Her words were so affectionate that Ophelia almost found herself confiding everything to the boy without realizing it.

The truth was that she wasn’t a princess raised only with love as he thought, and Mahanas and Dares considered her nothing more than expensive livestock to be sold off.

But if she had said that, Haslen would have broken off their engagement and sought a more valuable girl, so Ophelia couldn’t speak the words that rose to the tip of her tongue.

There was only one thing she could say.

“Go away. I don’t want to see your face today.”

And Ophelia couldn’t help but sniffle a little. Her face hadn’t fully dried to begin with.

Haslen didn’t speak to her anymore. When she heard the sound of retreating footsteps and finally silence around her, Ophelia thought he had left.

She couldn’t meet him looking so unsightly, so that was for the best, but now that she thought she was alone, she felt so cold and miserable. She roughly wiped her face and turned around.

But the boy was standing behind her, where she had assumed it would be empty. Ophelia’s eyes widened as she saw the boy standing with his back turned, having moved a little away from her.

Realizing she had turned around, Haslen said in a small voice:

“Um, I thought this might be okay since I’m not looking at your face.”

At those words, Ophelia burst into tears. Hearing her sobbing, Haslen’s back flinched, but he didn’t turn around.

Roughly wiping her messy face, Ophelia asked:

“Why did you come back early?”

The boy hesitated for a moment before answering:

“Because it will soon be the princess’s birthday.”

It was true, as her birthday was actually at the end of the seventh month.

“…You didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to.”

It was a simple statement, but the kindness imbued in it sounded so good that Ophelia couldn’t say anything. She didn’t want to ruin it by opening her mouth unnecessarily.

Haslen gently continued speaking so that she wouldn’t have to respond:

“Actually, I thought I wouldn’t be able to see the princess today. We didn’t have a prior appointment, and I heard that you weren’t feeling well…”

Hearing those words, Ophelia thought to herself: It would have been better not to meet. Strangely, the words wouldn’t come out of her mouth.

When she continued to remain silent, the boy cleared his throat softly.

“So I just came to the back garden you showed me last time, and like a lie, you were here.”

“…”

“May I turn around? I have something I want to give you.”

She should have said no. She should have told him not to and to go back.

But her mouth simply wouldn’t move, so Ophelia missed the chance to answer, and the boy slowly turned around.

Seeing his green eyes widen, Ophelia took a step back. She wrapped the shawl a little tighter around her face.

“D-don’t look. It’s ugly…”

But this time, Haslen didn’t let her run away. He strode up to her and asked in a trembling voice:

“Who did this to you?”

Ophelia felt the tips of his fingers touch her cheek.

Haslen carefully removed the shawl covering her face. Her completely unhealed face was fully revealed.

At that moment, Ophelia realized she could no longer deceive the boy. Gripped by fear, she stammered:

“Are you going to break off our engagement now?”

The fear of possibly losing the boy overwhelmed her. Now that he had seen her in such an unsightly state, she thought Haslen would look for someone better than her.

Haslen looked at her with eyes that didn’t know what to say. Ophelia felt his silence lasted for years.

The anxiety grew heavier with the length of the silence, and when the boy finally spoke, she unconsciously assumed the worst.

But once again, Haslen’s words were beyond her expectations.

“No.”

The boy spoke in a small but very firm voice.

“I will marry you, Princess.”

Then the boy gently stroked her cheek. When his long fingers brushed over the wounded area, Ophelia couldn’t help but wince despite his gentleness.

“Did you apply medicine?”

“…Yes.”

Although it had probably all been washed away by her tears, Ophelia didn’t add that detail.

After wiping her wet eyes for a moment, Haslen asked:

“Won’t you tell me who did this?”

“…”

“I’m not trying to interrogate the princess. It’s just that you’re so badly hurt, and I’m upset…”

Haslen couldn’t finish his sentence. Because she finally burst into tears and hugged him.

The boy seemed flustered, but he hugged her back without saying anything.

That day, Ophelia cried in his arms for a long time. The fact that someone cared about her wounds made her eyes constantly burn with tears.

