To sit upon the Imperial Throne was not the glory of placing the continent beneath one’s feet, but an ascetic ordeal of walking willingly into a vast swamp reeking of blood.
It had been merely a month since his ascension. Cassian had been living through suffocating times. His coronation, forced through with the military backing of the Northern Grand Duke—his maternal uncle—had been little different from a coup. Endless purges of political enemies and a precarious tug-of-war for power with the House of the Northern Grand Duke. The weight of the crown called Emperor was ruthlessly crushing the shoulders of the newly enthroned man.
Yet even at the center of all that turmoil, there was a presence that relentlessly gnawed at a corner of Cassian’s mind.
‘Illiana Levni.’
Three years ago. A fellow handmaiden who had come to find him on the cold floor of the Exile Palace, withered like a gnarled branch. A woman who had washed him, clothed him, and ultimately raised him back up as a human again when he could not even hold his own body, writhing like a beast. Without her fanatical devotion, preserving his life—let alone claiming the Imperial Throne—would have been impossible. To Cassian, she was more than a mere benefactor; she was the very proof of his survival.
But a month ago, at that very coronation, everything had grotesquely twisted.
Cassian still remembered that moment vividly. The instant the imperial crown touched his head, how Illiana’s eyes—standing in a corner of the audience seats—had transformed. A biting, sword-sharp killing intent. A shriek steeped in hatred down to the marrow.
They were the bestial eyes of one confronting the sworn enemy of their life. It was a disturbance severe enough to justify summary execution on the spot for the crime of insulting imperial dignity, yet Cassian chose to throw her into a deep solitary cell rather than sever her neck. Because he simply could not understand.
She, who had swallowed the poisoned cup in his stead, who had thrown herself without hesitation before an assassin’s blade—why? What had enraged her so?
“……Speak.”
Cassian raised his head and intoned lowly. The trusted confidant waiting in the darkness fell to a heavy knee.
“What are the results of your inquiries? Regarding Count Levni’s domain.”
“……Your Majesty. I am ashamed to report, but the contents are exceedingly strange.”
The confidant’s voice trembled faintly.
“We scoured the entire Empire thoroughly, yet a Count’s house bearing the name ‘Levni’ has never existed from the start. Family trees, records of title bestowal, even the domain management ledgers—there is no trace anywhere. In other words, Illiana Levni is…… a person who never existed in this world.”
Cassian’s pupils sank coldly.
Their very first meeting in the Exile Palace had been suspicious. A beautiful handmaiden who had drifted in claiming to be a nameless fallen noble. The reason Cassian had constantly guarded against her and wounded her with vicious words had been an instinctive revulsion toward a being whose origins he could not fathom.
Yet she had endured all those insults and persecutions, and finally made him Emperor. If she were a spy, why raise the prince of an enemy nation to the highest peak instead of killing him?
Suddenly, a cruel and terrible hypothesis flashed through Cassian’s mind.
Silver hair and red eyes.
To the people of the Empire, it was an ominous combination practically called cursed. But far away, in the Eastern Kingdom trampled by the Empire, there had existed one legendary monster bearing those colors. Rodri Cotton, the mercenary of the battlefield called the ‘Butcher of Elev.’
‘Could she be someone sent from the Eastern Kingdom? Or else……’
Rodri Cotton and Illiana Levni. The ghost of the battlefield and the handmaiden of the Exile Palace.
The two names, which should have had absolutely no point of contact, became chillingly intertwined by the bizarre link of ‘silver hair, red eyes.’ If she were a spy from the East, was that shriek she let out upon seeing him crowned the desperate resentment of a vanquished soul forced to place the crown upon the sworn enemy of her homeland?
“……Nothing but unknowns.”
Cassian set down the quill pen he held with a sharp clack. The veins on the back of his hand pulsed faintly.
Was it anger, or betrayal? Or perhaps the wretchedness of owing his life to a woman of unknown identity? Cassian himself could not fully define the nature of this black emotion boiling within his chest.
