Chapter 2

Deep in the night, Rea quietly opened the door to her bedroom.

A middle-aged man with gray hair, who had been waiting outside the door, bowed his head. He was Kasim, the captain of the royal guard.

Rea and Kasim quietly made their way down the corridor.

Because Kasim knew the guards’ patrol routes by heart, they were able to reach the sacred temple deep inside the royal palace without being noticed by anyone.

“We’ll watch from here.”

Rea settled into a secluded corner where they could see the door leading into the sacred temple.

After a while, someone approached the guards stationed at the temple.

Kasim frowned. It was not the time for a shift change, and the person was not dressed like a soldier who had come to take over a shift.

‘Hmm?’

Kasim’s brow twitched when he saw two of the guards leave with that person.

“Not yet.”

Rea whispered.

Kasim almost rushed out to confront them, but he held himself back.

It was not long before someone else approached.

The person had a slender build that looked feminine.

She looked around in front of the temple door, then took out a key from her clothes and unlocked it.

Kasim’s brow twitched again.

The key that locked the temple door was kept in the royal treasury and could not be taken out without the king’s permission.

The moment the woman opened the door and stepped inside, Rea said,

“Now.”

The two of them rushed forward.

As Rea opened the door and entered, she shouted,

“Stop, Neria!”

The woman was startled and turned around.

The veil covering her head slipped off, revealing her familiar hair and face.

Neria hesitated, looking flustered.

She bit her lip tightly, then ran toward the altar in the center of the temple, clutching a crystal dagger.

Above the altar floated a round orb about the size of a human head, giving off a soft glow.

Neria raised the dagger above her head with both hands.

Just before she brought it down with all her strength to strike the orb, Rea stretched out her hand.

‘Stop her!’

A powerful gust of wind summoned by the spirit struck Neria.

“Eek!”

Neria’s body was pushed back by the strong wind, briefly lifted into the air, and then rolled down from the altar.

Rea kicked the crystal dagger away and then grabbed Neria by the collar, pulling her upright from where she had fallen.

“How dare you.”

Fierce hatred burned in Rea’s eyes.

At the same time, her heart was cheering.

How long had she wished for this day to come?

“How could you!”

With blazing eyes, Rea put all her strength into repeatedly slapping Neria across the face without mercy.

“Ah! Ahh! Stop!”

Smack! Smack! Smack!

Blood flowed from Neria’s nose, staining the collar of her clothes red, and her face quickly swelled up.

Rea knew how cruel she was being and even realized that part of her was taking pleasure in another person’s pain, but she could not stop.

Only after Neria fainted did Rea finally stop beating her.

“Haa… Haa.”

She must have been holding her breath while hitting Neria, because her heavy breathing came rushing out afterward.

Kasim stood there with a half-dazed expression.

‘P-Princess?’

He had known Rea since she was a child.

The kind and gentle princess who seemed like the heroine of a fairy tale suddenly felt like a completely different person.

“Sir Kasim.”

“Yes, yes, Princess!”

Without realizing it, Kasim straightened into attention.

“This is treason. The criminal attempted to destroy the kingdom’s sacred artifact, and…”

Rea searched Neria’s unconscious body and found a signal flare. She smiled coldly.

After destroying the sacred artifact, Neria had planned to climb the tower and fire the signal flare. The enemy forces waiting outside would then have climbed over the walls and invaded the royal palace.

No.

It had already happened once.

That tragedy would never happen again.

“She tried to call the enemy into the royal palace. You are my witness.”

Kasim nodded with a serious expression, then straightened and took a whistle from his clothes.

A deep, heavy sound echoed throughout the area.

Soon, people would wake up and lights would be lit throughout the royal palace.

Rea looked down at her red, swollen palms before clenching her fists tightly.

Nella’s voice echoed in her ears.

⌜You have only one chance. I have risked everything on this.⌟

‘I did it, Your Majesty!’

Her tightly clenched fists trembled.

Joy, relief, fear, and countless other emotions were mixed together inside her.

⌜The moment you prevent the destruction of the sacred artifact, a new timeline will begin. A new crisis will come.⌟

‘Yes, Your Majesty. I know. Today is not the end. It is only the beginning.’

She could not become complacent here.

She had saved her brother, her nursemaid, Penny, and all the precious people in her life today. Now she had to protect them.

The mastermind behind the downfall of the Kingdom of Zephyros.

The culprit who had taken away all of Rea’s hopes.

And the enemy of Queen Nella of Nortia.

Enoch, the future emperor and the current First Imperial Prince.

Stopping his ascension to the throne was the greatest goal of Rea, who had returned to the past.

Aren, King of Zephyros, ordered a thorough investigation, and the entire truth was uncovered.

Behind Neria was Jaran, the former queen.

Jaran’s allies who had participated in the conspiracy were also exposed one after another.

Aren was deeply shocked.

