The cursed red eyes that drove out the blue-eyed crown prince and led the nation to ruin.
<Your Highness, it’s time for you to become Emperor.>
Noah was the villain in a novel with that very title.
“So that’s why people reacted so strongly to me.”
Only now did it all make sense to Rose.
“No wonder. Everyone here has the same eye and hair color!”
Eyes so transparent and vividly blue that they looked unnatural, and pure golden blonde hair with not even a hint of another shade.
The surrounding nobles didn’t all have exactly the same features as the man beside her, but their coloring was close—just slightly darker or lighter in tone. It was obvious they shared a similar bloodline.
Only the emperor and the woman who had called him by name looked different.
The woman’s eyes were brown, unlike the emperor’s, but her hair was silver—just like his. Even doing a somersault, she resembled him.
Looking closely, the fine lines around her eyes made it clear she was older, likely the emperor’s mother, but her beauty outshone her age—she was truly stunning.
“That woman—she’s Melissa!”
Remembering the woman’s name, Rose screamed internally.
“Out of all people, my butler had to be that Noah?!”
As the title suggested, the novel was about a crown prince who regains the throne that had been stolen from him.
To summarize the plot:
The main character, Sion Kaline Ernette, was the original crown prince but was robbed of his position by his half-brother Noah Kaline Ernette, due to the schemes of the emperor’s concubine, Melissa. He barely survived.
Wandering the land without a purpose, Sion eventually meets the female lead, Aria Clanet, a princess who also lost her country to Melissa’s machinations. Through her, he finds comfort.
From then on, with Aria’s help, he works toward reclaiming his rightful place from the false emperor.
Blended with a sweet romance and an epic narrative, the novel had been quite successful.
The red eyes tinged with orange, silver hair, the tyrant who raised a cat with the same red eyes—
Yes. It was that novel.
“Ugh… and I only just realized it now.”
Rose felt both pathetic and stunned. But in hindsight, it couldn’t be helped.
“How could anyone with a face like that not be the protagonist?”
With that level of beauty, obviously he had to be the male lead! She’d been sure Noah was the reformed-tyrant type protagonist.
Naturally, she thought he was the male lead on a redemption arc. That’s why when trying to remember which novel featured him, this one hadn’t even come up as a candidate.
“But this doesn’t add up…”
Even after realizing which story she was in, Rose still found parts of it hard to accept.
It wasn’t just the handsome face—Noah really didn’t come across as a mad tyrant like in the novel.
“You find it excessive?”
The chill in his smile did make her stomach drop a bit… but it wasn’t the face of a lunatic tyrant, per se.
Thinking that, Rose stared up at him, and another setting detail came to mind.
“Right… come to think of it, Noah wasn’t crazy from the beginning in that novel.”
Yes, Noah wasn’t born insane.
And that fact had stirred up controversy among readers because the author had written it all too well.
“Noah’s so pitiful. If only he’d had a better mother! He was such a good person.”
“I’m on Team Noah too. He only turned out that way because of his evil mother and the other awful women in his life.”
“What did Sion even do? He was just born lucky. Wasn’t it Aria who did all the work reclaiming the throne?”
The villain’s backstory had been written so convincingly that even after the novel ended, people couldn’t accept it as a happy ending.
Even though the protagonist succeeded, many readers pitied Noah so deeply they didn’t feel satisfied.
Plus, while Noah did begin to change after meeting the female lead Aria, there were readers who disliked Sion, too—seeing him as a snobbish noble obsessed with blood purity.
“So what if he had a tragic past? That doesn’t justify becoming a tyrant!”
“People who support Noah are kind of weird.”
Of course, those voices usually quieted when you listed Noah’s tyrannical crimes after becoming emperor…
Still, it showed how deeply the author had written each character. Perhaps too deeply.
“Noah’s still alive, right? Maybe he escaped to another country and is doing fine?”
An indifferent father. A mother who committed atrocities to put her son on the throne.
In a palace where he had no one to rely on, the boy had to fight to survive.
Eventually, Noah became emperor—carrying the guilt of his brother’s death and the burden of what his mother had done to place him on the throne.
“There are rumors, Your Majesty. That cursed cat is clouding your judgment.”
Even as emperor, people whispered behind his back. Even his mother, Melissa, never openly defended him.
“No wonder he feeds his cat beef.”
The only one who stayed by his side—the cat with eyes just like his.
Noah had found Rose behind a garden storage shed on the day of his coronation. Abandoned for her red eyes, just like him.
In a palace where everyone was an enemy, Noah had naturally been drawn to a cat who shared his pain.
Most of the imperial family, and nobles of the Kaline Empire, had bright blond hair and vivid blue eyes.
That uniform appearance was used in the novel to show how the empire’s nobility distrusted outsiders.
They couldn’t tolerate those with different hair or eye colors.
The previous emperor, Edmund Kaline Ernette—Noah’s father—had brought Melissa, a complete foreigner, from another continent.
Despite already having a legitimate empress, he favored Melissa with her silver hair and brown eyes. That alone was controversial…
But then she gave birth to Noah, who had red eyes.
Everyone screamed that Noah had to die.
There was a prophecy: a red-eyed child would bring ruin to the empire.
And in the original story, Noah did become a tyrant who slaughtered civilians and drained the national treasury—so maybe the prophecy wasn’t entirely false.
“But honestly, who wouldn’t go insane in that situation?!”
People tried to kill him. His mother murdered others to keep him alive. It would be weirder if he hadn’t lost his mind.
“All because of his eye color.”
Eye color was just a genetic variation.
To discriminate against a person—or even a cat—just for that?
“Enough. Let’s go.”
“Already leaving?”
“Your Majesty, it’s rare for you to attend. Why not stay a bit longer?”
While Rose grumbled inwardly, Noah stood up from his seat.
Even when Melissa, his mother, tried to coax him to stay, he refused.
Without a word of farewell, he scooped up Rose from between the cushion and blanket and walked away.
* * *
“Who told you to bring Rose?”
That was as far as he could hold back his fury.
Noah’s voice was sharp the moment they turned the corner behind the wooden garden wall.
“I thought the topic of marriage might come up. I brought her so you’d stay calm.”
So that’s why she was brought here. Rose had been wondering why she’d been taken out.
Apparently, the aide had figured Noah would be less volatile if Rose was present.
And considering how often marriage talks led to arguments, maybe it wasn’t a bad assumption.
“Then that aide must be Jonathan Wales.”
Rose turned to look at the man.
Unlike the maids, he never flinched or averted his gaze around Noah. That must mean they were close.
In the novel, Jonathan was the only aide who truly understood that Noah, despite his tyrannical reputation, was a deeply emotional man.
As she stared at Jonathan, a hand suddenly snatched her by the scruff of her neck.
“Meow!”
Turning her eyes, Rose saw the face of Melissa.
“How long are you going to keep coddling this wretched cat, Your Majesty?”
Melissa held Rose like something disgusting, her expression twisted with disdain.
Her gaze wasn’t fearful, like those who screamed “cursed cat!” on the street.
It was the cold stare of someone who found her worthless—dirty, unwanted.
“Excuse me?! I was mentally complimenting your looks just a minute ago!”
The contempt in her eyes was so intense, Rose felt tears welling up just from making eye contact.
“Aoow! Aoww! Nyaa! (Butler! Help me!)”
As she dangled and struggled in Melissa’s grasp, Noah swiftly snatched her back and stepped away.
“Sniff… I knew my butler would save me.”
While Rose quickly calmed down in Noah’s arms…
“I warned you not to touch Rose.”
…the tension between the two crackled like lightning in the air.
