[Yuriella. Yuriella. What are you doing here?]

Airy fluttered over and landed on my shoulder as I perched on a high garden tree branch.

A strong sulfuric smell emanated from her transparent wings as they folded and flapped.

[That bastard emperor is still doing this?]

Airy glanced sideways at Justin, who was blankly staring up at the Grand Duke’s residence.

The emperor, despite being rejected every time, tirelessly requested to meet the Grand Duchess without getting discouraged. And after being turned down, he couldn’t leave that spot for hours.

[My master is a bewitching woman. The Grand Duke, the Emperor, the Tower Master – none of them can resist her charm.]

“It’s not like that.”

[It is. They’re all out of their minds over my master’s allure. It’s only natural. Airy doesn’t choose just anyone as her master.]

Airy raised her shoulders, looking smug.

“Aren’t you tired? You smell like you’ve been to a volcanic area with that sulfuric scent?”

[Do I smell?]

Airy lifted her arm and sniffed herself.

[To draw out my energy, I need a wind crystal. The Tower Master has gone to the border with the Eastern Continent to find my crystal. He says there might be one in a volcano there.]

On the day my soul was ejected from Yuriella’s body, Airy flew straight to the Tower Master to ask for help.

[The Tower Master will definitely find the wind crystal and return. Don’t worry and just wait.]

Only after I became this translucent soul did Airy confess that it was the Tower Master who revived me.

Airy had been hiding and sleeping at the edge of the aurora for 500 years. But the Tower Master found her there and woke her up.

At the moment when I was kneeling under the palace walls where my subordinates and I were hanged high, desperately praying to goddess Yustera to turn back time…

The goddess ignored my earnest prayers.

Instead, the Tower Master and Airy combined their powers to wrap my wandering soul in rough winds and deep green aura, bringing me here to the North.

“At that time… was there no one else but me?”

[What do you mean?]

“Souls… my subordinates…”

If resentment makes a person’s soul wander as a vengeful ghost, my loyal royal knights who were many times more resentful than me…

My poor subordinates to whom I couldn’t even offer words of consolation for their hard work, apologies, or a final farewell…

The one question I was too afraid to ask Airy until now to confirm.

“Were they… not there?”

[No. The light of souls felt on the city walls was only you.]

“I see…”

[Their souls would have gone to the proper place where the deceased should go and are resting in peace.]

“Yes… fortunately. Really, fortunately.”

At least they didn’t have to witness the people of the empire, whom they protected with their lives, pouring scorn and humiliation on their cold corpses. Still. At least. Fortunately, really.

“By the way, Airy. Why is the Tower Master helping me? Why did he call my soul wandering in the palace? Why did he even go find you hiding in the aurora and ask you to let my soul dwell in Yuriella’s body?”

[Huh?]

“It’s strange. I’ve never met him before.”

Is it just me?

I heard only a few people, the previous Tower Master and some high-ranking members of the Tower, know the face of the Tower Master, who is called the ‘reclusive sage’.

He rarely visits the Tower, maybe once a year at most. When he goes out, he changes into hundreds of faces to conceal his true appearance.

Even though the emperor never failed to send invitations to imperial events big and small, he never accepted even once, quite an eccentric person.

“But how did such a person know me and decide to help? Why?”

[Those with beautiful hearts cherish even a passing connection brushed by the wind.]

“Huh?”

[Even if you don’t remember, the fleeting moment you crossed paths with him in the past may have left a lasting impression in his heart, nurtured over time.]

“Hmm…”

[You don’t understand?]

“Yes.”

[I’m saying once the contract with the Grand Duke is over, cleanly end the relationship.]

“…? How did the topic suddenly change like that?”

[Be wary of all the sparkly ones. No matter how pretty Frost Ielheim’s shimmering silver hair is, don’t be bewitched. You already got your head cut off once, captivated by Justin’s glimmering blond hair.]

“Why are you bringing him up now?”

If looks could kill, that bastard Justin would have died several times in that spot by my hand. That jerk.

As I snorted, glaring at the emperor gazing up at the Grand Duke’s residence with a face dripping with attachment, Airy made a disgusted face and pulled my hair.

