“Oh my, you’ve arrived.”

“I thought I wouldn’t get the extra pay since the intermediary client didn’t show up.”

Intermediary client. It meant someone different from the client who tried to kidnap and kill Litania.

It seemed that her kidnapping wasn’t planned by just one person.

“Let me see your face.”

“How meticulous.”

I could see the men talking to someone called the ‘intermediary client’.

‘……!’

Though wearing a black robe with a hood covering the face, it wasn’t difficult to recognize who that person was.

A figure who harbored unconditional malice and hostility towards Litania, to the point where one might question the plausibility.

The person who had warned to beware of beasts and traps in the hunting grounds.

Imperial Princess Herna.

“Herna, why are you doing this?”

When Litania recognized and called out to Herna, she removed the hood she had been wearing. She must have thought there was no point in hiding anymore.

Herna approached Litania and lifted her chin with the tip of her shoe as she lay bound and face down.

“Because you’re a fake.”

“……Ha.”

Litania was dumbfounded.

It was natural for her, a direct child of the emperor, to dislike an illegitimate child.

Ignoring, mocking, or picking fights when seen could still be understood to some extent.

But kidnapping and trying to kill her like this was far beyond Litania’s common sense.

After all, Litania hadn’t done anything that wrong to Herna.

“Is it because you like Orbis? Do you think Orbis will pay attention to you, Herna, if you kill me?”

“At least he won’t waste time and emotions mistaking a fake for the real thing.”

“What?”

“You’re a fake, aren’t you? I don’t understand why you keep pretending.”

Herna knelt down on one knee in front of Litania.

She whispered in a very low voice so the other men couldn’t hear.

“Did you think you could steal someone else’s happiness after stealing their body?”

“……”

It felt like her heart was freezing.

“What… did you say…?”

It wasn’t that she hadn’t heard. Knowing this, Herna smirked and stepped on Litania’s fingers with the tip of her shoe.

“Agh!”

“This is just punishment.”

It felt as if her finger bones were being crushed, with a tingling pain spreading up to her wrist. The dirt and sand on the shoe sole mercilessly scraped her white skin.

“It hurts, ah…!”

“Of course it hurts. This is the price for taking someone else’s body.”

“Stop it, no… Orbis…!”

Please help me.

Just as she inwardly pleaded like that.

“Huk!”

The men behind Herna made a strange sound and then collapsed, foaming at the mouth. Their eyes were rolled back, showing only the whites.

Thud. Thud. It took less than a few seconds for all four men to fall.

‘Who… who……’

A tall figure could be seen walking out of the dark bushes. Someone very familiar and welcome, recognizable at a glance even in the darkness.

Litania called out his name.

“Orbis!”

“I should have told you not to go too far.”

The ropes binding her wrists and ankles came undone.

Litania exhaled a shaky breath and got up. Her legs were trembling and her hands were tingling.

Next to Orbis, men in black clothes lay face down like puppets with cut strings.

Seeing their condition momentarily froze her, but Litania forced her barely moving body to charge at Herna.

“Agh!”

Crash! Both Litania, who lost her balance, and Herna, who was pushed, fell together.

“Orbis! Please, help me up!”

“Certainly.”

As Orbis lifted Litania up, Herna shouted.

“Lord Orbis! That…!”

“It would be better to keep your mouth shut.”

Snap, Herna’s mouth twisted and her head tilted at an odd angle.

“O-Orbis! No!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Herna is an imperial princess!”

“What does that matter?”

“No! Herna…!”

She knows the secret. That she is someone else possessing Litania’s body.

We need to ask how she found out about it. Besides, I don’t want to see someone die before my eyes.

Even if it’s the annoying Herna, I don’t want to experience seeing a bloody, butchered corpse again.

“Don’t, don’t kill her. We need to… have a trial.”

“I see.”

Orbis agreed dryly.

“Don’t worry. I didn’t kill her.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Since you seem to be afraid of corpses.”

He meant that he restrained himself because he didn’t want to show Litania anything gruesome.

It meant that if it weren’t for her, he would have just killed them all, imperial princess or not, without even investigating the background.