Haslen waited for her to cry as much as she needed, but he didn’t forget the main point either.

Ophelia finally had no choice but to confess the truth to him.

“My brother did it.”

She was still afraid Haslen might leave, but she could no longer keep her emotions bottled up inside.

Mahanas had pushed her to an unbearable point, and Ophelia really wanted someone to comfort her now.

Once she started revealing the truth, it all came pouring out.

“It’s not the first time. My brother has been doing this since a very long time ago…”

And Ophelia realized that she had been deceiving him all along by going along with their words. She apologized:

“I’m sorry. I’m not a princess raised only with love like you think.”

Even afterwards, Ophelia vividly remembered the fear she had felt in that moment. Although Haslen said he wouldn’t, how terrified she had been of possibly being abandoned.

However, the boy who always exceeded her expectations put an end to her anxiety with a single sentence.

“I’m sorry. I had no idea you’ve been going through this all this time.”

What a kind boy he was.

In that instant, as if by fate, Ophelia was certain that no one else in the world could ever give her the same feeling. Just as nothing could replace spring, he too was irreplaceable.

That day, the boy put a ring with a deep blue gemstone on her finger. He said he bought it thinking of her while accompanying his father on a trip abroad.

After fiddling with her hand wearing the ring for a moment, the boy said in a small voice:

“Someday, I’ll put a much grander ring on your finger. Under the golden osmanthus tree.”

Those words were as good as saying he would marry her. In Leden, there was a custom of the groom putting a ring on the bride’s finger under a golden osmanthus tree on their wedding day.

Ophelia even remembered the faint blush on the boy’s face as he said those words. She had engraved it in the deepest part of her heart because she wanted so desperately to believe it.

But the boy’s words never came true.

Ophelia vividly remembered how their story ended.

A few years later, when she turned twenty-one, Haslen Lakmata died. Her cruel brother had him executed. The charge was assault on royalty, on the pretext that his body had touched her brother when he blocked him from striking her cheek.

The Lakmata family tried hard to save their heir, but their fortunes had greatly declined due to a series of business failures around that time, so they couldn’t achieve any real results.

None of those who had received help from the Lakmatas in the past showed up. Ophelia couldn’t understand it.

The Lakmatas had helped countless people. They had taken in orphans and the poor neglected by the country, and when the king and prince, blinded by luxury, tried to raise taxes, they blocked it without hesitation. It was something other nobles couldn’t do out of fear of their tyranny.

But when they were actually cornered, everyone turned their backs on her and Haslen.

Having nothing but her body, Ophelia begged in front of her brother’s palace. She knelt down, prostrated herself on the ground, and pleaded like the lowest servant with her head bowed.

Her body was soaked by rain and morning dew. Even as her soft body was bruised, she didn’t move an inch. Even as her limbs grew cold and stiff as ice, she didn’t twist her body once.

Mahanas mocked her, pressing her head down with his foot.

“A worm begging to save another worm.”

Haslen had never been anything like that, and if anything, it was her brother who was closer to being a worm, but Ophelia didn’t say anything back.

If she could just save Haslen, she could endure anything. Even if they told her to crawl through the mud or enter an animal pen, she would gladly do so.

But her patience was useless.

That day, Ophelia realized that even begging has weight.

The knees of a princess who had nothing were worthless.

In the end, Haslen was executed. It was the first day the sun came out after continuous rain that had been lasting for some time.

To at least catch a final glimpse of her fiancé, Ophelia climbed to the tower of the palace with her battered body. The execution ground was barely visible in the distance.

When the head of the young man who had once promised her the vow of the golden osmanthus fell, Ophelia collapsed on the spot. She cried out her fiancé’s name like a madwoman.

But the tower was too high, so her screams couldn’t reach down below. Just like her will to save him, her pain-filled cries died like that too.

Sitting on the cold stone, Ophelia watched clearly as the people of the capital threw stones at her fiancé’s head mounted on a pike. Although her vision was blurry from burst blood vessels in her eyes, she took in every single moment without missing anything.

Translation complete. 100% of original text translated.