Chapter 2
And when Kaian returned as a Swordmaster, it was Estelle who played the most decisive role in helping him ascend the throne, surpassing the First Prince, who had been born to another imperial consort.
“Your Grace, Grand Duke. Now that the Third Prince, born to the former Empress, has passed away, the only remaining choices are the First Prince and the Second Prince. But one of them has suddenly become a Swordmaster… which makes him the most likely candidate—”
It was Estelle who guided and persuaded the Grand Duke to choose Kaian.
In the struggle for the throne, defeat meant death.
Everything she did was simply to keep Kaian alive.
Even if no one ever acknowledged her efforts, that was fine. The fact that Kaian survived was enough for her to feel grateful.
And when Kaian finally ascended the throne, everyone naturally assumed that Estelle, the daughter of the Grand Ducal House of Astria, would become Empress.
The Astria family was already preparing for the imperial marriage.
“My Empress should be Lady Christine of the House of Count Joan.”
“But, Your Majesty. If that happens, the House of Astria will—”
“Ah, right. The Grand Ducal House. Very well. The eldest daughter of Astria, Estelle, will be received as my First Empress Consort.”
However, Kaian overturned everyone’s expectations.
Estelle tried to understand him.
“How dare he choose a mere count’s daughter over the House of Astria?! That ungrateful young emperor—snap his arrogant neck and be done with it!”
“Please calm yourself, Your Grace. I will become the Empress Consort. In exchange for giving up the Empress’s seat, you should obtain the rights to develop the mines and prepare for the future.”
Even as the enraged Grand Duke struck her, Estelle desperately tried to persuade him.
It was all so she could remain by Kaian’s side and protect him.
Of course, the thought of sharing the man she had loved for so long with another woman twisted her heart painfully.
If only I hadn’t fallen into my father’s scheme.
Estelle could never wash away the deep guilt she felt over Serena’s death.
She believed this was the punishment she deserved.
Still, she thought that if she continued doing her best beside Kaian—supporting him with everything she had—then someday her sincerity would reach him.
In the end, all of that was nothing more than her own arrogant illusion.
It was merely a hopeless, one-sided love.
Married life with her first love—who regarded her as his enemy—was far more cruel than she had ever imagined.
To become the most hated person in the world to the man she loved more than anyone…
It was a reality she never wanted to believe.
Each day felt like she was falling deeper and deeper into the bottom of hell.
Her only hope was the son she barely managed to have with Kaian.
Aeir.
Even on the day the news spread throughout the palace that the Empress Consort was carrying the Emperor’s first child, Kaian spent the night in the Empress’s palace.
Still, Estelle endured.
“My baby… it seems His Majesty has too many state affairs to handle today. Perhaps he cannot come.”
She endured by steadying her heart with the thought that a child resembling the man she loved was growing within her.
When the precious child was finally born, he was unbearably lovable.
Clear blue eyes without a trace of impurity.
Brilliant golden curls that resembled Kaian’s.
And a harmless smile that seemed to say his mother was his entire world.
Every moment she looked at Aeir, she learned what it truly meant to feel happiness so intense it made her heart ache.
She felt as though she could do anything to protect him.
“My baby… please, just grow up healthy.”
But even that small wish was cruelly shattered before four years had passed.
A terrible epidemic—the Black Sea Plague—swept across the Empire, claiming the lives of more than a tenth of its people.
The young prince contracted the disease and passed away before anyone could even attempt to save him.
For days, Estelle neither ate nor drank.
Having lost all hope in life, she slowly withered away.
“Are you the only mother on this continent who has lost a child to the Black Sea Plague?”
Kaian finally came to see her one night when the absence of the Empress Consort began to disrupt state affairs.
It had been a full week since their child’s death.
“You are the mother of this Empire. Rise and fulfill your duties as Empress Consort. If you continue to behave like this, the nobles will begin discussing your deposition.”
Even at that moment, Kaian offered not a single word of comfort.
Instead, he stabbed her heart with cold words.
As if the pain of losing their child belonged to Estelle alone.
Kaian remained composed and rational to a heartbreaking degree.
