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***
 
The night was so dark that I couldn’t even see ahead of me if it weren’t for the small lit candle next to the bedside table. I quietly rose from where I had been lying alongside Emperor Carmun.
 
Perhaps it was luck that brought me here. I even slept with the emperor of the Idelberg Empire, whom I had never met in my life.
 
But would he ever know that it was the biggest mistake of his life?
 
After becoming the Emperor’s 27th concubine, I had no intention of sleeping with him. But somehow, the Emperor kept coming to me, and now he even abandoned the Empress to seek only myself.
 
I checked to confirm if the Emperor had fallen asleep,
 
“Your Majesty…” I said quietly.
 
The Emperor did not move as he exhaled steady breaths. After seeing that he was sleeping peacefully, I grabbed the dagger I had hidden under my pillow. The hand that held the dagger was already trembling with fear.
 
‘Why did you choose me out of all the women in your entourage?’
 
I had to kill him. He was my father’s sworn enemy. I wanted to kill him and fulfill my father’s wish, but my body was shaking more than I thought and I felt like I was going to miss the sword…
 
The Emperor was lying on the bed asleep with an unconcerned look on his face, not knowing what I was up to.
 
My hand shook, and suddenly, I did not want to kill him. When I looked closer at the emperor, who was called the devil, he did not  look like a bad man, let alone a devil.
 
He was a good emperor who cared about his people. And he was a scarred man with a painful secret.
 
I couldn’t hurt such a person just because he was my father’s enemy, even though he was better to me than anyone else in the world.
 
“Huff…huff.” (Crying sound)
 
Carmun didn’t open his eyes, despite the sound of my quiet cry. It was as if he was dead. I held the dagger in my hand. I froze in place, I couldn’t stab him or stop crying when I saw him sleeping peacefully in front of me. My father’s urging had already gone too far. If I didn’t kill him, my father would be disappointed. Then I would be a useless daughter again.
 
“I’m sorry.”
 
I whispered quietly as I lifted the knife high in the air and quickly strained it so that I could plunge it into his heart. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it because the thoughts suddenly came to my mind.
 
<b>“Edith, look at this. I can’t believe you’re smiling. That’s why the flowers bloomed. It’s because of your smile.”</b>
 
The cherry blossoms that bloomed in the early summer.
 
<b>“From now on, don’t smile so sweetly. It makes me angry when other people see you smiling.”</b>
 
He was good at being jealous, and he was the hydrangea that I said I liked.
 
<b>“You must be the only person whose wish for the emperor is a hydrangea.” </b>
 
He was a man who would give me anything, even if I didn’t have anything to wish for. I had even entertained the thought of driving a knife into his heart! It was only then that it dawned on me. It was then that I realized what I had been pretending not to know. I had him in my heart.
 
I let go of the dagger in my hand in surprise. Just as I was about to hastily grab it when I heard a loud popping sound, immediately, a hand bigger than mine seemed to anticipate it and grabbed it calmly.
 
“…!”
 
I let out a silent scream.
 
Carmun Idelberg, the Emperor of the Empire, opened his eyes.
 
The weapon in his hand clearly said that I was the murderer.
 
“Your Majesty!”
 
I was too surprised to speak. I stammered and called him, but he just looked at me with a cold face. It has been a long time since I lost my usual gentle smile. His cold, red eyes looked down at me and I couldn’t move as if my whole body had frozen. I realized the seriousness of the situation as if a red warning light was flashing in my head.
 
“I’m guilty of death…!”
 
“Shh…”
 
He covered my mouth with his other hand. It was a cautious move, as if he didn’t want to be found.
 
‘What are you doing? Isn’t this the time to question me? Or calling the guards to capture me?’
 
Yes. It was for the best. I knew from the start that this was going to happen. There was no way I was going to succeed in killing him. He couldn’t have known who I was. I couldn’t reveal that I was not Edith, my father’s beloved eldest daughter, but Helen, the abandoned one, who couldn’t take the bullying. I couldn’t say that I wasn’t the Edith he loved, I just chose to be killed by his hands.
 