A beautiful but cruel divine dragon.

Litania didn’t know what expression to make in front of this fearsome savior, so she closed her eyes and buried her face in his shoulder.

“Orbis……”

“Yes, Litania.”

“Th-thank you for saving me.”

“It’s nothing.”

After barely managing to convey her gratitude, her heart felt a little more at ease.

As Orbis used magic to heal Litania’s injured hand, she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him.

Perhaps because of the terrifying experience, her trembling wouldn’t stop.

Imperial Princess Herna was placed under house arrest.

The charges were attempted assassination of an imperial princess and collusion with a foreign country.

It was a capital offense, but it ended with house arrest because the emperor didn’t want to escalate the incident.

The ministers knew it was an unjust sentence, but they didn’t express any opposition since the divine dragon Orbis didn’t make an issue of it.

There was no point in revealing that the imperial family was in shambles, as it would only make them a laughingstock to other countries.

Litania was dumbfounded that Herna had been bold enough to leak information to a foreign country, contributing to her own kidnapping plan, and she was filled with resentment that the emperor had ended the matter with such a light punishment as house arrest for Herna, who had tried to kill her.

‘This is too much.’

That’s why she requested an audience with the emperor for the first time.

“Your Majesty.”

Surprisingly, the emperor granted Litania’s request. In the audience chamber where light streamed in through narrow windows, Litania had a private meeting with the emperor.

“I greet Your Imperial Majesty.”

Litania greeted him politely and approached to sit across from the emperor.

“I believe you know why I requested an audience.”

I don’t know what I was thinking. Normally, she wouldn’t have dared to speak so impertinently to the emperor.

But Litania had nearly died, and it was Herna who had tried to kill her, and it was the emperor who had concluded the matter with just house arrest for Herna despite knowing all the circumstances.

Even when he had abandoned her in the northern palace for 19 years, when he had declared his own daughter as an adopted daughter and made her an imperial princess, when he had allowed other siblings to disrespect her, when he had issued forceful orders to pair her with Orbis.

Litania had not resented the emperor. She thought there must have been reasons for it.

She had seen and heard of far too many instances of siblings pointing swords at each other, and parents and children betraying and using each other. She knew that the emperor didn’t regard her as his own daughter.

He could discriminate. He could ignore. That was understandable.

But wasn’t it too much to allow her death?

“I was kidnapped at the hunting festival and nearly died.”

“……”

“The one who ordered it was none other than Herna.”

Anger and hurt mixed and burned in her chest.

“……Litania.”

It was a dry, raspy voice.

At that voice, Litania looked directly at the emperor for the first time.

Judging by the crown prince’s age, the emperor should have been just over 50, but he looked much older than his actual age.

Whether the rumors of his deep illness were true, the skin under his wrinkled eyes was darkly shadowed. His rough, lusterless hair couldn’t all be contained within the crown and spilled out messily, and his eyes were clouded.

A different kind of expressionlessness from the strange faces of the servants seen in the dragon castle.

It was the face of one who had swallowed the shadow of death.

“You don’t call me father.”

After catching his breath for a while, that was what he spat out. Litania was shocked.

“How could I call you father when Your Majesty doesn’t consider me as a daughter?”

“If you… hadn’t been involved with the divine dragon, I might have treated you differently.”

He was saying he had no choice but to discriminate against Litania because of Orbis.

“After abandoning me for 19 years.”

“……”

“Are you now trying to excuse yourself by saying I feel distant because I’m the wife of the noble divine dragon, above even Your Majesty?”

I know. She wasn’t the ‘real Litania’. So she shouldn’t feel hurt by the emperor, even if she’s angry.

That’s how it should be.

“……How can you call such words an excuse?”

A tear fell.

She thought the surging anger would explode. She thought lightning would strike as pillars of fire rose up.

But the emotion that finally overflowed, threatening to fill her chest, was sadness.

Strangely enough.

Even though he wasn’t her father, even though she was just in someone else’s body meeting someone else’s father.

Why did she feel as if she had been abandoned by her parents?