[Hey. Don’t get angry. You mustn’t get excited right now. Think only good thoughts. Quickly close your eyes and recall something that makes you feel good.]

Seeing Airy’s eyes brimming with tears as she looked at my soul that had become even more transparent than yesterday, I quickly closed my eyes.

I can’t disappear like this, if only for the sake of Airy and the Tower Master who revived me.

“Good thoughts?”

I have to treat the Grand Duke too.

[Excluding that beastly Grand Duke!]

“I’m not thinking that. I’m no longer a disloyal subject.”

I didn’t think I would.

But the moment I closed my eyes, what came to mind was the soft silver hair tickling my forehead and the refreshing scent like peppermint leaves.

Hmm. I ruffled my hair, trying to shake off the impure thoughts. Perhaps I used too much force, as Airy got flung off with it, flapping her transparent wings and narrowing her eyes.

[You did. You thought about kissing the Grand Duke again. Getting flung off because of that. You thought about it again!]

“Stop talking about that. The palace therapist said if you tell the human brain not to do something, it will do it more often due to a rebellious spirit that loses control.”

[But. Did you really only kiss? You didn’t, right? You two consummated the marriage?]

“No, we didn’t.”

[Even if my master is ignorant beyond innocent… It doesn’t make sense that your soul would bounce out from just one little kiss, you know?]

“Really, no.”

[Is he good? Better than Justin?]

I wonder if the volcanic ash clogged her ears after visiting the volcanic area.

“I only kissed the Grand Duke. I did nothing with that brat Justin.”

It wouldn’t be so unfair to be misunderstood like this if I had actually done something with him.

[So you really didn’t sleep with the Grand Duke?]

Perhaps she finally heard my words. Airy opened her eyes wide and gaped.

[And you didn’t sleep with the emperor either?]

I didn’t even feel it was worth responding and turned my head, closing my mouth.

Airy fluttered down to my knee, resting her small hands on her chin with a frown.

[Even if I slept in the aurora for 500 years, I heard all the sounds carried by the wind. The emperor prefers men, and his partner was Solas! Every night, the emperor summoned Solas to his bedchamber.]

“We played chess every night.”

[Chuss?]

“Yes. The emperor likes chess, and that was the only time he had.”

Airy glanced back at the emperor and shook her head.

[Pathetic bastard. Having such dazzling looks but playing chuss with the woman he likes every night? Tsk tsk.]

“Justin doesn’t like me.”

[A bear.]

“What?”

[My master wasn’t a bewitching woman but a bear.]

Airy now clicked her tongue at me.

[Right. It’s not your fault you were a bear. It’s that bastard’s fault for having his heart stolen by a bear.]

“The emperor just kept me by his side because I was convenient to use. Now that I’m no longer of use, I’ve been discarded. If he was sincere, would he have beheaded me the moment his proposal was rejected?”

Remembering the moment the emperor beheaded me, a sharp pain was felt around my neck. It’s the phantom pain that has continued since that day.

I don’t know which was more painful. The pain of having my head cut off.

Or my heart that was severed along with my head.

The foolish attachment that remained until the end, despite being let down again and again, must have been quite big. It still feels this vivid pain even now…

I should stop thinking about it.

It’s the past, and something that can’t be undone.

Existing as Solas’ soul for a week, my mood keeps getting gloomy.

‘Right. Good thoughts. Think of things that make me feel good.’

I closed my eyes again and recalled things that lift my mood.

Chocolate cake. Whole roasted pig. Maple syrup. Fluffy pajamas. Wide open blue skies. Blue lakes. Eyes like blue lakes. Our Grand Duke’s blue eyes.

‘I miss him.’

Not even noticing Airy suspiciously staring at the soft smile on my lips, I continued my train of pleasant thoughts.

The moment tightly pressed lips relax as if angry.

The long, thick fingers that curiously tapped on the hint of green light in the silver needle.

The refreshing scent just like his, mixed in the breeze, tickling my nose…

‘Ah. I want to go back soon.’

*

At the edge of the dense cypress forest, far from Grand Duke’s northern Islian lake.

The forest, even farther from the lake, had an eerie atmosphere with sickly trees eaten by disease and pests basking in the dim moonlight.

Creak.

