“Move aside from there immediately. This is an order as the queen.”

Rose confronted the tower guard while holding a sapphire ring in one hand.

The guard showed a troubled expression under his pulled-down hat.

Rose took out an expensive pouch from her bosom and tossed it to him.

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

It was like throwing a piece of meat to a bothersome dog and ordering it to go away.

“That should be enough. You didn’t see or know anything today. Now step aside and don’t breathe a word to His Majesty Charlen.”

Rose took a shaky breath in front of the door where there was no sign of anyone inside.

Desperately praying that everything had been her imagination, she pulled the doorknob with all her might.

Light poured in through the window, making Rose squint for a moment.

Before she could look around, a familiar voice drifted into her ears.

“I knew you would come.”

Rose raised her head, her eyes wide open, creaking like a broken wooden doll.

Katharine stood in the middle of the eerie bedroom like a surreal painting.

She had grown paler and sharper in their time apart, but was still beautiful.

How Rose had admired her noble black waves cascading down her back and those captivating eyes that entranced people since childhood.

If she looked this magnificent to her sister and fellow woman, how must she appear in Charlen’s eyes?

“Welcome to my humble cage. Would you like some tea?”

“Is it… really you, elder sister?”

Rose held up the ring with trembling hands.

“Yes, it’s me. Honestly, it was a gamble, but I can’t believe you actually found it and came. It must be fate.”

“Stop smiling and please explain this to me! Why on earth are you in a place like this?”

“You’re pretending not to know when you’ve already guessed everything in your heart. Of course, your husband, King Charlen, has imprisoned me here. He said he would never let me go anywhere again.”

Rose shook her head with a disbelieving laugh.

“I take it he told you some brazen lie like ‘Katharine has gone far away. She won’t return’?”

Katharine imitated Charlen’s voice and manner, striking right at the heart of the matter, making Rose flinch.

Katharine approached her, all traces of laughter gone from her face.

“Wake up. Charlen has deceived and betrayed you.”

“No. I can’t believe what you’re saying. There must be some misunderstanding.”

“Misunderstanding? Are you going to say it was all a misunderstanding when Charlen came to me and whispered about starting our own love affair while you slept alone and lonely in your room?”

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

Rose shouted, her eyes bloodshot.

Though she was yelling that it couldn’t be true, Rose knew that what should never have happened had already occurred.

It was shocking that while he spoke sweetly of love and constancy to her face, behind her back he was pathologically obsessed with Katharine.

But so what?

‘Even if I knew this, what could I do about it?’

There was nothing she could change.

In the Kingdom of Kan, it was not considered wrong, though not quite respectable, for even women to have one consort each, let alone men.

Moreover, she had heard that the previous king had even created a harem and lived steeped in frenzied pleasures every day.

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

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

The quarrel would escalate, their marital relationship would worsen, and in the end, it would only fuel His Majesty Charlen’s obsession with elder sister Katharine.

“Look. It’s utterly miserable and shocking, but there’s nothing you can do. This is the dark underside of the queen’s position you so desperately craved.”

“It, it’s all your fault, elder sister.”

Katharine narrowed her eyes as if telling her to continue.

“It’s because you kept provoking His Majesty and acting so vulgarly. That’s why His Majesty temporarily lost his way and wandered. He, he’s not usually like this.”

It was pitiful to see her trying to escape reality by covering her ears.

Was she trying to protect the wealth, honor, and power she enjoyed as queen by blaming her husband’s infidelity on her sister?

“If only you hadn’t been here from the start, if only you hadn’t interfered between us, His Majesty Charlen would never have wavered.”

Katharine showed no reaction to her words.

Because she had just realized anew.

That Charlen hadn’t ruined Rose, but that she had always been this kind of person.

Rose was so foolish, wicked, and vile beyond redemption that Katharine doubted if they really shared the same father’s blood.

“That’s right. If only elder sister wasn’t here…”

Rose muttered like a half-crazed person as she walked out onto the balcony overlooking the vast forest.

Katharine’s eyes gradually narrowed.

“What are you trying to do now?”

“What do you think will happen if I fall from here right now?”

Rose’s toes slowly moved beyond the balcony’s edge.

She had already steeled her heart to use even this method to keep Charlen’s favor and her honorable position as queen.

Since childhood, whenever attention shifted to Katharine, Rose would subtly exhibit self-destructive behavior.

It started with simple accidents.

When she slightly burned her finger while playing with fire, the maids gave her worried looks, and her mother stayed by her side all day, stroking her startled chest.

