Chapter 2

The Hessenia Empire, called the strongest in the present world, boasted a history as vast as its territory.

But as with every nation, Hessenia’s beginnings were truly humble.

When Ivan Sonnier the Great, the first emperor, first ascended the throne, his kingdom was barely fifteen thousand square sers.

It was less than half the size of Herbron, the estate of House Devryan, one of the most esteemed families in the Empire today.

But Ivan the Great, together with his son Versai, tripled Hessenia’s territory.

Incredibly, that feat was accomplished in just one year.

And it was in that turbulent time that Millium appeared.

Millium was a family that had served the Lehman Empire—the strongest power in the northwest for generations—for ages.

But Jer Millium, an ancestor of House Millium, realized that the southeast wind blowing from the small kingdom of Hessenia was anything but ordinary.

Millium, which held the most fertile and strategically vital land in the Lehman Empire, set at naught conquest, diplomacy, and the thousand years of loyalty the family had devoted to Lehman, and defected to Hessenia.

This became the backdrop against which Hessenia, once a small kingdom, rose to become the greatest empire in the world.

And it was also the reason that, a thousand years later, Adelaide Millium—merely the daughter of a baronial house—could be betrothed to the Devryan countly family.

“My lady, are you already awake?”

No—Adel had not slept a wink all night.

With only a little light burning in a dark corner of the room, she had kept her eyes wide open through the night, watching for a mark to appear on the inside of her wrist.

She wanted to sleep, but she could not.

“Has the mark… appeared?”

Hailey asked, trying her utmost to sound calm.

Having served House Millium for many years, she knew what it meant when no mark appeared on a woman of Millium.

“It’s not there….”

“It’s not?”

At her flat reply, Hailey drew close to Adel.

Then she brought her gaze to Adel’s wrist.

“My lady….”

“Yes.”

Hailey’s eyes welled and shimmered with tears.

“My lady… truly, congratulations.”

As if Hailey’s words had granted her permission, Adel smiled brightly.

For someone with hair that shone like gold, her features were surprisingly soft.

Adel, still only twelve, was a child beautiful enough to make anyone look forward to the future ahead of her.

“I can marry Ethan now, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I can really leave this house, right?”

“Yes. Do not worry.”

Adel threw her arms around Hailey’s waist and held her tight.

“I’m so sad that I have to part with you.”

“I am only a maid.”

“Don’t say that. You are like a sister to me.”

“Lady Rene would be hurt if she heard that.”

“Sister Rene….”

Renelianne Millium.

The woman who would soon become crown princess of this Empire.

Adel’s sister, as befitted a woman of Millium, had awakened at dawn on the day of her twelfth birthday to find a red crescent-shaped mark on the inside of her left wrist.

In the Hessenia Empire, the number twelve held special meaning.

It signified both completion and ending.

On the day Ivan the Great expanded Hessenia’s territory—once no more than a corner of the southeast—to the very ends of the land, and with Millium’s aid took even the Lehman Empire in the northwest, he declared Hessenia the strongest empire in the world and himself its emperor.

And one night, as black as hell, a monk came to him.

The monk, with hair as black as the night sky and beast-like eyes, made this prophecy to Ivan the Great.

〈Only Millium can reap the countless blood you, the first emperor, have sown in this land. Twice Hessenia will fall, but the third time it will endure forever. Meeting the full moon on a night as black as darkness is the only way to protect this world. This is the will of God.〉

And so the first emperor abandoned the wife who had borne him his first son and chose a daughter of House Millium as his empress.

It was a prophecy given a thousand years ago and a faded legend, but this oracle was also the myth of the Empire’s birth and a fact explicitly recorded in the temple scriptures.

Because it was written in an ancient tongue, controversy had always surrounded it, but until now, scripture scholars had all agreed on one fact.

That only Millium could purify this Empire.

“I’m sorry to you, Sister, but… I was only ever half of one anyway. I never thought the mark would appear.”

“That is not something you should apologize for, my lady.”

Hailey looked at Adel with pitying eyes.

A mother’s station had no bearing on whether the mark appeared.

Yet Adel had always called herself half a person because her mother had been of low birth.

That was also because Baron Millium had ingrained it into her since childhood.

Half a person, Adelaide Millium.

The shame of House Millium.

And now even the mark had failed to appear… she was free.

