became of them was none of her business. No, this time, she hoped they’d hook up and both be ruined!
“You might catch her if you go now. I’ll deliver this for you.”
Babbling like a madwoman, Kaella tugged at the box containing the pistol and bullets. But it didn’t yield easily. Why? She looked up at the young duke.
“……I saw her just now. Really, just a few minutes ago.”
So, that woman you love to death is over there. Go on. Saying things she never would have before dying—over and over—made it feel natural enough. Maybe she shouldn’t have held back in the dream; she should’ve said it while alive.
Why had she poured her heart into a man who didn’t even treat her like a person?
He had fiercely refused marriage to Kaella, only yielding under the empress’s punishments; from their wedding night, he had warned her not to expect anything, not to do anything foolish.
The man stared at her without blinking for a while, as if he’d devour her, then answered slowly.
“I’ve already come from seeing His Majesty.”
Kaella yanked her hand from the box and grabbed her dress skirts, bolting into the garden. Fury surged.
The husband she had devoted herself to was still toying with her, and her father’s life hung by a thread. No, maybe her father was already gone.
“You can’t enter without His Majesty’s permission, Kaella.”
But the grip from behind was strong. Who didn’t know that? That’s why she was running in. She turned blankly. No need for this dream to drag on. Die here or there, it was all a dog’s death anyway.
“It’s fine. I know.”
Saying it with full courtesy and honorifics, Kaella must have smiled. No, she did smile. Knowing the world wouldn’t be kind to her, that death was the only end, she smiled.
At her bright smile, the arm holding her slackened for a moment, and she bolted like a bird toward death.
“Kaella!”
It was outrageous. Shaking off the duke’s hand violently, daring to go where the emperor hadn’t summoned her—all forbidden acts.
But Kaella broke every taboo at once, charging into the Monster’s Garden with its gaping maw.
Her mind raced. The Protective Magic Artifact her father had urgently asked her to deliver would protect the wearer only once anyway. The pistol could be reloaded even if it took time, and there’d be plenty of bullets.
Best case, she’d drag her father out during the reload and get him into the carriage; more likely, father and daughter would die as the emperor’s snacks first. Neither was bad. A quick death was better.
“Kaella!”
A low, anguished call came from behind, but it couldn’t stop Kaella, who knew too well where her father would be killed.
She dashed wildly through the dense shrubs. Hair disheveled, not dressed for the palace but casually as if lounging at home with just a shawl thrown over, Kaella reached the spot where her father died.
“What is this?”
What she saw was the emperor lowering the pistol and her father, pale-faced, opposite him. He was alive.
‘The magic artifact worked properly!’
Kaella’s half-brother the emperor rolled his fierce eyes, glancing sharply at the unexpected intruder.
He had just pulled the trigger at Kaella’s father without a shred of guilt, now eyeing the uninvited guests annoyingly.
Those who intruded without permission deserved punishment. The well-bred duke’s daughter was so out of breath from running she couldn’t answer. Or had no answer to give. She was just thinking it was time to die.
“Your Majesty, forgive me, but this gift arrived a bit late, so I was returning to present it properly.”
As her narrow chest heaved like a bird’s from the unaccustomed sprint, the duke quietly walked up from behind with the heavy box and answered.
The emperor’s face twisted. In fact, the pistol he had ‘just tested’ by ‘aiming at his brother’s head’ had been empty, unloaded. The bullets were in the box Pheon now held.
Clueless bumpkin! Northern fool stuck up there wouldn’t know cramming the pistol full of bullets was Kline courtesy!
The duke had been like that since birth, but what about Kaella? The emperor glared irritably at her, nearly collapsed.
He could kill the nonentity half-brother’s only daughter just for being annoying. He was the type to whimsically pull the trigger at his half-brother just because the pistol happened to be there.
“And the duke’s daughter heard urgent news with me at the entrance and rushed here.”
The duke spoke of urgent news even Kaella didn’t know, then bowed his head as if reluctant to say more.
Shocking news? The emperor eyed Kaella to spill it quickly. But a servant who had run up answered instead.
“Your Majesty, Her Imperial Majesty the Empress……!”
At that moment, the emperor’s face, full of boredom, irritation, and arrogance, changed utterly.
“She has lost consciousness!”
The duke, son of the empress, impassively watched the emperor drop the pistol and brush past them. Kaella, who had meant to die right there, narrowed her eyes at the emperor’s retreating back.
‘What?’
In her memory, the empress had never lost consciousness. Something had changed.
The empress, whom the mad emperor obsessively loved—or creepily fixated on—and the duke’s mother, had lost consciousness.