And the arrow always turned back on Katharine.

“Katharine, as the elder sister, you should have taken better care of your still immature younger sister.”

Whenever Rose found herself in a pitiful and miserable situation, she became the center of warm attention, while Katharine became the target of criticism as the elder sister who had neglected her naive younger sibling.

These experiences became even more concrete and cruel after Rose became queen.

When her request to have work done for her was refused, when she fell into the water while walking in the Renel Empire, when she deliberately grasped a broken teacup.

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

It was trying to burst out impulsively inside her again as her position began to waver precariously due to Charlen’s lingering feelings and Katharine’s presence.

“By tomorrow, elder sister, you’ll be a heinous traitor who tried to push a country’s queen to her death from a railing. His Majesty Charlen will be shocked and feel guilty towards me, and everyone will cry and be angry for me.”

“Rose, get down from there right now. This is foolish.”

“Don’t worry about me. From now on, the only thing elder sister should truly worry about is her own fate.”

The cold sweat that had beaded on Rose’s forehead fell to the ground as if heralding the start of a momentous event.

The pink skirts flowed over the railing, and not long after, her shrill scream echoed through the peaceful palace.

Soldiers patrolling nearby gathered one by one in shock.

Amidst the chaos of everyone shouting in surprise, running about, and stamping their feet, Katharine stood with a face colder than ever.

“I’m sorry, Rose.”

There really was no other way.

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

For Charlen, today had been a continuous rush of busy schedules.

He had just finished greeting visiting citizens at the royal palace, having audiences, touring the palace art gallery together, and finally stopping by the chapel for a purification ceremony.

He received an urgent report in the carriage as he was about to return.

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

“Your Majesty, something terrible has happened!”

“No matter how urgent, it seems impolite to stop the king’s carriage and shout like that.”

“This is no time to be relaxed. Queen Rose may have miscarried!”

Charlen, who had been leisurely drinking water, spat it out immediately.

The water bottle slipped from his hand and rolled across the floor.

“What did you just say? Miscarriage? Are you saying the queen was pregnant?”

“She fell from a balcony and was injured, and during treatment, it was revealed that she was with child. But the problem is that the culprit who pushed the queen from the balcony… it seems to be Lady Katharine Roberfon…”

“Qu-quickly, turn the carriage around! Hurry!”

The coachman urgently cracked his whip.

In the carriage bumping along the hill road, Charlen was consumed by a thousand thoughts.

How did Katharine, who should have been securely locked in the tower, come into contact with Rose, and why would she try to kill Rose?

Was it an accidental incident?

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

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

The carriage, which normally took a full half hour, arrived in front of the palace in just ten minutes.

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

Charlen rushed frantically to the room.

The scene that greeted him through the opening door far surpassed his imagination.

Rose lying motionless, with red traces not yet fully wiped away.

Palace doctors urgently examining her, surrounding her.

Katharine kneeling silently in a corner with her wrists bound, and the queen’s ladies-in-waiting glaring at her fiercely.

Charlen seemed to instinctively understand at once how the situation had unfolded, but he repeated meaningless words like “No. It can’t be” as he desperately searched for hope.

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

“Her Majesty the Queen fell from the balcony and sustained some injuries. But please don’t worry too much. Fortunately in this misfortune, she fell onto a pile of straw, so the child in her womb is safe and there are no major problems with Her Majesty’s body.”

One of the palace doctors quickly came forward to explain the situation.

Charlen instead vented his anger.

“No major problems? Don’t worry? Doesn’t that mean she could have lost the child if luck had been a little worse! Who is the vicious person who did this to my queen!”

At Charlen’s roar of anger rising to his head, everyone’s gazes turned to one place at once.

It was Katharine, sitting with a calm and composed face that made it difficult to think of her as a criminal.

“…Is it truly your doing, as they say?”

Charlen looked down at her with terrified eyes.

“Shouldn’t you either shake your head or shout that you’ve been wronged!”

“I swear to God I did not lay a hand on Her Majesty the Queen. Her Majesty jumped of her own accord.”

Even if I explain now, you absolutely won’t believe me anyway.

As soon as Katharine finished speaking, Charlen approached at a frightening speed and slapped her cheek hard.

Unable to withstand the merciless force, Katharine collapsed to one side.

It hurt so much that her head spun for a moment.

Still not satisfied even after doing that, he gritted his teeth and raised his hand once more.

Someone firmly grabbed Charlen’s arm in mid-air.