“No. I'm fine.”
The moment I answered that I was fine, my nanny immediately held up a dress.
It was a lime-green gown embroidered with delicate silver flowers.
“We don't have time if we're going to do your hair and makeup. Hurry and put it on. Quickly!”
She urged me on impatiently, saying we were running out of time.
The maids slipped the dress over me while others busied themselves with my face and hair. My nanny braided my hair into two plaits before coiling them into neat loops over each side of my head. Long silk ribbons, the same lime color as the dress, were tied into the braids so they draped gracefully beside them.
“Oh my, you're absolutely beautiful.”
“There isn't a single person in the Empire more beautiful than you, my lady.”
The lime-green dress and matching ribbons complemented my golden-brown hair surprisingly well.
The maids fussed over me endlessly, showering me with praise. Beautiful. Lovely. Peerless. The compliments never stopped.
I merely looked back at them with an indifferent expression.
Once, I had truly believed I was the most beautiful girl in the world.
Everyone around me had done nothing but praise my beauty. It was only natural that I'd mistaken their admiration for the truth.
Of course, that didn't mean I was unattractive.
Objectively speaking, I knew I was beautiful.
But not to the degree they claimed.
Not the greatest beauty in the Empire.
Because I knew the woman who truly deserved that title.
That's right... her.
The girl with clear, sky-blue hair.
The lovely, radiant young woman whom everyone called the Empire's greatest treasure.
The official reason the Imperial Palace had invited me was simple enough.
The Emperor wished to console a young marchioness who had recently lost her mother.
But everyone who understood politics knew that wasn't the real reason.
The Emperor had six sons.
Counting his daughters, he had well over ten children in total. His vigor was legendary. He had one Empress, two Imperial Consorts, and countless concubines.
Among his six princes, two stood above the rest as heirs to the throne.
The First Prince, born to the First Imperial Consort.
And the Sixth Prince, born to the late Empress who had passed away years ago.
The moment the Sixth Prince was born, the Emperor named him Crown Prince.
Several nobles pleaded with him to reconsider, arguing that the infant was far too young to decide such matters.
The Emperor ignored every one of them.
Misfortune struck the Crown Prince almost immediately.
Not long after his birth, he lost his mother.
Although House Gafilt—the ducal family that supported him—remained powerful, the absence of the Empress was a tremendous loss.
Making matters worse, the newly crowned Empress came from the noble faction.
The new Empress had originally been the daughter of a mere viscount.
She had only just turned nineteen when she married the Emperor and ascended to the position.
By then, the Emperor already had several grown children, while the aristocracy had split into two evenly matched factions locked in a constant struggle for power.
Neither side wanted the balance to shift because of a new Empress.
Through an unspoken agreement between the Imperial faction and the Noble faction, the position of Empress ultimately went to a daughter of an insignificant viscount's house.
As a reward, her family was elevated to the rank of count.
Both sides were satisfied.
The Imperial faction supporting the Crown Prince.
The Noble faction supporting the First Prince.
The new Empress was still young enough to bear children.
The problem was the Emperor.
He was already old.
Even if she miraculously conceived, there was no guarantee the child would be a prince.
Before long, both the Empress and her family—who had always belonged to the Noble faction—began openly supporting the First Prince.
The First Prince was sixteen years older than the Crown Prince.
Everything favored him.
Recognizing this, the Emperor began strengthening the Crown Prince's position.
And the first move he made...
...was me.
House Elient had remained politically neutral for generations.
Even after the current Marquis became Chancellor, that stance never changed.
Many noble houses claimed neutrality, but among them, none held greater influence than House Elient.
To both the Imperial and Noble factions, the Elient family was a prize worth fighting over.
The Noble faction set its sights on the Marquis.
His distant, almost loveless relationship with his wife had looked like an opportunity.
Many noblewomen approached him.
After the Marchioness died, their advances became even bolder.
Some even came directly to the estate.
Most of them never made it past the front gates.
The Marquis treated every woman with icy indifference.
As though they weren't even worth acknowledging, he refused every attempt to get close to him.
Oddly enough...
Watching him reject them all filled me with quiet satisfaction.
I also knew the Emperor had spent considerable effort trying to draw the Marquis to his side.
The Marquis had treated even the Emperor with the same detached indifference he showed everyone else.
Eventually, the Emperor gave up on winning him over.
Instead...
He turned his attention to me.
It was an excellent choice.
Not only was I the daughter of House Elient, but my maternal family was House Peaseon, the renowned merchant counts whose wealth was known throughout the Empire.
I lacked neither influence nor riches.
The Emperor intended to marry me to the Crown Prince and reinforce his son's political foundation.
That invitation to the palace...
...was the beginning of it all.
The Emperor simply needed an excuse to summon me.
My mother's death provided the perfect justification.
The moment her funeral ended, the invitation arrived.
He even sent an imperial carriage to fetch me.
