Leaving the farm with Borich’s timid farewell hidden behind the door.

I walked around the lake briefly while the carriage waited.

Too many things had happened in one day.

The sense of accomplishment was fleeting.

My limbs felt heavy as if weighted down with sandbags, and my eyes burned.

More than the deep fatigue, what troubled me was not the reality of being denied rest, but the persistent loneliness.

‘Where should I go? I don’t want to be alone in a dark room.’

The imperial palace was not my home.

Even if I returned to the Emster mansion, I would be alone.

Though I had become much wealthier and more beautiful than in my past life, my solitary existence remained the same.

I had no affectionate younger sister like Susan, nor a dependable elder brother like Douglas.

On a day like today, even troublemakers like Franz or Bormann might seem endearing.

No matter how much I pretended to be fine and brave, I couldn’t overcome the sudden, piercing loneliness.

Why am I so weak?

How long must I live like this?

What’s the meaning of continuing this life that has already ended once?

Perhaps due to the loneliness consuming me from within, I heard a faint hallucination.

“Elizabeth.”

A deep yet clear baritone voice.

The more I thought about it, the more I hated it, yet I kept wanting to hear that voice carried on the wind.

A bitter smile rose up, wondering if I still hadn’t come to my senses even after such a miserable experience.

“What? Nikolai.”

I replied tersely.

It’s just a delusion and talking to myself anyway, so what does it matter if I speak informally?

Nikolai must be spending sweet time with his new empress.

Yet here I was, foolishly conjuring his voice.

‘Elizabeth? Was there such a woman? We won’t see her again, so tell her to move out. Find a new education officer befitting the imperial standards.’

He might have already given such orders to Careth.

But why am I.

What’s so great about this loneliness?

What’s this yearning all about?

“You’re not even calling me ‘Your Majesty’?”

“Yeah! What?! It’s bad enough I’m hearing hallucinations, should I use honorifics too?”

“Hallucinations?”

“Yes, you. I’m hearing the hallucination of a man named Nikolai who has a natural talent for being two-faced, capricious, and toying with people.”

“Am I really that terrible?”

“The real worst is me for missing such a guy.”

Saying it out loud made me feel even more unsettled.

It was bitter and disheartening to voice the feelings I had been denying.

I didn’t realize my feelings for Nikolai had grown this deep.

I just wanted to ignore it.

But I couldn’t escape Nikolai in reality, in dreams, or even in delusions.

When Nikolai’s apparition appeared with his back to the moonlight, my self-loathing deepened.

“Are you saying you missed me…?”

The voice, full of disbelief yet somehow hopeful, became clearer.

I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand.

Nikolai’s apparition gradually became more distinct in the moonlight.

His black hair, once gleaming and glossy, was now disheveled, and bluish veins stood out under his eyes.

Why had he lost so much weight?

His already sharp jawline now cut an even sharper angle.

Only his eyes, glinting beneath shadowed brow bones, remained the same.

Those green blades that ensnared my soul and laid bare even the feelings I wanted to hide.

‘What? It’s not a hallucination or an apparition?!’

The air around me froze in an instant.

It was always like this when Nikolai approached.

“Your, Your Majesty, is it really you?”

It wasn’t an apparition.

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

How could Nikolai be here?

What, did he come to get me?

My stiffened blood vessels began to flutter.

My heart was acting up too.

I had repeatedly told myself I didn’t need someone like Nikolai, that he was just a worn-out playboy.

I had been transforming inexplicable feelings of betrayal and nowhere-to-go disappointment into contempt and hatred every day.

Yet that man, just standing quietly before me, rendered me powerless.

He dropped another spark deep into my heart.

As if I had become a special woman incomparable to anyone else.

“What brings you here when you must be busy ruling the country and making an empress?”

It was a sarcastic, curt reply.

Why do I have to act so awkwardly aloof?

Can’t I just react nonchalantly?

Cold sweat beaded on my palms.

Even if I had inherited everything from a femme fatale, my core was still just a lifelong single.

All I knew about romance was from novels.

That’s why everything surrounding Nikolai was overwhelmingly confusing.

Not just words, but even gestures and gazes were beyond my control.

My clumsy floundering looked unseemly.

Especially after confessing that I had missed him.

“I had to come, no matter how busy. Because of someone who keeps breaking the contract at every opportunity.”

“You’re stealing my lines.”

“I’m not someone who breaks promises. Unlike you.”

“Why are you making such a serious joke?”

“How is any of this a joke?”

Nikolai’s lips drew into a tight line.

He seemed to be forcibly swallowing something he wanted to say.

Is he feeling wronged? About what exactly?

My emotions flared up again.

I could barely see straight.

“You abandoned me and left, then showed up with a new woman. In just a week.”

“…”

“How can someone who doesn’t even keep contracts talk about promises?”

“Hey, I…”

“Don’t say anything.”

I wanted to stop being shaken.

I wanted to end this cycle of misunderstanding and disappointment alone.

The unfamiliar heat rising at odd times and the heart that quickly turned cold were strange.

It was hard to endure him pushing me away and turning his back.

I hated myself for still wanting to believe in Nikolai even after such ruthless rejection, and I hated that bottomless foolishness.

“I don’t want to hear any circumstances. I’m not curious either.”

“You won’t even give me a chance to explain?”

