At the word “broken engagement”, his pupils dilated as if about to burst, then he hesitated and clenched his fist tightly.

At that moment, Kiyan approached him.

“Your Highness the Grand Duke!”

Kallion quickly hid his expression and spoke more coldly.

“If it’s about having to see the Emperor again, later……”

But Kiyan handed him someone’s letter and said,

“It is an order to depart for Gaudium right now.”

“Then?”

“Yes. You can go straight to the Red Forest.”

***

Letia, who had moved away from Asiz, felt drained of strength and even walking was precarious.

But she wanted to get away from Selene Palace.

Not just Selene Palace, but this imperial palace.

No, even farther.

‘Now that I’ve truly cut off all my past, I want to completely break away from the Gemma clan as well.’

“Once Serina is safely engaged and enters the imperial palace, will I get married too?”

The talk of marriage proposals was a lie.

But she wanted to if possible.

‘They say many nobles find Nebula mysterious and want to possess it.’

Not only is Nebula looked down upon by Gemma, but it’s also treated as an accessory by nobles.

Unable to dream of an ordinary marriage, the family might dispose of her as a mistress to such a noble.

‘But I don’t care. I just want to leave.’

She wanted to live simply as Letia, not as a failed existence, not as the former fiancée of the Crown Prince.

If marriage was the means to do so right now.

“Anyone will do.”

Anyway, now she had to meet Serina…

“Lady Letia.”

Just then, a maid approached her and bowed her head.

She spoke with her hair covering meticulously and in a very neat and stiff posture.

“Lady Serina has already departed for Gaudium.”

“But the departure was supposed to be tomorrow……”

“She left early because there was much to prepare, and said for you to hurry and follow.”

Letia’s gaze, which had been looking somewhat strangely at the maid’s hair covering, darkened at those words.

“……I see. Then let’s hurry.”

At that moment, as Letia stumbled and her body swayed, the maid immediately caught her.

“Ah, I’m sorry.”

She tilted her head.

‘It felt like something was pulling me…….’

“It’s nothing. But your hair is disheveled.”

The maid deeply buried her fingers in Letia’s ashen hair and smoothed it down.

At that touch, Letia felt a strange chill and pain simultaneously.

‘What is this?’

The maid hurriedly said to Letia,

“Let’s depart quickly.”

“……Yes.”

Something felt off, but since she had no choice to begin with, Letia obediently followed behind.

***

A strange wind brushed Kallion’s cheek.

He swallowed a trembling breath and pulled the reins.

At the end of Kallion’s gaze, the Red Forest boasting an overwhelming landscape came into view.

The Red Forest was literally a forest owned by the imperial family where all the trees were tinged red.

To reach Gaudium, the sacred place, one had to pass through this Red Forest, and due to the magic cast to protect the sacred place, if one did not enter through the designated entrance, they would be trapped in that forest forever unable to get out.

That entrance changed each time, but only the imperial family could know the true entrance.

“We’ve finally come here, Your Highness the Grand Duke.”

“Yes. Finally here.”

“To celebrate Your Highness’s hundredth victory at Gaudium, the sacred place, before the engagement ceremony. There’s nothing strange about it as a justification.”

“The justification may be so. But the Empress wouldn’t bestow blessings on me at the sacred place. A curse, perhaps.”

“It is indeed perfect for treating it as an accidental death even if deliberately killed.”

The letter sent by Empress Terisia asked him to come to Gaudium a day earlier than the engagement ceremony.

It was clearly a trap, but Kallion had to enter this Red Forest no matter what.

‘I don’t care what hell awaits, as long as I can find what I want there!’

“It’s much scarier than I thought? Let me prepare my mind for a moment… Huh? Your Highness? Your Highness! Let’s go together!”

Kallion entered the forest first, leaving behind Kiyan who was talking nonsense.

At that moment, suddenly the fog thickened and visibility was not properly secured.

As if trapped in the forest.

When Kallion instantly lost Kiyan, he wore a cold smile.

“Is it starting already?”

As expected, the entrance the Empress had told him was fake.

***

Letia hesitated when the carriage that had been running for a long time to go to Gaudium suddenly stopped.

‘What is it? Are we already there? That can’t be.’

After waiting for a moment, Letia carefully got up when she felt no sign from outside.

“Excuse me? Has something happened?”

But the outside was so quiet it was eerie in its silence.

As Letia, feeling strange, was about to open the carriage door.

