Chapter 2
Even knowing everything that was to come, nothing could be changed.
There simply wasn’t enough time to prepare for what lay ahead.
If this was some cruel prank of the gods, could there be one more merciless?
And yet, she had no choice but to step down from the carriage.
Setting foot on this cursed land, Ariella closed her eyes tightly.
“Ariella… my child.
How could I send you away so young…” “Sis, take care of yourself, okay?
Be careful.
I’ll write to you often, so please make sure you write back.”
Faces of her mother and family, their hands clasping hers in farewell as tears streamed down their cheeks, passed before her eyes.
Though it had been ten years ago, the memory was sharp as if etched into her skin.
If all this was truly real, one thing was certain.
her family was still alive.
And for their sakes, she would step into the very jaws of the dragon if she had to.
Ariella stood for a long time at the base of the stairs leading up to the Imperial Palace.
Back then, shame had no place in her heart; there was no room for it.
She simply waited, silently, patiently.
While she waited, she recalled every moment of that day, piece by piece.
It would be near dusk, just as the sun dipped into the horizon, when they would appear.
The Emperor of the Triphyna Empire Frederick.
The Empress.
And the Crown Prince, Dmitri.
Ariella swallowed hard, her throat dry.
As she had remembered, they emerged against the backdrop of the setting sun, as if even the twilight belonged to them alone.
They stood with the imperial palace rising behind them, and their haughty gazes bore down upon her, sharp and merciless.
“Ariella of Forenze pays her respects to the Supreme Sun.”
“Raise your head.”
Emperor Frederick’s eyes lingered on her briefly before tilting upward, toward the sky.
No, toward the tower.
Things invisible ten years ago now stood out in stark clarity.
Ariella could feel it in her bones: the Emperor had already resolved to lock her away in that tower.
Frederick was still young and strikingly handsome for his age.
But beside him, the Empress looked so youthful she could have been mistaken for the Crown Princess herself.
Ariella drew in a deep breath, her chest tightening as she braced herself.
She remembered exactly what he would say next.
“Bring the court painter at once.”
Forenze was a duchy wedged between great empires.
Its name meant “the land blessed by God” a fertile, bountiful country, rich in beauty.
But no matter how prosperous, it was still achingly small.
When the first marriage proposal from the Triphyna Empire arrived, not a single person in the royal palace could understand why.
The so-called “kingdom no bigger than the palm of one’s hand” that was how people described Forenze.
The only reason Forenze still maintained its nominal independence as a duchy was the protection of the temple.
Three months ago, the steward who brought the proposal had not come alone.
A court painter accompanied him, tasked with painting a portrait of Ariella.
The proposal was merely a formality; as a duchy, Forenze had no right to refuse the summons of the empire.
“Good heavens…” Those were the steward’s first words when he laid eyes on Ariella.
No less a word than a sigh, a strangled cry of despair.
“No, no, you mustn’t paint her like that.
A little… just a little… make her look prettier.”
He jabbed his finger against the canvas, urging the painter with a fervor laced with unspoken threat.
“But this this doesn’t even look like her at all.”
Day after day, they poured every ounce of effort into that portrait, never realizing that the very image they created would become the foundation of their own descent into hell.
“What do you see?”
The Emperor’s gaze lingered on Ariella as he spoke to the painter.
His tone, outwardly gentle, carried the sting of rebuke.
“Y-your Majesty, what do you mean?”
The painter’s voice trembled pitifully.
“Do you truly claim that the woman you painted is the same as the one standing before us now?
For my eyes see no resemblance whatsoever.”
The painter collapsed to the ground, pressing his forehead to the floor.
“Your Majesty, spare me!
I have committed a grievous sin!”
Ariella closed her eyes slowly.
She remembered a fairy tale her mother used to read to her as a child the tale of the goddess Elene, whose beauty brought kingdoms to ruin.
But the opposite?
She had never heard such a story.
That ugliness could destroy a nation.
And for a woman in the royal court, whose worth was determined solely by political marriages, could there be any shame more unbearable than this?
“And you, Demetri what say you, my son?”
Ariella opened her eyes.
The crown prince stood a step behind the Emperor, his face a mask of indifference, as though none of this concerned him in the slightest.
The House of Harkliteri was, by all accounts, the most prestigious dynasty on the continent, with the longest lineage and tradition.
Centuries ago, Count Nolan I of Harkliteri had wrested a barren wasteland into a fiefdom and, through the will of the nobles, was crowned king of what was then the Kingdom of Triphyna.
Thus, Harkliteri ascended overnight to the ranks of royalty.
