“You’re truly a chilling and dreadful woman.”

He spoke with coldly sunken eyes.

“Ha!”

A hollow laugh burst out.

“I don’t care if others curse and point fingers at me, calling me a villainess. But you shouldn’t do that.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

Jet-black hair and dark eyes.

He was an attractive man who seemed to embody the night sky itself.

However, what was contained in the eyes of that attractive man was a coldness so frigid it made one shudder.

“We’re divorced now, so you and I are strangers. Yet you’re the one who’s been stalking me at every turn and tormenting innocent people.”

“You’re the one who made me like this!”

A voice filled with resentment rang out.

“You tried to poison Lucia to death, and now you’re blaming me for it? Do you think shifting blame will erase your own faults?”

“Shifting blame? Do I look like I’m shifting blame to you right now? You haven’t changed at all. You don’t care about my feelings or sincerity at all.”

“Don’t change the subject. You’ll be brought to trial today. Save your excuses for there.”

“Hahahahaha! I don’t care what happens with the trial or anything else.”

Jeremiah furrowed his brow upon hearing Karina’s words.

“If you think you can escape, you’re mistaken. Even your precious family won’t be able to help you this time.”

“Did you think I’d beg for mercy if you said that? I don’t even care about my life.”

Karina looked at him with piercing eyes.

“I just find it unbearably disgusting how shamelessly you’re trying to be the only one who’s happy.”

“You still show no remorse to the end.”

Jeremiah sighed wearily and pressed his temples as he turned away.

Seeing his retreating back, she had a feeling this was the last time.

Along with her resentment, a question she had never been able to voice before burst out. She wanted to ask it one last time.

“Was there ever a time when you were sincere with me?”

Jeremiah’s footsteps came to an abrupt halt at Karina’s question.

“…Even once. Even if it was just pity.”

Karina clutched at her chest. She pressed her clenched fist hard against her heart.

Her chest… her heart ached.

“Did you ever treat me sincerely even once?”

Jeremiah’s expression as he turned to look at Karina was as cold as ice.

“Why should I have?”

Only Jeremiah’s voice rang out clearly in the silent room.

Suddenly, a chilling cold swept through the entire room as if icy water had been poured over it.

The heavy silence plunged Karina into despair like a deep quagmire.

The gazes of Karina and Jeremiah tangled complexly in mid-air.

“Don’t misunderstand. I never gave you my heart for even a moment.”

With those final words, Jeremiah left her side without lingering.

He was gone, but the words he left behind still constricted Karina.

“…Hahahahahahahahaha.”

After standing dazed for a while, Karina laughed like a madwoman.

It was a fact she had already known.

She knew, but hearing it directly from his mouth like this was piercingly painful and agonizing.

Tears that had rolled down her cheeks dripped below her chin. Foolishly, tears fell. Yet only laughter came from her mouth.

It was futile. She felt unbearably miserable and wretched, abandoned.

That’s why dry laughter kept escaping her.

Poor Karina.

A foolish woman who stupidly clung to and was dragged along by feelings that would never be reciprocated.

Lonely and pitiful Karina, without a single person in the world to love her wholly.

Karina decided to burn away this emotion that was left as just a shell, worn down and tattered.

It was a distorted love-hate that could hardly be called love.

She truly wanted to end it now.

If this tangled skein couldn’t be unraveled, it had to be cut.

By her own hand.

With trembling fingers, Karina pulled out a small glass vial hidden in her sleeve.

‘This potion will grant your wish.’

Those were the words she had heard when receiving the vial.

‘I want to end all of this.’

Without hesitation, Karina opened the lid and drank the potion.

Her vision blurred hazily. A sharp pain surged through her heart numbed by sorrow.

Her body crumpled and collapsed onto the cold floor. Feeling the chill rising from the floor she touched, Karina closed her eyes.

[This is the timeline separator]

Karina Millainer.

The only daughter of the Millainer viscounty and wife of Jeremiah Colsberg, Grand Duke of the Empire.

Karina Millainer was a villainess.

She wasn’t a villainess from the beginning.

Originally, she had a timid and quiet personality. But after marrying Grand Duke Jeremiah and becoming the Grand Duchess, she revealed her true nature.

