Chapter 2
Part 1
Ioreth’s husband, Earl Castlein, was an old man over sixty.
The Earl had a bizarre sexual fetish that people only whispered about. He liked young and beautiful boys.
Moreover, he was a severe exhibitionist.
Whenever he was with boys, he always called for Ioreth.
If Ioreth dared not to lift her head or close her eyes, physical strikes and curses would inevitably fly at her.
That wasn’t the only terrible thing. Once or twice a week, Ioreth had to lie in the same bed as him as the Countess.
On days when she had to try to sleep while trembling next to the disgusting old man, a maid always brought tea.
Even on her last day at the Earl’s mansion, Ioreth drank the “deep sleep tea” the maid brought.
“Sleep well, My Lady. There isn’t much time left now.”
“Yes. Five years—already nearly five years have passed.”
The five years her sister promised were ending, and the day she would return to the capital was not far off.
Ioreth fell asleep by the Earl’s side, desperately clinging to hope.
When she woke up after a deep sleep, Ioreth was covered in blood from head to toe.
Next to her, the Earl lay dead with his limbs sprawled out and a dagger plunged into his heart.
They say that when a person is overwhelmed by extreme terror, they cannot even scream.
While Ioreth stood frozen in front of the Earl’s corpse, the maid burst through the door and began to scream.
“My Lady killed the Earl! My Lady killed the Earl!”
Without even a chance to protest, Ioreth was seized by the Earl’s private soldiers.
While she was forcibly thrown into the mansion’s basement and then dragged to the capital, Ioreth tried everything to figure out what on earth had happened.
No matter how much she thought, no matter how much she retraced her steps…
“Sleep well, My Lady.”
The person who killed the Earl was—.
“Did you sleep well? Princess.”
Someone spoke from beside her head.
Ioreth woke up with a start. Air pushed its way into her nose and mouth.
“Heuh…!”
The moment she realized she was breathing, her breath hitched.
She rolled onto her side and coughed violently.
Breathing is proof of being alive. The moment that dull blade struck the back of her neck was terrifyingly vivid.
The same voice from her dream spoke again.
“Are you alright? Did you have a nightmare?”
Ioreth raised her eyes, which were streaming with tears, to check the person who spoke. A shock hit the top of her head.
“…Lishi?”
“Princess?”
Lishi Keith.
The second daughter of the Viscount Keith family, she was the woman who had served as Ioreth’s dedicated maid for fifteen years.
After being dragged away from the Castle in the mansion, she hadn’t seen Lishi again.
Ioreth asked hesitantly.
“You—what did you just call me?”
“Pardon? Why, Princess, of course…”
Lishi looked confused instead.
It had already been five years since Ioreth stopped being called a princess. From the moment she married Earl Castlein, she was a Countess, not a princess.
‘No way.’
Looking around again, the surroundings were somehow familiar.
The low ceiling, the stone walls seeping with cold, the wooden furniture that must have been luxurious once but was now worn out, the frayed carpet…
There was no mistake. This was the tower where Ioreth had stayed in the royal castle.
Ioreth felt her neck with trembling hands. A thin gold chain caught on her fingertips. She felt the stone she had squeezed tightly in her palm just before the execution.
Ioreth unfastened the necklace like a madwoman.
‘The color changed!’
The stone that used to shine with a brilliant red light had faded to a dull gray. It meant the magic had succeeded.
“Wear this always, Ioreth. I don’t know how much time I have left, but I will give it all to you.”
One day, Ioreth’s mother, Charlotte, had put all her remaining life span into this ruby necklace.
It was a forbidden dark magic passed down secretly in her homeland, the Kingdom of Levia.
As long as her mother’s life span remained in this ruby, Ioreth would not die. Even if she died, she would come back to life.
She had known about it vaguely, but this was the first time she actually experienced it.
Moreover, a regression? And by five years!
Focus gradually returned to Ioreth’s tear-blurred eyes.
In the mirror of the dressing table opposite the bed, a girl who hadn’t even reached adulthood was reflected.
‘Young. And thin.’
Even her appearance, which was her only decent trait, looked childish now.
Ioreth repeated her mother’s last words.
I must survive…
Even if I have to throw away my human heart.
In a world ruled by Catherine, no matter how much she struggled, she would end up on the execution platform in the end.
Survival was impossible as either a “good younger sister” or a powerless, ousted princess.
