“Criminal Kasallin Robepon, step up to the execution platform!”

The scorching midday sun poured down overhead.

As if mocking her plight, the sky was brilliantly clear, welcoming the full bloom of spring.

Kasallin took off her shoes and climbed the creaking wooden steps.

Standing atop the tall execution platform, she could see at a glance the crowd that filled the vast square.

“A witch-like woman who abandoned natural order! She should be burned to death immediately!”

“How dare she attempt to assassinate Her Majesty the Queen. Such an evil creature that even demons would weep!”

Most of them were throwing stones and garbage at Kasallin while pouring out their condemnation.

But even amidst this, there were a few people who believed in Kasallin.

“Miss Kasallin would never do such a thing. This must be someone’s false accusation!”

“That’s right. The young lady was always on the side of the weak. Think of how she has devoted herself to the royal family until now!”

How grateful it was that wherever one went, there seemed to be people who recognized true sincerity.

“Bind the criminal’s hands!”

Two soldiers roughly dragged Kasallin forward.

Bound hand and foot to a pile of wood perfect for blazing on a day like today, Kasallin raised her head toward the gaze she felt from below.

Miss Rose, the mastermind behind this entire show, was hiding quietly behind her husband’s back, holding her breath.

Not dreaming of what fate awaited her, she must be hoping only for the execution to end quickly and peace to arrive.

In contrast, Shallen was looking up at Kasallin with an extremely complex and subtle expression.

Kasallin could accurately guess what he was thinking right now.

He must be drowning in self-pity.

Like a tragic male protagonist who had no choice but to kill with his own hands a woman he once loved.

“Kasallin Robepon attempted to assassinate the Queen, so her crime is extremely grave.”

Amidst everyone’s silence, Shallen’s voice echoed throughout the square.

“I, Shallen Riche, King of the Kan Kingdom, hereby classify her as a national traitor. I strip her of all her privileges and will now execute the royal court’s highest punishment of burning at the stake.”

Looking back, perhaps everything that had happened until now was fate.

If she hadn’t lost her child in that carriage accident back then, she would still be a naive and immature girl who would have married Shallen, and by now she would be spending unhappy days bound by the duty of being Kan’s queen.

“Kasallin Robepon. Do you have no intention of apologizing to everyone here one last time?”

How shameless indeed.

Kasallin showed a twisted smile.

She couldn’t believe that she had once promised to grow old together with him.

“I don’t know what apology you’re asking for when I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Just abandon that shallow pride and say one word that you were wrong.”

“Rather than kneel before a man like you, I would rather suffer in burning pain for three days straight and die slowly. I guarantee that would be a much more meaningful life.”

“Even though I’m giving you several chances to live, you kick them away with your own feet, foolish woman. You will regret not accepting my mercy, beating the ground in the depths of hell.”

“I wonder. The expression that you’ve given me several chances to live seems wrong. Hasn’t Your Majesty rather tried to kill me several times? Once when you abandoned me after my miscarriage and started preparing for the broken engagement. Twice when you forced me into a carriage that crashed. And right now.”

Since I’ve miraculously survived each time, it seems I must be receiving divine protection.

Kasallin said this while smiling a blindingly beautiful smile.

Angered by her insulting words, Shallen’s face turned red and blue as he pointed at Kasallin and shouted.

“Immediately push that witch-like woman into the fires of hell!”

Kasallin calmly watched the people approaching with blazing black torches.

Even in a situation where her entire body was about to burn to death in front of everyone, her heart was strangely at peace.

Rather, it made her laugh.

“Don’t cling so pathetically.”

Just before the fire reached her feet, Kasallin muttered meaningfully.

Shallen hastily raised one hand.

“Wait. What did you just say?”

“It’s what you said to me before when you threw me away like a worn-out shoe. Do you remember?”

“What?”

Neurotic wrinkles appeared on Shallen’s face, which was as pretty as a fresh, growing young man.

His expression said what nonsense are you talking about.

Right. Of course you wouldn’t remember.

The person who inflicts wounds quickly forgets, but the person who receives wounds suffers until the day they die.

“How can I make someone who can no longer bear children into a queen? Don’t cling so pathetically.”

If one thought rationally, he hadn’t done anything wrong as a monarch of a country.

However, as a man who had sworn eternal love to a woman, he had done something that should never be done.

“I swear on my heart, Kasallin. Even if I have to abandon the throne, I will love only you.”

If only he hadn’t said such things back then.

If only he hadn’t constantly taken her to secluded places whenever he had the chance, begging to spend sweet time together.

If only, among all the women in the world, he hadn’t chosen his discarded fiancée’s younger sister as his new queen, the situation wouldn’t have reached such a catastrophic end.

“But now you might be the one clinging pathetically to me. No, I’m certain of it.”

Kasallin said this with such a dizzying smile that everyone in the execution ground was left spellbound.

A woman who was once destined to be the perfect queen, but became a heinous villain who, blinded by jealousy, tried to assassinate her sister who had become queen.

