“How very strange indeed.”

Sophia, the Empress Dowager, tilted her head slightly as she bloomed a sensual smile like a flower.

Her inhuman violet eyes rolled around.

“Why do I feel that what I see is not everything, High Priest?”

High Priest Grato Comboni, who had been getting goosebumps while looking at the Empress Dowager, flinched with a trembling body.

The golden tassel decoration attached to the priest’s pointed white cap, which made him look like a huge snowman in his snow-white priestly robes, also shook tremblingly.

“…Is there something on your mind, Your Majesty?”

“The Grand Duke fell for the priest and took out the black magician I had imprisoned in the cave.”

“Weren’t you delighted by that?”

“But why wouldn’t he drive out the concubine? It seems he’s going to keep that woman named Shavelle in the Grand Duke’s residence.”

The Empress Dowager, who had good instincts, had been feeling uncomfortable in her stomach as if something was scratching at her nerves ever since the news of the Grand Duke’s marriage flew in from the north.

“Where can you find a man who is crazy about ten women?”

Duke Figueroa interrupted the conversation, crossing his legs in a slovenly manner.

Samuel Figueroa. The Empress Dowager’s elder brother and the Emperor’s strong backing.

“A wife is lovely because she is a wife, and a concubine is pretty because she is a concubine. It wouldn’t be strange for a man of the Grand Duke’s caliber to have different kinds of rabbits, both house and wild.”

House rabbits at home. Outside the house, there are estate rabbits, company rabbits, friend’s neighborhood rabbits, foreign rabbits, etc. It was a remark befitting Duke Figueroa, who had more than ten expensive rabbits alone.

A sneer hung on the Empress Dowager’s red lips.

“If my husband had said such a thing, I would have turned him into a pig like my sister Cassandra and sold him in the market.”

“Your Majesty didn’t turn him into a pig, but poisoned him to death instead, hahaha.”

The Empress Dowager threw a murderous glance at the Duke, who laughed it off heartily as if it were a joke.

“Brother.”

“Ah. Such a slip of the tongue in front of my prospective daughter-in-law.”

Duke Figueroa’s gaze turned to Lady Carina Pioni, who was gently placing a teacup on the tea table.

“Carina. The Emperor is the supreme one, so even if he has ten women or twenty women, you must willingly understand. Don’t even dream of turning him into a lowly creature like a pig. Hahaha.”

Carina’s two hands, which were holding the rim of the teacup, paused for a moment, but soon she lowered her head with a bashful smile as if it were painted.

“I don’t have the skill to turn people into pigs. It’s something only Cassandra Cabesa, who was a great sorceress, could do.”

“What! No, you, our Holy Maiden candidate and the one with the most outstanding holy power, can’t do that? I thought your contribution was the greatest in turning the holy sword Flamma into a demon sword. Wasn’t it so?”

High Priest Comboni’s eyes widened, revealing the whites of his orange eyes.

“It would be fortunate if this young and lacking servant of God does not cause harm to His Majesty the Emperor and Her Majesty the Empress Dowager.”

As Carina bowed her head politely, this time Duke Figueroa frowned.

“Is it because black magic conflicts with the power of holiness, so it can’t be traced? Is that why Flamma, which has become a demon sword, has not yet been completely subdued?”

Empress Dowager Sophia clicked her tongue with a frown.

No matter how much she had cleared the surroundings, there were things that could be said publicly and things that couldn’t.

“Carina. Humility is a shining light, but if you use it too often, that light will fade. It seems the worries of the elders are great, so show them your skills to reassure them.”

“What kind of skills do you mean…?”

Carina blinked her deep green eyes innocently.

“Anything. Something simple that you can do right here.”

Carina seemed to blush slightly on her cheeks and ponder, then walked lightly to the birdcage hanging by the window and gently stretched out her arm.

The two lime-green parrots, sensing an ominous energy, flapped their small wings noisily as if trying to escape.

A brilliant white energy spread from the tip of her pale, slender fingers, which had already turned black. The birds disintegrated into a reddish-black powder without even leaving their form, scattering in the air with a whoosh.

Carina smiled brightly at Duke Figueroa.

“It was trivial, wasn’t it? I thought you might get hurt if I drew out more energy, Duke.”

Perhaps because she had gathered evil energy, Carina’s entire eyeballs flickered black.

Cold sweat rolled down Samuel Figueroa’s philtrum.

Carina turned her body and bowed to the High Priest to apologize.

“I showed off a small skill in front of the High Priest without knowing my place.”

