chapter 00
Cold moonlight poured in through the wide‑open window, spilling all the way down to the floor. Not even a breath could be heard in the chillingly silent bedroom.
Teresia sat collapsed beside the bed, clutching her throat and struggling to force out a suppressed breath. Her body was curled in on itself, trembling, unable to lift her head.
“H… haa…!”
When her first scream‑like breath finally burst out, her red hair swung forward, flooding her vision with red.
The most undeniable proof of her noble imperial blood.
She had once taken pride in the vividly bright red hair that no one else possessed—
But that was long ago. Now, as Teresia looked at it, she shuddered as if she were drenched in blood.
“Uugh…”
With a shaking hand she grabbed her own hair, and only then did the horror she had been refusing to face enter her eyes.
Was he… dead?
Her heart pounded so violently it rattled through her body. Her breathing rose and fell with it, barely keeping up. Through her tear‑blurred vision, the corpse lay still, quiet, as if the world had already forgotten him.
On the other side of the bedroom, cold and pale with his chest split completely open, lay her husband—the same man who, just hours earlier at dinner, had threatened that tonight he would finally visit her bed as a husband should.
Count Neblún, known as the Empire’s purse strings.
He was the backbone of a rising noble faction thriving under the newly crowned emperor. A bastard who had taken the family headship only after beheading his own father and older brother.
He had spent years silently hoarding money in the shadows, building a secret power base until he finally seized the family for himself—
A beast.
A devil unknown even to his own kin.
That devil was Teresia’s husband, and she—the imperial princess—was nothing more than a chess piece meant to give legitimacy to a bastard who still behaved like a lowborn even after becoming head of a great family.
Being sold off—half like a bride, half like property—had been humiliating enough to make her wish for death.
But she trusted her half‑brother, the current emperor, Azer.
In this dazzling imperial palace—no, in the glittering history of the Golden Greer Empire—Azer was the only person she believed she could rely on.
He couldn’t openly explain the political necessity, of course. But she thought there must be a purpose. She believed that just as she trusted and cared for him, he also cared for her.
At least… Teresia had believed they were the only family each other had in this cold palace.
That a normal family would never do something like sell their sister for political funds.
She believed it because she needed to believe it.
Because there was no one else to believe.
Even when he drove her fiancé to his death, she told herself it must be a misunderstanding—some other reason—anything but the truth.
If anyone understood how desperately she longed for a real family, it should have been her brother. He wouldn’t kill the one she loved so easily—
She wanted to believe that.
But that was where it all began.
Everything had started breaking the moment Azer hungered for the throne.
When had he changed?
At what point had he decided to turn her into… this?
“Hh…”
She let out a sound that was part sob, part broken laughter, crawling toward the floor. Her dead husband looked peaceful—like he’d simply fallen asleep. She was the one who resembled a ghost.
Ah.
Well… they both lacked a heart now.
Dragging herself across the floor, Teresia looked down at his chest.
During less than half a year of marriage, that shameless man had committed countless affairs. Now his chest was cleanly carved open.
Did his heart get taken after he died?
Or was it ripped out first?
She didn’t know.
But seeing the man who treated her like expensive property unable to even die peacefully… only then did she realize just how badly she had wanted him dead.
So then—
Did she kill him?
Teresia stared down at her hands, blinking through a gray haze. Tears dripped onto her palms. She closed her eyes once, and when she opened them—
Her once‑pale hands were smeared with something wet, slick, warm, and red.
Was it because of the herbal tonic she drank—one that was supposed to make her fall into a half‑sleep so she could avoid sharing his bed tonight?
Her memories were fragmented. Even the scenes she witnessed with her own eyes shifted and blurred, sending waves of nausea rushing through her.
But one thing was certain.
He was dead.
“…Ha.”
That beast of a man was finally dead.
Teresia’s stiff lips twisted. A sharp, breaking laugh slipped out.
“Ha… ha… hahaha…”
And then that laugh turned into something else—
A strange, exultant thrill.
Dead.
Finally.
At last.
Dead.
A chill ran down her spine. Her head cleared. Bathed in moonlight spilling across the floor, Teresia’s trembling slowly stopped. Her breathing steadied.
With graceful movements, she leaned down and picked up her husband’s heart, lying discarded beside the body. Cold, lifeless, no longer beating—
It was disgustingly damp and sticky.
As if even in death it wanted to trap her.
Crunch—
But the count no longer existed in this world.
Without hesitation, Teresia tightened her grip.
The organ had lost its purpose; even a small amount of pressure made it collapse into pulp.
Thunk.
Death was that hollow.
She inhaled as deeply as she could, then exhaled slowly—thin and long. She repeated it, over and over, until the scorched blackness inside her felt faintly cleansed.
Her life until now had never truly been living.
Losing the one she loved, being betrayed and cast aside by the only person she trusted—
How could anyone call that a life?
It was trash tossed in the dirt, something that could never be called surviving.
So then… how was she supposed to live now?
She had committed too many sins. She would not go to where her lover waited—not even in death.
Then.
Then… this time, she would atone.
She would offer up the very imperial family built on countless screams.
The same foolish Teresia who drove them all into ruin with her own hands—
Would return to the grave where her own monster slept.
