“Because from now on, I’m thinking of using you once.”

Aster was momentarily caught up in a strange feeling of his face burning hot.

Like this, Kasallin would dig deep into people’s hearts with unexpected words at completely unexpected moments.

Aster, who had come expecting to receive contemptuous looks from her, felt a somewhat bewildered mood.

And he felt a strange sense of relief that welled up and bloomed from one corner of his chest.

“You say you’ll use me once… I have no idea what you mean.”

“Just as I said. Aster, you’re someone who will do anything as long as the reward you want falls into your hands. I’ll give you the best reward for such a person like you. If you properly do what I ask you to do, that is.”

A light laugh of unknown meaning flowed from between Aster’s teeth.

“Interesting. You’ve perfectly analyzed what kind of human this Aster is in such a short time. But there’s no basis for it.”

“Basis?”

“Yes. Miss Kasallin is currently confined in prison, and soon you’ll be destined to have all your rights stripped away. I don’t think Miss Kasallin in such a state could give me the best reward?”

Aster spoke in a voice that seemed somehow not sincere, as if he was slightly testing something.

Kasallin gave her answer without delay.

“What if I become the empress of the greatest nation on the western continent?”

“…What?”

“If that were to happen, I wouldn’t need to continue playing the role of an obedient dog under Shallen or Rose’s feet anymore, would I?”

“…Empress.”

Empress. Empress.

Aster was fixated on just one word, rolling it around in his mouth for a long while, and before long he began to understand what she wanted to say.

Not only did she say she didn’t resent him, who was no different from an enemy.

Not only did she not show fear in this situation but rather boldly shine her eyes and turn her mind.

Even her reckless attitude of preferring to burn to death rather than bend her pride.

The moment he suddenly thought what a strange woman she was, Aster realized the identity of what had been turbulently shaking his heart all this time.

Without any plausible important trigger.

Like lightning suddenly striking down over his head by chance.

‘Do I perhaps like this woman?’

Aster scratched his neck, feeling absurd.

When watching from afar, he felt anxious, she looked pitiful, he felt somewhat sorry, and he regretted every night wondering if he had made the wrong choice.

And wanting to see a bright smile appear on that cold face at least once.

Wasn’t this unrequited love with no room for excuses?

‘Good grief, this is ridiculous.’

If this was going to happen, he should have realized it sooner.

After committing all the worst deeds, what is this so late in the game.

Aster irritably tousled his fallen hair while glancing at Kasallin with narrowed eyes.

There she was, fluttering her feather-like eyelashes with an expression of not understanding what was happening.

“What’s wrong?”

“Even if Miss Kasallin hadn’t particularly proposed a deal to me, perhaps I might have ended up helping you after all.”

Aster stood up with a solemn expression.

Kasallin’s head followed him.

“I’ll try to find a way to prove Miss Kasallin’s innocence.”

“Are you serious? This easily?”

When Kasallin’s eyes widened with surprise, Aster unconsciously let out a stupid smile before forcing himself to look serious.

He scratched his head awkwardly.

“I don’t know. It’s just… I suppose I’ve been having something like regret since you were imprisoned in the tower.”

“Regret?”

“Good grief, you don’t understand what I’m saying. So, in crude terms, it means I’ve come to want to side with Miss Kasallin and give His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen a good backstab.”

That was also the real purpose of approaching the Queen in the first place.

Aster quietly swallowed the rest of his words down his throat.

The underground prison where Kasallin was confined became so extremely cold at night that teeth would chatter.

But Kasallin herself didn’t even know her toes were freezing from the cold, and was calmly chewing over the words of Aster who had just visited.

Watching her like this, the guards clicked their tongues, saying she was no ordinary tough woman.

“Is she there?”

At this time, the entrance leading from outside opened with a clanking sound, and a not unfamiliar voice echoed through the cold corridor.

When the King himself came to such a shabby place, the guards stopped their conversation and straightened up with discipline throughout their bodies.

“We greet His Majesty the King. How did you come to take your precious steps to such a rough place?”

“I came to check if there are signs of repentance on the thick face of the heinous criminal. Where is she?”

“She’s in that room over there. We will escort…”

“That’s enough. I have something to advise her for the last time, so don’t interfere and leave.”

The guards exchanged strange glances with each other, then withdrew without complaint.

Heavy boot sounds approached across the corridor where stale dust floated.

Soon a man’s shadow fell long between the black bars.

“Kasallin.”

Shallen was looking down at her with a face colder than even a desert night.

But that was only him wearing an ill-fitting mask pretending to be cold.

Because Kasallin could clearly see his eyes conflicted in the darkness.

