Vivian’s body trembled, startled by the sharp voice.

Casius stared at the mumbling Vivian and quietly recounted yesterday’s events.

He couldn’t even remember how he left the banquet hall or how he got here.

Only the searing pain in his chest and the blurred consciousness of Diarob in the final moment lingered, as if that damned man’s smile was etched there.

Of course, upon reflection, it was just a faint smile, so there was a flaw in assuming that Diarob had done this based on that alone.

But Casius was already boiling with rage beyond the point of considering such things.

That anger reached right next to Vivian, who was sitting right beside him.

Ridiculously, the woman who had been dazed barely managed to get up, as if unable to endure the heavy silence.

The rumors about Winterdell that had spread just yesterday also vanished from his mind.

Come to think of it, wasn’t it Snowfell who stood to gain the most from the rumors of monsters in Winterdell?

As this woman intended and said, but who knows if it was a scheme with her father.

Casius looked at Vivian with a sneer.

Whether she knew it or not, the Empress slowly turned her head.

On that face… ridiculously, there was a look of bewilderment.

‘Who’s the absurd one now?’

Ha, in the moment Casius couldn’t even hide his disbelief.

Vivian pulled the blanket up to her shoulders and met his eyes.

The end of her violet gaze trembled aimlessly.

If anyone saw this scene, it would be the perfect setup to misunderstand that he had done something to her.

Casius was now furious beyond absurdity.

“What’s with that damn expression?”

At the sarcastic words, Vivian’s heart plummeted to a deep bottom.

“You… don’t remember?”

The Empress’s hands clutching the blanket trembled.

His eyes were bloodshot as if looking at a bastard. The kiss mark clearly engraved beneath it caught his gaze.

Casius’s eyes slowly went down.

The lips he had swallowed, the white neck with a red hue, the smooth skin probably hidden under the blanket…

Following the flow of his gaze, Casius’s memories slowly returned one by one.

‘Damn it.’

Casius was disgusted by everything he had shared with the Empress yesterday.

He sarcastically scoffed without hiding his sneer.

“I don’t know what happened, but I’m sorry to hear that.”

The Empress’s gaze crumbled just like that. As if she had been expecting something.

Tears welled up in her unique violet eyes as if she were about to cry at any moment.

Someone might say, how could he cruelly cut down a woman trembling like that with such cruel words?

But all that boiled inside Casius was anger.

It was shot at the Empress in front of him once again.

“Let’s forget about last night. It seems to have been an unpleasant evening.”

Vivian’s face distorted terribly.

The gray energy that had been filling it was now as dark as pitch black.

Even at the sight of the Empress like that, Casius remained expressionless.

His face was cold and icy as he roughly got up from his seat. There was no separate winter ice.

*

As he hastily tidied his disheveled clothes and quickly stepped outside.

Tikan immediately followed behind Casius, as if he had been waiting.

“How long have I been here?”

“You’ve been here since last night.”

The scenery where sunlight poured through the window decorating the side of the long corridor was visible.

“You mean I came here on my own feet?”

“You were quite drunk.”

Tikan’s gaze turned to the buttons dangling from the hem of Casius’s loosened suit.

“Damn it.”

Muttering a curse under his breath, Casius roughly tore off the buttons and hurriedly walked towards the Emperor’s Palace.

After gulping down a warm soup said to be good for a hangover, he headed straight to the bathtub.

He lay down in the steaming, clean wooden bathtub with his feet submerged.

Even though the warm water could have taken away his consciousness from his tired body, his mind was only complicated.

His furrowed brows didn’t relax for a long time after that.

Intermittent, fragmented memories, the Empress’s Palace he had visited on his own, the heat of passionate touches in the middle of the night…

It was absurd. He wanted to insist that all of this was someone else’s memory.

And it inevitably flowed to one place in the end.

The last person he saw, Duke Diarob Snowfell.

The disgusting face that had held a smile was vivid.

One thing was certain.

That he had been manipulated by that bastard.

Vivian, the way that woman had glared at him as if venting her resentment, was superimposed.

It was a ridiculous thing. Would she claim that she didn’t know about her father’s schemes this time as well?

His face, submerged in the water, lingered there for a long time.

As if trying to sink all the memories in his head under the surface.

The more he did that, the more they only rose.

This was the method Rachel often used a long time ago.

Her words rang in his mind like tinnitus as he was submerged.

“When you have a lot on your mind, you know. If you stay in the water like this for a while and come out, everything gets washed away.”

The face that emerged after a long time was pale. As if he had removed all the color from his face while underwater.

As a large hand brushed back his hair, water droplets fell through the gaps.

They tapped on his heart and soon became a whirlwind, stirring his insides.

