Cassian sat cold and rigid amidst the mountain of documents in his office.
The first thing to sweep through the imperial palace, which had welcomed its new master, was a ruthless wind of blood. The purge of the shrewd head maid who had served as the former empress’s eyes and ears to monitor the confinement palace, along with her subordinates, had been a predetermined procedure. And what filled that bloodstained void was an unprecedented appointment no one could have foreseen.
Three years ago, she had been a young girl with sky-blue hair who set foot into the rotting air of the confinement palace alongside Illyana. That same Scarlet had now been placed in the seat of head maid of the imperial palace.
In his memory, Scarlet had always been a coward hiding in Illyana’s shadow, trembling uncontrollably. Reports had come in that, ever since she came out of a private audience with Illyana—who was under house arrest—she had changed bizarrely. Her movements were unusual, as though she harbored some desperate resolve.
And today, a trusted confidant who had hidden in the shadows to watch them revealed an unbelievable truth.
“……Lady Illyana confessed to Head Maid Scarlet. That she deeply yearns for Your Majesty. However, she said she cannot bear to watch another woman stand beside Your Majesty as empress, and so intends to leave the Empire as things are.”
Cassian’s hand, which had been turning over documents, froze in midair.
An unfamiliar sensation arose—the taut string of reason in one corner of his chest snapping with a *twang*. On the day of the coronation, those fierce eyes that had glared at him with a murderous hostility that seemed ready to burn the entire world to ash…… could they have actually been a twisted manifestation of terrible jealousy and affection? If all that devotion she had thrown herself into, shattering her own body to make him emperor, had been solely to monopolize one single man named Cassian—
*‘How dare she seat me in this lofty place, only to run away alone?’*
A black emotion—whether rage or a bizarre thrill that sent tingles through his entire body, he could not tell—surged hotly through his veins in reverse. Cassian’s violet eyes flashed like a starving beast. If the reason she tried to leave was merely the daughter of Count Balhart, his political marriage partner, then the solution was devastatingly clear.
He simply had to make her empress.
Unilaterally breaking off the union with Count Balhart was a mad act that would drive the Empire to the brink of civil war. His newly established foundation of support would shake, and the Northern Grand Duke would bare his arrogant fangs. But to Cassian, such political gains and losses were not even worth considering. From the very beginning, his journey from the bottom of the confinement palace to the throne of the emperor had been a path that twisted impossibility into miracle.
And Illyana was the sole companion who had woven that bloody miracle with him from beginning to end.
If he could only keep her wholly by his side, then a shaking foundation was nothing more than something to be remade by cutting the throats of the opposition. Even if the entire Empire were once again engulfed in the flames of war, if he could only shackle her ankles and bind her at his feet, he was willing to walk into those infernal flames.
“Never. I won’t let you escape before my eyes.”
Cassian rose roughly from his seat. The heavy hem of his sweeping cloak produced a threatening friction against the floor. What boiled up from the very bottom of his heart was neither the lofty authority of an emperor nor the shallow honor of a knight. It was a beastly, primal craving to devour a single woman from head to toe and possess her completely.
If she truly yearned for him, he would gladly make her pay the price for that terrible heart. He would make her spend her entire life at his side, crushed beneath the crown of an empress, repaying the heavy responsibility of having made him emperor.
The sound of Cassian’s military boots echoed coldly through the corridor.
When he stood before the tightly shut door of Illyana’s solitary cell, he had already completely lost all rational control. The moment he roughly flung the door open and faced her pale face, her red eyes trembling bluish with confusion—Cassian was certain.
That his intuition had not been wrong.
#
I had arrogantly believed everything would roll forward perfectly under my control. The moment he abruptly appeared through the door before my eyes, which had been anxiously waiting for Scarlet to ring the emergency bell—my paltry arrogance shattered into pieces.
Cassian Esteban.
The original novel’s male protagonist, and the absolute ruler of the Empire, whom I was facing properly for the first time since possessing this body. That he would barge in at this perfect timing, right on the cusp of my escape—I hadn’t foreseen it even in my dreams. Beneath his pitch-black hair, his violet eyes flashed with a cold gleam. Rather than a noble imperial, they were closer to the hungry gaze of a predator that looked ready to cut off my breath at any moment.
