Chapter 1.

Awakening Through Betrayal

“Your husband does not love you.”

Deep within the Duke’s lush garden, two women stood facing each other.

The pale-faced woman in an extravagant red dress was Essika Klaus, Duchess of Klaus.

Born into wealth, she possessed beautiful silver hair and blue eyes.

The woman standing rigidly before her was Yuri Anesis.

She was the daughter of the nanny who had raised Essika and her only childhood friend.

Yuri’s lips moved slowly.

“The person he loves is……”

Yuri’s calm face was reflected in Essika’s blue eyes.

With brilliant golden hair and crimson eyes, Yuri spoke in a voice tinged with a strange sorrow, as though offering consolation.

“…me.”

The gentle rustling of leaves in the wind could be heard.

Essika’s blue eyes trembled violently with shock.

“It seems he has another woman. What should I do?”

It had been only three months since Essika had told Yuri those words.

Yuri, the nanny’s daughter, had followed Essika to the Klaus Duchy after her marriage and remained by her side as her attendant.

Even when her mother-in-law, Leona Klaus, nitpicked her for being “the daughter of a family that bought its title with money,” and even when her husband, Duke Kallian Klaus, treated her with an impenetrable coldness……

The only person Essika could trust in this hellish ducal household was Yuri.

‘But Yuri…… betrayed me?’

Essika had first sensed something suspicious about Kallian after learning that he had purchased an Alet ring from a jewelry store.

It was a ring said to be given by lovers when they pledged eternal love.

For a moment, Essika had been excited, wondering if perhaps he intended to give it to her.

But even after a month passed, Kallian had not spoken a single word to her.

And now, on Yuri’s left ring finger……

There glittered an Alet ring of the exact same design as the one Essika had heard Kallian had purchased.

“……!”

The shock refused to fade for a long time.

Essika finally raised her trembling hand.

And with all her strength, she slapped Yuri across the cheek.

Smack—!

The sound of the slap rang out so loudly that it was almost refreshing.

“Yuri! How dare you……!”

Essika clutched her breaking heart with one hand as she was about to unleash a torrent of curses.

“Apparently, you have no intention of fixing that violent temper of yours.”

Kallian’s voice came from behind Yuri as he caught her before she could fall.

He had striking brown hair and cold violet eyes, and an icy aura surrounded him.

“……Kallian……”

Essika’s eyes trembled.

Duke Kallian Klaus, one of only three dukes in the empire, was Essika’s husband.

He was tall enough to be intimidating, with a solid physique and an exceptionally handsome face said to rank among the five finest in the empire.

When she had first married him, Essika had thought she had gained the entire world.

“Because of your disgraceful behavior, maids who have devoted their entire lives to this ducal household are quitting every other day. And now you have even laid hands on a friend who serves you.”

Kallian supported Yuri by the waist so that she would not fall.

With the very hand that had never once held Essika’s after their marriage.

“How long am I supposed to tolerate this behavior?”

Essika could clearly feel it from the coldness in his eyes.

Kallian despised her.

Kallian, heir to a ducal family descended from the empire’s founding heroes, and Essika, daughter of the newly ennobled Baron Brigitte family that had suddenly amassed a fortune through the jewelry business, had been different from birth.

Everything was different, from their trivial interests to their habits.

Just as Kallian could not understand Essika, Essika found it difficult to understand him.

And yet……

Essika had believed that she could become a good wife to Kallian.

After all, the prestigious and handsome Duke Klaus was exactly the type of man she had always dreamed of.

Even throughout the three years of his constant indifference, Essika believed that someday Kallian would finally look at her.

So she continued trying, in her own way, without ever giving up.

But this was the price she received in return.

Betrayal.

“……Kallian! You have no right to say something like th—”

“Never call me by my name again.”

Essika’s eyes trembled at Kallian’s cold voice cutting off her scream.

The corners of Yuri’s red lips curved upward.

As though she were mocking Essika, telling her that all the countless efforts she had made had been nothing but a futile dream.

“Let’s go, Yuri.”

Kallian placed a hand on Yuri’s shoulder and spoke softly.

Essika could endure no more.

She lunged forward, prepared to grab Yuri by the hair and tear it out.

It was the only revenge she could take against Kallian and Yuri now.

But Kallian’s powerful arm blocked her, preventing her from reaching Yuri.

“Let go! Let me go! I’ll kill you!”

Essika struggled desperately, her brows raised in fury.

Then Kallian’s icy voice reached her ears.

“You really are…… unbearable and exhausting.”

Kallian then shoved Essika away with all his strength as she continued throwing herself at him.

“Argh!”

Essika fell backward and hit the ground.

A tremendous impact struck her head, and blood seeped into the grass beneath her.

All she wanted was to die.

She was sick for ten days and ten nights.

