The thick, heavy steam rising from the crystal glass felt less like a soothing warmth and more like the scorching breath of an impending executioner.
Evelyn—no, Saato—stared at the opaque white liquid, her amethyst eyes wide with a terrifying clarity.
Her heart was hammering so violently against her ribs that she was certain the maid standing at the edge of the bed could hear it.
‘I just died,’ Evelyn’s soul screamed in absolute, suffocating panic as she stared fixedly at the ripples in the milk.
‘I literally just felt my bones crush beneath the tires of a car.
I felt my own warm blood wash over the concrete.
Did the universe pull me from one horrific death just to throw me directly into another?
Is my life really meant to be this brief, this cheap, this utterly pathetic?’
A sudden, sharp wave of fierce resentment welled up inside her chest, replacing the paralyzing fear with a cold, desperate survival instinct.
‘No.
I refuse to let this happen.
I didn’t survive a modern fatal accident just to be casually snuffed out as a nameless pawn in a fictional royal court.
I am not going to die tonight.’
With her hands trembling uncontrollably, Evelyn deliberately let her fingers go limp.
CRASH!
The fragile, intricately carved crystal glass slipped from her pale hands, plunging downward.
It shattered violently against the polished hardwood floor of the chamber, sending a sharp spray of crystalline shards flying in every direction.
The warm, poisoned white milk exploded outward, pooling across the dark wood like a spreading shroud, soaking into the expensive rugs.
The maid gasped loudly, her hands instantly flying to her mouth as her eyes widened in absolute shock.
“M-Miss Evelyn!
Heavens, are you alright?!
Did you burn yourself?!”
Evelyn immediately pulled her hands back against her chest, letting out a soft, staggered breath, executing the perfect facade of a fragile, clumsy princess.
“I…
I am so terribly sorry,” she stammered, her voice soft and laced with a trembling vulnerability that she didn’t have to fake entirely.
“My hands…
they are still so weak from earlier.
The glass simply slipped from my fingers.
It was an accident.”
It was a calculated, deliberate lie.
Her hands were perfectly capable, but letting that liquid touch her lips would have spelled her immediate end.
The maid hurriedly dropped to her knees, her long skirts pooling around her as she frantically began to gather the sharp, glinting shards of glass from the floor.
Her fingers were shaking, and her voice suddenly dropped into a frantic, hushed whisper of pure panic, completely forgetting herself for a brief moment.
“Oh no…
oh no, what am I going to tell the Empress?
Her Majesty specifically gave strict, absolute orders…
She said this milk must be consumed by Miss Evelyn tonight, no matter what…”
Evelyn, sitting upright on the grand bed, froze completely.
The maid’s whispered words confirmed everything she knew from the book.
There was no room for doubt anymore.
This house was a slaughterhouse, and she was the lamb.
The maid carefully placed the broken pieces of glass onto the silver tray and stood up, smoothing down her apron, forcing her frantic expression back into a polite, professional mask.
“Please, remain seated and rest comfortably, Miss Evelyn.
I shall clean this mess up later.
For now, I will return to the royal kitchens immediately and fetch you a fresh, warm glass of milk.
Please do not worry.”
Evelyn’s chest tightened, a cold sweat breaking out across her collarbone.
She couldn’t refuse without raising immediate suspicion.
If she declined, the maid would report her defiance to the Empress, and the next attempt wouldn’t be a quiet glass of milk—it would be a blade in the dark.
“Y-Yes…
of course,” Evelyn managed to say, her lips tight.
“Go ahead.
I will be waiting.”
The maid bowed deeply, picked up the silver tray, and opened the heavy, mahogany double doors of the chamber, stepping out into the dimly lit, silent corridor of the Imperial Palace.
The heavy click of the door locking into place signaled her departure.
The moment the doors closed, the silence in the massive room became suffocating.
Evelyn slid out from beneath the heavy velvet sheets, her bare feet hitting the cold floor.
