“Prepare to depart for Irugo.”
At the Emperor’s command, the audience chamber stirred.
He hadn’t explained why, but everyone present knew.
A political marriage.
With Irugo, no less—more enemy than ally.
Call it marriage, and she might well die someday.
Perhaps that was exactly what the Emperor desired.
Aristine’s death.
But Aristine herself merely stood in serene silence, as always.
Amid the clamor, she alone seemed set apart.
The Emperor frowned at her calm figure and twisted his lips.
“Isn’t this fortunate, my daughter?”
His tone feigned kindness—yet venom dripped from each word.
“You are useless, but the blood in your veins is pure. At least it can be of some use.”
Despite the insult, Aristine’s face remained unchanged.
Her long lashes lowered like silk, her eyes as placid as a deep lake, her lips as composed as moonlight—unmoved.
The Emperor snorted.
“I couldn’t bear keeping you about any longer; it turned my stomach. But this is perfect.”
He glanced around and laughed harshly.
“I clear out trash, bolster the realm, and you even prove your worth as worthless. Three birds with one stone.”
Those gathered joined his laughter with mocking sneers.
Aristine still showed no reaction, her eyes lowered in obedient silence.
A month later, Aristine set out for Irugo.
Some whispered pityingly, but she mounted the carriage with unshaken composure.
Her poised serenity left even her mockers impressed.
As the carriage door closed and the curtains fell, Aristine transformed.
“Disappear from the world. You’re a waste of air.”
As if her former mask had been an illusion, she raised her middle finger toward the Emperor’s pavilion.
And smiled angelically, as though a heavenly being had just descended.
Chapter 1. “So shy, aren’t you.”
‘Finally, freedom!’
Aristine nearly cried out but forced herself silent.
At last she was free of her loathsome home—and, even more loathsome, her father.
‘He was a madman.’
Her father, the Emperor, had subjected her to every abuse in his obsession to make her a “success.”
‘When he set the fire, I thought I was going to die.’
The first thing she noticed wasn’t heat but choking smoke.
As if her lungs were being scorched and her throat clawed, Aristine awoke.
Had she stirred any later, she would have died without waking.
She opened her eyes to find the window blocked and flames all around.
She was only six then.
Ordinarily, she should have perished.
Yet she survived—and “survived” felt like a generous word.
Her father looked at her, charred like a lump of coal, and asked,
“〈How was it? Have you awakened?〉”
Groggy, Aristine stared at him and realized.
‘It was the Emperor who barred the window and set the fire.’
Her limbs blistering, her lungs burned—but the sharpest pain was that revelation.
It hurt so much she wanted to burn it all away.
‘If my heart turned to black ash, it wouldn’t hurt anymore.’
More than ten years later, her heart had indeed burned to ash.
After that fire and some “incident” with her younger half sister, Aristine was imprisoned.
Ten years of solitary confinement—her heart’s warmth felt unnatural.
‘At least being confined let me see my past life—so there’s that silver lining.’
Her mind, to protect itself, unlocked its potential.
She gained visions of her previous life, and that kept her sane.
‘…It’s good to be leaving, but this could still get complicated.’
Thinking of her full brother—absent from the palace—Aristine sighed.
For now, she needed to focus on where she was going, not where she had been.
‘What is Irugo like?’
A land of savages.
A realm ruled by iron and fire.
A plateau surrounded by beasts.
〈Irugo savages even mate with beasts—half-human, half-beast creatures.〉
〈You’ll share a bed with someone who’s rolled with beasts.〉
〈Maybe he’ll prefer beasts to stiff you.〉
Her father’s whispered curses echoed in her mind.
He may have wanted to curse Irugo, but he truly hated them.
Silvanus and Irugo had long been enemies.
Silvanus prided itself as a conqueror, yet Irugo alone defied its might.
The current Emperor—Aristine’s father—vowed to kneel Irugo beneath his heel.
But the war’s tide turned strangely, and Irugo began to seize Silvanus territory.
The one who secured Irugo’s ascendancy was—
‘My betrothed, Tarkan.’
Aristine recalled her political spouse.
Judging further war too costly, the Emperor offered Irugo an armistice.
In return, the Irugo King demanded war reparations—and one more thing.
‘The Emperor’s own blood, to wed Tarkan.’
Thus centuries of hostility would end in alliance.
The Irugo King truly sought peace; beasts and siege weighed heavily on his realm.
In any other tale, peace would have prevailed.
‘But Father never intended to end the war.’