For an instant, a line he had spat out while strangling Illyana in the original novel, drenched in madness, flashed through my mind like an auditory hallucination.
[*You are mine. Even in death, until you rot and decay, you must remain by my side.*]
The crisis response manual I had simulated dozens of times in my head evaporated into white nothingness. Damn it, what the hell was he crawling in here for on D-Day? If I held out just a little longer, Scarlet would ring the emergency bell and divert the knights’ attention; but if he caught me by the ankle like this, my meticulous escape plan would end without even starting.
“It’s been almost two months.”
It was a low, cold voice that froze the air of the solitary cell.
“Where has that spirit from the coronation gone, when you looked ready to burn the entire world to ash and poured murderous intent toward me? You’ve been quite docile, cooped up in here.”
I gulped dry saliva, struggling to gauge his intentions. This body had been imprisoned for two months as the price for showing hostility at the coronation. Should I prostrate myself and beg for my life here, or should I resist with murderous defiance to the end, like Rodri from the original? Unlike my chaotic mind, only my tightly closed lips trembled.
“I’ve never seen you so docile.”
Cassian took a step closer. Each time the heavy sound of his boot heels struck my eardrums, my heart shriveled. His violet eyes slithered down my entire body with a sticky, serpentine gaze. Whether it was curiosity or a predator’s calculation measuring its prey’s breath—I couldn’t tell. I instinctively stepped back, but what met my back was nothing but cold brick.
“In one week, my engagement ceremony is scheduled to take place.”
That was something I already knew. The daughter of House Balhart. A political marriage with the daughter of the greatest meritorious subject who, alongside the Northern Grand Duke, had led his ascension. An inevitable choice as emperor to quell the precarious situation of the Empire. I maintained my silence, earnestly wishing this tempestuous man would simply finish his business and pass by.
But his next words, delivered indifferently, utterly shattered the common sense of my world.
“Illyana Revni. You will become my empress.”
In that instant, my thought circuits completely shut down. Empress? Not the daughter of the highest power holder right now, but me—a mere maid—to be seated on the empress’s throne?
“T-That…… Do you think those are words that make any sense right now?!”
A cry of absurdity, beyond mere astonishment, burst out. At my defiant attitude, Cassian’s brow furrowed minutely. The Empire was presently a sheet of thin ice. Count Balhart’s support was absolute in a situation where the Northern Grand Duke could bare his fangs at any moment. And yet he would make a maid of fallen nobility, without any foundation, empress? This wasn’t romance; it was idiotic political suicide.
“Are you serious? Are you saying it doesn’t matter if the Empire is engulfed in the flames of rebellion?”
“Did you not promise to remain by my side for life?”
Cassian reached out roughly, seizing my chin and turning it. The sensation of the cold leather glove touched my skin with chilling repulsion. Forced to lift my head, I met his eyes. What lay within them was not a fiery madness. It was hair-raisingly calm, rationally refined—and therefore, an even more terrible obsession.
“It was you who pulled me out from where I was stuck in the gutter and seated me in this place, Illyana.”
In the low, sweet voice that dug into my ear was an arrogant command that could not be defied.
“Since you went to such lengths to make me emperor, you must bear that heavy responsibility as well. I don’t care about the daughter of Count Balhart. To stand by my side, you alone are enough.”
Words lodged tight in my throat. This madman wasn’t engaging in politics right now. He was simply manipulating the entire Empire like chess pieces to fulfill his twisted desire to possess.
Then it happened. A sharp, thunderous noise burst from afar, as though tearing the corridor apart.
*Whiiiiine!* It was the emergency bell. The promised signal sent by Scarlet. Now. I had to escape this room immediately. Because I was only allotted five minutes.
I reflexively twisted my body, putting strength into breaking free from his grip. But the crushing force of Cassian’s hand gripping my chin was like rock, not budging an inch. At the sound of the emergency bell, his gaze wavered toward the door for a moment, but that too was fleeting. His tenacious eyes soon pinned back onto me.
“……Where did you think you were going.”
My heart dropped to the floor with a thud. This man had caught on to my shallow escape plan.
“Were you trying to abandon me and run away.”
My lips stiffened and wouldn’t come apart. Though my head knew I had to deny it and act in order to survive, my tongue stiffened before that overwhelming killing intent. Cassian’s eyes, taking my silence as affirmation, grew even deeper and colder; soon, the corners of his lips curled into a bizarre arc.
