IBQC 01

~Chapter 01~

~Prologue~

“Do you want to sleep with me?”

Karan tilted his head slightly to the left. He stared intently at Ellis, who sat across from him.

A noblewoman of Bedroka asking a Tetrisian—called a barbarian—for a night together?

“For what reason?”

“As I told you earlier—it will help.”

“For me, or for you?”

“For both of us.”

Karan let out a long, thin breath. His chest rose and fell.

She was an overwhelmingly tempting woman. Just looking at her was enough to dry his throat.

And yet, he hesitated. Because it was Ellis.

“Are you serious? Unlike Tetris, in Bedroka, purity is highly valued.”

“Do you want me to say you don’t have to take responsibility?”

Her eyes, looking up at him with her chin lifted, were provocative. His throat dried even more. To keep his tension from showing, Karan brushed back his slightly disheveled hair.

“I’m saying I will take responsibility. But before that—”

Karan took Ellis’s hand, which was resting on the table.

He pried open her clenched fist and slid his fingers between hers.

Her hand, small and delicate compared to his, bore no scars. Smooth skin that betrayed a life utterly unlike his own—a life of flowers, not fire.

And that small hand trembled faintly.

She’s nervous.

That tremor shook Karan. Slowly, he stroked her palm.

If you’re truly serious, should I pretend not to notice and just hold on?

He had no intention of warning her that standing beside him meant standing in flames.

Feigning the ripeness of fruit, radiating allure, he lifted her hand.

Her gaze followed.

Without breaking eye contact, Karan lowered his lips to the inside of her wrist where her pulse beat.

“Ah…”

Ellis’s red, tempting lips parted softly, like a flower bud unfurling.

“It won’t be a peaceful night.”

The spot his lips touched burned as though seared.

He had accepted her offer. Ellis’s heart pounded.

She slipped off his shirt, revealing strong shoulders no mere pen-pushing noble could possess.

His rare ebony hair and obsidian eyes, unusual in Bedroka, only deepened his mystery.

Though his gaze was sharp, it glowed with intelligence; and his soft smile inspired trust.

He was still as handsome as the night they’d first met at the banquet.

That memory remained vivid in Ellis’s mind.

Even then, I thought he was handsome. Others said he looked rough, but not to me.

While she reminisced, her back sank against soft bedding.

Before she realized it, she was on the bed.

“Don’t regret it. It’s too late now.”

She had decided from the moment she resolved to meet Karan.

There was no room for regret, nor did she want to turn back.

Oddly calm, and yet, her body steadily grew hotter.

Instead of answering, Ellis tugged him closer by his loosened collar.

Chapter 1. The Woman Who Made a King

“Are you ready, Lady Warton?”

Ellis Warton.

Once called the stain of her house, the oddity of the magical world, and the filth of high society—she was now prepared to ascend to the noblest seat of all.

The woman in the mirror had seductively upturned eyes the color of emeralds and a delicate, graceful face.

“You look especially beautiful today,” said Regina, her maid, brushing Ellis’s golden hair.

Ellis lifted the corners of her lips.

She liked what she saw in the mirror.

“Finally, His Majesty must be ready to propose! What do you think he has prepared?”

Emotion trembled through Ellis’s eyes.

“Regina, contain yourself.”

Ellis, too, was full of expectation, but instead of chattering excitedly, she calmed her maid.

“Are you not excited, my lady? Not nervous? You’ve waited ten years for this proposal!”

Ellis lowered her head, her cheeks flushed. Her smile, almost girlishly pure for a woman nearing thirty, looked all the more fitting for a bride-to-be.

How could she not be nervous?

Ten years—no, counting from the day she first met Chase, it had been fourteen years.

Still, she restrained herself. Hope had disappointed her too many times before.

“If you’re ready, let’s go, Lady Warton.”

Chase’s aide urged from outside.

Regina pinned Ellis’s hair in place, baring the elegant line of her neck. Even Ellis herself thought it beautiful.

