Chapter 9 · A Twisted Friendship

The day after the uproar had passed.

The anger that had sustained Isadel had lost its strength before she knew it.

Her murderous intent toward Erhan and the impulse to take her own life had long since been eroded by deep fatigue.

Just as her senses were growing dull with emptiness and desolation.

Clank.

The rusted hinge spat out a sharp metallic sound.

Isadel did not bother to turn her head.

What did it matter who came in?

Whoever it was, they were equally unwelcome to her.

But before the door was even fully open, a familiar scent brushed the tip of her nose.

It was the scent of white roses, so familiar she had known it since childhood.

“Isadel.”

At the low voice, her eyelids trembled faintly.

Renua Pain.

The youngest daughter of Count Pain, and the only person she could call a friend.

She stepped cautiously into the room.

“It’s me, Isadel.”

Isadel could not bring herself to turn around.

Her heart dropped with a thud.

An emotion she could not tell was joy or relief surged up.

But the cold of the chain wrapped around her wrist pulled her back to reality.

She had not wanted Renua to see her like this…

Isadel forced her voice to sharpen.

“Why did you come here?”

“Huh…?”

“I asked why you came here.”

Isadel slowly turned her head and looked at Renua.

“Well…”

Renua nervously fiddled with her fingertips.

After hesitating for a long while, she opened her mouth.

“I came to see you by the emperor’s order.”

“…What?”

A hollow laugh escaped between Isadel’s lips.

Had she secretly hoped Renua would say she had come out of worry for her?

The welcome that had formed on the tip of her tongue quickly cooled, and a bitter sense of humiliation rose in its place.

“Who are you calling emperor right now?”

Isadel’s voice sank coldly.

“Isadel, I…”

“Shut that mouth.

Before I tear it wide open.”

The shamelessness of calling Erhan ’emperor’ so casually tore Isadel’s insides to shreds.

The feeling of having it confirmed through the mouth of the friend she trusted most—that the lowly slave who should have been at her feet now stood above her head—was indescribably wretched.

Isadel slowly rose from her seat.

With every movement, the clanking of metal heavily filled the room.

“What, did you come to gawk at what has become of me, using Erhan as an excuse?”

“No, that’s not it!”

“If it’s not that, then what?

Tell me.”

Isadel closed the distance in an instant and stood before Renua.

Her persistent gaze bound Renua’s eyes tightly.

“Come to think of it, it seems you didn’t attend that day either.”

“Huh…?”

“Did you think I wouldn’t know?

You and your family didn’t show even a nose at my birthday banquet.

At the time, I let it slide, thinking you must have had unavoidable circumstances…”

Isadel’s lips drew a bitter curve.

“Seeing that only the Pain family survived intact, you must have already known everything.

Isn’t that right?”

At Isadel’s interrogation, Renua turned pale in an instant.

It was an undeniable truth.

The Pain count family had known in advance that a coup would break out on Princess Isadel’s birthday.

Instead of being drenched in blood along with the falling imperial house, they had quietly held their breath and waited for the door of a new era to open.

They were practically accomplices who had driven the Lacent imperial house to death.

Looking down at Renua, who was trembling with guilt, Isadel sneered coldly.

“You said to me not long ago.

That it was an honor to be my friend.”

“I meant it, Isadel…”

“But isn’t it strange?”

She took a step closer with a twisted smile.

“If you really were my friend, shouldn’t you have attended that day?”

“That is… I can explain everything.

Please, Isadel.

Just listen to me…”

“No.”

Isadel cut off Renua’s words with a single stroke.

“I don’t want to hear your shabby excuses.

Whatever we were before, you are now nothing but a cowardly traitor.”

Traitor.

The word stabbed deep into Renua’s heart.

The fact that Count Pain’s choice had not been her own will was no excuse here.

Her family’s choice was her choice.

On the day of the coup, she had lacked the courage to oppose her father and could not stop him, nor could she inform Isadel beforehand.

As a result, she too had betrayed Isadel.

Knowing the weight of that sin, she had been willing to bear it.

But before Isadel, who would not even allow her a chance to explain, Renua finally choked up.

“Isadel, I just wanted you to…”

“Me what.”

Renua could not continue, tears flowing ceaselessly.

But Isadel was not shaken in the least by the sight.

Rather, she twisted her face as if in disgust.

What did you even do?

Surely you’re not saying you worried about me?

A mere count’s daughter, worrying about me, a princess?

“If you’ve had your fill of the sight, leave.

I don’t want to see your face anymore.”

As if she were not even worth dealing with anymore, Isadel turned her back.

Watching that merciless back, Renua froze in place once again.

Grief rising from her toes filled her throat.

Her clenched hands trembled until they turned white.

‘No… I didn’t come here to say these things to you…’

The thread of patience she had been holding onto snapped.

The emotions she had suppressed burst out like a scream, unable to be contained any longer.

“Just give up now!!!”

At Renua’s outcry, Isadel’s head turned a beat late.

Momentarily speechless at the defiance of Renua, who had never once raised her voice, she soon glared fiercely at Renua.

“…Are you insane?”

But this time, Renua did not back down obediently either.

“You have to survive!

Even if you’re angry and wronged, the world has already been turned upside down.

The emperor is no longer your father but Erhan!

Even you, Isadel, must now bow your head to him!”

Smack—!

Renua’s head whipped around.

A red handprint stood out vividly against her platinum-blond hair.

“I-Isadel…”

As the shocked and dazed Renua barely raised her head, Isadel ground out low through gritted teeth.

“Say that again.”

“…”

“Who dare you tell to bow their head!!!”

Isadel’s shout shook the narrow room.

She immediately grabbed Renua by the collar and roughly pulled her closer.

“You’ve been bewitched by him too, haven’t you?

Drunk on that cheap drug, you came to persuade me to accept that filthy bastard as emperor.”

“No…!”

“No?

Then it’s even worse.”

The anger boiling in Isadel’s eyes cooled as if it were a lie.

“If you’ve already accepted him as master without even being bewitched, then you were a creature with neither roots nor loyalty from the start.”

Renua could say nothing.

Looking at her, Isadel swallowed the bitter surge rising in her throat.

I was a fool to trust you.

If I had known I’d be betrayed like this, I should never have let you close in the first place…

Eventually, the hand gripping Renua’s collar loosened.

Watching Renua helplessly retreat, Isadel murmured coldly.

“Leave.

If you come again next time, I really will kill you.”

It was not an empty threat but clear murderous intent.

Renua stood still for a long while, then turned her heavy steps and stood before the door.

She hesitated briefly with her hand on the doorknob, then spoke again.

“Then… let me ask just this one last thing.”

“…”

“Heigan.”

At the sound of the name she had forgotten completely, Isadel’s fingertips stiffened.

The name that had sunk into the abyss of memory surfaced without warning.

“Do you know what happened to Heigan?”

“Why is my fiancé’s name coming out of your mouth?”

Isadel snapped coldly.

“…He was my friend too.”

An awkward silence filled the space between them.

“Since that day, news from Brecen has been cut off for a long time…

No one has seen him, and there’s no reply to letters…”

Renua deliberately trailed off, but Isadel knew what she wanted to ask.

‘Is he alive?’

It was an all too naive question.

She recalled the day Erhan had stained the imperial palace red.

The night when hundreds of heads fell and screams crashed in like waves.

But the memory of that wretched day had worn away amid repeated pain, and now it stirred no emotion at all.

Even the face of her fiancé, whose fate she did not know, was fading vaguely out of focus on the far side of memory.

Isadel gazed out the window and slowly opened her mouth.

“Heigan?”

And answered indifferently.

“He’s probably dead.”