She tormented innocent maids with all sorts of cruelty and did not hesitate to cause disturbances that would make one frown.

When Jeremiah, unable to bear it any longer, demanded a divorce, rather than reflecting and restraining herself, she acted even more viciously.

As her violence worsened day by day, even Jeremiah’s patience reached its limit.

In the end, she was divorced, almost as if being abandoned.

However, Karina’s obsession and madness did not subside even after the divorce. Rather, it became even more extreme.

She followed Jeremiah around, interfering and obstructing him at every turn.

She even fiercely opposed Jeremiah’s remarriage, using every method to sabotage it.

After persistently harassing his new partner, she finally attempted to poison her.

Her evil deeds, which had gone beyond limits, were enough to incur the anger of Jeremiah and the nobles.

Eventually, the villainess Karina was arrested and brought to trial.

Along with the charge of attempting to poison the beautiful and kind Lucia, as well as all her evil deeds up until then.

She was set to receive the stern judgment of the law.

A vicious and violent madwoman.

That was the public opinion Karina heard before her death.

‘That’s me, indeed.’

Karina smiled crookedly.

She got up from the bed and looked out the window.

Beyond the mountainside, dawn was breaking as the sun rose.

Early this morning.

Karina opened her eyes in the bed of the room she used to use.

‘This is… my old room.’

Karina had used separate rooms even after marrying Jeremiah.

Busy with work, Jeremiah used the room next to his office as his bedroom. Since it wasn’t a marriage based on love anyway, he probably didn’t feel the need to share a room.

Of course, that was from Jeremiah’s perspective.

Karina, who sincerely liked Jeremiah, was very hurt by his behavior that seemed to draw a line. But she tried hard to comfort herself, thinking it was an unavoidable choice due to his busy work.

She didn’t want to do anything that might disturb or annoy him.

This bedroom was the place she used during that awkward period.

‘He clearly said it was a potion that grants wishes.’

Karina frowned and looked around the room once.

She saw a frame decorated with dried flowers from the bouquet she had used at the wedding.

It was a frame she had wanted to cherish, but it had broken just a month after the wedding due to a maid’s mistake.

‘He said it would grant my wish, so why did I come back 3 years ago?’

In her final moment, what Karina wished for was to end everything.

For this moment to end.

For all ties of connection to be severed so that she would no longer be miserable.

Yet strangely, she had returned to right after the wedding.

‘Is this punishment rather than a wish? To repeat this wretched past once again?’

Knock knock.

Before she could give permission to enter, the door opened.

“It’s time for you to wake up.”

The maid who entered with indifferent eyes was surprised to find me already standing in front of the window.

“You’re up early for once. You need to get ready and go for breakfast.”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“Pardon?”

“I said I don’t feel like it…”

I cast a glance at the maid who had come to announce meal time.

Her drooping eyes looked familiar.

Suddenly, I wondered if this situation was exactly the same as 3 years ago.

“I’ll get ready and go down on my own. Leave.”

“…?”

The maid looked at me with a puzzled expression for a moment.

“What? Do you have something else to say?”

“No, ma’am.”

The maid shook her head and left the room without another word.

“…How rude.”

In the past, Karina had been bullied by the maids.

Subtle disrespect and harassment, trivial but annoying enough not to ignore.

For instance, towels with an unpleasant smell, or secretly mixing urushiol powder into her makeup powder.

Or decorating the room with ragweed flowers that cause coughing and allergies, such childish and petty tricks.

I remember it started around this time.

I habitually ran my palm along the inside of the clothes hanging in the wardrobe. It was to check for any pins or needles.

‘Good. It’s not that bad yet.’

I changed into clean clothes and left the room.

As I entered the dining room, I saw that the maids had set up a place setting for one person, just like in the past.

As I sat down, the maids brought out the food.

Karina silently looked at the food placed on the table.

A salad hastily made with wilted ingredients on the verge of spoiling, a steak covered in salt and pepper.

A reddish-brown stew that smelled so foul it was hard to guess what had been put in it, with all sorts of things mixed in.

Even the tableware was dirty and unsanitary, not properly washed.

‘Nothing much has changed.’

The first time I received such treatment, I endured it without knowing why.

