“Huk!”

As I collapsed, clutching my heart that was struck with a searing pain, Floria tilted her head.

“Sister, aren’t you going to save it? Your heart. What if it burns up like this?”

At her words, I headed towards the fireplace without a second thought.

Unable to even stand, I crawled on the floor and began searching through the fireplace.

With my fingertips hot from the remaining embers and my nostrils clogged with ash, making it difficult to breathe properly, I desperately searched for the jewel.

And finally, I found the jewel carelessly thrown among the embers and quickly grasped it.

“Haa, haa.”

I collapsed in exhaustion after crawling out of the fireplace.

“You found it faster than I expected.”

Floria giggled as if praising me. I knew it already, but Floria showing her true colors was truly abnormal.

Floria snatched the jewel from my hand. I tried to resist, but my strength failed me.

“Oh my, you’re covered in ashes.”

Floria brushed off the ashes as if pitying me.

“Now you look just like a cinder lady.”

Giggling, Floria stood up and held the jewel high, examining it in the sunlight.

“It’s intact.”

I bit my lower lip at her disappointed voice. Just then, as I glared at Floria without realizing it.

“Your Highness, His Highness the First Prince has arrived.”

At the guard’s announcement, Floria whirled towards the door. Frowning deeply, Floria signaled to Shana.

“Would you please wait a moment?”

Floria answered in a clear voice like a small bird and urged Shana with her eyes. Shana grasped my hand and infused magic into it. Suddenly, I felt at ease as if nothing had happened.

“What’s taking so long to open the door?”

Cahirun growled lowly from outside. His voice, grinding between his teeth, seemed to be holding something back.

“There’s not enough time to clean up the attire properly.”

“Can’t be helped.”

Floria smiled brightly as she helped me stand up and said.

“Sister, you know what to do, right?”

Floria threatened, waving the jewel. I nodded desperately before she could even finish speaking. I was anxious that she might throw the jewel back into the fireplace at any moment. I didn’t want to experience that terrible pain twice.

Cahirun’s impatient voice was heard from outside the door.

“I’m coming in.”

The door flung open immediately. Cahirun entered with large strides and frowned deeply upon seeing me.

“I greet the Shining Sword of Hilic, His Highness Cahirun.”

Floria calmly paid her respects as if nothing had happened. Ignoring her, Cahirun came straight to me.

“Are you alright?”

Cahirun grabbed my shoulders and looked me over.

“Your Highness, even for a prince, barging in like this is against etiquette.”

Shana approached and bowed her head as she spoke. Cahirun looked down at Shana with an even more agitated expression. The veins on his sharp jaw were visibly protruding.

“Then you shouldn’t have called out my lady-in-waiting and left her in this state. What kind of manners is this?”

Cahirun turned his gaze to Floria.

“Treating my person like this, isn’t it disrespectful to me? I thought you two were particularly close as sisters, but was I wrong?”

Cahirun spoke as if biting out each word. Even Floria flinched at his fierce demeanor.

“If I hadn’t come to fetch you, I wonder if I would have been able to see you in one piece.”

“Your Highness.”

Meeting Floria’s sharp gaze, I quickly grabbed Cahirun’s arm. Continuing to be angry here would only endanger my heart.

“I just picked up something I dropped in the fireplace. Her Highness tried to stop me, but I insisted on doing it myself.”

“You…”

Cahirun seemed to be forcibly suppressing his rising anger. Taking a deep breath and exhaling a long sigh, Cahirun took off his robe and draped it over my shoulders.

“There’s an urgent matter we need to attend to together, so I came without sending word. I hope you understand.”

Cahirun left the room, still holding my shoulders, as if he didn’t want to hear any response. I looked back at Floria before the door closed, then looked up at Cahirun.

“How did you…”

“Don’t say anything. Nothing good will come out of my mouth right now.”

Cahirun was walking, looking straight ahead with his jaw clenched. Strangely, I felt relieved at his expression. I could feel the maids looking at us with surprised faces. Suddenly, the thought that I was alive washed over me, and I felt strength draining from my toes.

“Where is she?”

Despite the subject-less question, Machi, the capable aide, immediately guided him to where the head maid was.

The head maid was not in the separate room where Reneola had been confined, but in the underground prison of the First Prince’s Palace.