Only one thing was certain. He had to meet her directly.
Not merely as a handmaiden, but as the ‘unidentified intruder’ who had shaken his life to its core—he had to seize her by the collar and demand answers. Once the accumulated state affairs were settled, he intended to open the cage door immediately. To face that silver-haired maid, who might be trembling in fear or still emitting that sword-sharp killing intent.
#
The room was still terribly quiet.
Each time the maids left with the dishes, the clanking of the lock reminded me that this place was a prison, yet paradoxically, my heart thumped with an unknown excitement.
There was no paper or pen in the room. If I carelessly wrote something and got caught by the maids or that crazy emperor bastard, it would clearly be treated as an ‘escape plot’ and my head would fly off immediately. I lay spread-eagle on the plush bed, staring at the ornate ceiling patterns, engraving my own otherworld bucket list deep into my mind.
When I closed my eyes, vivid scenery unfolded from imagination alone. The romance of a medieval fantasy—I would see knights with my own two eyes. Noble knights laying down their lives for their liege. Wasn’t that the true fantasy, alive and breathing?
And that wasn’t all. This was a world where magic actually existed. If I stopped by the Southern Holy Empire where the Saintess was said to be, I might even get to see her in person. A Saintess would obviously be dazzlingly beautiful, right? Her ‘holy pockets’ would probably be large with mercy, too. If my memory served, they had been enormous in the novel’s illustrations.
I was determined to visit the northwestern magic tower that supposedly pierced the heavens one day. I could watch gladiators fight bloodily in a massive circular arena, and stroll leisurely through the Grand Canyon majestically described in the novel.
Just imagining it made the corners of my mouth twitch uncontrollably. Bawling my eyes out just because I suddenly got possessed and turned into a woman’s body wasn’t my style. On the contrary, I trembled with exhilaration at the fact that an opportunity to escape this tedious, repetitive daily life had come.
My life, Kim Yujin’s life, had been sheer ‘survival,’ you see.
My twenties had been ground away like factory gears paying off the mountain of debt left by my worm of a gambling-addict father. Even the bare minimum of national welfare was powerless before the shadow of the debt that man had racked up. Every night, chewing through discarded convenience store lunchboxes while reading fantasy novels on my smartphone had been my only emergency exit to escape suffocating reality.
“If it’s just confinement like this, it’s a hundred times better than suffering through debt collection calls.”
Hot, luxurious meals came out on time, and there was even a plush bed that didn’t hurt my back. If my immediate safety was guaranteed, this wasn’t suffering but a blessing from the gods. Of course, the physical limits of this womanly body called Illiana were clear, but with modern common sense and shallow knowledge, if I just rolled out one good business idea, wouldn’t making enough money to play and eat for life be only a matter of time?
Each time my delusions piled upon one another, I felt like happy shrieks would burst forth. Being imprisoned now was actually the best stroke of luck for me. It was a ‘grace period’ to glean information about how the outside world worked through the maids and perfectly design my future.
After subtly probing the maids, they said I had roughly a month left of this honey-like house arrest. A month. During that time, I had to devise a perfect survival strategy.
The biggest variable was, of course, that crazy bastard Cassian, the Emperor.
“What kind of expression do I need to make to look natural when facing that bastard?”
Should I act crazy to provoke disgust and cut ties? No, Cassian wasn’t a pushover who’d fall for such shallow tricks. He was a cold pragmatist and a paranoid maniac; if I rashly tried some scheme on him, I could be sent straight to the execution grounds.
The scars left like medals on this body, Illiana’s skin, were proof of that.
The scar on the left palm was a mark from the shards of a plate he’d shattered in a fit of nerves while she served him, and the long scar carved into the right side of her back had been engraved like a medal when she threw herself to protect him from an assassin’s blade.
Cassian was a psychopath without blood or tears who, despite witnessing that fanatical devotion with his own eyes, suspected Illiana’s identity and pointed a cold sword at her.
