On the night when Donovan and Crawford were annihilated simultaneously, the Kingdom called that unfortunate as the Night of the Slaughter.
Crawford fell, and Donovan, who lost his only heir, also lost his power. I curled up in a quiet prison, waiting for execution.
The Kingdom was in an uproar, condemning Crawford’s daughter, who bewitched Donovan’s heir and caused the tragedy.
I closed my eyes, enduring the red spectacle that unfolded and the memory of my betrothed who twisted towards me.
‘Soon it will end. After his revenge is over, I will be free through death.’
I recited this. It was the only solace that could push away the fear of death.
I believed so.
Until Cliff Moore overturned the situation that was barely being corrected with his trivial whim.
On the day we met again, it wasn’t his sword that struck me down.
“Hello, my bride.”
LooKing at my pale face, Cliff Moore slowly raised the corners of his mouth.
In his picturesque smile, his ruthlessness was prominent.
He was not satisfied, perhaps because our death and destruction was not enough to offset his decades-old resentment.
Or perhaps it was simply the sadistic pleasure of watching a mouse squirm under the weight of its own throat, as my father had done.
Either way, I couldn’t understand him.
“I give my permission for the marriage of the Marquess of Cliff Moore to the young lady Ezen Crawford. I shall be the witness to these beautiful lovers.”
We were not lovers.
However, when I barely regained my senses, I had become his wife, and Cliff Moore had become my husband.
Only because he chose so.
Wearing the mask of love sincere enough to embrace the daughter of an enemy, his story spread throughout the Kingdom as a commendable tale.
My hatred began from then.
We were supposed to look at each other from the end of the line, but he persistently grabbed me and pinned me by his side.
Cliff Moore and Ezen Crawford were supposed to be the end, not the beginning.
At the point where we should have put a period, he added a comma and tried to start the story again, knowing it would only make the story ugly and dirty in the end.
My father took his family, and he took mine.
Having taken one from each other, he lost the justification for revenge by hanging me on the scale that momentarily achieved balance.
The sharp malice he honed pierced my fiancé’s heart, and I walked down the aisle covered in the blood of an innocent person, not my own.
At least as innocent as Nigel Donovan,
who had nothing to do with our history.
Even if it was merely a formal engagement arranged by my father, and even if he dared to defy the King’s order and tried to help me escape, it was not a reason for his life to be taken so easily.
He was not the one who deserved to die. It was me.
I felt the debt I had just been freed from weighing down on me again.
I no longer wanted to live off someone else’s sacrifice. I just wanted to end this tiresome life.
I didn’t have the courage to die by my own hand, so I hoped to be executed under the blade of revenge, but even that now seemed like excessive greed, mocKing me.
“No! This can’t be, absolutely not! This can’t happen! This can’t……!”
I cried out. Selfishly, it wasn’t because I loved my dead fiancé.
I was still a hypocritical and selfish person. The thought of having to continue live again with this physiological disgust for myself, and I could only see a future of living as a corpse.
The maids lifted me up as I crumbled to the floor.
They dressed me in a snow-white dress and placed a lovely, spotless veil on me.
As if to show me how much those pure values didn’t suit me.
At the end of the red path, as red as the blood of my fiancé that I was covered in, stood Cliff Moore.
“The tears of an enemy are sweet.”
Our first kiss tasted of salt and blood, maKing me nauseous.
Wiping the blood spreading over his bitten lip, he laughed.
*
I didn’t love him. Nor did he love me.
We were merely a formal couple, never sharing anything that normal couples would typically share.
However, he absurdly sent gifts faithfully on anniversaries.
Lavish jewels and dresses that did not suit me at all seemed to affirm his superiority over me, just as my father had crushed him.
I tore them to pieces. The anger that had lain dormant within me was revived.
He only smirked at the remnants of the discarded gifts, as if that was what he wanted.
The mansion felt like a prison. Thick bars were installed in my room, and wherever I went, a burly knight and a sharp-eyed maid followed me.
I felt myself withering away, just as I had shriveled up under my father’s control.
Three years after our marriage, when I still had no children, rumors about my husband and me began to spread.
“They say she’s causing trouble. It’s clear she doesn’t know gratitude for being spared, proving she’s indeed Crawford’s blood. Our hero is the only one to be pitied.”
“Why did he choose such a woman? Surely, something was used back then. It would be better if he divorced her now. The line of those desiring the Black Lion would wrap around the city walls twice.”
The King felt sorry for his favorite vassal and sent him a letter. It stated that if he wished, the King would nullify the declaration and support their divorce.
For the King to offer to annul a marriage he had blessed was a great favor. There were not a few couples in the capital who, unable to deny the bond granted by the sovereign, lived their entire lives together miserably and unwillingly.
However, my husband neither followed the King’s decree I had secretly read nor divorced me.
He merely carried out his duties as Marquis Moore silently, appearing to desire no changes beyond that.
“I am here at the King’s summons, but is this truly his residence……?”
The King still cared for him so much that he was willing to match him up with the daughter of a prestigious Duke’s family, which could provide solid political support for my relatively weak-standing husband. The King likely thought that if left alone, he would forever remain a bachelor in all but name.
The already miserably disappeared daughter of Crawford was not someone the King felt obligated to consider.
While persistently trying to match my husband with the Duke’s daughter, the King even sent messages indicating he did not consider me his legitimate wife.
The sole reason he had permitted this marriage was because his cherished vassal, Cliff Moore, had wished it.
This was not surprising. In this place, I existed yet did not exist.
The only reason everyone around me treated me as a living human was because of my husband.
Everyone around me, just like in the past, was controlled by someone other than myself. It had merely shifted from my father to my husband, and no one saw me for who I was.
I felt suffocated.
The Duke’s daughter visited. As always, it was early lunchtime, and my husband was at the palace.
“His Majesty said that you greedily cling to him for his honor and wealth. How can you do that? You don’t even love him! He doesn’t belong with someone like you! I- I…..!”
The blush spreading over her pale face was lovely as she cried out with a delicate voice.
The Duke’s daughter, as always, shyly confessed her love, unable to hide her embarrassment.
I couldn’t help but think that I wasn’t the one who should be hearing this.
Seeing me silently watching her, the Duke’s daughter grew more confident. She seemed captivated by the greatness of a lover vanquishing a wicked wife.