Until the moment I died, I was a coward. I closed my tearful eyes, foreseeing my death. At that moment, every thought came to my mind.
 
‘He will blame me. He will hate me.’
 
But it was harder for me to reveal that I was Helen than it was for him to hate me. Why in the world am I in this state?
 
“Edith, open your eyes,” he said, his voice sounding like a growing beast in a cave.
 
I was very scared, but I knew that he was completely out of control when he got angry. So I secretly opened my eyes and looked at him, his eyes were shining dangerously.
 
“Why didn’t you kill me?”
 
The words that came out of his mouth were something else entirely. He sounded like he was disappointed that I didn’t kill him.
 
I looked straight at him, not hiding my panicked eyes, and this time he grabbed my shoulders. With an obvious urging look in his eyes.
 
“What are you talking about?”
 
“Did you think I didn’t know?”
 
Carmun smiled knowingly at me. A sense of unease came over me seeing that smile. For there is something between him and me that I did not know.
 
“Wasn’t it a fact that everyone knew that your father and I didn’t get along? If you look a little further back, you will find that there are countless stories of suspicion. So please tell me. Why didn’t you kill me? Why didn’t you obey my father’s orders?”
 
His eyes shone brightly. He grabbed me by the shoulders, his hands tightened as if not letting me escape.
 
What could I say to him? Does he want to know that it was my father who sent me here to kill him, the Emperor, in his own room? Or now I am attempting to kill him?
 
I kept looking at him with a panicked look in my eyes. I couldn’t speak to him about any of these thoughts. If it becomes a problem between countries, there will be a huge bloodstorm in Cordelia, a small country.
 
As a princess of Cordelia, I couldn’t open my mouth and bit my lip as if to strike. I was a little numbed by the look in his eyes, as if he were a wolf on the hunt, watching his prey. His red eyes shone in the moonlight.
 
Carmun, still locked me in his arms, stared down and spoke in a distinctive low voice.
 
“If killing me makes you feel better, then kill me.”
 
‘What does he mean?’
 
He put the dagger directly in my shaking hands. Then he placed my hands holding the dagger in front of his heart.
 
Has he really lost his mind?
 
”What, what are you doing!”
 
I shook off his hand with all my might.
 
Clank!
 
The dagger fell to the floor and made a clunk sound. Even in the midst of it all, Carmun’s gaze never left mine. He didn’t seem the least bit upset or panicked. The one who panicked was me, the one who was going to kill him. The plan wasn’t supposed to be like this… I was going to let him kill me. The situation just drifted out of control and he wanted me to kill him!
 
He grabbed me by the chin and lifted it. His gaze met mine once more, and I had the illusion of being eaten by it.
 
“…if you choose to stay with me instead of just being…”
 
He stared at me. For a while he went silent. When he opened his mouth again, he looked as if he had made some great decision.
 
“Be my Empress.”
 
‘Empress? I tried to kill him, but instead of executing me, he wants me to be his Empress? Is he crazy?’
 
“I’ll protect you no matter what you do,” he said, smiling with satisfaction as my eyes widened in surprise.
 
“If you refuse, I will let the world know your crime. Your father, who sent his daughter to assassinate the emperor, will not be safe.”
 
It was a proposal I couldn’t refuse. No, it was a threat. It was a condition that he set knowing that I could not refuse. What on earth did I do to deserve this? There was not a single good thing about me that fit the position of Empress.
 
I was a princess from a weak country in the middle of nowhere, I wasn’t good at dealing with things, and I wasn’t smart enough to compete with the Empress.
 
He said, looking at the prey he had picked up by chance with his eyes full of satiety.
 
“Become my Empress, Edith.”
 
His gentle voice sent a shiver down my spine as I recoiled. His proposal made me very happy, but there was one more secret he did not yet know.
 
‘I am not Edith. I am Helen Cordelia.’
 
It was the fact that I was not the Crown Princess of the Cordelia Empire, but the troubled second princess.