Chapter 1

“Watch out for the silver wolf!”

Rumors had been circulating among the imperial guards for some time now — someone claimed to have seen a wolf.

But the man didn’t believe it. A wolf, inside the imperial palace? One with silver fur, no less?

In twenty years of guarding this palace, he’d never heard anything so absurd.

“Come out, if you’re there!”

As he passed through the palace woods, he shouted boldly into the rain-soaked darkness.

All that answered him was the fierce sound of rain lashing the leaves.

Just as he was turning away, confident he’d been right all along—

A flash!

Lightning struck, and something flickered dazzlingly bright among the bushes.

…the silver wolf?

Tense, he stared, his expression slowly shifting into bewilderment.

What rose up out of the bushes was a beautiful man, his silver hair utterly soaked with rain.

And he was stark naked, without so much as a thread on him.

A nobleman, caught in a tryst with his lover?

As the man drew steadily closer, the guard lifted his lantern — and only then did he see the blood smeared thick across that picture-perfect face.

The stranger’s expression was utterly blank as he wiped the blood away with the back of his hand.

His blue-gray eyes, their depths unreadable, were just as chillingly indifferent.

Wait. Now that he looked again — could this be…?

Gooseflesh prickled up the guard’s spine, and he found himself backing slowly away without realizing it — until he stepped on something soft and went sprawling.

“Wha— what is this!”

A deer’s carcass, its body not yet even cold.

A rustle…!

That was the moment.

Deep within the black forest, trees and underbrush shook violently as something came rushing toward him at tremendous speed.

The guard, gripped by an instinctive terror, looked up just in time to see—

A jet-black shadow burst out and lunged at him, savage and merciless.

“AAAAAH!”

---

“A joyous birthday to you, Your Majesty!”

As the imperial couple appeared at the top of the spiral staircase, the nobles stepped forward one by one to pay their respects, each flanked by attendants bearing an array of gifts.

Fine porcelain, silk, precious jewels, rare medicinal herbs, costly works of art…

Gift after gift piled up beside the Emperor like a tower.

At last it was Adele’s turn.

Click, click…

Silence fell as she crossed the ballroom floor. The chatter died, the laughter died. Some guests simply stared, wine still held in their mouths.

In that stillness, as though time itself had stopped, Adele walked slowly toward the Emperor.

Her stride was proud and poised, as though she were the guest of honor at this very ball.

Beneath her neatly pinned black hair, her long, pale throat was almost dazzling. Her eyes — a deep green, secretive and bewitching — held something unmistakably alluring.

But it wasn’t her beauty alone that left people stunned.

“Good heavens! Isn’t that mourning dress?”

Someone’s whisper carried through the room, and as if it were a signal, the murmuring began all at once.

“Mourning clothes, on His Majesty’s birthday. She really has lost her mind.”

They meant the black dress Adele was wearing.

Of course, she’d expected exactly this reaction.

Every year, as the year drew to a close, the Emperor held a birthday ball that doubled as the year-end celebration — the grandest, most splendid affair in the entire Kalaim Empire.

Noble ladies spent the whole year preparing the dress they would wear on this one night. After all, whatever they wore tonight would be the talk of high society for the rest of the year.

Envy, or ridicule.

So no one had ever dared to wear black to this ball.

And yet here Adele was, doing exactly that.

“And what in the world is that she’s carrying?”

“Surely that isn’t an urn?”

“It shouldn’t be… but knowing her, who can say.”

Adele glanced down at the box in her arms.

It was meant as a gift for the Emperor — but looking at it now, its shape and size really did resemble a funerary urn.

Mourning clothes and an urn. What a perfectly matched pair.

“I don’t understand why His Majesty invites a woman like that, year after year.”

That was exactly what Adele wanted to ask.

Why did the Emperor invite her to this ball, every single year?

Officially, it was because she had once been the dowager marchioness of a distinguished house.

But why bother, when neither she herself nor anyone else present actually wanted her here?

“There’s no proof, is there. That she poisoned her husband.”

“Even so. How can she hold her head up so shamelessly when the whole world knows?”

They spoke loudly enough to be sure she’d hear.

If anything, that only made Adele lift her chin higher and set her face into something even more shameless.

The first time she’d attended this ball, not knowing any better, she’d heard these horrible rumors and fallen seriously ill from the shock. But eight years on, she’d grown numb to the abuse.

Not that Adele had worn black on purpose. Whatever they said about how insults made you live longer, she wasn’t quite perverse enough to court them for fun.

The truth was, she owned exactly one fine silk dress. Originally cream-colored, she’d dyed and altered it pink the following year, then red the year after that.

The red had faded into purple, and as the dress grew darker and darker each year, black was the only color left to choose.

And so Adele had made her choice.

Rather than be some pitiful pauper wearing the same worn-out dress for years on end, she would be the rebel of the ballroom.

