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Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team ‌‌‌‌and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
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Chapter 1
1. Return
If only ‌‌‌‌I had known, I should never have left the Knight Order back then, ‌‌Seirena thought bitterly. If I hadn't, things would never have come to this.
It was my mistake—failing to recognize the talents I possessed as true gifts. I never cherished what I held in my hands.
My title, my family, and my gifts.
I should never have become a queen consort.
No, perhaps that was beyond my control. But then at least I should never have abandoned the sword. If I hadn't, I could have run this blade through the man before me and ended him!
Seirena's eyes burned with hatred as she fixed her gaze upon the man standing before her.
But I cannot. I looked down at my own trembling hands, too weak even to lift them.
Once beautiful hands, now ‌‌‌skeletal and withered, marred by countless scars.
Who would ever mistake these hands for those of a queen consort?
It was not just my hands. No one could possibly see me as a ‌‌‌queen consort now.
I ‌‌was only twenty-nine years old, yet with my prematurely white hair and a body reduced to bone, I appeared ‌‌‌‌to be well past fifty.
The only mercy was that there was no mirror in this Prison Cell, so I could not see what my face had become.
"Do something ‌‌‌useful for once."
The words of my uncle—a man I once believed cared for me—drained the hatred from my expression, leaving only numbness. Useless. That was what I was.
I had never ‌been particularly beautiful or clever compared to other women.
Eight years ago, my uncle had married me off to The King, a man older than my dead father, and told me to be grateful.
"It is the highest position a woman ‌can attain."
I believed him then. I believed his words.
I thought my uncle cared for me.
Having lost both my parents and become an orphan with my younger sibling, I thought he would care for us.
So I trusted ‌‌him and followed his guidance. He was the only person I could trust.
"That is why I told you to ‌‌‌‌‌bear The King's child."
His tone dripped with such regret ‌‌‌that I snapped my head up. In my skeletal face, only my reddened eyes gleamed with fierce light.
"Why? Are you going to kill me?"
At my words, Count Hunter fell silent. Though the soldiers standing beyond the door could not possibly hear, he found my defiance deeply offensive.
Yet despite his words, he ‌‌was grateful that I had borne no child with the dead King. Had I done so, his niece becoming Princess Consort and eventually queen would have complicated his plans considerably.
Nine years. It had taken nine years.
Nine years ago, when my father—Count Hunter's own brother—died, it had been a stroke of fortune for ‌‌‌him.
"I had hoped to keep my hands clean."
When Seirena showed no sign of taking her own life, the Count clicked his tongue in irritation and drew a dagger. For the Hunter ‌‌Family's sake, she needed to die by her own hand. ‌‌
By offering me to The King and gaining his trust, his daughter had married the First Prince.
But what he truly wanted ‌‌was not merely a Princess Consort. He wanted his daughter to become queen.
Count Hunter had fabricated a conspiracy, accusing the First Prince and the ‌‌Princess Consort of adultery with me and plotting to assassinate the prince.
The First Prince, the Princess Consort, and I were swiftly ‌‌imprisoned, and tomorrow would bring the third trial.
The third trial would determine the charge of attempted regicide. The Count hoped I would die before the trial began. I must not appear in the Courtroom.
"Do you intend to live your entire life known as a lustful, extravagant queen consort who committed adultery with ‌‌her stepson?"
The Count smiled grotesquely as he spoke. My body went rigid with cold.
A woman mad for men. A harlot who squandered the royal treasury. All lies. Yet everyone believed them.
I trembled slightly as memories of the ‌‌‌humiliation from the previous two trials flooded back.
"It was your doing."
A thin, quavering voice escaped my ‌‌‌lips.
Did he know? Count Hunter ‌‌‌let out a hollow laugh but said nothing. I was useless, yet I had served a purpose until ‌‌‌now. Thanks ‌to me, he ‌‌had earned the King's trust. Thanks to me, he could pin the embezzled treasury funds ‌‌‌‌on someone else.
But....
"Useless things should be discarded."
My eyes widened at the Count's words.
No, it wasn't the words themselves. The Count had approached as if to embrace me, then ‌‌quickly retreated as though I were filthy.
My head slowly lowered. My gaze fell upon the dagger embedded in my abdomen.
"Guard!"
The Count knocked on the door, worried blood might stain his hands. He slipped out through the open door before I could even call for help.
"Damn it."
A curse I hadn't uttered in years escaped my lips in a whisper.
I had been thoroughly used and ‌‌‍thoroughly betrayed.
And thoroughly abandoned.
I thought I had cried so much that no tears remained, yet my eyes burned red.
I had believed in him. At merely twenty years old, having lost my ‌‌‌parents in a single day and become an orphan, my uncle appeared before me. We were not strangers. In fact, I had been close to my uncle.