He knelt to match Kasallin’s eye level and whispered.

“Now it’s just the two of us. So speak honestly. Why did you commit such acts so unlike yourself?”

“What is like me?”

To Kasallin’s question, Shallen gave his answer without delay.

“The Kasallin I’ve observed for a long time. Always maintaining composure, thorough in everything, never doing reckless things – such a wise and devoted woman.”

“How unusually you give me praise. Please recite the slander about me that you used to rattle off as drinking snacks whenever you were with those precious friends and servants of yours.”

Wrinkles deepened on Shallen’s brow.

“A man can joke a bit in private when drinking. Don’t you think it’s rather gloomy of you to secretly eavesdrop on that and sulk about it in your heart?”

“Yes. Let’s say that’s the case. Your Majesty’s words are all correct.”

Kasallin, who knew well that no matter how much she tried to fix his way of thinking that was deficient from birth, it would be utterly useless, gave up on dealing with him at all.

Thinking he was being ignored, humiliation became prominent on Shallen’s face.

“I came personally with my noble body to this sewer-like underground prison to give you a chance to confess your crimes, yet you kick away the path to survival yourself.”

“I have told you repeatedly, swearing to God, that I have not committed any crime.”

“What a foolish and impudent woman.”

Shallen looked down at Kasallin with a subtle gaze.

Even in the midst of all this, sitting with her hair neatly combed and in a perfectly upright posture without the slightest dishevelment, she was truly unmistakably a noble young lady.

Perhaps because her meals had been poor, her face was pale and her waist was so slender it seemed about to break, but such a sickly appearance rather stirred Shallen’s dark desires.

A fragile beauty who seemed unable to take a single step without being embraced by him.

Wasn’t she too precious a work to burn and turn into a pile of ash?

“Please be sure to burn me to death completely from head to toe.”

Kasallin shot back with a voice sharp with poison, as if she had seen through Shallen’s inner thoughts.

“Don’t try to act tough. No matter how harsh you are as a woman, do you think you can maintain your pride until the moment death is right before your nose? Not a chance.”

“No. I’m sincere. If my corpse remains intact in this world, who knows what Your Majesty might do to my corpse. I don’t want to be stuffed and mounted on your bedroom wall, reduced to eye candy.”

“What did you say…?”

Shallen’s face crumpled mercilessly.

Rather than always pretending to be noble and refined in an ill-fitting manner, it was actually more like Shallen to reveal his suppressed true nature without reservation like now.

“You will desperately regret those words.”

“Well. Who will end up kneeling in the end is something we’ll still have to see.”

Shallen shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it.

“I must have been crazy in the past. To think I truly loved a woman like you and tried to crown you as queen.”

“Don’t indulge in ridiculous self-pity. Your Majesty has never loved me even once.”

“After receiving all the expensive jewelry and gifts, now you say my feelings weren’t sincere?”

“Distorting facts must be your specialty. You were the one who stubbornly sent gifts even when I said it was fine and you were troubling me. And you.”

Kasallin used all her strength to raise her legs that had no power in them.

She stood facing him directly with the bars between them.

“You simply liked my face and body. Like a beast with nothing but instincts left drooling whenever it sees appetizing chunks of meat.”

“Don’t think of me the same as other men. All those countless sons of cardinals and grandsons of dukes who sent you marriage proposals until now probably had no interest in what grade you graduated with from the Royal School. What would be important to them would be welcoming a pretty wife, having pretty children, and going to parties to show off like decorations. But I was different.”

“Then does Your Majesty know what kind of food I often eat?”

At the sudden question, Shallen tried to open his mouth to say something but ultimately couldn’t continue his words.

“What flowers I like. What season I’m most vibrant in. What I played with as a child and how my friendships were. How my relationship with my father was and what books I read that moved me. Do you properly know even one of these things?”

“…”

“You see. Your Majesty is no different. You have no interest whatsoever in my soul. You only care about how prettily I’ve applied makeup, what kind of seductive figure I have, whether my skin has gotten tanned by the sun. In front of such a you, I have never once been human. I was merely an animal called woman.”

A long silence followed.

I wondered if he would realize something even a little from this, but I learned it was indeed a useless expectation when I heard his next answer.

“…Tomorrow morning, a public trial is scheduled to be held to decide your punishment.”

“So that’s what you came all the way here to say after all.”

“If you show signs of repentance and admit your guilt even now, the result might be a little different. To think the end of a young lady who once commanded high society is merely this. I think it’s regrettable.”

It was the moment when a final period was put to their terrible connection.

No. At least at this time, he thought everything was over.