“You dog-like bastard. There should be a limit to repaying grace with enmity.”
Curses spilled out automatically. A man who, after she’d devoted her life to making him Emperor, didn’t even say thanks but started with suspicion and tried to wring her neck. Being the object of that bastard’s obsession was closer to a thriller than romance.
A month later, when I faced those mad violet eyes, what mask would I have to wear?
Should I grovel pathetically, or should I act as if the soul of ‘Rodri’—the original master of this body—still possessed it, emitting a biting hostility?
I ran countless scenarios across the blueprint in my mind. One thing was clear: I had absolutely no intention of withering away in this gilded prison, receiving his obsession.
Click.
Just then, the sound of the door opening was clearly different from usual.
It wasn’t the cautious sound of a maid entering, trembling with a tray as always. It was the rough strike of shoe heels on marble, panting without catching one’s breath, and stifled sobs.
“……Unnie!”
The moment the door burst open, someone came running as if rolling across the floor and dove straight into my embrace.
“……Huh?”
For a moment, I was slow to grasp the situation. Embraced in my arms was a small, delicate girl with pale sky-blue hair. Softly fluttering locks, thinly trembling shoulders, and sobs that burst out uncontrollably.
Memories from before the possession flashed by quickly.
Scarlet Ardel.
The one girl in the original story who had followed Illiana, a fellow handmaiden, like a blood sister. A child who burst into tears at the smallest things, so pure and fragile that she had seemed rather dangerous to keep close.
That very child was weeping sorrowfully in my arms now.
“Urk……”
In that instant, an entirely unexpected, unfamiliar sensation burrowed into my chest. A soft, warm body temperature was transmitted directly through my skin. Too, too close.
In over twenty years of living as the Korean youth Kim Yujin, I swore I had never once had such an experience. It had been a rough life not unlike that of a lifelong virgin who, swamped with debt, had never properly held a girl’s hand—let alone dated. The distance with the opposite sex had never been narrowed this openly.
Yet here I was now, holding a girl—no, a tear-stained beautiful young girl—tight in my embrace like this.
‘Ah, so this is what it feels like to hold a woman.’
A pleasant fragrance wafted from the crown of her head with a whoosh. A cozy, subtle scent, like sweet flowers and yet also like freshly baked bread. My head spun as if paralyzed for an instant. This was far more stimulating and dangerous than I’d thought.
“Hwaaaahn, unnie……”
Scarlet rubbed her face against my chest, wailing.
“Are you really okay? His Majesty…… the knights said he might execute you at any moment…… I-I really prayed to the gods every night…… H-hic……!”
Unable to string her words together, her sniffling figure was as wretched and cute as a puppy caught in the rain. I slowly raised my hand, which had frozen stiff, and carefully stroked her soft hair.
“Oh my, was that so?”
An embarrassing, uncle-like tone slipped from my mouth against my will.
“Our little Scarlet must’ve had a hard time because of me.”
The texture of her hair beneath my fingertips felt too good. The faint sky-blue locks flowing softly, the small shoulders fitting snugly into my embrace, and the warm body heat clinging to me completely as if relying on me.
Ahhh, a strange satisfaction crashed over me like a tsunami. Was this the fabled otherworld healing? At the same time, a bizarre sense of conquest simmered up as well.
It was in that moment, while I stroked her with a pleased face as if indulging my selfish desires, that Scarlet—who had been bursting into sorrowful tears—suddenly stopped her shoulders from trembling and grew quiet.
And slowly, she raised her head. Her moist eyes, glistening with teardrops, glared straight at me from an extremely close distance.
“…You.”
In that instant, the air turned cold.
“Who are you?”
It felt as if my heart dropped straight to the floor. Cold sweat trickled down my spine.
“W-why?”
I opened my mouth, smiling as naturally as I could.
“It’s me, Illiana.”
But Scarlet’s expression didn’t loosen at all. Rather, it grew harder.
“No.”
A firm denial.