She began to pace frantically, her pale golden hair swaying wildly around her shoulders.
“No, no, no!
What on earth am I supposed to do?!” she whispered loudly to herself, gripping her head in pure desperation.
“According to the prologue of the book, Princess Evelyn dies tonight.
If I survive…
if I escape…
the entire narrative of this world will fracture.
The story will change completely!”
She stopped pacing, staring at her trembling hands in the mirror.
“But forget the book!
I am a real person now.
I have a heartbeat.
I feel the cold.
I cannot and will not let myself be murdered just to satisfy the plot of a novel!
I have been given a second chance at life in this beautiful, terrifying body.
If I am truly here, in this physical reality, then I have a duty to protect myself.
I have to survive.”
A fierce determination hardened her amethyst eyes.
“I need to leave.
Right now.
If I am here when that maid returns, I am as good as dead.”
But where could a magic-less, disgraced princess go in the middle of the night?
The Imperial guards patrolled the grounds, and her family controlled the entire capital.
If she fled blindly, she would be captured within minutes.
Evelyn closed her eyes, forcing her racing mind to recall every single detail of the novel she had obsessed over.
The political landscape, the factions, the powerful players…
and then, a name struck her brain like a bolt of lightning.
Grand Duke Killian Von Rosenberg.
The Monster Duke.
The most powerful, terrifying wizard and swordsman in the entire Empire.
He possessed the ancient, devastating Destruction Magic, a force so absolute that even the Emperor feared his shadow.
More importantly, the Rosenberg duchy operated entirely independent of the Imperial Crown.
If she could somehow reach his domain, the Empress’s assassins wouldn’t dare touch her.
It was a massive gamble—jumping from the frying pan directly into the fire—but it was her only logical choice.
“I have to get to the Rosenberg Mansion,” she resolved, her voice steadying.
Wasting no more time, Evelyn sprinted toward the massive, carved wooden wardrobe at the side of the room.
She flung the doors open, revealing rows of heavy, elegant silk and satin gowns.
She didn’t have time to look for a practical travel cloak.
Grabbing the sturdiest silk dresses she could find, she pulled them out violently, throwing them onto the floor.
With frantic, trembling fingers, she began to tear the long, reinforced fabric sleeves and sashes, knotting them together with all the strength her delicate hands could muster.
She tied one knot after another, pulling them taut, testing the strength of her makeshift rope.
Once she had a length of knotted silk that reached several meters, she rushed to the heavy arched window of her chamber.
Pushing the glass open, the biting, freezing night wind rushed in, whipping her golden hair across her face.
She tied the base of the silk rope securely around the heavy, reinforced iron bedpost, testing its weight one last time.
Taking a deep, trembling breath, Evelyn climbed onto the stone window sill.
Looking down, the drop was terrifying, but the thought of the poisoned milk gave her a sudden surge of adrenaline.
She grabbed the silk rope tightly, swung her legs over the ledge, and began her slow, agonizing descent down the rough stone walls of the palace.
Her hands burned, the fabric tearing at her soft palms, but she bit her lip, refusing to make a sound.
The moment her feet touched the damp grass of the palace gardens, she didn’t look back.
Shadowed by the towering hedges, she used her knowledge of the palace guards’ patrol routes from the book to slip through a neglected, crumbling side gate.
She ran into the dark, mist-shrouded streets of the capital, her heart screaming for survival.
Miles away, nestled within the quiet, imposing outskirts of the capital, stood the grand estate of the Rosenberg duchy.
Inside the sprawling mansion, the silence was absolute, save for the soft, methodical ticking of a grandfather clock in the Grand Duke’s private library.
The library was an immense, multi-tiered chamber lined with thousands of ancient, leather-bound tomes that stretched up to a vaulted ceiling.
At the center of the room sat a massive, polished mahogany desk illuminated by the soft, warm glow of a single magical essence lamp.
