Prologue
Though it was broad daylight, the sky beyond the window was dark, as if foretelling misfortune. A strange wind rattled the panes, and soon, the heavens rumbled with an unfamiliar, mournful cry.
Ophelia gazed outside with a devastated expression. Before the gates of the Grand Duke’s castle, soldiers stretched in a line without end. To some, it might have looked like a grand spectacle. To her, it was a vision of hell.
“The Grand Duke… has truly completed his preparations for battle?”
“Yes, my lady. Forgive me.”
At the reply, she bit her lips in silence. From the torn, already bloodied flesh, fresh crimson seeped out.
“I must see His Grace myself.”
She could not surrender like this. Tonight, the Grand Duke’s enemy was none other than Ophelia’s homeland—the kingdom of her beloved father.
Clad only in a thin dress despite the biting chill, Ophelia hurried across the castle, arriving just in time at her husband’s office before he departed.
“My lady.”
Decar, the Grand Duke, her husband, looked at her briefly. His eyes were colder than usual, as he wore the armor handed to him by his aide. Confusion clouded Ophelia’s gaze.
The tall man in armor no longer looked like the same person who had shared her bed the previous night. The steel upon his broad shoulders made him appear three times larger, embodying the title he was known by: the Giant of Blood.
They said any who faced his blade lost their heads. Pale and stricken, Ophelia stared at him, unable to breathe. Meeting her wavering eyes, Decar sighed.
“You’re not here simply to bid farewell, are you?”
His voice was like ice.
Her breath caught. Trembling, she stepped into his path.
“Your Grace, please—just once more, reconsider. I beg you…”
“…We have already spoken of this, have we not?”
Her fragile courage was crushed in an instant. His sigh, heavy with resolve, cut straight through her.
“This war can no longer be stopped.”
“But… at least, Your Grace need not march yourself!”
“That is impossible.”
His firm refusal left no room for argument.
This war had been doomed from the start. But the Grand Duke joining it himself changed everything. It was no longer a simple conflict. His presence declared the empire’s resolve to utterly destroy Felicia—her homeland.
That meant her father, her family… their lives could no longer be guaranteed. From the moment the war began, the one fragile hope she had clung to was crumbling.
After a long pause, Decar spoke again, his voice heavy.
“My lady, this is not a matter of our household. It is a matter between nations.”
“Even so… even so, how can I stand by and watch my own father die at my husband’s hand?”
Ophelia trembled violently, powerless. The despair of having nothing to offer her husband that might stop him was unbearable. She searched for answers, but the truth remained. She had nothing to give.
From the beginning, their marriage had never been in her favor. A frail kingdom’s desperate bid for survival had sold her into this union. Whatever meaning that marriage once carried had long since withered.
And yet, for two years she had loved, and she had tried her best. Somewhere deep inside, she had begun to believe that perhaps he felt the same. The pain of his unyielding resolve was almost too much to bear.
“From the moment you wed me, your ties to Felicia ended. Do not forget—you belong to me, and to the Dovermont Empire.”
Her husband’s words tore away the last of her hope. There was no argument left to make. For a fleeting instant, something flickered in his gray eyes, but she could not decipher it. A moment later, he strode past her.
Her hand faltered. She could not reach for him. And so, Ophelia collapsed where she stood.
Rumble—
The sky cried out once more. Hope, expectation—everything vanished.
***
Three months after the Grand Duke rode to war, news of the empire’s victory reached the land. And on the eve of his return to the duchy—
The Grand Duchess disappeared.
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