“Oh? Oh no… No, it’s very admirable, Carina.”

When faced with eyes that were completely black and impossible to focus on, the heavy flesh inside the High Priest’s robes trembled.

Empress Dowager Sophia gestured for Carina to come closer, looking satisfied.

“They say ice comes from water, but it’s colder than water. Our Carina is like that. Her skills are superior to mine, her teacher.”

The warning not to act rashly anymore seemed to have been well delivered to her elder brother and the High Priest.

As she approached the Empress Dowager, Carina swallowed a few times, and gradually her moist and clear green eyes returned with a shy smile.

“It’s all thanks to the deep grace of Your Majesty the Empress Dowager.”

Carina Pioni, who became a Holy Maiden candidate at the age of seventeen, had only one dream.

To sit next to Emperor Justin Della Ponti, whom she fell in love with at first sight.

The Empress Dowager promised to fulfill that wish.

So she gladly became the Empress Dowager’s disciple. And learned black magic from her.

Rather than reporting to the temple that Empress Dowager Sophia possessed the talent for black magic that had been passed down only to Figueroa women for generations, she was delighted that a secret path to reach the Emperor had been created.

Exchanging the holy power she was said to have exceptionally strong for the ability of black magic while enduring the pain of her guts being cut was a pain beyond death. That’s how desperate she was for His Majesty.

So even if His Majesty turns his eyes to other women, she has not the slightest intention of turning them into pigs or harming them. She also has absolutely no intention of granting them the mercy of living their lives as pigs by turning them into pigs.

She will make them suffer while alive, lose everything, and meet the most miserable form of death. So that they cannot find peace even in death.

‘Yuriella Grande…’

The name that had been chewed on until drops of blood seeped out remained on her lips and was swallowed.

The Grand Duke’s bride.

And the woman who had tied His Majesty the Emperor’s ankles to the north for a week.

Carina’s smooth face crumpled.

‘Why…? Why again…?’

She never expected there would be another woman the Emperor would pay attention to.

Because it was impossible for the Emperor. Because His Majesty could not forget ‘that woman’.

“Solas Moretti…”

The name that slipped out unknowingly was not swallowed, but lingered on her blood-stained lips.

She had turned that woman’s pride, the holy sword, into a demon sword. So that woman was no longer the Emperor’s pride, but his shame.

She had also stimulated His Majesty’s weak heart, such as his unrequited feelings or his inferiority complex towards Frost Ielheim, to make him cut the throat of his beloved with his own hands.

As expected, His Majesty’s heart was shattered. She thought all that was left was for her to soothe His Majesty’s broken heart with her own hands.

‘Why…?’

The High Priest, who had glanced at Carina, whose eyes were turning black again, trembled and approached the Empress Dowager with hasty steps.

It was because he, too, had something that weighed on his mind due to the name that had flowed from Carina’s mouth.

“Your Majesty. About Commander Solas Moretti. It seems she’s not dead, after all.”

The Empress Dowager frowned as if he was talking nonsense.

“Didn’t you see Solas’s head hung high on the castle wall with me?”

The High Priest took one more step closer to the Empress Dowager and whispered in her ear.

“I clearly saw with my own eyes that Commander Solas’s star, the star that had completely gone out, is alive again. It’s not shining brightly like before, but very faintly. But it was definitely Solas. It seems her soul has not left the earth.”

“It’s been so long since her head was cut off. A soul that couldn’t leave the earth would have had more than enough time to disappear—”

The Empress Dowager stopped speaking and opened her eyes wide. Could it be…!

“Yes. It is believed that someone has taken Solas’s soul.”

“…!”

A huge ripple crossed the face of the cold Empress Dowager, who was rarely flustered.

Who in the world…? And why…?

If what the High Priest said was true, they had to find and destroy the one who possessed Solas’s soul.

The Empress Dowager’s two fists clenched anxiously.

“We have to find them!”

Duke Figueroa clicked his tongue and frowned.

“How can we know where a soul that has left its body has flown to? Should we send people all over the empire?”

As the Empress Dowager’s face hardened, High Priest Comboni shook his head lightly.

“The soul probably hasn’t left the capital yet.”

“What makes you think so?”

The Empress Dowager turned her gaze to the High Priest, unable to hide her uneasiness.

“Originally, a soul that has lost its body cannot go far from the place it died. It doesn’t have the strength to do so, and as time passes, it loses its vitality and floats like dust until it disappears.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes. Unless the holy sword Aery, known to breathe life into even the dead, carries it on its breeze. But hasn’t the sword of wind been missing for 500 years? So don’t worry at all, Your Majesty the Empress Dowager.”

