Chapter 0 Prologue
A quiet dawn.
Delphine gazed silently down at the sleeping form of the man beside her.
The man who had destroyed her family, who had slashed her father’s throat.
The face of her husband, the man she’d wed in a sacred ceremony.
He was in a deathly slumber from the poison she had slipped over his mouth.
His face asleep looked terribly peaceful, out of character for the situation.
Perhaps it was because he’d spent the night pouring out all his desires on her.
As he had done every night, every single day, since the night he first held her.
Delphine stroked the red marks on her body and idly recalled the past half year.
This man had always held her as if in worship.
Not that there was anything sacred about his actions, of course, or that he was ever careful.
Quite the contrary.
At night, he dropped the mask of nobility and became a beast.
Like a werewolf in the face of the full moon.
Such a raw and naked act had never occurred to Delphine.
He savored every part of her, always with his full attention, as if he could savor every inch of her.
It was the look in his eyes that made her feel the holy emotion of worship in the midst of his obscenity.
He always looked at her as if he were gazing at an object of worship.
As if he could hardly believe her presence in front of him. As if he owed his very existence to her…
For a moment, she looked at her husband’s sleeping face.
Delphine slowly raised her hands high in the air.
The dagger in her hand glowed a brilliant blue in the early morning moonlight.
Delphine’s hands trembled with anguish as she gripped the cold steel.
Should she kill him?
Or should he live?
“Four in the morning. In front of a sweet shop in District 2. You can’t lose a minute, and remember, if you miss this chance, you’ll never leave.”
Lin’s orders echoed in her ears, the one she’d agreed to help her escape.
There was no time for second thoughts.
If all went according to plan, she’d slit his throat with her dagger and leave the manor in style.
Just as he had done to her father, half a year ago.
But…
Clang-
The dagger slipped from Delphine’s hand.
The clear sound echoed through the bedroom, but the man, whose eyes were as bright as bats, didn’t stir.
“Why… can’t you stab…?”
Delphine backed away from him, her face white with anger.
One of her hands unconsciously rested on her stomach. As if to protect something.
Delphine fumbled with trembling hands to open the door.
Let’s leave.
Yes. We’re running away.
Far, far away.
She decides what to do with the child in her belly, the seed of a sinner, later.
In this empire, where she was born and raised as the daughter of a nobleman, her priority is to escape his diabolical clutches.
Delphine left the mansion and rode out into the cold dawn wind towards District 2.
The wind shattered like glass, one by one, the bitter ties that bound her to this man.
Family enemy, her husband.
The man who had been a slave, living a miserable life like a worm, and then returned as the most glorious of heroes.
And.
The murderer of her father, the grandfather of the child she carried in her womb.
By the time Delphine, fleeing from him, reached the northern barrier of District 3, dawn was breaking.
Ioan Pride awoke at the crack of dawn.
Two hours earlier than Lin, the brewer of the poison, had expected.
A cold bed beside him.
A blue dagger on the floor.
The way she had been sleeping, as if drugged, oblivious to all of this.
It wasn’t hard to guess what had happened in the early hours of the morning.
He rolled out of bed as if he had never slept and headed straight for the Imperial Palace in District 1.
Recognising him, a Templar captain jumped up, saluted, and asked.
“Lord Pride? What brings you to… at this hour?”
There is no place in this Astrakhan Empire that his power does not reach.
She must have realized that by now, and if she had decided to flee from him, she would have done so by leaving this Empire.
The Empire is surrounded on all sides by high walls.
Beyond the southern wall is the sea.
Beyond the eastern and western walls are monstrous mountains…
“Prepare the troops. We’re going to the northern wall.”
Pride hummed low as he fastened the buttons of each captured conquest.
The Templar saluted without question, then stormed out of the office.
She must be planning to cross the northern wall to another city.
He wondered what her face would look like if she found himself standing guard at that crossroads.
Would she tremble with fear, or would she straighten her back and look at him as she always did.
The thought of her intense gaze, like a pure emerald, sends a shiver down his spine.
The lust he’d been indulging all night threatened to rear its ugly head.
As he dressed in his regalia, he recalled the events of last night-nay, of this dawn.
She was the first to kiss him.
She was the first to kiss him, and the first to kiss him back.
…It was all an act and a ruse to get away today.
Hmph. His hand twitched as he slid the cypheron knife into its scabbard.
“Yes. Run.”
He spoke in a low, guttural voice, his scabbard still strapped to his waist.
“Delphine. I would sell my lowly soul again and again to have you.”
Before the morning had even dawned, orders were issued to seal the gates of the barrier on all sides.
A search was ordered across the Empire for a young woman with red hair and emerald eyes.
Imperial hero Ioan Pride set out with a battalion-sized force to the northern barrier of District 3.
All this while his wife, Delphine Pembroke, had just arrived near the Northern Wall.
