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Chapter 2
Even knowing everything that was going to happen changed nothing. There was far too little time to prepare for anything.
If this truly was some cruel joke of God’s, could there be a more merciless one than this?
Even so, she had no choice but to step out of the carriage.
Setting foot once more upon the cursed land, Ariella slowly closed her eyes.
“Ariella… my baby. How can I send someone so young away?”
“Sister, take care, okay? Write to us often. And make sure you reply.”
One by one, the faces of her mother and family flashed through her mind—clutching her hand tightly as they cried while seeing her off.
Even though it had been ten years ago, every detail remained vivid.
If all of this was truly real, then one thing was certain.
Her family was still alive.
And because of that, she could not avoid entering the dragon’s jaws.
Ariella stood for a long while at the foot of the staircase leading to the main palace.
Back then, she hadn’t even had the leisure to feel humiliated by the situation. She had simply waited in silence.
As she waited, she replayed the events of that day one by one in her mind.
It would only be around sunset that they would finally appear.
Frederick, Emperor of the Triphina Empire.
The Empress.
And Crown Prince Dmitri.
Ariella swallowed dryly.
Just as expected, they appeared as the sun was setting, standing as though even the crimson glow of dusk belonged to them.
Their arrogant gazes, perfectly suited to the immense imperial palace behind them, descended upon her.
“Ariella of Forenze greets the exalted sun.”
“Raise your head.”
Emperor Frederick’s gaze lingered briefly on her before shifting slightly toward the sky.
Toward the tower.
Things she had failed to notice ten years ago were now painfully clear.
Ariella could feel it with certainty.
The emperor had already decided to imprison her in the tower before he even came out to meet her.
Frederick looked young and handsome for his age.
But the empress standing beside him looked youthful enough to be mistaken for the crown princess herself.
Ariella inhaled deeply until her chest tightened.
She remembered exactly what he was about to say.
“Bring the court painter here immediately.”
Forenze was a duchy wedged between powerful nations.
A beautiful and fertile land—its very name meaning a country blessed by God—Forenze was indeed wealthy, but it was also extremely small.
When the Triphina Empire’s marriage proposal first arrived, not a single person in the royal palace had understood the reason for it. Forenze was often mocked as “small enough to fit in the palm of one’s hand.”
The only reason the duchy maintained any independent status at all was because it was under the protection of the temple.
Three months earlier, the chamberlain who had delivered the proposal had arrived together with a court painter.
They had come to paint Ariella’s portrait.
The proposal itself had merely been a formality. As far as the duchy was concerned, they had no right to refuse the empire’s summons.
“My goodness…”
That had been the very first thing the chamberlain muttered upon seeing Ariella.
No—it had not even sounded like words.
It had sounded more like a despairing groan.
“N-no, you can’t paint her like that. Yes, just a little… just a little prettier…”
The chamberlain repeatedly pointed directly at the canvas while pressuring the court painter with desperate intensity.
An unspoken threat lingered in his tone.
Make her prettier than she really is.
“No, that looks like a completely different person.”
One day. Two days.
They poured endless effort into the portrait—
Without realizing it would become the cornerstone of their descent into hell.
“What do you think?”
The emperor kept his eyes on Ariella as he addressed the court painter.
Though his voice sounded gentle at first glance, reproach lurked beneath it.
“W-what do you mean, Your Majesty?”
The dragged-in painter’s voice trembled pitifully.
“Is this woman truly the one you painted? To my eyes, they look nothing alike.”
Unable to answer, the court painter simply collapsed flat onto the ground and bowed repeatedly.
“Y-Your Majesty, spare me! I deserve death!”
Ariella quietly closed her eyes.
When she was little, her mother had often read her a storybook.
It told the legend of Elene—a goddess so beautiful she brought an entire kingdom to ruin.
But nowhere had Ariella ever seen the opposite.
A kingdom ruined because a woman was ugly.
For women of the court, whose value was determined entirely through political marriage, could there be any humiliation greater than this?
“And what do you think, Dmitri, my son?”
Ariella slowly opened her eyes.
Standing one step behind the emperor, the crown prince appeared utterly indifferent, as though none of this concerned him in the slightest.
The Hakliter imperial family was, in every sense, the most prestigious noble lineage on the continent, possessing the longest history and tradition.
Long ago, Count Nolan I of House Hakliter had barely managed to carve out a territory in the harsh wilderness when the feudal lords elected him king of what was then the Kingdom of Triphina.
