The Emperor would marry Helena Eisenstein, Renia’s cousin. Claiming he disliked the rise of an influential maternal family, Renia had even handed over the position of head of the house. After her mother’s death twelve years ago, she had already felt no attachment to the family, so she had cast aside the Eisenstein Marquisate without hesitation. And when she died, the family showed no resistance. If anything, they quietly agreed with it.
Renia’s mother, Lucinoa Eisenstein, had been a once-in-a-generation mage who would be remembered in Sadonia’s history. Though Renia, her only child, had inherited the family name, the Eisenstein Marquisate had long been renowned as a lineage of mages. Lacking any talent for magic, Renia had taken up the sword instead, and later handed over the headship to her cousin Helena, who had grown into a remarkably gifted mage.
They had neither clashed nor been particularly close, but Renia had believed they were at least on decent terms. It seemed she had been mistaken. Helena quickly took the vacant position of the Emperor’s fiancée and turned her back on Renia.
The subordinates who had once praised Renia as a genius tactician remained silent, perhaps having always resented taking orders from a young woman. The nobles who had hailed her as a hero when she crushed the endless waves of enemies from the east eagerly fabricated charges against her.
Perhaps it was her reckless personality that had been the problem. Her 27 years had been filled only with the glory of victory, yet the place where she reflected on that life was a damp underground prison where even light barely reached.
She was tired.
The endless foreign invasions, the fierce struggle for the throne… the scale of it all had been so overwhelming that she had never had the capacity to concern herself with smaller matters. Or perhaps she simply lacked the temperament for it. Renia let out a bitter laugh as she acknowledged it.
She had never fully given her heart to her relatives, nor to the Emperor who had been both her lord and fiancé. She had never learned how to care attentively or act with warmth. Renia had always been a soldier, and a soldier only needed to win.
Everything else had never seemed necessary. And this was the result.
As she twisted her ruined body, which could no longer even feel properly, the chains clattered loudly.
After her mother died, Renia’s world had turned entirely colorless. Her mother, Lucinoa Eisenstein, had been the strongest, warmest, most beautiful person in her life, her entire world. Her sudden death had been the end of that world.
“A beating heart is a wonderful thing.”
Lucinoa had often said that while stroking Renia’s red hair. But left alone in a world where nothing remained, Renia had neither anything she desperately wanted nor anything she could not have. People who came and went did not matter to her. Those who lingered around her were simply divided into two categories: useful, or not.
She did not regret being this way. Regret is a reaction to choices. She had simply lived as she was. She had not chosen a life that would end in this dark underground prison, so there was nothing to regret.
Even if she went back, she could not live as someone else. She had fought wars and political battles because she enjoyed them. Achieving the victories she planned had been satisfying.
As for everything else that had bored and annoyed her, she doubted she would pay them any more attention even if given another chance. She did not regret that either. At the end of a life with little to hold onto, there was only one thing that left a bad taste in her mouth: Muratan’s twisted face.
If she could, she would kill him at least once.
Her golden eyes flashed with anger for a brief moment before her head drooped again.
She was tired.
The short night passed quickly, and expressionless guards hoisted up Renia’s limp body. At the execution ground, packed with spectators, a long list of incomprehensible charges was loudly recited.
Renia was beheaded.
—
Her eyes stung.
Morning?
Did she fall asleep without closing the curtains again?
As she forced her stiff eyelids open, sunlight poured in through the wide-open window, just as expected. She threw off the blanket and moved toward the window to draw the curtains, but then she froze.
Morning sunlight? Morning? My room? My room in Eisenstein Manor?
Why?
Still stiff, Renia first drew the curtains. Then she looked around the room she had left behind three years ago after handing over the position of head to Helena. Sitting on the bed that still held traces of her past, she looked around again.
A peaceful morning. The Eisenstein Marquisate. A body that was undeniably alive.
So… why?
Sitting cross-legged on the bed with her arms folded, Renia racked her brain to understand the situation. Then, she dredged up a long-forgotten memory. It was a story her mother, the eccentric former Marchioness Eisenstein, had once told her.
By an extraordinary stroke of luck, her mother had befriended a dragon in her youth. That dragon had even come personally to celebrate her mother’s childbirth and had tried to gift her a fragment of its heart. Instead, Lucinoa had given it to the newborn Renia.
At the time, it had sounded so absurd that even as a child, Renia had dismissed it as one of her mother’s strange tales and forgotten it. But now, that ridiculous story forced its way back into her mind, leaving her no other explanation.
Even if it were some kind of shield magic that granted an extra life at the moment of death, how could such magic exist without a caster?
Renia tilted her head, baffled.
For now, she pulled the bell cord. A maid entered promptly, carrying water for washing. It was a familiar face from long ago.
“What day is it?”
“Pardon?”
“I asked what day it is.”
“It is April 5th, my lady.”
“What year?”
The maid raised her head in confusion before lowering it again respectfully.
“Today is April 5th, Year 42 of the Empire. The day of your engagement ceremony, my lady.”
Five years ago.