Estelle, who had been pregnant with their second child, could not endure the shock of losing Aeir and the despair of being left alone.
In the end, she miscarried the child in her womb as well.
With both children gone before her, Estelle had nothing left in the world to protect.
She no longer had the slightest attachment to life.
Eventually, the exhausted and broken Estelle was deposed.
But she did not care.
She only wished to sever the love she still felt for him.
Forever.
Her body and mind, weakened by endless suffering, soon gave out.
Before long, Estelle breathed her last.
In this life, my greatest regret was loving you.
If there is a next life, I will never again hold you in my heart.
Why did I only realize now… that you could never love me?
And thus, her first life ended.
She realized that her life in 21st-century South Korea was her second life on a certain day when she was twenty-seven.
“The one tormenting Kaian was the wicked ghost of the dead, deposed Empress Estelle.”
While reading a popular romance fantasy web novel, she saw that sentence—
And suddenly remembered all the memories of her past life.
The novel was titled:
“The Obsessive Emperor’s Last Love.”
It was a story set two years after Estelle’s death, when Kaian fell into a fateful love with another woman.
“Kaian was instinctively drawn to Diana, whom he reunited with after six years, and visited her every night.”
“With her pure divine power, she dispelled the evil ghost of the wicked deposed empress. To Kaian, Diana was nothing less than salvation.”
A ghost? What did I even do?!
In the novel, Estelle was portrayed as the villainess who had turned a wise emperor into a tyrant.
I cursed the emperor with resentment before I died? That’s ridiculous!
The lies and distortions felt unbearably unjust.
Yet aside from the malicious portrayal of Estelle, every background detail, character, and event matched the life she had lived.
How could the author possibly know the affairs of the Empire in such detail?
She tried everything to find the writer.
But she discovered not a single clue.
All she could do was read the chapters that were released every day.
And so she read the story of how the man who had been nothing but cold to her in life fell in love with another woman after her death.
It was another kind of hell.
“Diana had a hidden child. The child was conceived from the single night she spent with Kaian during the monster-subjugation war six years earlier.”
When she read that Diana and Kaian had a secret son, the last thread of her sanity snapped.
If Aeir had lived, he would have been the same age.
“Kaian swore he would do anything for the child. Holding the hand of the child who looked exactly like the woman he loved…”
It was a side of Kaian completely different from how he had treated Aeir.
She could not read any further.
Aeir had died without ever once being held in his father’s arms.
She wanted to ask how someone—how a father—could be like that.
But no matter how furious she was, she could not step into the pages of a novel.
The only thing she could do was cut away the last lingering attachment she had.
Yet even if she forgot everything else—
She could never give up Aeir.
“My baby, no! You can’t go like this! Open your eyes! Please!”
“Your Highness… you must let the prince go now. For the sake of the child in your womb as well, please calm yourself…”
“Sir Keron! How dare you say such nonsense! Let the prince go like this? I can’t! I won’t! Do something—anything!”
“His Highness the Prince has already… I am sorry, Your Highness.”
Every night she relived the nightmare of the day she lost her child.
Even in another life, the grief of losing him felt engraved upon her soul.
No matter what she did, she could never meet him again.
That truth was unbearable.
Then one day, she lost her second life in an accident.
And when she opened her eyes again—
It was this morning.
She had returned four years before her death in her first life.
Thanks to the diary she had faithfully written every day, Estelle was able to recall the memories of her past life and determine the exact point of her regression.
“So… yesterday was that day.”
Based on her most recent diary entry and the memories of her previous life—
Last night was the night Aeir was conceived.
The sudden rush of longing and regret made her throat tighten.
With trembling hands and tearful eyes, she placed her hand on her stomach.
“Aeir… will you really come back to me too?”
Kaian visited the Empress Consort’s palace only once a month.
Estelle had always waited for that one day each month.
But for Kaian, it had been nothing more than a duty—to produce an heir.
“My baby… please… just once more, believe in your mother and come back to me.”
“In this life, no matter what happens, I will protect you.”
Estelle gently caressed her stomach.
Even if conception had succeeded, life would not yet have taken root.
But the mere hope that her lost child might return to her—
Filled her heart with a faint warmth.