“My lady doesn’t talk like this.”
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
“And… she doesn’t look at me with eyes like that.”
It was a perfect straight shot. A sharp insight that gave me no room to dodge and drove itself straight into my solar plexus. As expected, it was hard to deceive the eyes of a comrade who had shared life and hardship with her at the closest distance.
But I couldn’t retreat here with some half-baked excuse. The corners of my mouth, which had faltered for a moment, slowly—and grotesquely—twisted upward. Since I’d been found out anyway, I might as well flip the entire board over.
“Lady Ardel.”
I lowered my voice into a cold, deep register. Then I firmly seized her slender shoulders as she tried to push me away, stepped forward, and shoved her back against the cold wall with a thud.
“So you’ve only just noticed?”
Scarlet’s eyes widened in an instant. I took another step closer. Giving her no chance to flee, I brought my lips close to her ear.
“The real Illiana was sent to the afterlife long ago.”
Scarlet’s red eyes expanded with terror in an instant. I moved even closer. Giving her no opening to escape, I bent my head toward her ear.
“I’ve been wearing that shell and staying by your side all this time.”
A dizzyingly close distance, close enough for my breath to brush the rim of her ear.
“How is it? So creepy you could go mad, isn’t it?”
“Ah, aahhh…!”
Scarlet clutched her head and screamed. Her small body trembled violently. It was the reaction of a completely terrified animal.
…Cute.
The moment that thought crossed my mind, I couldn’t hold back any longer.
“Pfft, hahaha!”
Laughter burst out.
“I’m kidding, kidding! Hey, you really are innocent.”
Scarlet stared at me blankly. Then, a few seconds later, she understood the situation.
“Huwaaah! Hwaaaaah!!”
She began sobbing at a volume three times louder than before. Ah, had I gone too far with the joke? Flustered for a moment, I hurriedly patted her shoulder.
“Hey, hey, please don’t cry. If someone hears you, they’ll think I really am a murderer. I told you, it was a joke.”
I clumsily soothed her, patting her back. After sobbing as if she might run out of breath for quite a while, Scarlet finally managed to calm her breathing. Then she glared at me with resentful eyes and opened her mouth.
“…You’ve changed.”
It was a very quiet, dejected voice.
“My lady, today you really seem like a different person….”
A prickling sensation shot through the pit of my stomach. My heart lurched violently once again. But if I thought about it the other way, this was the perfect opportunity. I swept away every trace of mischief and looked into her eyes with the most serious, tormented expression in the world.
“Scarlet.”
I deliberately lowered my voice and called her name tenderly.
“I… I’m not going to hide my true self anymore.”
“…Huh?”
“All the cold sides of me you’ve seen until now were fake. It was a mask I forced myself to wear to hide my weaknesses. The me you just saw—that was my real self, the one I couldn’t even show you.”
Scarlet’s large eyes wavered in confusion.
“R-really?”
Like the heroine of a tragic film, I nodded mournfully.
“It may be hard to believe, but all this time, I was merely wrapped in a sharp shell in order to survive in the imperial palace.”
I paused and caught my breath, pretending to suppress my sorrow.
“But while I was locked away in this solitary cell for a month, cold and alone, I realized something.”
I let my gaze fall desolately to the floor, then caught her red eyes with mine again.
“In this hellish place, I realized how sincerely you cared for me and worried about me.”
Scarlet’s eyes began to fill with heated emotion in an instant. It worked. Cheering inwardly, I grasped both her hands tightly in mine to drive in the final nail.
“So, Scarlet.”
I whispered in the gentlest, most dependent voice I could manage.
“Help me just this once. It’s my lifelong wish.”
I squeezed her hands desperately. For a very brief silence, the room was still.
“What is it?”
Scarlet’s red eyes sparkled as if stars had been set into them.
“If it’s something my lady asks of me, I’ll do anything.”
She was innocent. So innocent that it was almost dangerous. Stroking the hands I held in mine, I slowly curled up the corners of my mouth.