Muratan was still only the Fourth Prince. The Crown Prince and Emperor were both still alive. Renia was still the Marchioness Eisenstein, a 22-year-old rising commander gaining recognition at a rapid pace.
Renia dismissed the maid with a gesture and gathered her thoughts. Her golden eyes flashed.
Whether it was a dragon or something else, there was no reason to refuse such a priceless opportunity.
She would not live as she had before.
That absurd life that ended at the execution ground after running forward without ever looking around.
She had no lingering attachment to the family she had already cast aside once. Loyalty that had never been rewarded no longer held meaning. In the past three months, she had been so alone that even the occasional guard had felt like company.
This time, she would live differently.
Yes. Differently.
But before that, there was something she absolutely had to settle.
Muratan’s face, twisted as he raved, came to mind, and her body heated with anger again. She clenched her fist and curled her lips into a smile.
How should she ruin him to repay that nightmare?
Should she go to the Crown Prince and stand against him? Earn his endless trust, only to betray him at the moment he felt most secure? Or capture him and torture him until her anger subsided?
Lost in pleasant imagination, Renia soon shook her head.
No. That wasn’t it.
Was she to waste another life on Muratan? She had already spent one life making him Emperor. Now she was to spend another destroying him?
It was over. Everything between her and Muratan had ended the moment her head fell at the execution ground. There was nothing left, not even the need for revenge.
She couldn’t simply leave things as they were. But she had no intention of wasting even a single day of her newly gained life on him.
Renia glanced around the bustling marquisate, busy preparing for her engagement. Then she quietly began her own preparations.
She packed her sword, whatever cash she could immediately use, and jewels that could be converted into money, tying them to the fastest horse. She prepared comfortable clothes and shoes, and even packed some dry rations, just in case.
By the afternoon, guests began to arrive one by one, and it was time to change into her dress for the engagement ceremony.
As she dressed, Renia removed the cumbersome petticoat. She tied her hair into a long, high ponytail. The maids were puzzled but obeyed without question.
She summoned the captain of the knights and ordered all knights in the estate to assemble at the training grounds. Though puzzled, the captain followed her strict command and withdrew all forces from the estate.
Once the maids finished checking her attire and left, Renia kicked off her high heels, put on boots, and tightened them firmly.
Then she went to Muratan, who was greeting guests in the garden.
Dressed in a pure white gown, her red hair tied high, and holding a sword in one hand, she approached him. Muratan looked momentarily surprised but soon smiled.
“A sword even on a day like this. It suits you, but not that outfit.”
He greeted her with a casual smile.
Renia walked up to him without obstruction.
Then, in an instant, she drew her sword.
The blade struck precisely at Muratan’s neck. Blood sprayed.
Clutching his neck, Muratan collapsed with a look of shock. Cutting down even the guards who accompanied him, Renia dashed toward the stables.
The dress restricted her movement more than she expected. Had the strike been too shallow? She had forgotten that she had only learned to imbue her sword with aura at the age of twenty-four, and her swing had been shallow. Even so, she had cut his neck. He would not survive.
Mounting the horse she had prepared in advance, Renia rode out through the wide-open back gate of the estate.
The Marchioness Eisenstein, known as the right hand of the Fourth Prince, had, on the day of her own engagement, slashed the prince’s throat and vanished.
The capital fell into chaos.
Witnesses reported seeing a woman in a white dress riding a white horse, her red hair flowing, heading east. A massive pursuit force was organized. Borders to the three eastern kingdoms were sealed, and a warrant was issued across the entire empire.
Everyone connected to Renia was interrogated, but she had maintained no meaningful relationships, and having acted alone without even her knights, there was no one who knew her whereabouts.
—
Having safely escaped the capital, Erudan, Renia stood for a while, staring at its walls.
It would be difficult to return.
She felt a slight regret at losing access to the Eisenstein estate filled with memories of her mother, but those memories remained in her mind. The estate would belong to Helena anyway. It was not something worth clinging to.
Turning her horse, her red hair flowing, Renia set off.
To avoid the imperial army searching desperately for her, she had to leave Sadonia. Attempting to assassinate a royal was punishable by execution without trial. There would be no chance to argue that she had merely killed the one who would have killed her first. Even if there were, no one would believe her.
Muratan’s face, as he collapsed clutching his neck, had shown nothing but shock. When had he begun to want her dead? Why had he been so enraged as to torture her?
She thought about it briefly, then shook her head.
There was no way to know. And no need to understand his anger.
Placing a hand over her chest, she felt the lingering ache. The pain had flared briefly and vanished, but it bothered her.
At the moment she cut Muratan down, her heart had twinged sharply.
Was this also because of the dragon’s heart fragment she had supposedly received?
Letting out a dry laugh, Renia dismissed the absurd thought. She had died, come back to life, and even gone back five years. If anything could explain it, perhaps only a dragon’s heart could—but it was still hard to believe.
Well, it didn’t matter.
She had once thought she was too exhausted to go on living. But now that things had turned out this way, perhaps she could find something interesting again.
Taking a deep breath, Renia kicked her horse forward.
With her white horse racing westward, her long red hair streamed behind her in the wind.
