By the Time You Came Around, It Was Already Too Late

“Waaaah!”

The sound of a child’s crying filled the mansion, and in an instant, the Archduke’s residence became festive.

Everyone sang praises for the newborn child and thanked the Archduke’s lover who burst in and took my place.

No one brought up the fact that the child was illegitimate.

In fact, they took care of the woman, Sarsha, calling her “young lady” and “miss” as if they’d been friends with her from the beginning.

The newborn child was registered as the son of the Archduke and the Archduchess, completely against my will.

That’s how Sarsha came to live in the mansion.

She occupied the room right next door to mine and the Archduke’s bedroom, and I was left in a state of despair.

I sat on the bed in a daze and stared out the window.

The Archduke couldn’t’ve been colder to me.

The employees, who I thought were warm and open-minded, changed in an instant and showed guarded faces, as if we were meeting for the first time.

I felt like I was living alone in a strange world.

When I looked at the mansion after Sarsha entered, I could painfully feel the difference. Kindness. Love. Warmth. Everything I’d felt was fake, orchestrated under the Archduke’s meticulous planning.

I gasped in agony, my lungs constricting.

I couldn’t believe it at first.

 

‘… Sarsha, why did you say that?’

 

I couldn’t believe it, even though I’d heard the indirect affirmation directly from his mouth. No, I didn’t want to believe it.

 

‘Asyria, are you okay?’

‘If there’s anything I can do for you, please let me know, we are a couple after all.’

 

All those sweet words, each one a salvation to me, were all lies.

It was all a part of his revenge, stemming from his hatred for the royal family.

The callused hand that stroked my cheek, his lips that kissed my forehead and placed light bird kisses all over my body, were all lies.

My hands were trembling.

One tear, two tears, slid down my cheek.

The sheets on the bed became slightly damp.

They say the emperor killed the previous archduke and his wife, making it look like an accident.

Yes, he must still hate the emperor who married me to him.

But why should he take his revenge on me? Simply because I’m the emperor’s daughter? Simply because I’m a blood relative of the imperial family, one that fell into his hands?

When I was younger, I blamed my mother for her sins.

The woman who fearlessly used drugs to steal a night with the emperor and conceived a child there.

I was recognized as a princess, but also the daughter of a sinner. From the moment I was born, I was imprisoned in the palace, abandoned, growing up despised by everyone.

And now, I must bear the sins of the emperor who abandoned me?

I wasn’t born by choice. I didn’t choose to have them as my parents. I didn’t become what I was because I wanted to.

I was not loved by them, nor did I grow up happily with them.

The emperor who abandoned me early on, and the mother who took out her anger on me daily and eventually committed suicide in front of my eyes.

Why do both of their sins fall onto my shoulders? What on earth did I do wrong?

I thought I’d overcome my mother’s sins.

I thought I’d resigned myself to it. I thought it was inevitable.

But… to find out that the warmth and security that the first person I ever loved had given me was all a lie, that the hand I thought was my salvation was actually dragging me down into a deeper hell.

I felt like I was going insane.

Two months, three months. As time passed, I realized with a sinking feeling that there was no place for me in the Archduke’s residence.

After processing documents, like a machine, I would go out into the garden and sit among the grass until the sun set.

A lovely woman with pink bouncing curls and fresh green eyes. The Archduke’s public lover. Sarsha von Warthe.

The Archduke no longer prevented me from going outside. No, he didn’t even care what I did.

Since he was a nobleman, he couldn’t completely cut himself off from social circles, so he took me to an official banquet in the North.

Of course, Sarsha was there too.

I was his official partner, however, I was always alone, left at the back of the banquet hall.

It was Sarsha who danced with him or strolled around with him.

Although she was a mistress, she was also the precious daughter of a powerful northern count family, so no one commented. No, I was the one who was cursed.

 

‘I thought you would become the Archduchess…!’

‘Who knew that a princess I didn’t even know existed would suddenly appear?’

‘Shh, but at least she was a princess. Poor Lady Warthe…’

‘What is your crime, Archduke? His Majesty the Emperor, sent the former Archduke and his wife…’

 

It was freeing, but ironically, it was also stifling.

The more I walked around, the more clearly I could see why he’d locked me in the mansion.

The North was a region where the imperial family held relatively less influence.

The people of the North were more loyal to the Archduke, who protected them, than to the emperor, and the fact that the imperial family was the Archduke’s enemy was widespread among them.