Well. My reputation can’t get much worse than it already is.

She drew a deep breath and offered the Emperor a respectful bow.

“A joyous birthday to you, Your Majesty.”

She had brought no attendant of her own, so she delivered the gift with her own two hands.

The very box that had looked so much like an urn.

The Emperor’s chief attendant, taking the box from her, didn’t bother to hide his bewilderment.

“That’s quite the striking dress today, my lady.”

The Emperor addressed her directly.

For him to comment on a woman’s dress at all was rare. But his tone carried such obvious mockery that everyone gave a knowing snort, as though they’d expected nothing less.

Adele’s mourning-black dress had clearly gotten under the Emperor’s skin.

Adele smiled faintly and answered, each word crisp and clear.

“Black is a symbol of harmony, Your Majesty. I wore it hoping that the many nations beneath the Empire’s banner might one day be united in harmony.”

This was, of course, the art of making a convenient excuse sound like a noble intention.

Amused by her audacious answer, the Emperor laughed without a sound.

“And what, pray tell, is inside this peculiar box?”

“A dessert I made myself.”

A dessert.

For a moment, scattered, disbelieving laughter broke out across the room.

The imperial household alone employed dozens of chefs devoted to the Emperor. And the ballroom itself was already overflowing with desserts of every color.

“Imagine, offering His Majesty a gift fit for some commoner’s children.”

“Exactly. That woman really has lost her mind.”

Despite the murmuring, Adele didn’t lose her composure.

“It’s made from my own special recipe. I promise it tastes quite different from anything you’ve had before.”

Her confidence seemed to pique the Emperor’s curiosity.

“Now I’m curious what it tastes like.”

“Probably the kind of taste you could die from without even noticing. Wouldn’t you say so, former Dowager Marchioness Oswald?”

The Empress, who had been wearing a look of displeasure all this while, cut in. She was smiling, but her eyes on Adele were cold.

At that, the people nearby exchanged meaningful glances, as though they felt obligated to pile on now that the Empress had started it.

“I imagine the late Marquis was quite fond of his wife’s desserts too.”

“Your Majesty, an untested recipe is hardly something to risk, however special it’s claimed to be.”

They all believed, without question, that Adele had poisoned her husband, the Marquis, through his food. There was no proof — but when enough people believe a thing, it becomes the truth.

A woman who married a man old enough to be her father for the sake of climbing the social ladder, then cruelly poisoned him.

A seductress so blinded by lust that she’d even tried to seduce her own stepson.

Adele, the most notorious villainess of the Kalaim Empire!

At some point, that had simply become the truth to them.

It’s all a load of garbage.

Because she was believed to be the woman who’d murdered her husband, Adele was always the outcast of every ball. And people always watched her closely, carefully.

Fully prepared to spread some malicious rumor no matter how she reacted.

It’s fine. It’s not as though this is the first time, or even the hundredth.

Steeling herself, Adele answered without a flicker of expression.

“Unfortunately, I only began making desserts to console myself after losing the Marquis. He would have loved them so much, had he lived to taste them. So I wanted to share them with Your Majesty, at the very least. I see now that was far too presumptuous of me.”

With one last faint, gentle smile, Adele bowed politely.

“If it troubles you, Your Majesty, please feel free to simply discard it.”

Her forced smile made the corners of her mouth ache as though they might start twitching.

She wanted nothing more than to go home.

The moment I get back, the first thing I’m doing is tearing off this suffocating dress.

And then she’d bake something sweet enough to melt on the tongue — cookies, soft bread.

That was when it happened.

“May I try one, Your Majesty?”

A pleasant, low voice rang out across the ballroom.

---

The crowd around him stepped back, one pace at a time, clearing a path.

At the center of it stood a man in a black military uniform trimmed with gold epaulettes.

Tall, lean, a young noble in his late twenties.

“That must be Count Weiss!”

Someone cried out, and the ballroom stirred.

Count Weiss.

These days, he was the most talked-about man in the entire Empire.

The hero most responsible for ending the decade-long war with their neighboring country.

Rumor had it that he was secretly the royal blood of some fallen nation, given how suddenly he’d risen to prominence in just five or six years.

But the most important thing of all: he was young, and still unmarried.

And today was the very first time he had appeared in high society.

Just the rumor that he might come had sent the ladies into a flutter of excitement all evening.

And then—

He exceeded everyone’s expectations.

No — he was nothing like what anyone had expected at all.

He was beautiful almost beyond belief for a battle-hardened hero.

His silvery-white hair fluttered lightly with every step, his pale, blue-gray eyes shimmering with something almost otherworldly. His sharp features and firmly set mouth were as cold and forbidding as a glacier.

“You’re late, Your Majesty.”

He bowed before the Emperor, his face utterly without a trace of a smile.

An expression so cold it seemed he’d never once smiled in his life.