“Fine. Try running away, then.”
The strong hand gripping my chin fell away. My suppressed breath burst out with a wheeze. But before I could feel relief, his whisper that followed ruthlessly trampled all my hope.
“I’ll catch you and bring you back.”
His large hand now coiled around my nape like a snake. It was a perfect restraint from which escape was impossible.
“I’ll make sure you can never walk on your own two feet again for the rest of your life.”
The loud emergency bell was still ringing out from the corridor. Five minutes. The only chance to change my life was burning away in real time, yet before this massive beast, I couldn’t budge a single finger.
Then it happened. From beyond the closed door, someone charged like a beast and pounced on Cassian’s broad back.
*Thud!* A dull, ominous sound of tearing flesh ripped through the room as something dug deep into thick meat. Simultaneously, an acrid heat wafted up, and warm, sticky liquid splattered across my cheeks with pitter-patter sounds.
I reflexively blinked. And the moment my vision opened again, the reality unfolded before my eyes stretched strangely like a broken film projector, etching itself onto my retinas with terrible, vivid clarity.
Over Cassian’s shoulder, as he held me pinned, I saw familiar sky-blue hair. It was Scarlet. In both her hands was a sharp dagger, its blade already deeply pierced into the center of Cassian’s back. Even while being subdued, her wrist bent as though it would break, she did not stop.
[*Die, die, die……!*]
Like a muted screen, her twisted lips and howling shape were burned into my eyes in slow motion. Every time she twisted the dagger hilt like a madwoman, blackish-red blood burst from Cassian’s back like a fountain. The blood droplets scattering through the air even gave the illusion of floating in the void, as though they had lost all gravity.
I couldn’t breathe. The emergency bell that had assaulted my ears, the rough breathing—all seemed perfectly blocked in a vacuum-like state. In that perfect silence where even my heart seemed to forget how to beat, another ominous shadow burrowed into the edge of my vision.
It was an imperial knight who had rushed over at the sound of the emergency bell.
The knight’s motion of drawing a cold longsword from his waist entered my eyes with unbelievable slowness. The angle of his turning wrist, the contraction of muscles tensing with killing intent, the fatal trajectory of the blade cutting through the air as it was raised. In that seam where the flow of time was torn and stretched, I felt like I alone was stuck standing there dumbly.
I opened and closed my mouth, screaming Scarlet’s name like a shriek, but no sound leaked out from my throat.
She raised her head and looked at me. Those eyes were still alive. They were undoubtedly the eyes of a living person. Those eyes contained the meaning to run away right now, and though I understood it, I couldn’t move a single step. Not one finger, not even a single breath was under my will anymore.
The sword began to descend toward Scarlet.
Slowly, unbelievably slowly. The trajectory cutting through the air as it came down stretched endlessly, and I saw all of it.
Finally, the cold blade touched Scarlet’s delicate neckline.
A red line was drawn. Very thinly.
And that line slowly opened, and between it, blood droplets burst into the air. One, two, three. Countless droplets rose before beginning to fall belatedly, and the entire process was engraved in my mind in terrible fragments, piece by piece.
Scarlet’s head tilted and bent at a bizarre angle. Sky-blue hair scattered in the void, her pupils losing focus trembled minutely. Yet that dying gaze, until the very moment it ended, never once lost its focus on me.
And finally, with a snap, everything was severed.
Only then did sound return. Not a beat later, but quite a while after. The sound of blood falling to the floor, of metal ringing, of someone inhaling—all rushed in at once. I remained there frozen, unable to do anything. Truly, nothing.
My head was completely empty. Nothing came to mind, as though the very concept of thought had vanished. My mouth opened but no sound came out. My throat felt blocked as if air wouldn’t enter, and only then did the fact that this was reality—that it was an inescapable truth—slowly but surely dig into my mind.
This was not the romance fantasy world within the text I had read. It was a mad reality where a single mistake meant your head would fly off and everything would end. I had realized that cruel and obvious truth far too late, and in the most horrific way possible.
“No.”
Only then did the paralyzed senses crash over me like a tidal wave. The smell of blood and hot air. I tore at my hair and screamed like a beast. I howled as though my throat would rip apart.
“No!!!”
Scarlet no longer moved.