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~Chapter 1~
Something slapped against my face and body, sharp and insistent. I tried to evade, but the assault was merciless.
“Aaagh! What is this?!”
As I cried out, a mouthful of grass filled my mouth.
“Ugh, pffft!”
I spat wildly in all directions, and at last, my surroundings came into view.
I was in a forest. And beneath me—
“…Racing darkness?”
It sounded like the melodramatic line of an angst-ridden teenager, yet what I was sitting on truly felt like darkness made solid.
In a moment, I understood: the darkness was a coal-black horse.
“Ugh! Wh-why am I—why am I on a horse?!”
Sensing my confusion, the horse bucked restlessly beneath me.
“Oh no!”
I instinctively yanked on the reins I didn’t know I was holding. With a fierce cry, the horse’s forelegs struck for the sky. My vision whirled, the world turning upside down.
I grabbed whatever I could. The unfamiliar bag I clutched ripped open, spilling small stones that clattered to the earth.
Losing my balance, I crashed onto my back. Pain exploded through me, and stars burst before my eyes.
God, that hurts.
Groaning, I curled in on myself. It felt as if every vertebra was wrenched out of place. Thank heaven for the thick grass beneath me; had it been stone, my spine would’ve snapped in two.
As I rubbed my throbbing lower back, my hand brushed against strange cloth.
I looked down.
I wore a robe that wrapped around me, and beneath it, a navy-blue dress flowing to my ankles.
These were not my clothes.
Moments ago, I’d been in a white t-shirt and jeans. Dresses this long belonged only in films. I’d scarcely ever worn one, even as a child.
“What… is this…?”
I looked around.
Everything was foreign.
The trees were strange, and even the scent of the air was subtly different.
Before I could grasp where I was, dozens of blades shot forth from the darkness, encircling me.
I was surrounded in an instant.
One blade grazed cold beneath my chin.
“Raise your head.”
I lifted my head with care, wary of the icy steel.
The man’s blue eyes gleamed with an uncanny chill, piercing straight through me.
He pressed the blade more firmly to my throat. Something warm slid down my skin.
The wind swept through, and the leaves whispered their mournful song.
His pale skin, framed by curling silver hair, shimmered with an unearthly radiance in the gloom. Shadows from the branches fell across the straight line of his nose, while fury carved itself into the elegant lines of his lips.
He was at once imperious and beautiful.
My mouth hung open, and a ringing filled my ears, drowning out sense.
Of all the impossible things happening now, meeting his gaze felt the most unreal.
With the tip of his sword, he flicked back my hood. My hair tumbled loose around my face.
Wait—what is that?
My hair had always been cropped short; I’d never grown it out. But now, it tumbled in waves past my waist. And—
I gathered it in my hands.
It was a color found nowhere in this world: a luminous, enchanting shade of rose pink.
And it shone with impossible silkiness.
Bleached hair and gloss never coexist.
This must be a dream.
“Dahlia. I knew it was you.”
The glacial voice jolted me to my senses. The name was achingly familiar.
Dahlia.
I repeated the name on my lips.
Memory shivered down my spine.
Of course… it was a name from—
In my barren life, the web novel The Obsessed Crown Prince was my only comfort.
Dahlia was not the heroine nor the hero, but I remembered her well.
She was the daughter of Duke Lebanovic. From childhood, she adored the crown prince, Veseth. Ordered by the emperor to marry the second prince, Etienne, she could not relinquish her love.
In the end, she stole her husband Etienne’s fortune and secrets for Veseth, was discovered, and divorced.
But she never won Veseth’s love either. Spurned, she spiraled into darkness and finally attacked the heroine with a knife—only to be killed in an instant.
Readers heaped curses on her. Yet, I’d always pitied Dahlia.
“Honestly, Veseth is absurd. If he wasn’t going to accept her love, why take everything she offered? He should’ve rejected her from the start.”
She reminded me of an old flame.