“Arriving late, and already coveting my gift?”

“And will you refuse to let me have it?”

“Of course not. Not when the Count himself wants it.”

At the Emperor’s nod, the chief attendant opened the box and held it out to Count Weiss.

Inside, carefully made cookies, small cup-shaped cakes, and tiny tarts sat each wrapped with care. Enough to make the earlier mistaking of it for an urn feel like an insult.

The Count picked out a cookie and placed it in his mouth.

Trivial as it was, everyone watched, tense with anticipation.

Most of the women, of course, were watching his lips with far less innocent intentions. His full, glossy lips were so alluring it was almost possible to forget he was a man at all.

A moment later, the Count spoke to the Emperor.

“It’s the best cookie I’ve ever had.”

“Unexpected. I never knew the Count had a palate for sweets.”

He drew his brows together faintly.

“Did you think I only ate raw meat?”

The Emperor laughed heartily, speaking loudly enough for everyone to hear.

“These days you’re all polish, but on the battlefield there was no beast more savage. I was quite taken with that wild side of yours, Count.”

“Say things like that, and I won’t be accepting any more invitations.”

“Aren’t you playing a bit hard to get? And here I am, the Emperor.”

“All the more reason I’m indulging you.”

“Yes. Much obliged.”

The people listening to the exchange between the Emperor and the Count were astonished.

The Emperor before them was infamous for his ruthlessness. Even seasoned nobles broke into a cold sweat in his presence.

And yet here the two of them traded words like old friends joking around. What’s more, the Emperor seemed to be the one conceding.

It seemed the rumors of how much the Emperor favored the Count were not exaggerated in the least.

“Well then, shall I try one myself?”

Having tasted a cookie, the Emperor, looking thoroughly satisfied, offered them to the Empress and everyone else nearby.

“It really would be a shame to keep these to myself. Everyone, have a taste.”

At that, people rushed to be the first to pop one into their mouths. And of course, no one forgot to shower the Emperor and Count Weiss with praise while watching their reactions carefully.

In an instant, Adele the villainess had become a dessert master.

---

But Adele’s expression had only grown worse than before. Her face was pale enough that she looked as though she might collapse at any moment.

Her deep green eyes stayed fixed on Count Weiss the entire time.

It must be the hair, she thought. Hair that beautiful, that silver, wasn’t exactly common.

No — it wasn’t just the hair. However she looked at him, the Count resembled that child far too closely.

Chris…

Ten years had passed, and yet the name alone was enough to make something catch in her throat.

The boy who had blocked her path, unable to say the words don’t go.

The cracked little hand that had tugged at the end of her sleeve, long lashes trembling with unshed tears.

As the memory surfaced, Adele quickly shook her head.

Impossible!

That man was Count Weiss.

The Count was a war hero, yes, but also said to be an immense fortune holder — diamonds, gold mines, and several banks to his name.

But the boy she’d known had been nothing more than an ordinary miner’s son.

By now he’d probably become a miner himself, and if he’d married young, perhaps even a father.

And he would have forgotten someone like her completely by now, living his own life.

More than anything, those ice-cold eyes could not possibly belong to Chris. He had been a child who smiled more warmly, more sweetly, than anyone else she’d ever known.

Right. That’s Count Weiss. Just someone who happens to look like him…

---

Soon after, dance music began to drift through the ballroom.

Women flocked eagerly toward Count Weiss, eyes sparkling. Each hoped he would ask her to dance. Becoming his partner tonight would make her the envy of high society for some time to come.

But the Count slipped away from the crowd and walked off in another direction.

With purposeful strides.

On long legs in tall boots, he walked toward Adele without the slightest hesitation.

Everyone watched, wondering if it could really be happening, and Adele herself stared with wide eyes.

Even as she told herself, over and over, that it couldn’t possibly be true, she found she couldn’t tear her eyes away from him.

Chris… it’s really not you… is it?

Half of her hoped it was that boy; half of her hoped it wasn’t.

To leave the way she had, only to meet again like this — it would be too pathetic to bear.

But before she died, she had always wanted to see him, just once.

The boy who had always been on her side.

In all her happiest memories, that boy had always been there with her.

He came to a stop.

At last, he stopped before Adele and knelt respectfully on one knee. Then he held out his large right hand.

“Will you be my partner?”

He asked her to dance.

For a moment, Adele’s whole world seemed to stop.

She could hear nothing, see nothing else.

She gazed, transfixed, at the dazzling, silver-white-haired man before her, and placed her hand in his. As though she’d been put under some spell.

A firm grip!

His large, powerful hand closed around hers.

His long arm wound around her slender waist and pulled her close.

Startled, Adele looked up at him.

In an instant, she found herself utterly trapped within the broad, solid embrace of a man.

At that moment, a soft, low voice murmured, as though only for her to hear.

“It’s been a while, Adele.”