‘To survive, I must become the Queen. Me, not Catherine.’
Survival is directly linked to power.
In the past, she was foolish and did not know that simple truth.
Just then, Lishi firmly helped Ioreth up.
“It seems you slept quite deeply, Princess. You should get ready soon, or you’ll be late for lunch. You shouldn’t keep your future husband waiting.”
Ioreth roughly shook off her arm.
“Let go. I never permitted you to touch my body.”
The maid with freckles on her cheeks looked at Ioreth as if she were being absurd.
Yes, I remember this woman clearly.
Catherine’s loyal dog, who monitored and forced Ioreth while maintaining only the bare minimum of politeness.
And she was the only maid who could enter the master bedroom at the Castlein mansion.
It was definitely this maid who killed Earl Castlein.
“Earl Castlein has arrived.”
At the words of the Chief Chamberlain, who threw open the door without permission, Ioreth was forced to leave her bedroom.
Lishi made a threat with a sharp look in her eyes.
“Princess, you do not have the right to choose. If you continue to refuse to meet the Earl, I will have no choice but to call the knights.”
Ioreth forced herself into the dress Lishi brought. It was a disgustingly thin evening dress with a deeply plunging neckline.
While heading to the dining room, Ioreth quickly retraced her memories.
‘Right now, it is the spring of year 1058 of the Imperial Calendar.’
It was the exact time when she was being kicked out of the Castlein estate after her wedding to the Earl.
Fortunately, Catherine is not yet Queen.
Catherine’s coronation was about four years from now, immediately after their father, the King, suddenly passed away.
She had to flip the board before then.
‘There are five days left until the wedding.’
In this life, she would not be dragged along so easily.
However, there wasn’t much Ioreth could do immediately.
She had no friends, no loyal subjects, and Lishi, who monitored her, stayed by her side all day.
Enemies were swarming everywhere, but she had no weapon.
‘I need to find a trustworthy guard. But before that, I have to get rid of the observer.’
Lishi, following behind Ioreth, warned in a low voice.
“Watch your behavior in front of the Earl. If you burst into tears like last time, Her Highness the Crown Princess will be very sad.”
Looking now, a piece of a sneer that she hadn’t noticed before hung on the maid’s lips.
Ioreth gave a short, hollow laugh.
“We’ll see.”
As if Catherine would be sad. She would have clapped and laughed.
But starting today, she wouldn’t be able to laugh.
‘I’ll start with you, Lishi.’
A chill settled over Ioreth’s face.
When they arrived in front of the simple dining room in the tower, Ioreth ordered Lishi.
“Ah, I left the Earl’s gift in the bedroom. Go and bring it. It’s a brooch in a velvet box.”
Lishi looked suspicious but eventually nodded.
Ioreth waited until Lishi disappeared from her sight before opening the dining room door.
The heavy scent of perfume stung her nose. Earl Castlein was sitting at the dining table, his fat belly protruding.
“Princess Highness?”
Discovering Ioreth, the Earl narrowed his greasy eyes. He seemed to think he was giving a charming eye-smile, but it was just repulsive.
“My, you’ve grown more since I last saw you?”
The Earl, with grease stuck between his wrinkles, was massive in build. His belly fat stuck out so much that he could barely even stand up from his seat.
The Earl lecherously scanned Ioreth’s attire. She felt like she would vomit at any moment.
“You’ll be nineteen soon. It would have been better if you were four or five years younger… Tsk.”
At the sight of the Earl’s thick fists, Ioreth’s shoulders instinctively flinched.
In the face of violence, social status was useless. Ioreth was thoroughly the weak one.
In the past, that is.
“I’m sorry for being late, Earl.”
“Hoho. You’ll be my wife in a few days, so it would be best to straighten out your speech and how you address me in advance. I fear how others might belittle the Princess Highness if they heard.”
“…Now that you mention it, you are right.”
Ioreth walked around the table, scanning the set silverware and silver candlesticks. The Earl’s greasy hair drew closer.
“I have been rude, Earl. Please forgive me.”
As she submitted with a sorrowful gaze, the Earl smiled, his lips drooping.
“Exactly. For your information, keeping your husband waiting is not polite either. Especially for a heaven-like husband with as much experience as me—”
Before the Earl’s nonsense could finish, Ioreth snatched a silver candlestick from the table and smashed it against the back of his head.
CRACK!
