Chapter: 01
Atillenta, I love you.
There is no one in this world who loves you more than I do.
“Attilenta. Let us get divorced now.”
When my husband, Antony, whom I had believed was mine, appeared with his arm linked with another woman’s, my heart shattered into pieces.
It happened at the very victory celebration banquet where he had promised to make my achievements known to the world.
I had never broken down before.
Not when my mother died after suffering from an illness when I was young. Not when even the servants looked down on me, calling me a lowborn bastard. Not when the king tried to sell me off to an elderly nobleman under the pretense that I was a pure princess.
Not even when Antony asked the king for my hand, and I went through an unfamiliar wedding and my first night with him.
Nor when he took me to the battlefield, saying that he needed my abilities.
“Continuing the family line is the most important thing.”
Antony spoke in a cold voice. It was the first time he had ever treated me this way.
“What are you suddenly talking about—”
My legs suddenly began trembling so violently that I could barely remain standing.
Even when rumors spread everywhere that I was barren because I could not conceive a child despite being intimate with him regularly, I had not broken down.
“Atillenta. You’ll understand, won’t you? This time too.”
Clinging closely to Antony, Selena smiled sweetly at me.
At that moment, my entire past life shattered as well.
Selena. She had been my pillar of support.
After my mother died, I still had my nursemaid, Jema, and her daughter, Selena. When I finally achieved victory, Antony had told me that it was all thanks to me.
I had never doubted that my mind had remained strong because of them.
It had all been an illusion.
“Hm? Atillenta. Answer me. I couldn’t refuse because His Majesty ordered me to.”
What are you talking about, Selena?
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure to carry on the ducal family’s line properly, too.”
But you said you were uncomfortable with the Duke at first.
“Atillenta. To be honest, your ability is just too dangerous.”
Selena whispered to me in an incredibly sweet voice.
Ah, Selena. My one and only friend.
“You said before that you needed me…”
I forced the words out through my cracking voice.
Even though I knew using my ability too much would put an enormous strain on me, I had used it so extensively purely for my husband’s sake.
Even as I stared at him with empty eyes, his expression remained cold and heartless.
My ears rang as though someone had struck me on the head.
“An, Antony. You said that you needed me… that you needed my ability…”
As I stumbled over my words like a child, Selena covered her mouth with her fan and gave me a strange look.
“Oh my.”
I immediately understood what her eyes meant.
Atillenta, what did you misunderstand? Of course, I only meant that your ability was useful.
“I’m going to make a petition to His Majesty. Together with the Duke.”
Antony wrapped an arm around Selena’s waist and pulled her close. Selena buried her brown hair into his broad embrace.
“Return to your place, Atillenta.”
The two of them standing together, both possessing clear blue eyes like spring water, looked like a picture.
I could feel everyone in the banquet hall staring at me.
To them, I was nothing more than a lowly woman getting in the way of this perfectly matched couple.
My place had clearly been between them.
“Sel… Selena…”
Seeing the two of them clinging so closely together in front of me made the reality sink in even more deeply.
“That’s enough, Atillenta. You should maintain your dignity. People are watching.”
I was a woman who matched neither Antony’s status nor his appearance.
“Huff, huff…”
I gasped for breath and hurriedly clutched my chest.
“I won’t deny that you helped my family. However, as Selena said, it is difficult to argue that your ability could become a threat.”
How can you call it only your family? When have I ever threatened you, even once?
“Now, Atillenta. Go back to your room. I’ll come visit you from time to time. Just like when we were young.”
Selena pushed my shoulder away with a gentle smile.
Beyond my increasingly blurred vision, as though tears were about to spill over, I saw several royal guards approaching me.
Without hesitation, they dragged me away.
The people around me pretended they did not know me.
I could not even scream.
Just like that, I was locked away in the prison of my childhood, the place where I had lived during my years as a princess.
This was an old room in a remote corner of the royal palace, with only a single window.
All the years I had spent struggling to escape this room vanished meaninglessly.
Nothing inside the room had changed.
Even the bed where my mother had lain before dying from her illness was still as worn-out as it had been back then.
Suddenly, tears streamed down my face.
I could not even think to wipe them away as I murmured,
“…Did something go wrong?”
I had definitely been told that this was a victory banquet for me—for us.
‘Atillenta. Your ability is truly amazing. It’s so rare and precious. For now, let’s keep it just between us. You understand what I mean, right?’
Selena had worried about me and respected me when she first discovered my ability.
Antony had valued my ability highly.
‘We achieved victory thanks to you, so now we should announce it in front of everyone. Look forward to that day.’
I retraced and considered everything they had said to me, but I could not find an answer.
All I could picture was Antony, with his strong physique, standing beside Selena, the very embodiment of a social beauty.
They looked like a beautiful pair.
All I had was my red hair, proof that I was the illegitimate daughter of this kingdom’s king.
The same hair that people had been busy whispering was a mark of a witch.
At that moment, I saw my mother lying on the bed like a dried-up leaf.
“M-Mother…”
My mother, whose hair was a vivid crimson like a sunset, had been the king’s mistress.
And they said that I had been conceived after they had been together only once.
A woman carrying the king’s child could not simply flee the palace.
And the king never properly cared for us.
That king had not even cared for my mother when she was suffering from a fever that could have been cured with nothing more than a single medicine.
‘A-Atillenta… I-I can’t breathe…’
Now the illusion depicted my mother gasping with a high fever.
I could not bear to face the lingering image.
I turned my eyes away from the bed and looked toward the window.
The window was clouded with a layer of dust, but the outside world was so magnificent that the lights shone vividly through it.
Today’s victory banquet was a grand celebration that would continue until dawn.
Multicolored lights glittered like jewels.
The smell of alcohol reached even this remote place.
Majestic music filled the night.
And yet, in reality, none of it could reach this place.
This colorless, scentless room was the “proper” place Selena had spoken of.
I slowly sank to the floor.
‘What did you misunderstand, Atillenta? Did you forget what Mother told you about not trusting other people so easily?’
Someone seemed to whisper to me.
My gasping mother.
The cold Duke.
The kind Selena.
Yes.
I had forgotten.
Foolishly.
“Ah… Ahh… They all deceived me for this very day.”
I realized the truth far too late.
When I was young, I could not understand the king who had abandoned us, nor my mother who had spent a night with such a man.
Now I finally understood my mother completely.
Because my circumstances had become the same as hers.
Just like my shattered heart, my words came out in broken pieces.
“…Mother, how could you have been so foolish?”
My mother had been rumored to be a strange witch from a foreign land.
How had the king come to know her in the first place?
My mother had told me many stories, but she had always been reluctant to speak in detail about the king.
Even until the moment she died.
“How could you have spent a night with a man like that…”
When I tightly closed my burning eyes, I heard my mother’s voice.
‘Atillenta, the reason I was called a witch is, above all, because my ability does not align with the temple magic that this royal family pursues.’
With thin, frail hands that looked as though they might break at any moment, Mother had held on to me.
‘So, my child, don’t let anyone discover your secret. Here, take this keepsake…’
‘Please don’t… sob… call it a keepsake… ngh…’
I had sobbed uncontrollably, unable to do anything.
‘…Once someone learns your true worth, there will be people who try to exploit you. Don’t trust such people easily.’
‘Then what about Nurse Jema? What about my friend Selena? They cared about you…’
Ah, foolish Atillenta.
‘When someone treats you well, you should return their kindness. But, Atillenta. Are you prepared to return their malice as well?’
‘I…’
Only now did I think I understood the meaning behind the faint smile Mother had given me at that time.
She had failed at that herself, so she had given her daughter advice that was meant to be carved into her very bones.
