“Do you know who you’re speaking to in that manner?”

Jeremy’s lips twisted.

The knights, unable to bear looking at his face, tightly shut their eyes.

“From tonight onwards, I will embrace you every day. Until you finally conceive my seed.”

“……”

“Who knows? I might even make you a consort, if not the empress, you insolent girl.”

Celiya inwardly mocked Jeremy’s vulgar words.

How could those in power be so uniformly filthy?

Instead of caring for the people, they think of using their power to oppress them. This Abelon deserves to perish.

Celiya decided not to reveal that Ileon had used drugs on the crown prince.

Instead, she chose to watch from the sidelines as they fought amongst themselves.

She thought she should quietly yet actively contribute to Abelon’s downfall by sowing discord between the royal family and the three dukes.

‘Father, Mother. Please watch from heaven. The end of these beasts worse than animals.’

If one truly doesn’t know who their enemy is, they should just kill everyone who might be an enemy.

At that moment, the knight who had gone to fetch the royal physician arrived.

“Your Highness, I’ve brought the royal physi……”

The knight couldn’t finish his words. The royal physician who followed, wiping sweat from his brow, also turned deathly pale.

“Your, Your Highness’s face……”

The royal physician reacted as if he had seen a monster.

Jeremy finally noticed something was amiss and felt his own face.

Where there should have been smooth skin, he felt something bumpy.

“Huh?”

Jeremy touched his cheek in disbelief. On his bumpy left cheek, there were lips instead of cheek.

Jeremy’s hands trembled. He shouted in shock.

“Bring me a mirror right now!”

The royal physician took out a round hand mirror slightly larger than a palm from his medicine box.

Jeremy snatched the hand mirror and looked at his face.

His once smooth skin had melted away, revealing white bone. Not only that, but his eyes, nose, and mouth were grotesquely distorted.

Monster.

His reflection in the mirror was more monstrous than any monster.

Jeremy dropped the hand mirror in shock.

Crash!

The shattered mirror fragments glittered on the white marble floor.

“This can’t be my face! What are you all doing, not killing that royal physician immediately!”

The knights hesitated. Jeremy, desperately denying reality, was not in his right mind.

“Why are you all just standing there like idiots!”

Jeremy angrily looked for Celiya. But Celiya had already disappeared from sight amidst the confusion.

“If you won’t do it, I’ll do it myself!”

Unable to control his anger, Jeremy drew the sword from a nearby knight.

The sharp blade pointed at the royal physician’s chest.

The royal physician, who had rushed here at the summons only to face sudden death, knelt on the floor, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Your Highness, please spare me! I’ve done nothing wrong.”

Not wanting to die, the royal physician quickly made a diagnosis.

“If my guess is correct, it seems someone has poisoned Your Highness. Might I ask what food you’ve eaten recently?”

“……”

Jeremy’s movement to kill the royal physician stopped.

Due to a hangover last night, Jeremy had only eaten one thing today.

−His Majesty had been thinking all day about not being able to attend Your Highness’s birthday banquet. As soon as he heard you had drunk a lot of wine, he ordered honey water and a letter to be sent to you.

The honey water from his mother.

Jeremy, feeling unwell, had eaten nothing else.

“That’s impossible.”

Jeremy muttered to himself. His mother, there’s no way his mother would do that.

How could his mother, who cared for him more than anyone, poison him?

Soon he would ascend to the throne and his mother would become empress dowager, so for what purpose?

“……”

Jeremy was overcome by a shock even greater than his ruined face.

Clearly, the handwriting on the letter and the honey water were identical to his mother’s without a doubt.

Moreover, Ben, who had delivered them, was a knight who had served by his mother’s side for over 20 years.

“There’s no way Mother would do this to me……”

Can you really say with certainty that she wouldn’t?

Jeremy knew better than anyone how strong his mother’s desire for power was.

While denying it was his mother, a suspicion lingered in a corner of his mind that she might have done it.

Erphia and Jeremy’s relationship had not been good recently.

When Jeremy, who had never shown interest in women, displayed great interest in Celiya, Erphia expressed deep disappointment in him.

Erphia, who had never missed Jeremy’s annual birthday banquet, didn’t even set foot in it this time.

‘No matter how strained our relationship, Mother wouldn’t ruin my face……”

Jeremy covered his hideous face with trembling hands.

‘What if Mother intends to make me a puppet emperor and seize control of the palace?’

Once sprouted, the suspicion spread uncontrollably.

“I, I need to see Mother right now.”

