The Empress' Scandalous Paramour - Chapter 1

Chapter 1. We were just another cliché love story and common betrayal.

“Love is like a dog.”

At some point, my eldest sister told me.

The profanity uttered in an elegant tone was just funny at the time.

“Stop laughing and take it to heart, little one. It could be your story too.”

My second eldest sister stroked my head and whispered gracefully.

The seven sisters got along well, but I always fought with the second eldest. Perhaps because her tone was quite impertinent.

“Especially don’t fall in love with a human man. With an alluring face and a cunning tongue, he’ll try to covet everything you have. Before you know it, you’ll end up giving him all your money, body, and dreams. And you’ll still smile and say it’s good.”

My third eldest sister gave the longest and most serious advice.

Of course, I barely listened to that as well.

There was no particular reason.

At the time, I was still young and there were many more interesting things in the world than men.

And above all… my sisters’ failures were not my failures.

‘Ah, if only I had known… I should have taken it to heart.’

Was that just a flashback?

Coughing up clots of black blood, I blinked my eyes with difficulty. For a moment, my blurry vision cleared.

But I knew well that this was just a phenomenon that occurs briefly right before death.

After all, a candle burns brightest just before it goes out, consuming its wick.

I looked down at the sword that had mercilessly pierced through my chest and even penetrated the wall of some house.

As I slid my gaze from that cold instrument of murder wrapped in sacred radiance, I saw a hand so beautiful and neat that it was hard to believe it belonged to a man.

The very hand I had held together entering the wedding hall just this morning… His hand.

My husband’s hand.

For an instant, thick veins bulged on the back of the hand gripping the sword hilt.

As if even the gaze of his dying wife was displeasing, he immediately twisted the blade.

“Kuhak…!”

Crack. Despite the commotion of dying people’s screams all around, the sound of my spine breaking echoed loudly inside me.

It was the very moment my sisters had warned me about.

The moment of bitter betrayal.

Black blood gushes out once again with a heave. After the extreme pain, I could no longer feel anything.

“…Why did you come down here, darling.”

The detestable man knelt on one knee on the floor soiled with my blood.

As if he still loved the one who had become his wife, despite reducing her to this miserable state, tears of blood trickled down his cheeks. It wasn’t even funny.

“I told you… to wait at home. If you had… I wouldn’t have had to kill you.”

Ha!

I wanted to laugh sharply, but it was frustrating that I couldn’t. My body temperature was rapidly dropping. There was no way to revive this body.

‘How did I not know? How!’

That you were the captain of the Holy Knights, the Crusade!

A ringing in my ears buzzed. It felt as if someone had cut off my head and was rolling it in a barrel of rotten wine.

I loved him madly.

I still remember the wheat ripening to a golden color and the slightly chilly air. The high, clear autumn sky. The shepherd standing absentmindedly gazing at the white daytime moon.

He was floundering, unable to control his flock while holding a staff as tall as himself.

“Um, thank you.”

When I caught a lamb that had run away down the ditch and brought it back, unable to watch any longer, he bowed his head with a shy smile.

Then his straw hat fell off his head… revealing platinum hair as brilliant as the rippling waves of grain.

That was when it happened.

The day when Astaroth, the youngest of the seven demon lords and the cruel king ruling the lowest level of hell, fell into an inescapable love.

I took that clumsy shepherd into my heart. Through him, I learned the preciousness of humans and the value of life. I also learned to cherish rather than despise the weak.

It was an act unbecoming of a demon, but that didn’t matter.

I could do anything if it meant making the man with a life as brief as a flash compared to mine happy.

My sisters warned me that I was losing myself. They advised that a proper demon never settles down, that it’s right to have multiple lovers and reign over them, but I didn’t listen.

Rather, I got angry and even cut off contact, telling them not to interfere.

And finally… I wanted to live like a human!

Foolishly, I wanted to get married, have children, and raise them. I wanted to leave his trace in the form of offspring.

But for a demon, normalcy was just an illusion, and his love was stinking garbage.

My dull wish blinded my eyes and blocked my ears. It made me see only what I wanted to see and hear only what I wanted to hear.

This death now was the price for a cliché love.

“Enrique!”

That’s when it happened.

A human woman with sorrowful beauty came running from somewhere and tightly hugged his back.

Her pink hair, as lovely as a spring spirit, fluttered loosely in the air.