The Emperor’s ceasefire was mere delay.
He planned to stab Irugo in the back once the pause took hold.
‘So he sacrificed me as a throwaway card.’
To have cause to renounce the marriage and strike Irugo at will.
He intended to kill me and blame Irugo.
Aristine smiled wryly as the carriage lurched.
Did the Emperor think his discarded pawn would grant him such a triumph?
First, though, she needed one ally.
“Tarkan.”
Aristine whispered the name of her husband-to-be.
‘What trick is this?’
Aristine eyed the modest tea table before her.
She’d guessed something was up from the old-fashioned carriage route instead of a portal.
Her guess proved right—she’d been confined to the carriage for almost ten days.
‘My arms and legs hardly feel like mine anymore.’
She couldn’t wash or change—guards pounded the windows whenever she tried.
Yet now she was summoned out—and found afternoon tea waiting.
‘As if I shouldn’t be suspicious.’
“Please, sit.”
Though courteous, the tone brooked no refusal.
Aristine took her seat in silence.
‘Not yet.’
She behaved as meekly as in the palace.
‘It’s not time.’
Her eyes swept the armed guards—bodyguards or spies, possibly assassins.
Silvanus needed time to regroup. It meant she was not yet to die.
But it also meant anything besides immediate death might happen.
Ironically, only upon reaching enemy Irugo could the Silvanus princess gain protection.
‘Whether they truly protect me remains to be seen.’
Her teacup brimmed with black tea.
Her own serene reflection rippled as the liquid quivered.
Without touching it, the surface stilled—and her face vanished.
Instead—
‘Ah…’
Something else appeared.
In the tea’s reflection was the lady-in-waiting who had ordered her to sit.
‘She’s dressed the same.’
Unlike Aristine, the maid was spotless, her clothes richly adorned.
She carried a kettle of boiling water toward the tea table—toward Aristine.
In the reflection, the maid poured the scalding water.
Aristine’s face swelled red with imagined burns.
“Oh my! I’m sorry, Your Highness.”
Her words belied the mocking grin on her lips.
Her hand, pressing a cold cloth to the maid’s face, was rough and savage.
As if she relished adding more pain.
“She looks like a drowned rat.”
“Suited to a savage’s bride.”
Nearby maids giggled to ensure Aristine heard.
“………”
The surface rippled again then calmed.
Her reflection returned as though nothing had happened.
As if from the start.
This was Aristine’s power.
The Emperor’s Eye her father coveted.
Yet which he thought she lacked.
Why she was deemed a failure, not a success.
The Emperor’s Eye manifesting in water—past, present, and future, all visible.
Yet uncontrollable: it appeared whether she willed it or not.
‘What to do…’
Tap, tap, tap.
Aristine’s finger tapped the table.
From the corner of her eye, she saw the maid approaching, kettle in hand.
In that moment, Aristine sprang up.
“Ah!”
Startled by the sudden apparition, the maid recoiled—and spilled the boiling water on herself.
Her face instantly blistered red.
“Oh dear.”
Aristine pressed a hand to her lips in mock sympathy.
“My… my face, my face…!”
Other maids rushed forward with cold water.
What the Emperor’s Eye had shown and reality were worlds apart.
After a commotion, one maid sprang up and stalked toward Aristine.
“What do you intend to do about this?!”
“Why ask me?”
Aristine’s retort left Rosalyn, the maid, speechless.
How dare this ragged princess talk back?
“I only rose from my seat.”
“That…!”
“You blame me for your own clumsiness. Should I play nursemaid, too?”
Aristine tilted her head.
“Perhaps you need a nursemaid.”
Though unsaid, her faint smile spoke volumes.
“W-What did you just say…!”
“You should have been more careful if you wanted no nursemaid.”
Her tone was instructional.
Rosalyn could not reply—too shocked, too indignant.
Worst of all, she had no rebuttal.
‘From someone as idiotic as her…!’
Humiliated, blood rushed to Rosalyn’s cheeks.
As she froze, Aristine sat and sipped her tea.
Back straight, wrist curved like a swan’s neck.
Unwashed and unchanging for ten days, yet more composed than ever.
The watching maids gasped.
Could this truly be the princess they knew?
Perhaps they didn’t know her well—but wasn’t she the so-called mad princess?
Cast out, mistreated more than common street urchins.
Denied learning, denied society—a lunatic.
‘Yet…’
‘Is that really her?!’
It made no sense.
Something had gone terribly wrong.
But this was only the beginning.