Without even realizing it, the kingdom had been rotting from within.

“Your Majesty. The princess wishes to see you.”

“Send her in.”

Aren, who had been sitting at his desk, raised his head.

His eyes were bloodshot from barely sleeping for the past several days.

“I just can’t understand it, Rea. Why would the former queen do such a thing?”

Aren had treated his stepmother with great care.

He had given her a residence in the eastern part of the royal palace and provided her with more than enough money to maintain her status.

He had also cherished her two children as though they were his own siblings.

“I know why.”

“What?”

“Rami is not Father’s biological child.”

Aren’s mouth fell open.

The youngest, Rami, had been born after the former king’s death and was his posthumous child. He was five years old this year.

“The sacred artifact will not respond to Rami.”

Members of the royal bloodline had to receive the blessing of the sacred artifact before their seventh birthday.

Jaran had used her grief over the former king’s death as an excuse to postpone the blessing ceremony.

If the former queen’s infidelity were revealed, she would be expelled from the royal family. No one would accept her after she was disgraced.

That was why Jaran had tried to use outside forces to kill Aren and put her young son on the throne.

Once she gained power, there would always be a way to escape her crimes somehow.

Aren let out a long sigh and covered his face with both hands before looking up.

“Did your prophetic dream tell you that too?”

“…Yes.”

Rea hid the fact that she was living another life.

She told him that she had received a divine revelation through a prophetic dream.

She did not want him to know about the painful life she had lived after Aren’s death.

“It’s not that I don’t believe you, but we should confirm it.”

He turned to his aide.

“I’ll take Rami to the sacred temple this afternoon. Prepare everything.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Rea went down to the underground prison.

“Neria.”

Neria, who had been curled up on the wooden bed in the corner of the cell, suddenly jumped up and rushed over.

She grabbed the bars and burst into tears.

“Sister. Sister, please, please get me out of here. I… I only did what Mother told me to do. I wouldn’t have been able to destroy the sacred artifact. I would have failed, and nothing would have happened to the kingdom.”

‘No. You would have succeeded. The thousand-year-old Kingdom of Zephyros would have fallen because of what you did.’

“Did you really think that betraying your country would make you the Imperial Prince’s wife?”

Neria’s eyes trembled.

“W-What are you talking about, Sister?”

“The Imperial Prince isn’t so free that he would sneak all the way into this distant desert kingdom just to seduce one woman. The man you met was nothing more than an errand boy. And when things went wrong, he already ran away.”

“…He was truly a refined and kind man. He was wise and honest. He could never have deceived me.”

Rea gave a mocking snort, and Neria’s expression twisted.

“You must pay the price for your foolishness. You will see the sunlight for the last time on the day you leave this place.”

Rea turned away coldly.

When she heard Neria scream, “Aaaah!” Rea slowly looked back.

“You always looked at me like that. You smiled falsely and pretended to be kind, but inside, you despised me!”

Neria clung to the bars and screamed.

Seeing Neria crying and glaring at her with resentment, Rea let out a hollow laugh.

All because of something as pathetic as jealousy.

“So that’s how it was.”

Was Rea the only one who had thought of them as sisters?

Rea turned away again.

Even when Neria desperately called after her, her voice sounding like a scream, Rea did not look back this time.

Neria and Jaran were executed.

It was also revealed that the five-year-old prince was not the former king’s child.

Those who were to die were killed, and those who were to live were spared.

Aren publicly announced that Princess Rea was the hero who had saved the kingdom from crisis.

Later, while having tea with Rea in his private reception room, Aren said,

“It’s all thanks to you.”

“You believed me and made your decision quickly. You were the one who handled everything, Brother.”

“It was thanks to you. Don’t belittle your own contribution. That is a royal command.”

“Yes…”

Aren looked at Rea with satisfaction before speaking with a serious expression.

“We removed the rotten branches, but the roots are the problem. I don’t know if we have the strength to challenge the Empire.”

Rea set down her teacup.

“Brother. There is one thing we need to make absolutely clear. The mastermind was not the Empire.”

“Not the Empire?”

“It was Enoch, the First Imperial Prince.”

“Rea. Isn’t that basically the same thing?”

“It’s different. More precisely, the First Imperial Prince acted on his own. He used us as sacrifices so that he could gain achievements and strengthen his own position. The Emperor was not involved.”

Ever since the day Rea had told him that she had received a divine revelation, Aren had been watching his younger sister, who seemed somehow different.

She still smiled often, but it was no longer the innocent, carefree smile of the princess he had known.

Her eyes were hard, like a piece of flint polished by countless hardships and suffering.

It felt as though he was no longer looking at a young sister he needed to protect, but at someone who had endured the weight of life herself.

“Brother. You need to face reality. We are not prey valuable enough for the Emperor to bother taking.”

Aren sighed and calmly nodded.