“Madam, the count is waiting.”
The maid’s urgent voice snapped Rebecca back to reality.
She opened the door and walked slowly down the corridor.
The rustle of her dress hem brushing against the floor echoed with each step.
Across the hall, Alicia’s door cracked open slightly.
Through the gap, Alicia scrutinized Rebecca from head to toe, her eyes glinting with greed.
Rebecca met her gaze and gave a subtle smile.
At Rebecca’s triumphant expression, sparks of anger flared in Alicia’s eyes.
“Yes, realize your place. And covet what you can never have.”
Though she usually dreaded parties, this time Rebecca was eager to attend.
She had a clear purpose.
It was her chance to set the first step toward revenge.
…
“Croa, don’t you have anything more useful?”
Yulian closely examined the reports Croa had gathered.
As usual, there wasn’t a single worthwhile clue about the curse.
The quality of the information seemed to be declining.
Irritated, Yulian slammed his fist on the desk.
The wine glass on it tipped over, splashing red wine onto his bare chest.
“Lately, storytellers sniffing out money have been flooding in with nonsense. Filtering out the weird ones takes days. By the way, you’d better change quickly.”
Fidgeting, Croa grabbed a handkerchief and wiped the wine trickling down Yulian’s chest.
Behind him, servants stood holding a black tailcoat.
Yulian ran a hand through his dark hair, annoyed.
“I should’ve stayed out of the war.”
“You’re the one who insisted on going, saying you were itching for action.”
“It was called a war, but there wasn’t a single real fight. They surrendered the moment I drew my sword. It was obviously the emperor’s setup. Something felt off from the start. Rebels in this day and age? Ridiculous.”
“What does it matter? Attend this once for the sake of all the effort you’ve put in. If you keep testing His Majesty’s patience, it could spell trouble.”
“Trouble? What trouble? As long as that damned goddess looms over our family, even the emperor can’t touch us.”
Yulian’s eyes gleamed yellow. The three black cats at his feet raised their heads and meowed in unison.
The eerie atmosphere made the servants flinch.
Used to this, Croa snatched a shirt from a servant and approached Yulian.
“No more talk—put this on!”
“Ugh. The thought of putting on another act already gives me a headache.”
“Then just show up for appearances and leave. The rumors of you being a debauched, filthy scoundrel are already widespread. I hear they’ve brought in your favorite Lengus wine for the banquet.”
“That’s the one thing I like.”
Glancing at the clock, Yulian grumbled and rose from his chair.
Croa snapped his fingers twice.
The frozen servants hurriedly began dressing Yulian.
The Johannes family was known as a noble house blessed by the goddess Dephria.
But the reality was slightly different.
Once an unremarkable noble family, an ancestor of the Johannes line received a revelation from Dephria, the goddess of fortune.
“Serve me and my children with the highest honor, and I will grant your family eternal wealth and glory.”
Soon after, a rebellion broke out. Joining the rebels, the ancestor, under the goddess’s protection, achieved a great victory.
The new emperor granted the Johannes family a dukedom.
At their suggestion, Dephria’s faith was established as the state religion.
Temples praising the goddess sprang up across the nation.
Cats, once considered ominous, became symbols of fortune as Dephria’s sacred animal.
Thus, the Johannes family became a revered house, lacking neither wealth nor honor, as the goddess promised.
But as generations passed, their gratitude faded.
One foolish heir defiled a temple with his mistress. Enraged, the goddess cursed them.
“Your children will serve the child I send and treat it as one with themselves. You will pay the price for the blessings you took for granted.”
Months later, the mistress bore a son, the sole heir.
The child was healthy, but on the day of his birth, a black cat appeared from nowhere.
When they tried to drive it away, the child wailed uncontrollably. When the cat injured its paw, the child’s foot bled.
Soon, the family understood the curse.
Their heirs were born with their souls bound to a cat sent by the goddess.
These heirs, marked by golden eyes that shifted with their emotions, were born with divine power.
The goddess’s cats needed no food or water, feeding solely on the heir’s divine energy.
As a result, every Johannes heir died young.
To preserve the line, the family arranged early marriages for their heirs.
If the first wife didn’t produce an heir within a year, another was taken. No one knew when an heir might die.
