“Get away from there right now. This is a command as queen.”

Rose faced off against the tower gatekeeper, holding a sapphire ring in one hand.

The gatekeeper showed a troubled expression from beneath his deeply pressed hat.

Rose took out a luxurious pouch from her bosom and threw it to him.

The clear sound of heavy gold pieces clinking together rang out from inside the pouch.

It was an attitude like throwing a piece of meat to an annoying dog and commanding it to go away.

“That should be enough. You won’t breathe a word to His Majesty Shallen, so step aside. You saw nothing today, knew nothing.”

Rose slowly drew trembling breaths in front of the door where not a sound could be heard.

Desperately hoping that everything was just her own delusion, she pulled hard on the door handle.

Light poured in through the window and Rose squinted for a while, her eyes dazzled.

Before she could even look ahead, a familiar voice flowed into Rose’s ears.

“I knew you would come if it were you.”

Rose lifted her head with wide eyes, creaking like a broken wooden doll.

In the middle of the somehow ominously sinister bedroom, Kasallin stood like an unrealistic painting.

In the time they hadn’t seen each other, she had become more pale and sharp with sensitivity, but was still beautiful.

How she had admired since childhood those aristocratic black waves flowing to her back and those enchanting eyes that captivated people.

Even as a sister and fellow woman, she looked this wonderful, so how would she appear in Shallen’s eyes?

“Welcome to my shabby cage. There’s some tea, would you like some?”

“This… it is you, sister.”

Rose lifted the ring with trembling hands.

“Yes. That’s right. Honestly it was a gamble, but I really didn’t expect you to discover that and come find me. It was heavenly fortune.”

“Don’t smile like that, please help me understand! Why on earth are you in a place like this, sister?”

“You already anticipated everything in your heart when you came, so why are you pretending not to know and asking? Of course your husband, King Shallen, confined me to this place. Saying he won’t send me anywhere anymore.”

Rose let out a hollow laugh as if she wouldn’t believe it and shook her head vigorously.

“I see he told shameless lies like ‘Kasallin has gone far away. She won’t return.'”

When Kasallin imitated Shallen’s voice and manner of speaking, hitting the nail on the head, Rose flinched.

Kasallin wiped away all traces of laughter and stepped in front of her.

“Wake up. Shallen deceived and defrauded you.”

“No. I can’t believe what you’re saying, sister. There must have been some misunderstanding.”

“Misunderstanding? Will you also say it’s all a misunderstanding that while you were sleeping alone and lonely in your room, Shallen came to me and whispered that we should begin our own love?”

“His Majesty would never do such a thing to me!”

Rose shouted with bloodshot eyes turned pale blue.

Though she was shouting out loud that it couldn’t be so, in truth Rose was not unaware that something that shouldn’t happen had already happened.

It was shocking that while he spoke nicely in front saying he loved her and would never change, behind her back he was pathologically obsessed with Kasallin.

But so what?

‘Even if I know this fact, what can I possibly do about it?’

There was nothing that could be changed.

The Khan Kingdom was a country where not only men but even women having one mistress each was not considered wrong, even if not entirely proper.

Moreover, she had heard that the previous king had even created a harem and lived immersed in wild revelry every day.

Whatever the king did with his mistress, wherever and whenever, was not an area where the queen could interfere or raise objections.

If she confronted him asking “Why did you lie?”, Shallen would surely be displeased and lose his temper.

The quarrel would grow, the marital relationship would worsen, and in the end it would only further fuel His Majesty Shallen’s obsession with sister Kasallin.

“Look here. It’s utterly miserable and shocking, but there’s nothing you can do. That’s precisely the shadowy underside of the position of queen that you so desperately longed for.”

“It’s, it’s all because of you, sister.”

Kasallin narrowed her eyes as if to say go on.

“Because you kept provoking His Majesty’s nerves and acting vulgarly. That’s why His Majesty temporarily lost his way and wandered. He, he’s not originally that kind of person.”

She who was trying to block both ears and escape from reality was simply pitiful.

By blaming her husband’s infidelity on her sister, did she want to protect the wealth, honor and power she enjoyed as queen?

“If only you hadn’t existed from the beginning, if only you hadn’t interfered between us, His Majesty Shallen wouldn’t have been shaken.”

Kasallin made no reaction to her words.

Because she had just freshly realized something.

It wasn’t that Shallen had ruined Rose, but that she had originally been only this much of a person.

Rose was hopelessly foolish, wicked, and despicable to the point of wondering if she really inherited the same father’s blood.

“Yes. If only you weren’t here…”

Rose muttered like someone half-mad and walked out onto the balcony overlooking the vast forest.

Kasallin’s eyes gradually narrowed.

“What are you trying to do right now?”

“What do you think would happen if I fell from here right now?”

Rose’s toes slowly moved beyond the balcony boundary.

She had already made up her mind to protect Shallen’s favor and the glorious position of queen even by using such methods.

Since childhood, whenever attention around her turned to Kasallin, Rose had cleverly shown self-destructive behavior.

The first time started with a simple accident.