In an instant, House Hakliter had risen into royalty.
Throughout the long history of their reign, there had been endless bloodshed, wars, and political struggles.
Yet for seven hundred years they had continued producing kings and emperors, maintaining their status as the empire’s most dignified and powerful family.
About two hundred years earlier, one of Triphina’s former rulers had proclaimed himself emperor and continued expanding through war.
Since then, the imperial family had conquered neighboring nations and transformed the empire into a vast multiethnic state.
As a result, the empire now stood stronger than at any point in its history.
And Dmitri—the crown prince who would become both Ariella’s husband and her mortal enemy—was acknowledged by all as the one who had inherited the blood of House Hakliter most completely.
Dmitri of Triphina.
A man said to have been born perfect, granted the title meaning He Who Stands Above the Empire.
A beautiful man with dazzling golden hair so vivid it seemed to stain the world around him, and pitch-black eyes once said to have been permitted only to the founding emperor.
His emotionless gaze settled upon Ariella.
“I do not…”
Ariella did not avoid his eyes.
“…like her.”
A hollow laugh escaped her.
Even when choosing a horse to ride, she thought, one would surely deliberate more carefully than that.
With those few words, her entire life had been overturned.
Her prosperous homeland had burned and become hell.
At that moment, the chamberlain—who had been anxiously reading the room—hurried down the stairs and bowed deeply.
Meanwhile, the emperor snatched the framed portrait from a servant and alternated his gaze between the painting and Ariella.
Even to Ariella herself, the woman in the portrait looked beautiful.
Hair as smooth as ebony.
Full red lips.
Clear turquoise eyes.
The woman smiling serenely in the portrait possessed the same coloring as Ariella, yet looked fully mature and refined.
It had never been a face one could reasonably expect from a young girl in the first place.
Even so, it had still fallen within acceptable bounds.
After all, portraits were always embellished for aesthetic purposes.
“You dare deceive the imperial family like this and still hope to live?”
The emperor hurled the portrait down the stairs.
The luxurious frame shattered with a loud crash.
A jagged splinter of wood flew through the air and embedded itself directly in front of Ariella.
“Take that court painter away and behead him immediately.”
“Y-Your Majesty! I only did as the chamberlain ordered! Please, just once—please spare me!”
The chamberlain turned deathly pale and collapsed onto the floor.
Ten years ago, Ariella had unknowingly knelt beside him as well.
The trembling shoulders of the man curled up in terror blurred her vision like an afterimage.
“That’s right, Your Majesty. The painter is innocent. It is my fault for being inadequate. Please… please show mercy.”
The emperor laughed as though he had heard something amusing.
But the artificial smile quickly vanished.
“I don’t wish to hear it. What are you all standing around for? Take the court painter and execute him. Throw the chamberlain into prison for interrogation. And…”
He paused briefly and looked at Ariella.
The lightness with which he weighed the gravity of another person’s fate was terrifying.
“Lock Ariella of Forenze in the western tower. Alongside her portrait.”
Having delivered his orders, the emperor turned away, his robes swirling behind him.
Immediately, the imperial guards advanced toward her with frightening speed.
Ariella took a deep breath.
“Your Majesty.”
After calling out to the emperor, she stepped forward.
Frederick halted in place.
Because the situation had become so tense so quickly, Ariella’s calm voice stood out even more sharply.
“Before you drag away these supposedly wicked people, may I say just one thing?”
Ariella was not ugly.
She simply had not fully blossomed yet.
More precisely, she was not so ugly that she deserved to be locked in a tower.
After being imprisoned, not a single day had passed without her blaming herself.
But imprisoning her for such a reason had never made sense to begin with.
If something had gone wrong while she traveled from the duchy to the empire—and if the emperor was merely venting his anger—then she needed to create a reason why he could not imprison her.
She would rather die than be locked in that tower again.
“I believe it would not be too late to take this man’s life after hearing what I have to say.”
The emperor whipped around toward Ariella.
“So the ugly thing is arrogant as well. Or is it simply that you wish to die here and now?”
To call someone ugly directly to their face.
Ariella bit down hard enough to make her teeth creak as she suppressed the emotions surging inside her.
But she knew better than anyone.
Humiliation alone would not kill a person.
Right now, survival came first.
Straightening her posture, she stepped one pace closer to the emperor.
If she wanted to avoid imprisonment in the tower, she first had to save the court painter’s life.