Not knowing why they were doing this to me, or who had ordered it.

I was an idiot who couldn’t even speak up, anxious about possibly falling out of favor with the Grand Duke’s family.

I just thought that perhaps the Grand Duke’s household had unusually strict rules. That the maids were just clumsy and made frequent mistakes.

I even believed that Jeremiah’s lack of attention was simply due to him being unavoidably negligent because of his busy work.

I only had foolish thoughts like how I should correct the maids’ ill-mannered behavior at an appropriate time once I settled in.

Back then, I didn’t know the reason why they showed hostility towards me…

I didn’t even guess the reason for the continued mistreatment, filled with malice, contempt, and unpleasantness.

Now I know.

Lost in thought, Karina raised her head and shifted her gaze to the maid who had brought the meal.

Her gaze was as cold as the chilled food.

“Are you telling me to eat this?”

“Is there a problem?”

The maid asked back shamelessly.

“No. No problem.”

Karina smiled brightly and stood up from her seat.

“Sit here.”

“Pardon?”

“Sit here and eat this yourself. All of it, without leaving anything.”

The maid was flustered and at a loss at Karina’s order.

“Did you not hear me?”

“H-How could I dare touch the Grand Duchess’s meal? I fear the Grand Duke will be greatly angered if he finds out.”

“You’re afraid of the Grand Duke’s anger but not afraid of me?”

The maid couldn’t give any answer to my words.

“Eat it. It’s an order.”

“…”

“Are you ignoring the words of me, the current Grand Duchess?”

Then another maid standing nearby interjected.

“We apologize. Even if it’s the Grand Duchess’s order, we cannot comply with unreasonable demands.”

‘It’s okay for a maid to ignore and talk back to the Grand Duchess’s orders?’

I couldn’t help but laugh at this absurd situation.

In fact, the reason these maids are acting so stiffly is because they have someone to rely on.

That someone is Caroline Colsberg, Jeremiah’s sister.

She’s the one backing them up.

“I don’t need maids who don’t follow their master’s orders. You’re all fired.”

The maids flinched at my words.

“We were employed by the head of the family. Even if you’re the Grand Duchess, you can’t dismiss us so easily.”

How ridiculous.

“I see. Then I’ll just have to speak to the head of the family directly.”

Karina got up from her seat and immediately walked out of the dining room to find Jeremiah.

Just then, the head maid entered.

“It seems quite noisy in the dining room. Has something happened?”

The head maid quickly scanned the maids and then looked back at Karina.

“Did the maids do something wrong? If you tell me, I’ll punish them.”

Her pathetic act made me snort.

Pretending not to know while rushing out after watching, afraid things might get bigger.

“I offered a meal to a maid, but she keeps refusing, saying it’s too much for her?”

“Of course. This is the Grand Duke’s household after all. How could a mere maid dare to covet the Grand Duchess’s meal? Please understand their position.”

The head maid consistently defended the maids with a humble attitude.

“Right. As you say, this is the Grand Duke’s household.”

Karina’s voice lowered.

“And I am the mistress of this house, the Grand Duchess. Isn’t it truly surprising that a mere maid would refuse an order from me, the Grand Duchess?”

There was a gentle smile on Karina’s face, but the words that shot out from her red lips were as sharp as a well-honed blade.

“I wonder what they’re relying on to act like this?”

The words spoken with a smiling expression did not match that expression at all.

Karina’s gaze as she looked at the head maid was chillingly cold.

The head maid’s eyelashes trembled, surprised by Karina’s response, which was completely different from her usual docile demeanor.

“So I’m going to fire all those insolent maids who don’t follow their master’s orders.”

“Fire them?”

A familiar voice was heard.

As I raised my head, I saw the figure of a handsome and tall man through the open doorway.

Tall stature with broad shoulders. Long, straight arms and legs, and a lithe body tightly woven with solid muscles trained by swordsmanship.

Hair and eyes as black as the night sky.

Thick eyebrows to match, a high nose bridge, smooth skin and tightly closed lips. And a man with perfect looks including a sharp jawline.

“Welcome, Your Grace.”

His name was Jeremiah Colsberg.

The current Grand Duke of the Colsberg family and my husband.