Prologue: The Deposed Empress, Lucentia de Arodel
“Come forth.”
As the tower door opened, a nobleman assigned to execute the sentence entered.
His lascivious gaze clung to Lucentia’s skin as he scrutinized her.
She closed her eyes without revealing a shred of emotion.
The elderly noble, who clicked his tongue in regret, placed a black hood over her head.
Though it signified her impending death, Lucentia accepted it without resistance.
When the hood finally covered her eyes, rendering her sightless, she trembled involuntarily.
The noble chuckled as he saw her hands shaking, mocking her.
“Don’t worry. I’ve made sure the executioner has a sharp blade. It will be over quickly.”
Lucentia remained silent.
The noble, clicking his tongue again, dragged her outside, appearing indifferent.
Several times, she nearly stumbled on the tower’s stairs, but the noble forcefully threw her into a crude cage prepared for her.
As he mounted his horse, he waved arrogantly.
“Move out!”
The convict, now confined in the cage, began to exit the palace grounds.
The refreshing air that had seeped through the hood was replaced by the stifling smell of sweat, and the murmuring voices grew louder.
Lucentia realized they were approaching the guillotine, prepared for the spectacle of her execution.
As her shabby cage passed by, the voices filled with excitement pierced her ears.
“Is that the Empress? The one accused of treason?”
“Look at that black hair. She must be a witch. No one in the world has hair like that!”
The crowd’s belief in baseless rumors, of unknown origin, was cruel.
For those burdened by life’s hardships and the despair of the class system, the truth didn’t matter.
They needed someone to blame, and that person was Lucentia.
With faces twisted like demons, they hurled filth, curses, and malice at the deposed Empress.
“Traitor’s daughter!”
“Die! Just die!”
Lucentia remained indifferent to the filth sticking to her body and the people’s anger.
She only reflected on her life, repeating one name to herself.
“Lucentia de Arodel.”
The name felt strange to her, making Lucentia chuckle.
She had been the daughter of a Count and then an Empress, but never properly addressed by her name.
‘What a pathetic life.’
Indeed, a gilded life is just a tool to be manipulated as others please.
Lucentia, smirking bitterly, thought of a woman who was the first to lose her life when the family fell.
‘You should have died!’
The Countess had glared at Lucentia with fierce eyes.
‘An illegitimate daughter as Empress! I always said you’d ruin the family! Look! Look now! I was right!’
Even in her dying moments, spewing venomous words, she mocked her husband, Count Arodel.
Lucentia bore no grudge against the countess.
As a woman, as a person, her life was pitiable.
Lucentia was born out of an affair, neither the first nor the last.
Count Arodel was a man devoid of conscience.
Patriarchal and selfish enough to use everyone as his tools.
What he did to the countess was horrifying.
Not only did he have affairs, but he also put the children born from those affairs into the family registry, forcing the Countess to acknowledge them as her own.
It wasn’t surprising that she hated Lucentia, who resembled her mother, the Count’s mistress, unlike the other illegitimate children who were more easily palmed off.
Had it not been for Lucentia’s cyan eyes, the countess would have found a way to expel her.
‘The other illegitimate children could be passed off as the Count’s, but not me.’
The countess could at least forget about the mistress’s existence when Lucentia stayed in the annex.
But after she became the Crown Prince’s fiancée and then the Empress, the countess had to suffer every moment.
Even as she was dragged away, the Countess never hid her hatred.
‘You should never have been born.’
Lucentia, her head bowed beneath the hood, slowly opened her mouth.
“I never asked to be born.”
Though she could see nothing, Lucentia stubbornly faced forward.
Then, feeling the midday sun’s warmth on her skin, she instinctively moved.
The deposed Empress raised her filth-covered hooded head to feel the last rays of sunlight.
The scent of fresh air and its crisp taste, though faint, was discernible even in the crowd-filled space.
“A criminal raising her head? Teach her a lesson!”
A drunken voice yelled, and excited people began shaking the prisoner’s wagon.
“Ugh.”
The wound on her back, cut by a knife, tore open again.
She tried to suppress her breath and swallow the pain, but it was impossible.
The rough scabs on her cut flesh caused excruciating pain with every movement.
Even her blood-stiffened dress rubbed against the wound with every breath.
Simultaneously, the faint smile on Lucentia’s lips vanished as her father’s voice echoed in her mind.
‘Pay your respects, this is Prince Hin.’
“Hin…”
The single word that escaped her lips stirred fear, anger, and hatred.
Hin Argar, now the Emperor, was the monstrous man who had given her the scars on her back.
As the image of the golden-haired, blue-eyed man filled her vision through the hood, Lucentia bit her lip.
When introduced by Count Arodel, the prince had been a beautiful boy.
Everyone, from legitimate children to illegitimate ones, was captivated by Hin.
Only Lucentia had avoided and feared him.
Despite her efforts, Hin pointed to her, the twelfth illegitimate child.
Thus, she became a political tool, traded with surprising ease.
“Haha…”
Recalling the past, the current situation seemed absurdly laughable.
The prince Count Arodel chose, intending to make him a puppet emperor, turned out to be a monster.
Hin was exceptionally intelligent and weakened the noble faction within a few years of gaining the throne.
Lucentia was no exception.
It began with light rumors.
Mere gossip for amusement.
It didn’t take long for them to grow and gain weight.
The mask of a fragile Empress that Lucentia had worn gradually transformed into that of a cruel and jealous woman.
Even the nobles who knew the truth comforted her face-to-face but slandered her behind her back.
