CHAPTER 01
Prologue
“This is your victory.”
The Crown Prince’s voice was low and calm.
“If your goal was to drive me mad.”
It was hard to believe it was the voice of someone admitting they had lost their mind.
“I haven’t been sane since the day you abandoned me and disappeared.”
Abandoned him?
Eaatris, who had turned her head to avoid his gaze, froze. Her grip on the sword tightened.
She couldn’t comprehend the words coming from his mouth.
She had only left because she believed he no longer needed her help.
“Once the young prince regains his sight, I will leave.”
It had been a simple, straightforward plan.
Thanks to her help, the prince had regained his vision and ascended to the position of Crown Prince without issue.
It was all years in the past now.
So why was he acting as if it wasn’t over?
“Look at me.”
The man before her, now the Crown Prince, claimed she had abandoned him—and that her leaving had driven him mad.
“Please, turn your head. Let me see your face.”
The Crown Prince was begging.
Begging a mere knight, a child born out of wedlock to a duke.
As if Eaatris’s very existence was…
“My savior.”
As if she were more precious than anything in the world to him.
Savior.
At that word, Eaatris involuntarily turned her head.
Their eyes met, and his deep violet eyes lit up with a radiant smile.
“I opened my eyes for you. I survived the blood-soaked imperial palace for you.”
His face was suddenly close—far too close. She hadn’t even realized when he had stepped in.
He was beautiful.
So beautiful that even if the place he offered to take her was hell, one might still take his hand willingly.
“Everything I’ve done was to see you again.”
In the amethyst-colored depths of his eyes, there was only one reflection—Eaatris.
Realizing that fact stole her breath away.
She swore to the gods and demons alike: this was never her intention.
Eaatris was a knight.
If the Crown Prince demanded loyalty as her liege, she was prepared to give her life for him—just as she had done in her past life.
But—
“I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Her instincts screamed that what now simmered in the Crown Prince’s gaze… was something entirely different.
As someone who had known nothing but swordsmanship and solitude all her life, Eaatris couldn’t name the emotion exactly.
“You think I’m mistaken?”
“Yes. Completely.”
Eaatris stepped back a few paces, trying to widen the distance between them.
But with a single stride, the Crown Prince filled her vision once again.
“Well, if that’s what you want to say, then lie all you like.”
“But if you intend to leave me…”
Eaatris tensed, gripping her sword tighter in anticipation of what would come next.
The Crown Prince’s gaze flicked between the gleaming sword and Eaatris before he slowly bent forward.
Then, he lifted her arm, the one holding the blade, and brought the cold edge of the sword to rest against his eye and pale cheek.
“What are you doing…!”
Eaatris tried to yank her arm away in alarm—but she couldn’t.
His bare hand, unprotected by a glove, was gripping the blade tightly.
The Crown Prince, pressing the blade against his own eye, whispered:
“Blind me again. So that when you run, I’ll never be able to find you.”