When she got a slight burn on her finger while playing with fire, the maids sent worried looks, and her mother spent the whole day by her side, stroking her startled heart.

And the arrow always turned back to Kasallin.

“You should have taken better care of your still immature sister as the older one, Kasallin.”

Whenever Rose was placed in a pitiful and unfortunate situation, she became the protagonist of warm attention, while Kasallin became the target of criticism as the sister who neglected to properly care for her foolish younger sister.

Such experiences became more concrete and cruel after Rose became queen.

When she was refused requests to handle affairs on her behalf, when she fell into water while walking in the Renel Empire, when she deliberately grabbed broken teacup pieces.

Her long-standing habit of becoming the weak one to get what she wanted.

Was trying to impulsively emerge again within her, whose position had begun to waver precariously due to Shallen’s lingering attachment and Kasallin’s existence.

“By tomorrow, you’ll be a great traitor who tried to push a nation’s queen off the railing to her death. His Majesty Shallen will be shocked and feel guilt toward me, and everyone will cry and be angry for my sake.”

“Rose, get down from there right now. This is a foolish thing to do.”

“Don’t worry about me. From now on, what you should truly worry about is your own fate, sister.”

The cold sweat beaded on Rose’s forehead fell to the floor as if announcing the beginning of a great incident.

Her pink skirt hem flowed out beyond the railing, and before long her shrill scream rang through the peaceful court.

Soldiers who had been patrolling nearby gathered one by one in shock.

In the midst of the chaos where everyone was shouting in surprise, running, and stamping their feet, Kasallin stood with a face colder and more composed than ever.

“Sorry. Rose.”

I really had no choice.

This was the only way I could escape from this terrible cage.

For Shallen, today had been a continuous series of frantically rushing schedules.

He had greeted the people who visited the royal palace, held audience time, toured the court art gallery together, and finally stopped by the chapel to perform purification rituals before just about to return.

He received an urgent report inside the carriage.

No, rather than an urgent report, it should be called terrible news.

“Your Majesty, disaster has struck!”

“No matter how big the disaster, stopping the king’s carriage and shouting doesn’t seem proper etiquette.”

“This is no time to be leisurely. Queen Rose might miscarry!”

Shallen, who had been leisurely drinking water, spat out what was in his mouth.

The water bottle dropped from his hands and rolled across the floor.

“What did you just say? Miscarry? Was the queen even pregnant?”

“She fell from the balcony and was injured, and during treatment it was discovered that she was with child. But the problem is that the culprit who pushed Queen Rose from the balcony… seems to be Miss Kasallin Robepon…”

“Qu, quickly turn the carriage around! Quickly!”

The coachman urgently whipped the horses.

Inside the carriage clattering down the hill road, Shallen was caught up in all kinds of thoughts.

How had Kasallin, who should have been trapped immovably in the tower, made contact with Rose, and why had she tried to kill Rose?

Was it an impulsive accident?

Or had she truly gone mad and deliberately targeted the queen?

‘No. No. That can’t be. There must have been some misunderstanding.’

The carriage that had covered a distance that would normally take a full half hour arrived in front of the palace in just ten minutes.

“The baby! What happened to the child in her womb!”

Shallen ran frantically to the room.

The scene visible through the opening door far exceeded his imagination.

Rose lying motionless with red traces not yet completely wiped away.

Court physicians surrounding her and urgently conducting examinations.

Kasallin sitting silently on her knees in one corner with bound wrists, and the queen’s palace attendants glaring fiercely at her.

Shallen seemed to instinctively understand immediately how the situation had unfolded, but he wandered seeking hope somehow while only repeating the meaningless words ‘No. That can’t be.’

“Report immediately. What exactly is this situation I’m seeing!”

“Queen Rose fell below the balcony and suffered minor injuries. But please don’t worry too much. Fortunately in this misfortune, she fell onto a haystack, so the child in her womb is safe and there are no major problems with Queen Rose’s body either.”

One of the court physicians quickly ran out and explained the situation.

Shallen instead burst out in anger.

“No major problems? Don’t worry? Doesn’t that mean if luck had been just slightly worse, we might have lost the child in her womb! Who exactly is the heinous person who made my queen like this!”

At Shallen’s roar with anger rising to his head, everyone’s gaze turned in unison to one place.

It was Kasallin, sitting with a face so calm and composed that it was hard to think of her as a criminal.

“…Is what they say true, that this was indeed your doing?”

Shallen looked down at her with eyes filled with terror.

“You should either shake your head or scream that you’re wronged, one of the two!”

“I swear to God I never even laid a hand on Queen Rose’s body. Queen Rose jumped down herself.”

Though whatever explanation I give now, you’ll never believe it.

As soon as Kasallin finished speaking, Shallen approached with frightening speed and slapped her cheek hard.

Kasallin, overcome by the merciless force, collapsed to one side.

It hurt so much that her head spun momentarily.

Even after doing that, as if his anger still wasn’t resolved, he gritted his teeth and raised his hand once more.

Someone firmly caught Shallen’s arm in mid-air.