Prologue
Rough footsteps crossed the chilly corridor.
A deer statue hung on the wall. A frame that seemed to hold the hide of some animal.
The vast space, despite its size, was crude, and the air entering the tip of the nose carried a piercing chill.
The attendants, pale-faced and trembling with their heads lowered, only added to the frigid atmosphere.
“P-Princess Liselotte!”
One of the attendants following behind mustered the courage to call her name.
Abruptly, Liselotte stopped and turned around.
At the direct gaze fixed on her, the maid flinched and stepped back in fright.
But soon, she firmly clutched her hem and bowed her head.
“F-forgive me, but His Grace has said he has nothing more to say on the matter of divorceā¦”
“Nothing more to say?”
“He, he said the divorce would proceed after the subjugation.”
“Ha.”
Liselotte let out a hollow laugh.
The marriage contract in her hand crumpled slightly.
At the same time, the maidās voice gradually dwindled, until she could not finish her words.
For a brief moment, a strange gleam flickered in Liselotteās water-colored eyes.
“Alright. Thank you for telling me.”
“Y-yesā¦? Pardon?”
Leaving the flustered maid lifting her head in haste, Liselotte strode purposefully toward her goal.
In a rush, the maid blocked her way.
“H-His Grace is in the dining room right now! Itās his mealtime!”
Liselotteās body, which had been about to brush past, twitched.
She asked again, gravely.
“ā¦Where should I go?”
“Ah, I will guide you.”
At that momentum, the maid swallowed dryly and only nodded her head.
Standing before the dining room, Liselotte knocked without hesitation, a little firmly, yet with discipline.
“This is Liselotte. Your Grace.”
From the firmly closed door, there was no response.
With a bang, the door swung open, and inside came into view a man sitting properly at the long table.
His neat attire ā vest and cravat tied tightly ā felt somewhat unbalanced with his sleeves rolled up carelessly.
In particular, the wound on his wrist contributed greatly to that sense of discord.
A wound about the span of a hand still had traces of red, not yet fully healed.
Liselotte could sense keenly that it had not been long since he had returned from the subjugation.
The man himself, however, simply sliced into his steak without hesitation, cutting it cleanly with just a few strokes of the knife.
‘Was steak always that easy to cut?’
The dining manners and gestures she knew were similar, yet rougher.
Every detail was clearly aristocratic, but something raw was strangely present.
Soon, a low voice, sounding tired, slipped out.
“If youāve come about the divorce, I believe Iāve already conveyed my full stance.”
Jet-black hair, eyes drawn long as though indifferent, and within them, faint yet flashing golden irises.
Those eyes slowly moved to fix on her.
Step by step, Lizerote moved forward to the table and stood upright.
Facing the man who looked at her in silence, she slapped down the marriage contract onto the table with her palm.
“I, Liselotte Keilos, object to this divorce.”
“The divorce will be discussed again after the subjugationā¦”
“No. I refuse that agreement.”
Only then did his unmoving eyelids twitch faintly.
Liselotte pushed the marriage contract toward him and continued speaking.
“From this point forward, the responsibility for divorce lies with Your Grace, Grand Duke Eren Keilos. Should you proceed with a compulsory divorce, I demand as settlement three times the dowry I brought with me, as well as compensation calculated from the labor I have contributed to House Keilosā¦”
She paused briefly to catch her breath, then met Erenās gaze and articulated her words with precision.
“I hereby demand half of the Ducal territory.”
Looking at the man with tightly closed lips and a fierce expression, Liselotte swallowed dryly.
Half of the Duchy.
It was no different from saying she simply did not want a divorce.
Chapter 1:
On her way home, she was hit by a drunk driver.
By the time the deafening crash rang loudly in her head, her vision was already blurring.
Lying on the cold pavement, she watched the staggering car slam into a utility pole with a bang, and muttered inwardly.
‘If you want to die, die aloneā¦’
The whole thing had happened so suddenly it didnāt even feel real.
Just then, as if to rouse her dazed mind, a buzzing alarm went off from the phone that had fallen to the ground.
Over the cracked screen flickered the D-day she had set in advance.
[ Grandmotherās 49th-Day Ritual D-DAY ]
That was the last thing she, once a lawyer in South Korea, remembered.
Her parents had never been there from the beginning. From a very young age, her grandmother had been her only family.
“Grandma, Iāll make sure you can live comfortably in a good house!”
Fortunately, she had an unusually good memory.
As a result, studying always paid off; the more time she put in, the more results showed.
Instead of going to university, she challenged the bar exam, and luckily managed to pass before it was abolished.
People looked at her and called her a dragon that had risen from the mud.
‘That dragon was killed by a drunk driverās car.’
Apparently, she wasnāt really a dragon after all.
If she were, she would have prepared a home for her grandmother before she passed away.
‘Ha, what a joke. Did I really live so hard just for this?’
Even in death, curses rose naturally to her lips.
“Damn it, these crazy bastards should be charged with murder the moment they grab a steering wheel, or else theyāll never stop this shit! What the hell are you doing without revising the law, you sons of bitches!”
“I-Iām sorry!”
She shot up, cursing aloud, then blinked for a moment at the unfamiliar surroundings.
For some reason, in front of her were maids bowing their heads.
Trembling and stealing glances only at her as she rose from the bed.
A wide room. A luxurious place so lavish that even the bedposts were decorated with gold.
‘What is this, what the hell? Donāt tell me the driver dumped me in some remote place to cover up the accidentā¦ but no, this room is far too extravagant for that.’
She rolled her eyes around for a moment, trying to gauge the situation.
Just then, a dry knock shattered the strange silence.
“Princess Liselotte. A message from His Grace the Grand Duke.”
Click.Ā
The door opened, and a man with long brown hair tied to one side entered.
Fair skin, a decently balanced build, and a pretty face dressed up stiffly with a uniform buttoned up to his neck. He bowed with a stern expression.
Strangely, he looked familiar.
He cleared his throat and delivered the message.
“His Grace stated that he will deliver his response concerning the divorce you requested once the subjugation is over. Until then, he asks that you refrain from throwing flour or eggs at his office or the training grounds.”
It was polite, yet carried no hint of feeling.
As if he never intended to hear an answer in the first place, the man bowed courteously and then left the room.
Clack.Ā
The door shut, and Liselotteās eyes darted around.
In the large window behind the bed, her reflection appeared faintly.
Long, wavy, light-pink hair and water-colored eyes. Fair skin and a beauty so striking that the word “pretty” didnāt do it justice.
At the same time, Liselotteās mind began to whirl in confusion.
‘Light-pink wavy hair, water-colored eyes, flour and eggsā¦ That one-person protest setā¦ this is definitelyā¦’
The maid, fidgeting nervously in the silence, tried to soothe her in as gentle a tone as possible.
“You only need to wait four months, Your Highness.”
“Ah.”
A short sigh slipped out of her instinctively.
The recent days she had spent staying up nights, struggling over a lawsuit about malicious comments, flashed through her mind.