It was an enormous white carriage engraved with the roaring golden lion—the symbol of the Imperial Family.
Very few people were permitted to ride in such a carriage.
Only members of the Imperial Family...
Or those whom the Emperor personally acknowledged.
His intentions couldn't have been clearer.
I climbed inside.
The carriage was spacious and luxuriously comfortable, exactly as one would expect from the Imperial Palace.
Once I had taken my seat, the Marquis entered after me.
The Emperor had arranged for him to accompany me, knowing it would be my first visit to the palace.
He sat across from me.
As always...
He said nothing.
"..."
"..."
Just like before.
Throughout the entire journey to the Imperial Palace, not a single word passed between us.
I secretly hoped he might show some interest in me.
But until the carriage finally reached the palace...
He never even looked my way.
Thinking back now...
There was never any reason to wait for him to speak first.
If I wanted to talk to him...
I could have spoken first myself.
Whether he would have answered... was another matter.
Still.
There had never been any need to wait for him.
Back then, though...
The thought of speaking to him first had never even crossed my mind.
As much as I longed for his attention and wanted to earn his approval...
I was equally afraid of him.
It was also the first time we had ever been alone together in such a confined space for so long.
More than my first visit to the Imperial Palace...
It was being alone with the Marquis that made me truly nervous.
The carriage doors shut.
It began moving.
The ride was as smooth as a modern automobile.
Yet despite the comfortable journey...
My stomach churned uneasily.
And the closer we drew to the palace...
The worse that feeling became.
This time, however...
It wasn't because I was trapped alone with the Marquis.
I wasn't truly a child anymore.
Nor did I still crave his attention.
The reason I was so tense...
...was because he was waiting inside the Imperial Palace.
I was afraid to meet him.
More precisely...
I was afraid of the person I would become after meeting him.
Right now, I could still think objectively.
But I wasn't confident that I'd remain the same once I saw him again.
The love I had once felt for him had been unbearably deep.
Painfully obsessive.
At times...
It had even terrified me.
That love had destroyed him.
It had destroyed everyone around him.
In the end...
It had destroyed me as well.
I wasn't sure I could face feelings that overwhelming while keeping my sanity.
Perhaps...
Perhaps I was worrying for nothing.
Maybe seeing him again wouldn't be like before.
I wasn't the same girl I had once been.
There were countless possibilities now.
As long as I lived in this world...
Avoiding him forever was impossible.
If I couldn't avoid him...
Then I had to face him.
Whether I emerged broken...
Or remained whole...
That was something only I could learn after meeting him.
No matter how much I understood that...
My mouth still went dry.
I swallowed hard.
Then opened and closed my chilled fingers, trying to warm them.
"Do you, too, wish to become Empress... like everyone else?"
The Marquis's unexpected question startled me so badly that I looked up at him in disbelief.
He was watching me with complete seriousness.
For the first time...
I could clearly see my own reflection in his gray eyes.
It was strange.
In my previous life, he hadn't even looked at me, much less spoken to me.
I couldn't understand why he was acting so differently.
"Does what I want... really matter?"
I gave him the same answer I had given him in his office.
The Marquis let out a quiet sigh.
He looked exhausted.
Even a man as strong as forged steel had apparently found the days of funeral rites difficult.
He had lost weight.
His already sharp features appeared even more severe.
"If I intended to ignore your wishes..."
"...I wouldn't have bothered asking."
His answer shocked me even more than hearing him speak in the first place.
Never—not once—had I imagined that he would ask what I wanted.
In my previous life...
He never had.
"Why are you asking what I think all of a sudden?"
"You've never asked before."
"Because it's your life."
He answered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
I understood him even less.
Back then, it had been my life as well.
Yet not once—not when I became Crown Princess, nor even when I became Empress—had he ever asked me this question.
Had something changed in his heart?
Or was there something I simply didn't know?
As I was now...
I had no way of knowing.
"What if I don't want to?"
"You don't wish to become Empress?"
"If I say I don't... is it actually possible for that not to happen?"
By then, the Emperor had already decided in his heart that I would become the Crown Prince's future bride.
Unless I possessed some fatal flaw...
That future was inevitable.
I hadn't known that back then.
Now I did.
The younger me had been too busy chasing after the Crown Prince to notice everything happening around me.
I believed I had earned my place beside him simply because I wanted it badly enough.
At the time, everything I desired had always become mine.
It was only much later that I realized our marriage had never been about love.
It had been about politics.
About interests.
About power.
Only after we were married did I learn the truth.
He hadn't married me because he loved me.
He had married me because of the influence and backing I possessed.
Everything...
Had been my own misunderstanding.
The betrayal I felt toward him was indescribable.
It was as though my heart had been ripped apart.
Even so...
I couldn't let him go.
Even if I declared that I didn't want to marry him...
The Emperor would find some way to make the marriage happen.
After all...
There was no better match for the current Crown Prince than me.