“Just like him—promised to confess, took everything I gave, and ended up with that pretty girl.”
I had written countless comments defending Dahlia.
But that didn’t mean I wished to become her.
“Where did you hide the fortune?”
His cold voice pulled me back from my thoughts.
Whether or not I was truly Dahlia could wait; first, I needed the sword away from my neck.
Judging by his words, this must be the moment she was caught smuggling the wealth.
Of all possible moments—why this one?
Luck has never favored me.
I glanced at him.
This man—he must be Etienne.
The greatest villain in the novel. The one who usurped Veseth and seized the throne through rebellion.
And I was… Dahlia, the infamous madwoman who tried to stab the heroine.
“…Etienne.”
I forced out the name. To call a main character aloud made my insides squirm, but I kept my face composed.
Etienne said nothing, waiting.
God. It really is him.
My suspicions hardened into certainty.
I studied him anew.
Clad in immaculate white, he was exactly as described.
“If Veseth was a well-tamed beast, Etienne was the beast itself—a man sculpted from pure white, yet paradoxically the darkest of all.”
How infinite are the possibilities of white: so pristine, and yet so decadent.
Beneath elegant lashes, his dark gaze made no effort to conceal its lethal intent.
Say the wrong thing, and he would behead me without hesitation.
I had to deny everything.
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘hiding the fortune.’”
He did not immediately call my bluff.
“If that’s so, where were you going, on horseback, in the dead of night?”
“That… The horse looked lonely, so I took him for a walk.”
“The horse looked lonely? I have never heard such nonsense.”
He scoffed.
Don’t panic. Remember: eight years of customer service taught me the golden rule—
He who speaks the loudest prevails.
I drew a deep breath and summoned the soul of every difficult customer I’d ever known.
“You call that nonsense? Do you know what it is to keep a creature this large from his daily walk? It’s cruelty! One walk a day, at least! Even Trainer Malhyung-wook said, ‘There is no such thing as a bad horse!’”
“…”
A heavy silence fell.
Etienne stared, lips pressed into a hard line.
Then, at last, he lowered his blade.
Did that actually work? Is there really a Trainer Malhyung-wook in this world? Is this some horse‑loving alternate universe?
Etienne dragged his sword across the ground. In the darkness, something hard struck the blade with a sharp clatter.
The stones that had spilled from the torn bag.
Catching the torchlight, they glittered.
They were jewels.
Of course. So that’s the stolen fortune, and I’m caught red-handed. I should have just groveled from the start.
Cold sweat snaked down my spine.
“…Seize her.”
Soldiers in leather armor—so perfectly costumed they could have won first prize at a convention—grabbed my arms.
“Let go! Do you know who I am?! Let go of me!”
My feet left the ground. I struggled, but they bound me swiftly.
Etienne stepped closer and seized my chin. His face was so close I could feel his breath. His red lips curled into a cruel smile.
“Send her to the Joaddes Monastery.”
The soldiers faltered.
“But… at Joaddes… Lady Dahlia wouldn’t survive a day.”
“That is precisely what I wish.”
The soldier bowed his head, silenced.
What is Joaddes? Why does that name sound like death? Am I going to die here? No! Let me go! I won’t go!
But I was bound and powerless to resist.
Hauled like cargo, I was carried toward the dreadful Joaddes Monastery.
After a long ride, the horses halted.
In the chill of dawn, a grey building loomed—a place both temple and prison, radiating menace.
The soldiers handed me over to robed clerics, who flung me into a freezing cell.
“Hey! We could have talked! Why shove me?!”
I glared at the priest, but she did not so much as flinch. Her unmoving face unsettled me, and I dropped my gaze.
“We could have talked. It would be easier for both of us. I’m not even a rebellious person…”
BANG!
I stared at the heavy door as it crashed shut. Iron clanged into place.
I grabbed for the handle. The door would not budge.
Damn it. I’m doomed.