Chase Royal Bedroka.

The king of this land, her lord, her lover. He, too, loved that graceful neck.

“Yes, I’m ready. Let’s go.”

As Ellis rose, the maids behind her bowed deeply.

She walked slowly down the palace corridor.

Clerks, guards, and knights alike greeted her respectfully, making way as though she belonged.

Though she held nothing but the title of viscountess, no one found it strange that she strolled the palace like her own home.

For there was a reason.

Ellis had been the one to place Chase—the king’s second son, who lost his mother and his power base young—upon the throne.

“Will you join me?”

A faint smile touched Ellis’s lips as she remembered the timid young man reaching out to her.

Back then, her family had little interest in the frail, scorned prince.

But her father, Fraser Warton, could not reject a royal marriage proposal either. Nor was he loyal enough to risk his prized eldest daughter, Iris, on a fallen prince.

So instead of Iris, he put forth Ellis—the untalented, unwanted second daughter.

But Ellis liked Chase, who needed her.

She was fifteen, he eighteen.

She poured everything into him. Through her sacrifice and devotion, Chase grew stronger.

She even revealed her secret skill in magical inscription, something her family considered shameful.

Thanks to her, Chase became the greatest swordsman alive.

“Ellis, if people knew you did the work of lowly half-breeds, they’d mock you.”

Indeed, all credit went to Chase, while her part was hidden. She understood. It was true her ability—inscribing magic rather than casting it—was considered contemptible.

But Chase needed it. So she honed it for his sake.

When they had been together three years, even the king, who had ignored Chase, began to take notice.

“You’re my goddess of fortune, Ellis. Today, when I meet Father, I’ll tell him I want to marry you. You’re my luck, my goddess.”

Every day, Chase whispered poems of love.

Until one day, he said:

“I’ve decided to be ambitious. I want to be king.”

“Your Highness, I don’t crave being queen. I only want to be with you.”

“No, Ellis. I’ll give you the highest seat of all.”

From then, he changed. His every act had purpose; his requests became unreasonable.

“Ellis, I need money. Can you use your notes to borrow some?”

“From moneylenders, Your Highness?”

“Moneylenders… don’t make me sound so wicked. Money has no name, Ellis. How many notes do you have?”

His greed grew. Ellis crossed lines, even into crime, to satisfy it.

With money, he won men’s loyalty. But never the king’s.

At last, he asked the unthinkable.

“I must get rid of my brother David. Ellis, will you help me?”

She hesitated. David, the crown prince, was Chase’s rival but not a bad man.

But her hesitation didn’t last long. She wanted out of the Warton house, wanted marriage, wanted a warm family and children who looked like Chase.

So she closed her eyes.

She framed David with every crime—illegal drug trade, leaking secrets, even attempted assassination.

Her sister Iris, David’s wife, rushed at her in fury.

“You dare harm my husband? I won’t forgive you!”

But Iris’s fall, after years of belittling Ellis, dulled her guilt.

“You brought it on yourself, sister.”

Stripped of his title, imprisoned, David withered until he took his own life.

Chase became crown prince. And rumors about Ellis spread.

“She was the one trafficking the drugs.”

“Did you see the scratches on his neck? She’s older and vicious. Poor Prince Chase.”

Ellis wanted to defend herself, but Chase stopped her. The rumors would fade, he said. Yet they only grew louder.

“They say she took her family’s fortune and squandered it. Such extravagance.”

Still, Ellis endured. Because she had Chase.

Once they married, all would be clear. She believed it.

But when Chase, now crown prince, began attending balls without her, she only told herself to be patient.

When she heard he escorted Iris, he soothed her: it was only diplomacy, Iris had a knack for hosting.

And when Ellis asked about their wedding, he always said the same:

“Just wait a little longer. I want to be a man worthy of you.”

Always the same promise.

When he becomes king… he must marry me.

Ellis clenched her fist. She vowed to put him on that throne.