In a perfect dark room where not even a single ray of light entered, no less gloomy than the separate room in the Second Prince’s Palace, the head maid had fainted after just half a day.

Seeing this, Cahirun grew even more furious. She couldn’t even last half a day, yet they kept her locked up for days. The image of her peaceful sleeping face in bed came to mind, making his blood boil.

Reneola had been moaning even in her sleep. Recalling her rough skin and sunken cheeks after just a few days, Cahirun’s insides churned.

There was no way she could have been fine locked up in such a room. He was angry at himself for smiling and thinking she had endured well, as expected of her. He was no different from this head maid.

Machi, observing his mood, woke the head maid. Startled awake, the head maid prostrated herself at Cahirun’s feet.

Cahirun looked down coldly at the trembling head maid and asked.

“Who ordered this?”

There was no way the head maid had acted alone in this matter. No matter her position as a maid, Reneola was still a daughter of a count’s family. And she was also the elder sister of the Second Prince’s wife.

The head maid, haggard after just half a day, could barely open her mouth and only rolled her eyes, trembling violently. Seeing this, Cahirun turned away coldly.

“Lock her up.”

“Wa-wait, Your Highness! I’ll tell you everything!”

The head maid cried out desperately. Shaking uncontrollably, she confessed.

“The, the lady-in-waiting… Lady Eileen ordered it. I only did as I was told. Really!”

There was no way this maid named Eileen had planned this alone either. Though she looked vicious, she had only been in the palace for a few months.

Cahirun recalled the blue-haired maid among the four attendants of the Second Prince’s wife.

He wasn’t so naive as to not recognize that she was a fairy pretending to be human. Moreover, he had already gathered information.

From the head maid to the maid named Eileen Huron, to the blue-haired fairy. And then to Floria de Hilic, whom she was attached to. He had suspected it and now confirmed it.

Cahirun took a deep breath and exhaled. Then he turned to Machi.

“Your Highness!”

The head maid clung to him in terror, but Cahirun shook her off mercilessly and left the prison. Beyond the sound of Machi locking the door, desperate screams mixed in.

“I’ll look into the Huron family.”

Listening to his aide’s words, Cahirun clenched his molars. His foolish brother had brought trouble into the castle.

In fact, Cahirun had planned to treat his brother relatively mildly when he ascended to the throne.

He had intended to exile him abroad and never let him set foot in this land again. In other countries, they would mercilessly behead them, so this was quite a generous treatment.

But he had changed his mind. He vowed to ensure that his brother, the so-called saint Cinderella praised by the public, and the fairy attached to her side would never again come within Reneola’s sight or hearing. Cahirun promised himself.

– Yet, Cahirun muttered, unsure which side was more vexing as he watched Reneola’s back as she left through the side door.

‘She must have some weakness that’s been caught, that’s for certain.’

Cahirun narrowed his eyes. There was no way Reneola didn’t know it was his brother who was tormenting her.

Nevertheless, the fact that she neither fled nor sought any help from him, who stood on the opposite side from her, meant that some weakness had been caught.

Cahirun was very curious about what this weakness could be that made her decide to enter as a lady-in-waiting to a prince who said he would behead her just for making eye contact. Still, he had intended to wait until Reneola told him herself.

But the clueless woman, who didn’t seem to notice his affection no matter how much he showed it, didn’t seem to have any intention of telling him, and that vexed him, making him spiteful.

He thought that the reason Reneola kept her distance, frustratingly unable to notice his feelings, was because of that weakness.

So he deliberately created situations where the two might encounter each other, and finally, he was able to discover the weakness she had been hiding so tightly.

But if he had known in advance that it was something that threatened Reneola’s life, he would never have done it. He hadn’t expected that they would be holding and shaking her lifeline.

Cahirun, holding Reneola’s hand as she lay in bed, uttered a low curse.

When he heard Reneola’s pain-filled moan, he rushed to the Second Prince’s Palace, and when he saw her face, pale and covered in ashes, turning to look at him, he felt his heart drop.

Due to his careless action, almost…

Cahirun readjusted his grip on Reneola’s hand.

Make sure they never come within her sight or hearing again? No, he resolved to make them feel the pain Reneola had endured, unable even to scream.