With a hardened face, Casius roughly dried himself and stepped out of the bathroom.

Casius looked at his wretched appearance reflected in the mirror.

Even when submerged in water or breathing air, only thoughts of you come to mind, what am I supposed to do?

Nothing was washed away. No, it will never be washed away.

Contrary to that ridiculous truth, the mirror held a body engraved with Vivian’s traces.

The naked body reflected in the mirror made the previous night even more vivid.

The marks that weren’t even left as scars despite being pulled strongly due to being as soft as cotton, the nail marks from clinging deeply, the reddened body…

The Empress’s moans that came to mind each time.

It was impossible to make all that time as if it never happened.

The Empress must have laughed at him. As if asking why he had been pushing her away all this time if he was going to take her in the end driven by desire.

Last night, he had mistaken Vivian for Rachel.

The problem was that he had let his guard down after hearing the rumors about the monster in Winterdell.

After that, for some reason, he thought that the Empress might be telling the truth.

That Vivian might have become a Wolfdor, not a Snowfell, as the Empress said.

A woman who would throw her life away for him and cut out her family.

Wasn’t it a truly perplexing thing?

Was that why? In his drunken, hazy mind, Vivian had taken on Rachel’s form and swirled around.

In that confusion, he had only been desperate to have her last breath with his thirsty touch. Like a madman.

Yes. He was indeed a madman.

‘Otherwise, there’s no way I would have mistaken Vivian for Rachel.’

A scoff scattered in the air. No matter what Diarob had done, in the end, he was the one who committed that act.

It was hard to bear how much he loathed himself.

Bang- Consecutive cracking sounds echoed in the air.

Startled by the noisy cracking, Tikan slightly opened the door, saw the naked body in the mirror, and quietly locked the door.

No sooner had he done that than the door swung open.

Although momentarily startled, Tikan’s face turned ashen upon seeing his lord’s expression.

Casius, barely wearing a robe, looked like a ferocious wolf in a foul mood, hardly believable as someone who had just spent his first night.

His face, frozen like an ice field, was as cold as if a north wind was blowing.

That face slowly turned and met Tikan’s.

“Investigate Diarob’s whereabouts right now.”

Casius clenched his fist.

As Tikan hesitated at the sudden order, unbelievable words continued from Casius’s mouth.

“There was something strange in my drink yesterday.”

“You mean in Your Majesty’s drink? But yesterday, the chief attendant thoroughly inspected everything of Your Majesty’s…”

Casius’s eyes sank as he looked at the bewildered Tikan.

“Lord Siron’s celebratory drink.”

“…!”

“That bastard spiked it with something disrespectful.”

Casius’s teeth clenched.

Thinking about it again, it was just the kind of trick Diarob would pull.

Even if a problem arose, it would be due to Lord Siron’s celebratory drink, and that couldn’t be punished.

Lord Siron would be implicated in some way.

Understanding the entire situation, Tikan gripped his sword.

“I should have been more careful… I apologize.”

Casius’s blue gaze, shifted to the window, caught the high spire of the Empress’s Palace.

Even as time passed, Casius remained motionless.

Watching the sun slowly setting over the spire’s roof, he thought of Vivian.

Desperate eyes, trembling fingertips clinging to him, violet eyes that even looked earnest… followed by the woman who turned pale white as if hurt.

The body that trembled with a miserable and even pitiful demeanor, the face covered in humiliation.

Everything was telling him. That she had been unaware of yesterday’s events.

Vivian was not the loyal dog of Snowfell as she had said.

Rather than believing the Empress, the facts so far made it impossible to deny it.

The Benedict trade route, the rumors about Winterdell… Everything had turned out as the Empress said.

Now that the conclusion had been reached, he suddenly became curious.

‘Why did that woman choose me over her family?’

Was it really because of this damn face?

It was nonsense. Doing such a thing because of a face.

Surely that woman was hiding something. What could it be?

‘Did she have so much pent-up that she wanted revenge on her family?’

Amidst his complicated thoughts, the words the Empress had recited in passing rippled.

“Wasn’t it you who also took the same stance as me?”

Wasn’t it the Empress who had gone ahead and entered alone on the coronation day, saying she would enter by herself?

The Empress’s eyes, looking wronged as she said those words, made Casius’s head even more muddled.

His mouth opened only for a moment.

“Find out why the Empress entered first on the coronation day.”

“Understood.”

Watching Tikan’s retreating back, Casius mocked himself.

What if that woman Vivian’s words were true? What would he do then? What did it matter?

Did the truth really matter in this situation?

All he needed to remember was that she was a terrible Snowfell and an enemy to point his sword at.

Whether she was a tool being used according to her father’s will or not, what did that have to do with him?