Floyd might be able to provide Roxiana with a nice room, pretty clothes, and delicious food, but he wouldn’t be willing to move a country for her. Likewise, Roxiana could promise this wolf tasty meat and a cozy bed, but she wouldn’t be able to move a country for him either.

‘So I need to make the Grand Duke think of helping me at least once.’

She didn’t expect much.

Just to find the bodies of her family abandoned somewhere in the Kanta Kingdom, and return them to God’s embrace using Adelia’s weapon. Since Adelia’s weapon was difficult to obtain, she needed Floyd’s help for this part.

‘Returning my family to God’s embrace is the top priority. After that’s done.’

From then on, it would be Roxiana’s task alone. She wouldn’t need anyone’s help.

Because this desperate hatred and resentment are all mine.

‘That’s how I’ll grasp your necks by myself. Lucas, Elise.’

+++

“Huh!”

Elise woke up with rough breaths. Even though she had clearly woken up, it still felt like she was in a nightmare.

Since that day, those forest-like green eyes had followed Elise every single day without fail. And then Elise felt as if she couldn’t escape the forest no matter how much she ran.

A dark forest so densely packed with trees that not a single ray of sunlight could penetrate. A forest where unseen presences hidden in the shadows of trees whispered, murmured, and rustled words of blame.

‘No. That woman is dead.’

Though she was breathing, it was as good as being dead. When she heard that her family had been thrown into a well, Roxiana’s eyes lost their light. She had clearly seen those always refreshingly bright green eyes completely die out.

‘Then why?’

Why do her eyes still overwhelm me with their vivid color?

She couldn’t understand.

Even if she were alive, there was nothing Roxiana could do. By now, she would be a slave to some perverted old man across the sea on the Hoben Islands, barely managing to breathe.

Elise chewed on her lower lip as she recalled the Franche royal family who had trusted her without doubt.

Elise was tasked with inviting the second and third branch families who lived outside the palace. At the suggestion of surprising Roxiana who would soon return, they entered the palace with bright smiles and without suspicion.

‘What great family love.’

Thinking of those who didn’t mind troublesome tasks just for Roxiana left a bitter taste in her mouth.

−”What should we do to surprise our Roxy? Any good ideas, Elin?”

That was Ian’s, the second son’s, last words.

Lucas’s knights mercilessly swung their swords at them gathered in one place. The Franche family’s knights tried to fight back, but Lucas’s side had the upper hand.

Roxiana’s family met their end helplessly under the ruthlessly falling blades.

‘Why?’

Ekion, the eldest son, threw such a gaze while spewing blood from his neck. Unable to bear that look filled more with question than resentment, Elise couldn’t endure and ran away.

Elise wailed and laughed in the corridor where their screams could be heard.

Guilt towards those who had treated her well, good memories shared with them, and the resentment and hatred for driving out her own family to their deaths all mixed together, causing Elise to lose her mind and scream.

‘I don’t regret it.’

Elise tightly gripped the soft blanket.

‘Even if I went back, I’d do the same thing.’

Her father, Duke Hailis, had just momentarily been blinded by greed and made a mistake.

‘What’s wrong with squandering more than half the national treasury and taking money to give good positions to unqualified people? Is that such a grave sin deserving death? Everyone does it. Lost money can be earned back and unqualified people can be driven out. So why is it a capital offense?’

Of course, it was thieves who killed her family, but since they died on the way to exile by the king’s order, it’s the same as the king killing them.

While doing that to my family, seeing the Franche family cherish each other as if they were innocent made her stomach turn. She had to swallow tears of blood.

But they didn’t even know that and pretended to embrace Elise, showing cheap sympathy from a position of superiority.

‘I just returned to your daughter exactly what you did! I just made Roxiana experience exactly what I went through! I did nothing wrong! I only returned what was done to me!’

Then why do those green eyes still not disappear and occupy every night, every moment? Even though she only did what a daughter who lost her family should rightfully do, why does she still suffer from nightmares?

At that moment, there was a gentle touch caressing Elise’s waist. Elise reflexively burrowed into the arms of the man lying beside her.

“Elin, why are you up so early?”

Lucas asked, embracing Elise.

