Prologue

“It’s your victory.”

The crown prince’s voice was low and calm.

“If your goal was to drive me mad.”

It was hard to believe such a composed voice belonged to someone confessing their own madness.

“I haven’t been in my right mind since the moment you left me.”

Left him?

Eatrith, who had turned her head away to avoid his gaze, froze. Her grip on the sword tightened.

She couldn’t understand the words coming from his mouth.

She had simply judged that he no longer needed her help and left.

‘Once the young prince regains his sight, I’ll leave.’

It had been a simple and clear plan.

Thanks to her help, the prince’s eyes saw the light again, and he smoothly rose to the position of crown prince.

That was already several years ago.

So it should have all been over.

“Look at me.”

The crown prince before her now claimed she had abandoned him. He was even confessing that he’d gone mad because of it.

“Please, turn your head and show me your face.”

The crown prince was pleading.

Pleading to her—a mere knight and the illegitimate daughter of a duke.

As if Eatrith’s very existence was…

“My savior.”

As if she were the most precious thing in the world to him.

Savior.

At that word, Eatrith turned her head before she even realized it.

When their eyes met, his deep violet gaze curved gently into a smile.

“The reason I opened my eyes, the reason I survived the blood-stained palace in such misery…”

At some point—she didn’t know when—the crown prince’s face had drawn close, just before hers.

It was a beautiful face.

The kind that made you want to take his hand and follow, even if the destination was hell.

“It was all to see you.”

In those amethyst-colored eyes, there was only one person—Eatrith, and no one else.

Realizing that, Eatrith felt her breath catch.

She swore to both the divine and the demonic—this was never her intention.

Eatrith was a knight.

If the crown prince demanded her loyalty as her liege, she was ready to give her life, just as she had before returning to the past.

But—

“I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Her instincts told her that whatever emotion was flickering in the prince’s eyes right now, it wasn’t loyalty.

Eatrith, a lonely knight who had only ever known the sword, couldn’t quite identify it—but she knew.

“You’re saying I was mistaken?”

“Yes. Completely.”

Eatrith stepped back a few paces to put some distance between them.

But—

“Well, if that’s what you want, you can lie.”

With just a single step, the crown prince filled her vision once more.

“But if you’re going to leave me…”

Eatrith gripped her sword tightly, bracing herself for what would come next.

The crown prince alternated his gaze between her icy blade and her tense figure, then leaned forward.

Her arm, still holding the sword, was lifted. The cold edge of the blade grazed the prince’s eye and pale cheek.

“What are you doing…!”

Startled, Eatrith tried to pull her arm back.

But she couldn’t—because of the hand gripping the bare blade, with no glove for protection.

The crown prince, who had grabbed the sword himself and aimed it at his own eye, whispered—

“Blind me again. So that if you run, I won’t be able to find you.”