In other words, everyone who came and went to the mansion and everyone who used the mansion knew about it. That there was no way the Archduke could truly love me.

Everyone also knew that Sarsha was the Archduke’s lover. There was even talk about why Lady Warthe was leaving the Archduchess alone.

It was a mercy for the Archduke not to do anything to his wife, and he was portrayed as a very good person.

It was a lie.

In this situation, people even said that the position of Archduchess was originally hers. I was ashamed of the insults I suffered because I was powerless, because I could do nothing on my own.

This world that was supposed to be peaceful was actually an even worse hellhole.

My weight, which had been slowly increasing over the course of three years, plummeted. I slept less than a few hours a day because of the voices in my head that were constantly tormenting me.

I thought it was the same hell as the imperial palace. I stand corrected. There was a big difference. Being stuck in the palace I dealt with the violence of my own mother and other people’s hostility.

This was even worse.

Every moment I could hear voices behind me gossiping about me, and I felt like I was going to throw up.

I didn’t want to do anything. I wanted to sit in my bedroom and give up on everything, but I couldn’t.

Even now, visions of Sarsha, basking in the warmth of the Archduke’s smile, gently laughing, flashed through my mind.

I don’t know about revenge on the royal family, but the Archduke succeeded in completely dragging me down to the bottom.

It was miserable knowing that there was something worse than the time I spent in the palace.

To see the man I loved, the man who had somehow made me feel this way, embracing another woman and whispering secret words to her, made me feel as if my heart was being torn to shreds… all the time.

 

* * * *

 

After finishing my work for the day, I wandered aimlessly and sat down on a bench in the garden.

As I looked toward the mansion, I saw Sarsha smiling brightly at the Archduke through the window.

The Archduke’s blue eyes bore into Sarsha’s.

I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. Despite the fact that he wasn’t smiling at me, my heart continued to beat wildly, even though it was him I should hate the most.

I felt even more miserable because even now, if he told me it was all a bad joke, I would accept it.

The first love I realized was not something that could be easily cut off.

Even if everyone in the world despised me, I felt like I could tolerate it as long as that one person showed me affection.

Even after everything I’d been through, I thought it would all be okay if that one person just said ‘I love you’. I thought I would close my eyes and move on if he told me that it was all just a lie, that he’d only been playing with Sarsha.

I wanted to blame him, but I couldn’t. I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t. I want to give up, but I couldn’t.

Even though I feel betrayed, I missed the kindness I received from the Archduke back then. Even though I know it was staged.

 

‘I, I love him! I love him… But, but, but why won’t he look at me?!! It’s all because of you!!! If only you weren’t born!!!’

 

Suddenly, I remembered my mother’s words to me when I was young: that she loved the emperor.

At that time, I thought love was foolish. My mother and the emperor were mismatched from the start.

My mother cried out for love and went mad. In the end, she died without even receiving a single glance from the emperor.

But now, I felt like I could understand my mother a little bit. My process was completely different from hers, but our painful love was just the same.

I swear, I felt like I would go insane if I let go for even a second.

I stared blankly at the flowers gently swaying in the breeze.

I was irritated by the peacefulness of the sun, shining brightly even though my heart was breaking.

[No, that way, that way!]

[I feel something?!]

[Why are you so slow, come on! Come on!]

I could hear little children chattering in my ear.

At the same time, I raised my head and froze when I felt a tickling sensation on the tip of my nose.

A translucent light green girl the size of a finger was clinging to the tip of my nose.

[I feel so, so comfortable!]

[You guys, come quickly, it’s so comfortable!]

[I’ve never seen anyone like this before!]

In a flash, two or three identical girls appeared and surrounded my face.

Despite rubbing my cheeks and fussing, I felt somehow refreshed, so I just let them do whatever they wanted.

Part of someone’s magic, I suppose. I’d never seen a wizard in the Archduchy before, though.

“Hey… can you get off of me?”

I don’t know what they were, but I was frustrated because my vision was blocked, so I whispered softly, and the fairies suddenly screeched.

[Oh my God!]

[Can she see us!]

[Can she hear us!]

[She was no ordinary human after all!]

[Redin, come quickly!]

As I stared at the chattering fairies, I felt someone looking at me, and turned my head.

A man was standing there. He blinked.

“Can you see… this?”

The words left the mouth of a stunningly beautiful man who’d been staring at me for a long while.