At that moment, the door burst open and Max Millium, master of the house, stormed into the room.

He went straight to Adel and seized her left arm.

And when he confirmed that her white arm was utterly bare, he raised his hand and slapped her across the face.

“Useless girl.”

Adel, twelve years old, rolled under the chair from the blow, yet she smiled faintly.

She had tried to hold it back, but she simply could not.

If she endured just a little longer, she would be able to leave this wretched house.

“You’re smiling?”

Baron Millium somehow noticed Adel’s smile.

Then, flushing red to the face, he lifted his foot.

Even when he hit her, it had always been only slaps, but today it seemed he meant to stomp on her with his shoe, so Adel braced her stomach.

“Father!”

At that moment, Rene walked into Adel’s room.

Rene, now eighteen, had piercingly cold silver hair and the sea-blue eyes characteristic of House Millium.

If Adel was the sun, Rene was the moon.

As the moon eclipses the sun, Rene stepped in front of Adel.

“Don’t hit her.”

Ordinarily, Baron Millium would have shoved her sister aside and trampled on Adel.

But there was no way he could ignore the words of the crown princess-to-be, who was soon to enter the imperial palace.

“Move aside, Renelianne.”

“You used to maintain at least the dignity of a noble, but now you mean to act like a common thug.”

“Whatever you say, this child is mine.”

“No. She is my subject now. I understand the base desire to destroy her because she has lost value as merchandise, but do not touch her. You, too, Father, are merely my subject, so you will have to listen to me.”

No mark had appeared on Adel’s wrist, and with all room for dispute gone, Rene would soon enter the imperial palace.

As befitted that, at eighteen and just come of age, she was beautiful and haughty like a flower in full bloom.

She had the bearing to be called, in name and in truth, the future empress of the world’s strongest empire.

Adel had always wondered.

How could a perfect creature like Rene come from a man like Max Millium?

When Baron Millium left Adel’s room at last, his face displeased, Rene, still facing away, turned only her head and looked down at Adel.

“Enough, Adel. What are you doing, smiling like that?”

“I’m sorry, Sister.”

But what could she do?

She was too happy.

Adel sank down behind that piercingly beautiful moon and smiled brightly like an evening primrose.

But Rene knew.

No mark had appeared on Adel’s wrist, yet Adel possessed a power.

It was different from the powers that had appeared in Millium so far, but it had clearly manifested.

In Adel, too.

“Pack your things.”

“Now?”

“Yes. There’s no reason to hesitate. It takes two full days from here to the Herbron estate.”

“B-but still….”

“Who knows what Father will scheme next. So the sooner the better. Pack as lightly as possible.”

“A-are you sure that’s all right?”

“I have no desire to become your enemy and fight you. If you don’t hurry now, I won’t help you anymore.”

“O-okay!”

Adel understood her sister perfectly.

And Hailey, the moment Rene finished speaking, began packing Adel’s things.

It took less than an hour to finish packing, and just as she was ready, her sister, who had gone outside, returned to the room.

“Let’s go.”

Adel followed without a word.

There was no reason to stay, just as her sister said.

When she stepped into the courtyard of the annex where she had been staying, a carriage larger and more splendid than she had expected was waiting.

“Sister, how did you get such a large carriage…?”

“There’s no need to be moved. I handed over all the jewelry I had, but what use are such things to your sister now?”

As Rene said, she would now live a life so luxurious that she would never need to wear such shabby ornaments again.

“I couldn’t let it look as though Millium was casting you out, so I had no choice. Adel, listen carefully to me.”

Adel nodded reverently, as if listening to a divine command handed down from heaven.

“You are Millium’s defective good.”

Adel’s eyes widened at her sister’s words.

Even if everyone knew it, it was the first time her sister had called her merchandise to her face.

And a defective good, at that.

“I am a first-class good.”

But not a single word Rene said was wrong.

“But in the end, you and I are just the same kind of merchandise. To Baron Millium.”

“Sister….”

“But Adel, just because that man calls us merchandise does not make us things. So you are not a defective good, and I am not a first-class good.”

Her sister had never spoken to her at such length before.

Realizing this was truly goodbye, tears plopped from Adel’s eyes.

Her sister opened her palm and wiped the tears from Adel’s eyes.

“Don’t cry and listen carefully. It doesn’t matter what people call you. However they treat you, it is not because you did something wrong. Do you understand your sister?”