The priest, who had lost his holiness and nobility, bowed deeply to the one who relied on the evil energy he was supposed to defeat and purify.

He had already dirtied his hands and soul, and the fruits were too sweet. It was also too late to pull out now.

“There must have been a full moon on the day Commander Solas died. The day when the goddess’s energy is strongest. Among the children born that day or those who were revived from death, there must be someone who has Solas’s soul.”

“Inside the capital…”

The Empress Dowager’s concern about the Grand Duke’s concubine and bride, which had been gnawing at her nerves, was completely overshadowed by the urgency to quickly find the one possessed by Solas’s soul.

‘I have to find that child. Before Justin faces that child.’

Find them and kill them again. Before my son goes mad again.

A wicked and sinister light flashed in the Empress Dowager’s eyes filled with murderous energy.

*

Cassandra Cabesa, wearing the gray maid uniform of the maids in the Grand Duke’s residence, silently closed her eyes as she placed her fingers on the wrist of the soundly sleeping Yuriella and checked her pulse.

Now that she had taken off her tattered clothes and washed off the filth, she didn’t look like a black magician who had been trapped in a cave for 6 years.

Her pointed nose and thin lips looked irritable, but the elegance of a former viscountess was evident.

“Hmm.”

Cassandra tilted her head, then checked the pulse again and tilted it the other way.

It had already been an hour since she entered the Grand Duchess’s room.

“The soul… Can you call back the Duchess’s soul?”

At the Grand Duke’s impatient urging, Cassandra barely suppressed a laugh that was about to burst out.

Call back Yuriella Grande’s soul? What a ridiculous thing to say.

She had checked several times, but it had been months since Yuriella Grande’s soul had left this body. She knew it well because she had done various experiments with the bodies of the dead while dabbling in black magic.

A body that has lost its soul cannot hold such warm warmth or breathe such vivid breaths.

But wasn’t she seeing the impossible right in front of her eyes?

This body had followed a quack for months without its own soul, had a wedding ceremony with the Grand Duke, and even had a wedding night.

Then there was only one answer.

Another soul was dwelling in Yuriella Grande’s body!

Who could it be?

How could they enter the body of someone who was already dead?

“Can you do it or not? If you can’t, go back to the cave you were in right now!”

A thunderous shout fell from the Grand Duke, whose patience had run out.

“Your Highness.”

Cassandra, who had opened her mouth slowly, rolled her eyes a few times as if thinking about something, then closed her mouth, tormenting the Grand Duke.

“What about the Duchess?”

The Grand Duke was ready to summon the Sword of Ice and freeze the slow and incompetent black magician’s body and shatter it to pieces.

However, she had no intention of readily showing all the cards she had to the Grand Duke.

Not only did she resent his act of locking her up in that terrible cave for 6 years.

But there was also a high probability that he would save only his wife and lock her back in the cave.

“Of course I can call back Her Highness’s soul.”

Cassandra quickly finished her calculations and politely answered the Grand Duke.

“Then, do it!”

At the Grand Duke’s shout, Cassandra smiled crookedly.

“You’re in such a hurry. You have to light a fire to at least roast some potatoes. First…”

Cassandra began to list her demands leisurely with her arms crossed.

“I want to take off this wretched maid uniform. Call the head maid to take my measurements and order a dress. For reference, I always had my dresses made only at Lydia’s dressmaker. I also need accessories. For jewels, sapphires that match the color of my eyes would be nice.”

“What?”

“Prepare a room for me too. I would like a rosewood bed from the Zacht region.”

“Cassandra Cabesa!”

“Yes, Your Highness. Only I, Cassandra Cabesa, can call back Her Highness’s soul. So what would you be reluctant to provide?”

“…Tell the head butler everything you need.”

“Please vacate the Grand Duke’s residence until the summoning ritual is over.”

“Okay. I’ll give everyone a vacation.”

“Your Highness should leave too.”

“…”

Frost glared at Cassandra, gritting his teeth. But he could only be the weaker one.

After even the Grand Duke, who was full of lingering attachment, finally left the Grand Duke’s residence…

Left alone, Cassandra began the ritual to summon the mysterious soul that had been dwelling in Yuriella’s body.

That soul would probably become a golden goose for her.

One that could peel and eat the shell of Grand Duke Frost Ielheim of the North.

“Ohohoho! Ah, how exciting!”