Every time I tried to breathe through my nose and mouth, the cold water relentlessly rushed in. Submerged and emerged dozens of times.

‘Someone, please help…!’

Screaming for help, struggling, nothing changed. In the end, my heavy body began to sink beneath the lake.

I was scared.

The deep, cold water that even my toes couldn’t touch.
With all one’s might, one’s own desperate cry, even if shouted, goes unheard by anyone.

‘As I am……’

At that moment when the body was sinking into darkness like that. Something grabbed and pulled her hand.

At the same time, the body gradually began to rise.

‘Who is it.’

When she opened her eyes to confirm the owner of the hand that saved her, what she saw was…

‘…Light?’

It was a warm light.

Whether already dead, seeing something empty. In that unreal scene, as she was about to close her eyes again.

I could escape from the water.

“Cough, cough!”

“Are you okay?!”

At that chaotic moment when I barely spat out water after coming out of the lake. A stranger’s voice approached and patted my back.

“T-Thank you……”

I thought it must be an adult. The one who saved me was a young boy with shiny silver hair.

‘No way.’

“…Am I already dead?”

“What?”

The boy, who had been momentarily dumbfounded by my foolish question, burst into laughter. Then he messed up my hair a lot.

“Who said you died? You’re perfectly alive like this.”

In response to the boy’s words, I pinched my right arm hard.

“…I really didn’t die.”

“Instead, you almost died. It’s not safe to fool around near water like a lake.”

“Dangerous prank?”

When Lena looked around at the boy’s question, her brothers were already gone.

It seemed that the boy thought he was alone and playing by the lakeside, and then fell into the water.

“No, I…”

For some reason, when I was about to protest against being treated like a naive child, the couple who seemed to be the boy’s parents approached.

“Belige!”

They immediately checked the boy all around, making sure he wasn’t injured. Clearly, these parents loved and cherished their son.

Unlike me.

“I’m fine.”

“You’ll catch a cold, let’s go quickly…!”

The boy, who reassured his parents, turned around to take care of me, who had fallen into the water.

“Oh, here’s the little girl… huh?”

At the boy’s pointed finger, only wet soil indicated that I had been in that spot.
I didn’t want the boy to see my miserable appearance for no reason.

With a tilt of his head, the boy, who had been searching for me for a while, seemed to give up and followed his parents, leaving the lakeside.

Only then did I quietly repeat the boy’s name that came from behind the tree.

“Belige….”

To remember that name.

He was the first person to reach out to me.

And so, ten years passed.

With magic manifesting belatedly, I ended up living in the Crystal Palace instead of the townhouse of the Dunaemis family in the capital.

Due to the lack of magic, the tasks assigned to me were only trivial things, but on one day, while going to the library for an errand, I accidentally bumped into a man. As a result, the stack of books in my arms collapsed with a loud noise.

“I will help you.”

“Ah, thank you…”

To express my gratitude to the man who helped pick up the fallen books, I looked at him.

However, as soon as I saw the man’s face, I couldn’t say anything and froze in place.

Silver hair sparkling like sunlight breaking on the lake and golden eyes.

Even though the boy’s youthfulness and gentle voice were no longer present, I could recognize him at a glance.

‘Belige.’

How could I forget?

Even after all this time, he remained like the sun.

That way, I naturally fell in love with Belige, like the order of nature.

A very intense one-sided love.

“It’s useless.”

As always, on that day too, I was looking at Belige from afar. Then a man approached me and spoke.

“There’s a rumor that Duke Permanence will soon be engaged to the saint.”

‘Who is he?’

Certainly, it seemed like someone I knew, but I couldn’t remember who. Frowning at the man’s words, who seemed to know me, I couldn’t recall who he was.

“So, how about that man giving up? Anyway, you and the duke can never be together.”

Although I felt uncomfortable with the man’s confident words as if he had seen the future, I couldn’t deny them.

The saint, loved by everyone, and the radiant holy knight, even in my eyes, made a perfect pair.

And meeting everyone’s expectations, the two were always together, everywhere.

‘Why…’

I realized it first.

I liked him first.

With deep frustration and burning jealousy, a sense of resentment began to simmer in my heart. The man I had wanted so desperately was that man.

I wanted to have him.

At any cost.

‘But how…?’

Lost like a child wandering, at that time.

Someone whispered in my ear.

“Do you want to have Belige?”

Once again, it was that man.

The man who murmured only the words I didn’t want to hear.

“I’ll help you.”
Just a short while ago, I insisted that it could never happen. However, despite saying that, I found myself grabbing the man’s hand as if possessed by something.

“It’s very easy.”

The man, as if he had been waiting, firmly held onto my hand.

Making it so that I couldn’t escape from his grip.