As she was about to die under the death sentence of the king who was once her fiancé, people in the square murmured that she had finally gone mad.

Rose urgently wrapped her arms around Shallen’s arm.

“Your Majesty. Please don’t listen to Sister Kasallin’s words. The more you do, the more your heart will only suffer.”

Kasallin couldn’t hide her bitter feelings.

Although she and Rose had reached a point where they could no longer be called sisters, she had thought that at least in the final moment of death, Rose might show some sincerity, but it seemed like a vain expectation after all.

“I know, Queen. Soon everything will be over, so close your eyes for a moment. Guards, resume the execution of the evil and vile traitor Kasallin Robepon!”

It was the moment Shallen shouted.

An arrow flew at tremendous speed from somewhere and cut the rope restraining Kasallin’s arms in one stroke.

Kasallin, who had lightly descended from the execution platform, looked somewhere with an extremely bright smile.

Since he had promised he would definitely return, it wasn’t so surprising.

After all, she had been believing and waiting all along.

“Wh, who shot the arrow!”

“Em, Emperor Parnes has appeared!”

Archers with bows revealed themselves one by one from the rooftops.

Among the complex crowd, a man with an exceptional build slowly walked out.

Even though he was hiding his appearance with a long cloak, his distinctive aura could not be concealed.

His identity was that person everyone knew well.

The hegemon of the Western continent.

The absolute monarch of the Rnel Empire.

When Parnes Escalo revealed his identity, the other people standing near him also removed their cloaks all at once as if they had been waiting.

What had been hidden beneath their thick clothes was the double-headed lion emblem symbolizing the Emperor’s direct guard.

“Everyone show proper respect. She is a noble woman who will become the Empress of the great Rnel Empire.”

As Parnes began to walk, the crowd filling the square hesitantly stepped aside as if the sea were parting.

The person most flustered at this moment was none other than Shallen.

Why had Parnes appeared in such a place, and for what reason were the guards bowing their heads to Kasallin?

Moreover, what did it mean that Kasallin would become Empress?

“What kind of ridiculous conspiracy is this! For a foreign monarch to set foot on this country’s soil without permission from me, the king of this nation – you must know the repercussions this will cause!”

“Conspiracy? Who’s calling whose actions a conspiracy.”

Parnes let out a sneer as if incredulous and gestured with his chin toward somewhere.

A man walked out from among the people.

Everyone murmured about who he was, but only Shallen seemed to know him well, as his face instantly turned deathly pale.

“You are…!”

“It’s been a long time, Your Majesty the King. I, your humble servant, did not die that day and have been alive.”

The man turned toward the people who were still bewildered, unable to grasp the situation.

And he began to expose everything.

“Everyone here. Until recently, I belonged to an assassination squad under His Majesty Shallen’s command. And I received secret orders to secretly assassinate His Imperial Majesty standing beside me.”

Shallen glared at the man with his eyes rolled back white.

“You… you betrayed me and sided with Rnel.”

“King Shallen Riche.”

Parnes quietly raised his head and spoke.

“The fact that you targeted me – I might show mercy and overlook it once. It’s not entirely without my fault for setting foot in neutral territory with armed knights. So choose.”

Parnes paused briefly, and his gaze slowly reached Kasallin.

“Whether you will unite the two countries as one and become family of our Rnel Empire even now. Or, release that child obediently and end everything peacefully.”

Emperor Parnes.

He had long known that the man was a madman with whom common sense didn’t work, but he hadn’t expected him to actually storm through the main gate head-on.

Peace? Choice?

The words sounded plausible, but it was essentially nothing but a threat.

In short, if he could take Kasallin, he would not hesitate to wage a bloody war.

“Setting aside everything else, she is a heinous criminal who tried to kill my queen and child!”

“A heinous criminal?”

Parnes’s gaze reached Kasallin.

A body incomparably thinner than when he had last seen her.

Skeletal arms and legs that seemed about to collapse, and faint traces of violence remaining on her cheeks.

All of it was trying to make Parnes’s already limited patience explode.

‘How dare they reduce that child to such a state.’

In fact, Parnes’s patience had already exceeded its limits long ago.

If it were up to him, he would cut Shallen Riche’s throat right here and now and burn alive all the humans who had thrown stones at her, but that still wouldn’t be enough to cool his anger.

‘That child would be frightened.’

Not frightening her.

To Parnes, that was more important than anything else.

“Unfortunately, King Shallen Riche. It seems the real heinous criminal is someone else.”

“What?”

“We will prove Miss Kasallin’s innocence.”

From among the murmuring crowd, a man walked out leisurely.

It was quite a sight to see Rose, who had been hiding behind Shallen Riche to observe the situation, turn deathly pale.

“Lord Aster, why are you…?”

Aster smiled warmly toward Rose, who had been his master just moments before.

And he spoke in a loud voice that everyone could hear.

“Let me get straight to the conclusion. This entire incident is a perfect self-staged play that Her Majesty the Queen devised to frame Miss Kasallin.”