“Did you give me a chance to object?”

I coldly retorted.

A deep wrinkle etched itself between Nikolai’s brows, as if it would never fade.

“I must be an easy woman to Your Majesty. We kissed as soon as we met. I cried and made a drunken scene. Not only that, I even signed a frivolous contract.”

“You’re going too far.”

“I thought we had a contract, but it seems Your Majesty was just playing a game.”

“I never did that.”

“Then why do you only appear to touch me when you’re bored?”

A bitter sadness seeped into Nikolai’s beautiful face.

He stood rigidly like a tree weathering a storm, but his tightly clenched fists trembled like willow leaves in a gentle breeze.

“What about you? Didn’t you go to your ex-fiancé’s house and in and out of some guy’s villa, your ex-boyfriend or whoever?”

“Ex-boyfriend? You mean that farmer?”

“And you’re almost like real sisters with Douglas’s younger sister, aren’t you?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Everything matters. Who you meet, who you talk to, who you smile at.”

Nikolai’s voice was more agitated than ever before.

The green flames in his eyes blazed fiercely.

As if they would burn down this entire area, the enormous flames seemed to scorch even my heart.

“Do you think it was easy to come here? Making me into a worthless man who can’t even fulfill his father’s last wish.”

His father’s last wish? What’s this about now?

I pushed back my fallen hair with my cold hand.

Nikolai spoke without even taking a breath.

“Who is it that’s turning everything upside down, being toyed with by vulgar men?”

“!”

“Are you truly trying to make me a tyrant? One who would turn the slums into a sea of flames?”

I couldn’t understand what he was saying.

It didn’t seem like Nikolai himself understood what he was saying either.

The area around his eyes turned red.

Thick veins bulged on his neck.

I must be really crazy.

To find that appearance so alluring that I can barely breathe.

‘Were you secretly watching me? Instead of having a lavish party in the harem?’

“Did you have me followed?”

“I protected you. In secret.”

“I never asked for that.”

“I don’t move on commission either.”

“Then why?”

“I don’t know either. But I won’t stop. Protecting you, that is.”

Is it a pledge, a confession?

Or is it a threat?

He clearly seems angry, but why does he look so pitiful, like a child trembling in fear?

I reached out to him with both arms.

I cupped his cold cheeks, feeling the tension, in my hands.

The trembling transmitted through my palms.

Am I strange for thinking Nikolai’s gaze softens for a moment like a sulking cat, then suddenly looks like an enraged beast?

“Elizabeth. Do you dislike me like this?”

“I’m not sure.”

“If you dislike it, I will disappear. From before you.”

His eyes were more sincere than ever before.

He was pushing me into a corner and demanding a choice.

I was annoyed by his stubbornness, and felt foolish for having my heart stolen again even as I was annoyed.

Suddenly, an unfamiliar chill ran down my back.

I felt a clearly changed atmosphere somewhere.

I had seen it before. Yes, in the library!

“Please stop this.”

“So you’re saying you dislike it.”

With those final words, Nikolai’s body fell backwards.

Splash!

There wasn’t even time to scream.

I couldn’t tell if it was intentional or an accident.

The lake, darker than the night sky, sucked him in.

Completely submerged, he didn’t resurface.

“Your Majesty?! This joke has gone too far! Come out right now!”

Only concentric circles formed on the water’s surface, with no response.

Why is this man doing such strange things?

Why is he doing such crazy things?

There was no time to hesitate.

Tearing my cumbersome skirt, I plunged into the lake.

To save the clearly insane tyrant.

When Claudia met Douglas in the slums, she couldn’t easily strike up a conversation.

It was the same when she arrived at the Marquis of Nettleton’s mansion at his invitation.

Instead of meaningless pleasantries, Douglas poured her the cheap rum she used to enjoy drinking.

‘Douglas has changed somehow. His shoulders have broadened, and there’s something resolute in his eyes.’

It wasn’t the intuition of a highly skilled warrior, but that of a woman who had long observed one man.

Douglas’s unique atmosphere that put those around him at ease remained the same.

His tall, slender frame and pink hair that looked as sweet as flower petals hadn’t changed either.

The childhood friend she could never forget, no matter how hard she tried.

Years of not being able to express the heart-pounding excitement or the desire to share a future together.

Douglas’s eyes had always been chasing after another woman, not Claudia.

That villainess who seduced the emperor and disrupted the order of the empire.

“Why did you go to the slums anyway?”

Douglas asked.

Relieved that the uncomfortable silence had ended, Claudia brought the glass to her lips.

“To understand how the country is running, you have to start by looking at the slums.”

“A civil affairs inspection right after returning. You’re the same as ever, Radia.”

“And why were you there?”

“To buy medicinal herbs Susan asked for.”

“And?”

“I couldn’t buy them. No, I couldn’t even dare to try.”

Douglas replied bitterly.

It wasn’t the face of someone disappointed about not being able to buy herbs.

As if embarrassed to have revealed his inner thoughts to an old friend after so long, he quickly changed the subject.

“How does it look to the Knight Commander? Does the country seem to be running well?”

“It’s still a mess. There’s so much to fix from start to finish.”

“Is that all?”

“Hmm. I saw a very interesting woman.”

“Interesting? It’s the first time I’ve heard you say something like that?”