My uncle and father had been close as well. So naturally, my uncle became the guardian of both me and the still-young Ezra.
He had promised to pass everything down to me when I turned twenty-one, yet he used ‌my trust to swallow the entire household.
I had believed he would love me. Perhaps not as my father did, but as my uncle surely would.
Knock, knock.
Just as my vision began to blur, someone knocked on the door from outside.
I quickly composed myself.
The dagger remained embedded in my abdomen. I knew from ten years of experience as a knight that pulling ‌‌‌‌it out would only cause the blood to drain faster.
"Come in."
My voice barely held together. I knew who ‌‌‌was coming.
From ‌the start, it was not my uncle I had been waiting for.
At my words, ‌‌‌the guard opened the door and a hooded figure entered.
"Welcome."
I forced a smile while concealing my abdomen with my sleeve so the dagger wouldn't be visible.
The visitor was a Sorceress. I knew better than to reveal my weakness.
"You called for me, Your Majesty?"
Though I was no longer the Queen, the Sorceress still addressed ‌me as such.
Was it mockery? I tried to read her expression, but I was utterly "useless" at reading people, just as my uncle had said.
"I called because I have a request."
Fortunately, the Sorceress did not wear a mocking expression. ‌‌‌‌I was grateful for even that small mercy.
The contempt and scorn of others—such things destroyed me swiftly.
"Please speak."
At the Sorceress's words, I straightened my posture. I felt the sleeve covering my abdomen growing damp.
The metallic stench of blood wafted up, yet ‌‌‌the Sorceress stood as though she noticed nothing.
I watched as the life drained from this young queen's eyes.
A debauched and extravagant villainess—that was what everyone called her.
Remembering the rumors that after the King's death, she changed men every night and the gossip about how she discarded diamond necklaces daily to buy new ones, the Sorceress felt a flicker of pity for Seirena.
"I mentioned it before. I'm researching magic that can restore youth." ‌
At Seirena's words, the Sorceress felt the pity she'd harbored evaporate. Even ‌‌‌facing death, was youth truly all she desired?
She shook her head and spoke coldly.
"No. ‌‌‌‌Not youth—time. More precisely, returning to the past."
Yes, that. Seirena smiled faintly.
The arm cradling her abdomen grew weak, slipping repeatedly. Yet despite this, she persisted in hiding her ‌‌wound from the Sorceress until the ‌‌very end.
"I want to turn back time, turn it back. If you desire my soul...."
"No, Your ‌‌‌‌Majesty."
The Sorceress cut off Seirena's words and spoke. She had discerned what this ‌‌dying queen truly wanted.
She wanted to turn back time and escape before being caught.
If not that, then what? She shook her head.
Irrelevant. Magic demands a price. And this queen had nothing to offer in return.
"Your soul isn't necessary. You're already dying."
At the Sorceress's words, Seirena's eyes widened. I watched slowly as this woman in her twenties, who appeared to be over sixty, registered her ‌‌shock.
The golden hair that once shone beautifully had turned white, and the eyes once called the continent's most precious amethyst were grotesquely bloodshot.
Was this truly the end of ‌‌‌the queen once praised as the most beautiful?
"But you said you would help me someday."
A ‌‌‌voice emerged from Seirena's lips—whether suppressing rage or tears, it was impossible to tell.
The Sorceress remained expressionless, her thoughts inscrutable.
"Yes, Your Majesty. I did say I would help you ‌‌‌someday. But ‌‌‌that was only if you could pay the price."
"You said you wouldn't accept payment...."
As her strength failed, ragged gasps burst from Seirena's lips.
The Sorceress gazed at the ‌‌‌queen's blood-soaked abdomen and sleeve, then exhaled heavily.
There are two prices for using magic.
The price paid to the Sorceress who casts it. And the price paid to the world that is changed by the magic.
With ordinary magic, the latter price is borne by the Sorceress. In exchange, the Sorceress simply receives additional compensation from the client.
But this—the magic Seirena desired—could not work that way.
"You have nothing to give to the world."
A dying person could offer nothing ‌to the world. ‌‌‌‌With those words, the Sorceress turned and left the Prison Cell where Seirena was confined.
"Damn it."
Cursing for the second time, Seirena closed her eyes. Breathing became increasingly difficult, her wheezing ‌‌‌so labored it grated on her nerves.
I didn't want to die. I didn't want to die.
Regret flooded in like a tidal wave.
I should never have left the Knight Order. I should have told Ezra I loved him. If I'd known everything would be stripped from my house anyway, I should have given my parents a grand funeral.
And to that person as well....

---------------
Brought to you by ‌‌Valir Scans! To support ‌‌‌our team and enjoy the latest releases, please ‌read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
---------------