For the next seven hundred years, their reign was marked by bloodshed, wars, and endless political strife.
Yet through it all, they remained the most exalted family in the empire, producing both kings and emperors without pause.
Two hundred years ago, a Triphyna sovereign declared himself Emperor and waged conquest after conquest.
Since then, the empire had grown into a vast, multiethnic dominion stronger now than at any point in its long history.
And the man who stood before Ariella the one destined to be both her husband and her enemy was none other than Crown Prince Demetri, acknowledged by all as the truest heir of Harkliteri blood.
Demetri of Triphyna.
A man so flawless from birth that he was given the title “He who stands above the Empire.”
An ethereal figure with hair of deep gold that seemed to color even the air around him, and eyes as black as night eyes said to be a mark granted only to the first emperor himself.
That cold, unfeeling gaze now turned upon Ariella.
“My heart…”
Ariella did not avert her gaze from his.
“It does not waver.”
A hollow laugh slipped from her lips.
Even if she were to choose a horse to ride, she thought bitterly, she would have chosen more carefully than this.
With that single remark, her life was overturned.
A once-prosperous nation had burned and crumbled into hell.
At that moment, the chamberlain who had been stealing glances nervously hurried down the steps and bent into a deep bow.
In the meantime, the Emperor snatched the framed portrait from his hands and compared the painted woman to Ariella standing before him.
The woman in the massive frame was undeniably beautiful.
Hair like polished ebony, lips red and full, eyes gleaming like emeralds kissed with blue.
A soft, serene smile rested on her face.
She bore Ariella’s colors, yet the figure in the painting was a woman in full bloom, not a young girl.
Of course, no one could expect such a face from a mere child.
Still, it was within reason.
Portraits were always idealized, after all.
“Do you fools expect to deceive the imperial family with such trickery and live to tell of it?”
The Emperor hurled the portrait down the steps.
The ornate gilded frame shattered with a thunderous crack.
Jagged splinters of wood sliced the air, one shard stabbing into the ground right at Ariella’s feet.
“Seize the court painter at once and behead him.”
“Y-Your Majesty!
I only followed the chamberlain’s orders.
Please, I beg you, grant me mercy just once!”
The chamberlain collapsed, face blanched, sprawling against the floor.
Ten years ago, young Ariella had known nothing and dropped to her knees beside him, trembling as her small frame curled in on itself.
The memory of quivering shoulders overlapped with the present, shaking her vision.
“It is true, Your Majesty.
The court painter is blameless.
It was I who failed.
Please, I beg you, show mercy.”
The Emperor laughed as if he’d heard an amusing jest.
But the sound was hollow, stripped of any warmth, vanishing as swiftly as it came.
“I’ve heard enough.
What are you standing around for?
Drag the court painter away and behead him.
As for the chamberlain take him to the dungeons and put him under interrogation.
And as for…”
He paused, his gaze falling on Ariella.
The weight of judgment in his eyes was frighteningly light, as if her life meant less than dust.
“Lock Ariella of Forenze in the West Tower.
Along with her portrait.”
With a flourish of his cloak, the Emperor turned on his heel.
Immediately, the imperial guards stormed forward, their heavy steps thundering as they reached for her.
Ariella drew in a deep breath, her voice ringing out clear despite the fear clutching her chest.
“Your Majesty.”
She called out to the Emperor, then took a single step closer.
Frederic’s stride halted mid-motion.
The urgency of the moment made Ariella’s calm voice stand out all the more.
“Before you drag these men away like criminals, might I be allowed to say just one thing?”
Ariella was not ugly.
She simply had not yet bloomed.
To be precise, she was not so plain as to deserve being locked away in a tower.
After her imprisonment, not a single day had passed without her drowning in self-reproach.
Yet even then, the reason had never made sense.
To be shut away merely for a face that had not yet blossomed such a verdict was absurd from the very beginning.
If, by chance, something had gone wrong during her journey from the duchy to the empire, and the Emperor was venting his wrath upon her, then she needed to give him reason reason enough that he could not simply cast her aside.
Better to die than return to that tower.
“The matter of taking this man’s life can wait until you have heard what I have to say.”
The Emperor swung sharply toward her, his robes snapping with the motion.
“Ugly, and now insolent as well?
Or is it that you’d rather die here and now?”
Ugly.
Said to her face.
Her jaw clenched, teeth grinding as she forced down the heat rising within her.
But Ariella knew better than anyone: shame does not kill.
Survival came first.
She drew herself taller, spine straight as a blade, and stepped closer to the Emperor.
If she was to escape the tower, she had to stop the court painter’s execution first.
