Chapter 19

“My lady, please go to bed and lie down. If you keep crying like this, my heart hurts for you. Come on. Grab a warm cup of tea, hug a warm water bag, and sleep with a sigh. Have a nice dream this time, come on.”

As I continued to cry, shaking my shoulders in her arms, Lariesa was about to pick me up and climb the stairs. Thinking of Larriesa, now middle- aged, I managed to stop sniffing and head for the bedroom. And by relying on the things she provided, I tried to be calm even for a moment.

Nothing has happened yet. I couldn’t help it, but I didn’t have the strength to stand up to the villainous brothers and sisters of the Duke of Montiac, so I just had to try to avoid meeting him somehow from now on. At this point, let’s feign illness a little more severely, and let’s lie down altogether. And I’m going to ask my parents to let me go to the Grandiary coast in the south, where my mother’s family’s villa is, and recuperate. And then, ask my father to go all the way to the Grandiary region together.

I will cry and beg you to take me with you. That way, you can prevent your father from attending the hunting contest where he gets that terrible name. Of course, if I don’t meet the crown prince, that might not happen… but if they do anything at all… Anyway, I had to take my parents and stay away from the imperial castle for a while. This is the only way to avoid disaster.

I will insist that when I get safely down to the south, I will enter the convent of Peterineveau in a foreign country across the border and become a nun. The two of them are saddened by my decision, and will try to dissuade me in any way… but after protracting so much time, I will eventually become a nun without breaking my stubbornness. I had to stay as far away as possible, away from Martinez, and never fall in love with him again… never again.

Ah, Martinez. When I think of him, my heart fills up with only a deep longing that can’t be helped. Martinez de Matrin. He is the only heir to this empire. The only son of the current Emperor Matrin II, my first and last love. If he hadn’t loved me, none of this might have happened.

It wasn’t that I hated him. Because there were other people who drove me into the pit of despair. Still, I would sometimes resent myself for not rejecting him, thinking of the moment he kissed me. He had confessed to me with his dazzling blue- black hair and deep dark blue eyes full of me. He said he would put his love for me in every breath he exhaled. I did too.