Only the pope and a few in the Johannes family knew this truth.
To protect the goddess’s cats, the temple treated the Johannes dukes like breeding stallions.
Thus, the family’s children were born with the curse.
Their wealth and glory endured, but so did the curse.
Yulian was no exception.
But he was born with the strongest divine power of any heir.
The pope predicted Yulian would live longer than his predecessors.
This allowed him to delay the marriage he despised, but only temporarily.
Soon, he’d reach his mid-twenties, and the vassals and temple would start pressuring him.
Yulian refused. He couldn’t bear dragging an innocent woman into his family’s curse.
The Johannes duchesses never met good ends.
His mother died young, wasting away from illness.
The other three wives, after his father’s death, went mad and took their own lives.
Yulian didn’t want to meekly accept that grim fate.
He looked out the window.
Light spilled from the eastern annex where Lily, his father’s last mistress, lived.
If Yulian died without an heir, the boy Lily bore would inherit the curse.
He couldn’t let that small child bear such a terrible fate.
“I have to end it in my generation, somehow…”
Yulian had hoped for a miracle his entire life.
But he never prayed to the gods.
…
“Watch your step, Rebecca.”
Zeppelin, stepping out of the carriage first, offered his hand.
He gazed at Rebecca, momentarily entranced.
Adorned with ornaments he’d chosen, she was breathtakingly beautiful.
Rebecca, staring briefly at Zeppelin in his pristine white tailcoat, placed her hand on his arm.
Seeing the wedding ring on her slender finger, Zeppelin drifted into a memory.
On his seventeenth birthday, the Devonshire estate hosted a grand party.
It was a snowy day.
Bored at the party, Zeppelin stepped onto the balcony and saw Rebecca for the first time.
Eleven-year-old Rebecca, cheeks flushed, was joyfully rolling in the snow.
Building a snowman, she met his gaze and burst into a radiant smile.
In that moment, Zeppelin fell for her. Or rather, he was captivated by her face, so like his own.
“If I marry that girl, what a beautiful child we’d have.”
Raised to believe beauty was life’s purpose, Zeppelin found his first goal in his monotonous existence.
From that moment, he began planning to make Rebecca entirely his.
After relentless effort, he succeeded in marrying her.
But shaping her to his ideal wasn’t easy.
Rebecca was smarter and more stubborn than he’d expected.
Yet Zeppelin was just as patient.
Over nearly a decade, he meticulously isolated her, making her depend solely on him.
Bringing in Alicia served a similar purpose.
He wanted Rebecca to compare herself to the young, beautiful Alicia and sink deeper into despair.
He wanted her to doubt herself and cling even more to beauty.
“All that’s left is for her to bear a child. A child like me.”
Feeling the gazes of those entranced by Rebecca’s face, Zeppelin smiled with satisfaction and stepped into the dazzling chandelier-lit banquet hall.
He had no idea what Rebecca was thinking at that moment.
…
“I’ve heard much about you, Duke Johannes.”
Yulian, chatting with Emperor Zahidra, turned at the clear voice.
A young woman with her red hair pinned up smiled at him.
The emperor, delighted, introduced her.
“Ah, Yulian, you haven’t met. This is Princess Katrinne.”
A princess?
Yulian coolly scanned Katrinne, who blushed, then looked at Zahidra.
The emperor alternated between Yulian and Katrinne with expectant eyes.
Yulian swallowed a scoff.
“Ha, the old man’s motives are crystal clear.”
Over time, the Rotanders Empire’s theocracy had grown uncontrollably powerful.
Most high nobles were aligned with the pope, as was public sentiment.
It had become customary for cardinals or the pope to review state council policies.
The Johannes family had once sided with the temple.
But since Yulian became duke, they maintained an ambiguous neutrality between the emperor and the temple.
The previous emperor had been a puppet of the temple.
Growing up witnessing this, Zahidra had long planned to strengthen imperial authority.
To him, Yulian was a golden opportunity.
The temple was powerless before the Johannes duke, directly blessed by the goddess.
If Zahidra could win Yulian to his side, he’d have a powerful tool to check the temple.
And nothing was better for securing Yulian’s allegiance than a political marriage.