Bang-!

“Ugh!”

Suddenly with an unknown explosion, the carriage shook greatly.

Letia trembled all over and shrank her body tightly.

‘What is it? What on earth is happening?’

When the outside seemed to calm down again, Letia took a deep breath.

‘Get a grip. You thought something would definitely happen.’

It was strange in itself that Serina, who was desperate to torment her, moved separately from her.

Letia carefully lifted the curtain of the window.

Outside, red trees were thickly wooded.

‘The Red Forest. Right. To go to Gaudium, we have to pass through this labyrinth. Then as I thought, only I was sent ahead to Gaudium and trapped here.’

Though her breath was choked with tension, when she bravely tried to open the carriage door once again, the door suddenly opened first.

“Ah!”

Before she could dodge, a sharp blade pointed at Letia’s throat.

But she forgot to breathe for a different reason.

Slightly disheveled black hair, flawless T-zone with innate facial contours and a sharp, high nose.

Especially, she could not take her eyes off the blood-red eyes that seemed to swirl.

“……Letia?”

As the man called her name precisely, Letia swallowed a trembling breath.

And Kallion’s breath trembled as much as Letia’s.

‘Why on earth are you here……’

At first he was flustered, but soon he stared intently at her face and opened his lips in a somewhat tense tone.

“It’s been a while……”

“I see. So it is like that.”

Kallion flinched at Letia’s voice full of wariness.

Letia looked at him with anxious eyes.

‘Seeing that he knows my name, he must be an assassin trying to kill me.’

Just in case, but as expected it was a trap.

Could it be Serina?

But can Serina use the Red Forest as she pleases?

‘Perhaps Serina asked uncle and got permission from the imperial family.’

After all, Letia’s uncle, the current head of House Crystallos, also regarded Letia as a stain on the family.

When her thoughts reached there, Letia’s mind became rather cold and her heart calm.

‘If I can’t escape this terrible fate unless I die.’

This life, it can’t be helped.

Letia grabbed the blade at her neck with an indifferent gaze. And just as she was about to slash her own throat.

“What are you doing!”

At Kallion’s scream-like shout, Letia startled and let go of her hand, and Kallion threw his sword to the floor and pulled her hand.

Blood pooled on her palm cut by the blade.

He frowned involuntarily and tore his clothes to tightly bind Letia’s palm.

Letia could not understand his actions.

“Um, excuse me. Aren’t you supposed to kill me?”

“What?”

At her bewildering behavior followed by those words, Kallion immediately grasped the situation.

‘Could it be she thinks I’m an assassin?’

When his thoughts reached there, Kallion’s heart grated coldly.

‘She doesn’t even remember me. Was it such an insignificant memory to you that you could forget so easily?’

Suddenly, as the afterimage of Letia and Asiz he had seen at Selene Palace flashed, he shook his head and coldly shook off Letia’s hand he was holding.

‘It’s the same for me too.’

Letia continued to eye him warily with a perplexed look.

Kallion ignored her and surveyed around the carriage.

‘There are traces of explosives deliberately detonated around here. It wasn’t her who was in the carriage. Someone lured me here.’

Probably to make me meet Letia.

That someone is surely Empress Terisia.

Then the reason I need to meet Letia is.

Kallion’s eyes sank even colder as he looked at Letia again.

‘The imperial family and House Crystallos are really using you until the end.’

They used Letia to trap him.

If he hadn’t recognized Letia, he might have disposed of her thinking she was the Empress’s person.

Even for a Nebula, if he killed a lady of House Crystallos, he would have become a criminal.

‘But to try to kill yourself……’

“I’m not someone trying to kill you.”

“Really?”

“If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it in one strike.”

Kallion examined Letia’s wound once more with his eyes before stepping back.

She nodded at his thoughtful consideration.

‘Right. An assassin would have no reason to treat me like this.’

“Then who are you? How do you know my name?”

At the question of who he was, Kallion tightly clenched his fist.

“Isn’t it stranger not to know? The former fiancée of Crown Prince Asiz.”

“Ah……”

Kallion’s voice came out sharply, and Letia unconsciously grasped her flowing ashen hair.

He found that sight irritating as well and spoke briefly.

“I’m not particularly interested in who you are. It seems we’ve both lost our way, so let’s part here.”

If she’s forgotten, it’s better not to get entangled.

As long as she has the blood of House Crystallos, it’s a relationship that won’t be good to be together anyway.