In no time, trivial words were exaggerated and spread through people’s mouths.
The more she thought about it, the more absurd it seemed.
‘Damn the Emperor.’
With the Empress’s scandal and the weakening of the noble faction, her father’s influence rapidly declined.
Eventually, instead of accepting the lost power, he foolishly tried to replace the Emperor.
‘Stop.’
‘It’s none of your business.’
Lucentia was frustrated.
Seeing the Count walking into the Emperor’s trap, she could no longer stay silent.
‘You’ll die. Do you think the Emperor doesn’t know? Stop this foolishness. If you stop now, the Count’s family can be preserved.’
‘Ridiculous! That boy never intended to leave me alone. You stay out of this!’
The Count, with a sudden thought, handed something to Lucentia.
‘Take this.’
‘What is it?’
‘Poison.’
The absurdity made her laugh involuntarily.
‘You want me to poison the Emperor? The man who crushed the noble faction in no time wouldn’t fall for such a petty trick. That’s laughable, Father.’
The Count was too cornered to recognize that Lucentia wasn’t her usual self.
He seemed to believe that even if she failed, it would pass as the act of a jealous Empress.
Both her father and the Emperor would do anything for power.
They wouldn’t hesitate to buy, sell, or kill their kin and even the Empress.
‘Impressive, indeed.’
Swallowing her disgust, Lucentia put down the poison and tried to leave.
At that moment, the door was kicked open, and the Emperor and his knights stormed in.
‘Criminals, kneel!’
The Count trembled, pointing a finger at Lucentia.
‘You dare betray me!’
Lucentia closed her eyes and kept silent.
The Emperor had even calculated her actions.
It was chilling.
The Emperor walked in slowly, looking at her and the Count.
As his cold gaze swept over her, it felt like he could see through her very soul, leaving her rigid.
With a smile, he mocked the Count as if granting the mercy of a victor.
‘Count Arodel, surrender your neck, and I’ll make it quick.’
‘You ungrateful wretch! I raised you to the throne! How can you repay me with such betrayal!’
The Emperor glanced at the poison bottle.
Without saying another word, he drew his sword.
‘Who said you could die at your will!’
The Count, seizing a moment, threw his daughter towards the Emperor to escape.
Without hesitation, he sacrificed Lucentia to save himself.
As she was thrown, she saw the Emperor’s sword cut her without a moment’s hesitation.
Her back split open, blood splattering, but it took an eternity for the pain to translate into a scream.
Her scream was horrifying, yet no one listened.
As she gasped and bled, the Emperor’s polished boot stopped before her.
Stooping slightly, he met her eyes, and in a tone of mockery, spoke words she couldn’t believe were directed at his wife.
‘Thanks to you, Empress.’
The Emperor spoke as if watching a ridiculous play.
‘Don’t worry too much. Your father will be caught soon. It’s a shame he used his daughter as a shield, isn’t it?’
Just as he said, it wasn’t long before all of the Emperor’s enemies were purged.
Both the noble faction that led the rebellion and those who didn’t were all devoured by him.
Lucentia was also deposed from her position as Empress and imprisoned in the tower.
And today, her neck would be severed.
To the Emperor, she had outlived her usefulness.
Lucentia let out a faint laugh as the impatient voices of the crowd reached her ears.
“Kill her already! Why are they dragging it out!”
Finally, someone could not hold back and broke the prisoner’s cage that held Lucentia.
“You, you bastards!”
A nobleman shouted angrily, but the crowd, their eyes wild, paid no heed.
In an instant, a mob surrounded her small body, making her disappear from sight.
The nobleman screamed in a frenzy.
“You lunatics! Stop them right now!”
When the soldiers brandished their swords and spears, the excited crowd felt threatened and quickly backed off.
“Move! Move aside!”
“Baron, it’s all right. The prisoner is here.”
“Damn it, that was frightening! Get those wretches away! Now!”
Fearing another incident, the Baron decided to hasten the execution.
“Keep the crowd under control and proceed with the execution quickly!”
Ordinarily, there would have been a lengthy proclamation of the Empress’s crimes and a priest offering a prayer of atonement, but all of that was omitted.
The executioner sharpened the blade of the guillotine as if being chased.
“Executing the deposed Empress, Lucentia!”
As the nobleman solemnly spoke, the blade fell, severing the Empress’s neck.
Her end was pathetically simple.
The deposed Empress, Lucentia de Arodel, was dead.
A short line of text explaining her life was sent to the royal palace.
Officially, that is.
*** *** *** *** ***
Early the next morning, the day after the deposed Empress was executed, a group of people with hoods pulled low over their faces was leaving the capital through a deserted street.
After riding for a long time, leaving the city walls behind, they finally removed their hoods.
A red-haired youth and a middle-aged man with grayish-white hair spoke to the woman hidden in the darkness.
“Lady Lucentia, the alchemists’ doll performed its role flawlessly. The spies have handled all the loose ends, so you can truly rest easy now.”
The woman, who raised her head, had the face of the deposed Empress, who was supposedly beheaded.
She shook her head.
“Lucentia is already dead.”
“Then what…”
“Call me Rose.”
“Understood, Lady Rose.”
The middle-aged man with grayish-white hair, Gray, looked at Rose with glistening blue-gray eyes.
The red-haired youth stuck his head in between them.
“So, Rose, where do you want to go?”
With a pale face still aching from the pain in her back, Rose gave a chilly smile.
“Anywhere but here.”
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