So frail she seemed not even a handful, the woman shed tears profusely.

…I didn’t know who she was.

“Oh, my poor Enri! My love. You must have suffered so much?”

“…Helene.”

“It’s alright. You did well. If you bring this demon’s corpse, His Majesty will surely make you the crown prince!”

Information about my husband that I didn’t know poured out from the lips of this woman like a freshly bloomed flower.

It was shocking enough that he was a holy knight with the power to kill demons, but a prince? That my life was needed for him to become the crown prince.

‘I don’t know such a man.’

The one I loved was a shepherd.

I mean, a simple and naive man who couldn’t even properly care for a single lamb and floundered about.

‘I was deceived. Completely deceived. It was a calculated approach from the beginning.’

Knowing that I frequently appeared in that area, you…

Must have thoroughly concealed your holy power and waited.

A feeling of emptiness swept over my entire body.

As I giggled in disbelief, the woman who peeked out from behind him widened her eyes.

Seeing that sight, all I could do in my gut-wrenching state was utter a tragic curse.

“I curse you, Enrique! Every moment I loved you is a disgrace to me!”

Ah, my vision blurs just from raising my voice a little.

So this is what death is like.

“I… curse you…”

Rage surged as if my soul had been thrown into a fire pit, but my parched lips closed before I could finish my last words.

For an instant, I saw his lips trembling as if he wanted to say something to me. No, I didn’t see. My vision was flickering. My life was fading away.

“It’s your fault. Making me kill you…”

The last words he spoke were worth less than dust.

That’s how I died in vain.

Wearing the wedding dress I had dreamed of so excitedly, on my wedding night.

It was the day the sun crashed in my world.

* * *

How much time had passed since then?

“The blizzard stopped yesterday, so the weather is nice today.”

When I faintly regained consciousness, the first thing I heard was a low, quiet voice.

Even before opening my eyes, it was clear that it belonged to a young man without having to see.

“Your Majesty likes the scenery full of pure white snow, don’t you? That’s right, if you wake up now, I’ll make a snowman for you. How about it?”

With a rustle, the sound of curtains being drawn back followed the caring tone.

Soon after, sunlight so intense it felt pure white attacked my eyes.

“…!”

I felt nauseous. I inhaled sharply and curled up, embracing the pain spreading throughout my body.

‘What… is going on? I clearly died…’

Gritting my teeth, I very slowly awakened my body’s senses.

First, starting from the tips of my ice-cold toes. Then my calves trembling like a lamb… my thighs.

It didn’t take much time to assess every corner of my body as I moved up to where my heart should be beating.

“If you open your eyes, I’ll carry Your Majesty on my back all the way past the rear garden. You always begged me to do so, but I was disloyal and never did it even once.”

Ah, it hurts. I felt sick and dizzy.

It was because my physical condition was so poor. As if I would shatter right away if someone just tapped me.

‘I’m like a glass artwork that’s already cracked.’

After gasping for breath for a while, I was finally able to slowly lift my eyelids.

‘Who is that? A face I don’t know.’

A ceiling painted with grandiose murals. A crystal chandelier so dazzling it hurt my eyes. And beneath it… a tall, muscular knight.

‘Could it be a holy knight?’

Wariness surged along with anger that had not yet subsided.

Forcing myself to sit up, I tried to extend my demonic hand to grab his throat.

“…”

But nothing happened.

It was the same no matter how many times I flailed my hand.

‘What’s going on? Why… why isn’t my magic power generating?’

As I froze in shock, the knight’s eyes met mine.

“…Your Majesty the Empress?”

With short ash-gray hair and ash-gray eyes, he looked as if winter had been scooped up and molded into a person.

His sharp nose bridge gave a rather stubborn and obstinate impression, but his eyes, which looked like they might burst into tears at any moment, also seemed to have a submissive side.

The knight looked at me and froze for a moment.

Honestly, he looked like he might choke from surprise.

“Y-Your Majesty! Are you conscious? Your Majesty the Empress!”

Eventually, the knight cried out in surprise and knelt on one knee beside my bed.

Thud!

That sight reminded me of my last moments, and bile immediately rose in my throat.

“Urk…!”

“Doctor! Bring in a doctor right away! Her Majesty the Empress has regained consciousness!”

Empress?

Who on earth is he talking about?