Standing by the towering bookshelves was Grand Duke Killian Von Rosenberg.
He was a man of striking, drop-dead gorgeous but utterly lethal beauty.
His short, immaculate silver hair caught the faint light like spun moonlight, contrasting sharply against the pristine white fabric of his buttoned shirt.
The shirt was tailored perfectly to his broad, powerful shoulders, its sleeves rolled up slightly to reveal lean, muscular forearms.
He wore sharp, tailored black trousers that added to his imposing, statuesque height.
With a slow, elegant movement of his gloved hand, Killian pulled a heavy, ancient book from the shelf.
His face was a mask of absolute, chilling indifference—a sapat, stoic expression that rarely changed.
His eyes, a deep, piercing midnight blue in their calm state, scanned the cover before he turned on his heel.
He walked over to his desk, pulled out the heavy leather chair with an effortless grace, and sat down.
He placed the book onto the dark wood, leaning forward slightly as he prepared to read through the late-night territorial reports.
But just as his fingers touched the first page, the air in the library suddenly shifted.
The micro-vibrations in the air changed.
A faint, nearly imperceptible sound—the soft, hurried scuffle of bare feet against the stone balcony outside his library window—echoed in the silent room.
Killian’s midnight-blue eyes narrowed into a terrifying, razor-sharp focus.
In a fraction of a millisecond, the absolute silence of the room was shattered by a violent, crackling surge of dark energy.
Killian didn’t even stand up.
With a swift, fluid motion of his right hand, he reached into the empty air.
A brilliant, terrifying flash of dark violet and black lightning erupted from his palm, and from the ether, a massive, ornate black steel sword materialized instantly into his grip.
With lethal, blind precision, Killian swung the sword toward the glass window, unleashing a terrifying wave of pressure that threatened to obliterate whatever was standing on the balcony.
But a split second before the edge of his razor-sharp blade could shatter the glass and cleave the intruder in two, his movements stopped completely.
The blade froze precisely one inch away from the glass window pane.
Through the clear glass, bathed in the pale moonlight, stood a breathtakingly beautiful young woman.
Her long, pale golden hair was completely disheveled, wild strands sticking to her cheeks with sweat and dirt.
Her magnificent, wide amethyst eyes were filled with a desperate, breathless terror as she stared directly at the cold steel of the blade pointing at her chest.
Her royal dress was torn at the hem, her bare feet scratched and bruised.
“W-Wait!
Please, stop!” Evelyn cried out, her voice cracking with pure exhaustion as she raised her small hands in a gesture of absolute surrender.
“Are you…
are you truly going to kill me without even hearing me out?!”
Killian’s stoic gaze locked onto her fragile form.
Slowly, with an effortless flick of his wrist, the massive black sword dissolved into thin air, the violent black lightning vanishing as quickly as it had arrived.
The absolute pressure in the room dissipated, returning the library to its quiet, candlelit warmth.
Killian stood up from his chair, his imposing height throwing a long shadow across the floor.
He stepped toward the window, throwing the glass open with a heavy click.
The cold night wind rushed into the warm room, bringing with it the scent of the rain and her exhaustion.
His deep, resonant voice cut through the silence, sharp and entirely smooth, though a rare flicker of faint curiosity danced in his midnight-blue eyes.
“Princess Evelyn Von Eldoria,” Killian spoke, his tone dripping with a dangerous, quiet authority.
“To what do I owe the honor of the Imperial Palace’s most…
neglected treasure breaking into my private quarters at midnight?”
Evelyn took a step forward, collapsing slightly against the heavy wooden window frame, her lungs burning as she looked up into the handsome, deadly face of the man who held her destiny in his hands.
She swallowed the lump of fear in her throat and looked directly into his eyes.
“Please…” Evelyn gasped out, her hands gripping the edge of his desk for support as she bared her soul to the Monster Duke.
“You must listen to me.
Please…
save my life.”
Thank you for reading!
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