Elise buried her face in the chest of the man she had always wanted and spoke as if sobbing.

“I had a scary dream, Your Highness. That woman turned into a monster and followed me.”

Lucas chuckled.

“My fairy is such a scaredy-cat. She’s just a slave now who can’t do anything, what’s so frightening? Even if that woman drops dead and becomes an undead, her nails won’t be able to reach you. She’ll die in some foreign land, so she’ll become a monster of that foreign land.”

‘That’s right, it will be like that. Your nails will never reach me, Roxiana. You’ll die suffering under that perverted old man.’

Even while thinking that, Elise shed tears.

“It’s too pitiful. She was someone who treated me well after all……”

Feeling his chest getting damp, Lucas gently held Elise’s chin to make her look at him.

Large blue eyes and white skin, auburn hair that accentuated that skin even more. A slender neck and delicate shoulders, a small frame that could fit perfectly in one’s arms.

She was perfect in every way.

Unlike Roxiana who didn’t express emotions well and didn’t talk much, Elise was coquettish, emotionally rich, and tender-hearted. If he had married Roxiana who was just tall like a pole and blunt, he would never have felt this tingling sensation for his whole life.

“There’s no need to pity them, Elin.”

Lucas spoke maturely as he wiped away the tears gathered at the corners of her eyes with his thumb.

“Have you forgotten what those creatures did to your family? You only did what you had to do.”

“But… Roxiana treated me well. I feel so sorry……”

Lucas silenced Elise’s chatter with a kiss. Elise moaned softly and hugged his back.

“Sorry for what? You saved that woman’s life. If it weren’t for you, I would have killed her too.”

Lucas’s lips trailed down Elise’s neck. Elise closed her eyes and ran her fingers through Lucas’s soft hair, but unable to bear the green gaze that overwhelmed her again, she opened her eyes wide.

Whether her eyes were closed or open, those eyes like a dense forest followed her, but Lucas was oblivious to this as he indulged in Elise. Elise wanted to push him away and pour out her terrible fear, but she didn’t.

Lucas, the crown prince of Gania, was now Elise’s lifeline and only hope.

She must not upset Lucas. She must moan, laugh, and act coy as he desires. She cannot let her guard down until she becomes the only one in his sight.

So Elise spent a passionate time matching his movements as he wished.

It was long after daybreak when the two finally left the bed.

+++

The place where Elise stayed was the Jade Palace within the Roba Palace of the Gania Kingdom. The Jade Palace was publicly known as a place where the king’s honored guests stayed, but in reality, it was a harem where the lovers of the king or crown prince resided.

There were several identical buildings scattered throughout the wide and well-maintained garden, each with a bedroom, bathroom, study, two reception rooms, and a small hall. The lovers of the king or crown prince each received one of these buildings to stay in.

Elise, who had left Kanta and come to Gania, also received one of the buildings in the Jade Palace.

Elise immersed herself in thought as she soaked in the warm water the maids had prepared in the bathtub.

‘It’s fortunate that I’m the only woman Lucas has brought to the Jade Palace so far… but he probably has one or two more lovers elsewhere.’

Elise had withdrawn her trust in Lucas since she started staying at the Jade Palace. Lucas said, “It’s only you,” but she didn’t believe those words.

‘Right, I never believed from the start that I would become this country’s crown princess.’

Lucas whispered, “You’ll sit by my side,” and for a moment she believed it. But what Elise was given was not the ‘Ruby Palace’ where the crown princess stays, but the ‘Jade Palace’.

Once she set foot here, there was no chance of becoming the crown princess in one go.

‘I probably won’t be able to become the crown princess.’

Even though she had made great contributions in this Kanta conquest, Elise was from a family that had been exiled for embezzlement. Just because it happened in Kanta doesn’t mean the family’s crime completely disappears.

Moreover, Elise now also carried the problem of being from the Kanta Kingdom, which had become a colony of Gania.

‘But I can become the queen.’

When Lucas ascends to the throne someday, it’s possible to drive out the woman occupying the seat beside him and take that place. There have been countless examples of queens being driven out and new queens being brought in.

‘So I need to solidify my position. I need to gain people who will firmly support me when I try to become queen.’