Celiya slipped out of the crown prince’s palace amidst the confusion.

She discovered a fountain located behind the palace. Celiya lowered herself onto a white bench next to the fountain.

Her silver hair sparkled in the sunlight.

Sitting on the bench with her hands resting on her knees, Celiya looked as beautiful as if she had just stepped out of a masterpiece painting.

The knights’ Adam’s apples bobbed as they gazed at Celiya.

They glanced at her with flushed cheeks, but no one dared approach her, branded as the crown prince’s mistress.

Celiya sat on the bench, listening to the voices of people here and there.

Already, words were leaking out from various places.

“I just heard that the crown prince’s face has turned into a monster.”

“What? Come on, don’t lie.”

“It’s not a lie. It’s true. My friend who works in His Highness’s palace saw it with his own eyes.”

The palace atmosphere was extremely unsettled.

−To be precise, it’s a poison that ruins the other person’s face. Even a small amount causes the face to melt horribly.

Celiya eavesdropped on people’s conversations, pondering why Ileon, who was said to be more emperor-like than the emperor, had done such a thing.

Indeed, her eyes had been accurate. Ileon, with his infinitely gentle face, was a cruel serpent.

‘Did he do this because he wants the throne?’

But there were too many strange points for that to be the case.

If he wanted it, he could have taken the throne anytime, so why resort to this trickery?

Moreover, why deliberately reveal the poison to Celiya?

‘Did he judge that I wouldn’t disclose this to anyone?’

Celiya narrowed her eyes.

Well, even if Celiya were to immediately say that Ileon was the culprit who ruined the crown prince’s face, no one would believe her words.

Even she, who knew it was Ileon’s doing, couldn’t understand why he had done such a thing, let alone the people who revered the three dukes like the heavens.

−You know nothing.

Dietrich’s words were right. Celiya knew nothing.

Living solely for revenge, she didn’t even realize that her direction was entirely misguided.

−Your real enemies are the three dukes.

Dietrich’s voice echoing in her ear was vivid.

She didn’t completely trust Dietrich’s words.

‘And yet……”

Celiya touched her lips. Recalling the kiss from earlier, she felt strange.

The kiss with him, whom she thought was cold, was unexpectedly very hot, tender yet rough.

For her first kiss ever, she didn’t dislike that it was with him.

‘Even though I started it.’

She pretended to be unbothered in front of Dietrich, but how could she be?

When she barely separated her lips, gasping for air, her lips were engulfed again.

Celiya may have initiated it, but Dietrich didn’t let her end it at her whim.

Their lips overlapped several times, their breaths intertwining.

Though not lovers, he acted like one.

Was it because of his ability that her body felt invigorated after kissing him?

If Dietrich had healing abilities as she suspected, acting together with him would be the best choice for Celiya.

‘He’s not from the Shan Kingdom, so does that mean he’s from the Inata Duchy?’

Celiya, once a princess of the Shan Kingdom, knew all the royalty by heart.

There was no one among the Shan royalty with such remarkable healing abilities.

‘I heard from Father that the upper class of the Inata Duchy have abilities like us. But if there was someone with such amazing healing power in Inata, I should have known.’

She thought his identity didn’t matter at all for her revenge.

But Celiya became curious about Dietrich’s true identity.

As Celiya was lost in thought, a large shadow fell over her head.

Celiya slowly closed and opened her eyes, clearing her thoughts.

A man with brown hair and tanned skin stood before her.

He was so large that he looked almost like a bear.

Wearing a black uniform, he had a huge longsword at his waist.

Under his rough eyebrows, the man’s dark gray eyes gleamed as sharp as blades.

“So you’re the famous angel of Brillion.”

The man before her burst into hearty laughter.

As people glanced at him for his eardrum-shattering laughter, the man looked around.

Celiya watched curiously as people hastily averted their gaze, lest they meet the man’s eyes.

“Who are you?”

“……You don’t know me?”

The man’s face was shocked.

“You really don’t know me? Are you crazy?”

“……”

“You know Ileon, but you don’t know me?”

Being able to casually use a duke’s name meant he was of high status.

‘Could he be one of the three dukes?’

Celiya narrowed her eyes as she looked up at the man before her.

“You don’t know the great Balt of House Portman!”

Celiya, having been practically confined in House Brillion, had heard of the three dukes’ fame but had never seen their portraits.

Moreover, Celiya had been lost in thought throughout the banquet, so she hadn’t paid attention to Balt standing behind Ileon.

“……Hello.”

As Celiya greeted him belatedly, Balt’s mouth fell open.