The door to the cave where Grand Duke imprisoned Kassandra Cabeza 6 years ago and never opened since then creaked open.

A middle-aged woman in tattered clothes dirtied with soil and her own filth was dragged out of the cave with magic restraints on her neck, wrists, and ankles.

The greatest black magician of the North, who turned her husband Count Cabeza into a pig and sold him at the market before being arrested after 3 months on the run, looked dumbfounded at the man who came to take her.

The man in a black hood silently shoved Kassandra into the carriage like a piece of luggage, signaled the coachman to depart, and got on the carriage.

Clack. Caw. Caw.

As the black ebony carriage with no inscription left the cave, a crow perched on a dying cypress branch flapped its wings and took off.

Sparkling black powder poured from its frantically flapping wings, swirling and forming a small orb floating in the air.

The orb, containing the scene of the black magician being secretly taken out of the cave, was sucked into the void with a whoosh, summoned to its master in the imperial palace.

To Sophia della Ponti. The Empress Dowager of the empire.

*

“How interesting. How fun.”

Leaning against the window frame of a secluded domed tower room in the Swan Palace, Empress Dowager Sophia exclaimed like a child receiving an unexpected gift, looking at the black orb emitting an eerie light on her palm.

“The Grand Duke with a short lifespan must be eager to dig his own grave faster.”

The black orb sent by the crow from the North showed in full detail the scene of Countess Kassandra Cabeza, the empire’s greatest black magician, being released from the cave where she had been imprisoned for 6 years and moved somewhere in secret.

The destination of the black magician was obvious.

Since the one who imprisoned her was Grand Duke Frost Ielheim of the North, the one who freed her must also be the Grand Duke.

With the Grand Duchess collapsing during the wedding night and not waking up, even the renowned doctors, court officials, and grand magicians couldn’t rouse her. He must have brought Kassandra as a last resort.

The Empress Dowager’s gaze slowly shifted to the magic communication orb floating in the air. It was the content just sent by the spy planted in the Grand Duke’s estate.

As the Empress Dowager guessed, the black ebony carriage carrying Kassandra headed straight for the Grand Duke’s estate.

Leo, the captain of the Angelus Knights, took off his black hood and opened the carriage door, making the woman in rags get off.

Alexis, the head butler who got down from the coachman’s seat, was double-checking the magic restraints on the woman’s neck, wrists, and ankles.

Frost, who had been pacing at the building entrance even before the carriage arrived, rushed to the woman as if he couldn’t bear to wait even that short moment.

Gone was the leisurely predator-like movements of Frost Ielheim, who never hurried.

[Greetings to Your Grace. Cough.]

A voice like scraping metal flowed through the magic communication orb, accompanied by a slight cough.

[I heard the bride collapsed during the wedding night without regaining consciousness? Cough. No matter how urgent, you should have shown some restraint.] [Can you wake her?]

The Grand Duke asked urgently.

An expression the Empress Dowager had never seen was etched on his usually expressionless face.

Urgency. Impatience. Anxiety. Self-blame…

Those emotions the Empress Dowager liked and used well.

“What a pity. I lost the initiative this time.”

The Empress Dowager had sent a quite expensive assassin to the North as a wedding gift.

Although the Grand Duke repeatedly beheaded the assassins sent by the emperor and hung them on the city walls for all to see… Piercing the heart of his frail bride with a knife would be no big deal.

But the bride suddenly collapsed during the wedding night. And the Grand Duke never left her side even for a moment.

It’s regrettable, but if the bride dies without waking up like this, it’s like achieving the goal without lifting a finger. And if she wakes up and recovers her health, it will still be a fun spectacle to kill her then and make the Grand Duke fall into sorrow.

If the world finds out that it was the black magician he imprisoned with his own hands who woke the bride… No matter how great the Grand Duke may be, he won’t be able to avoid being burned at the stake as a severe punishment.

“Ahaha.”

For the Empress Dowager who had been secretly agonizing after the emperor left to attend Frost’s wedding without a word, saying he would be away for a while, this news couldn’t be more welcome.

The Empress Dowager’s red lips twisted into a bloody flower bud-like smile as pleasant thoughts filled her mind.

“Ahahaha.”