At first, Essika thought she was hallucinating.

But it was neither a dream nor an illusion.

They were memories from her past life.

Everything she had lost was flowing vividly into her through her eyes, ears, and skin.

Her name in her previous life had been Cheon Yeongryeong, and she had lived in the Central Plains martial world.

The unruly daughter of the leader of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, she had met the Emperor of the empire and fallen in love with him.

She abandoned her free life in the martial world and chose a new existence in the imperial palace as one man’s woman.

“Brother Dokyeong, I…… have a man I love.”

“An eagle can never be happy in a cage, Yeongryeong.”

Everyone who had protected her like family tried to stop her.

But the world of women she had thrown herself into for the sake of love was just as cruel as the martial world, and surviving there required an equally meticulous mastery of intrigue.

Yeongryeong stained her hands with blood countless times and survived the War of Flowers.

At some point, the Emperor’s concubines began secretly calling her by a name filled with fear.

‘Cheon Yeongryeong, the Wicked Woman Who Stands Alone Above All Under Heaven.’

All Yeongryeong had wanted after giving up everything was the love of one man.

But more and more women continued entering the harem, and the Emperor, who had once claimed he would even give up his heart for her, grew tired of her jealousy and stopped seeking her out.

In the end, Yeongryeong fell victim to the schemes of the other concubines and was confined to the Cold Palace, where she withered away like a dying flower.

And her final memory was the agony of her entire body burning as well as the anguished cry of a man filled with grief.

She could not remember why she had died.

“Yeongryeong. I…….”

“……Hah…… hah…….”

Essika woke from her bed after ten days, drenched in cold sweat.

The blurry scenery of the room gradually came into focus.

“……Ugh……”

Essika covered her mouth and her body heaved violently.

Her eyes opened wide, her expression filled with shock.

Her frail body was overcome with nausea, but the vivid memories of her previous life remained unchanged.

‘This place…… is exactly like the book I saw in my previous life.’

No one knew that Yeongryeong, as she slowly withered away, used to pass the time by reading novels from the Western Regions.

No one except her personal maid, who had come from the Demonic Cult with her.

was a novel depicting events taking place in the fictional Turesian Empire.

The protagonist was Lesvan Deon Lucene, the Crown Prince of the Turesian Empire.

The Klaus Duchy was a faction that supported the Second Prince and opposed the Crown Prince.

In the novel, Essika Klaus was the wife of Kallian Klaus and the only daughter of the newly ennobled Baron Brigitte family.

Because of her extravagant lifestyle and vicious personality, she was divorced after five years of marriage.

The moment the divorce was finalized, she took her own life.

And the woman Kallian took as his second wife immediately after divorcing Essika was……

‘Yuri Anesis.’

Essika Klaus’s childhood friend and a woman who had worked as a maid in the Klaus Duchy.

Yeongryeong remembered how the novel described Essika cursing the Klaus Duchy until the very moment of her death and murmured,

“This woman…… is like me……. Strange. It feels as though we’re sisters.”

A woman who had grown up wanting for nothing, only to lose everything because of love.

There could hardly be a more regretful and cruel fate than that.

Yeongryeong had found empathy and comfort while reading about Essika in the novel.

She was neither smarter nor more wicked than Yeongryeong, nor did she possess the ability to crush her enemies beneath her.

And yet, in the end, their fates were the same.

But now, she had become that very Essika from the book.

A woman destined to have her husband stolen by her childhood friend, divorce him, curse them both, and take her own life.

And Kallian……

His face and aura resembled the man Yeongryeong had loved.

So much so that she even wondered whether the Emperor had been reincarnated as Kallian, just as she had become Essika.

‘Perhaps that was why I clung to him so desperately.’

‘In the past, I was Yeongryeong. Now, I am Essika. If both of them are me……’

The posture she had once held somewhat timidly had changed into one that was almost excessively upright.

‘I will never have regrets in my second life.’

Above all, Essika’s eyes were no longer the dull, frightened eyes she had possessed before.

In the darkened room, only her blue eyes shone fiercely.

One of Essika’s maids, Sella, entered her room carrying some stale bread and a glass of water.

The head lady had ordered her to do so after receiving word that the Duchess had awakened.

“As punishment for causing discord within the family, bring her nothing but stale bread and cold water.”

The room was exceedingly dark.

The head lady had always looked down on Essika as the daughter of a rootless nouveau-riche noble family.

She had even refused to provide her with lamp oil, forcing her to light the room with candles instead.

“What time is it, and you’re still sleeping?”

Sella grumbled in a sharp voice as she looked at the mound of blankets on the bed.

“How lazy.”

The Duchess of Klaus was an easy woman to bully, someone who could do nothing but cry and complain.

Whenever the maids mocked her, she would tremble and become angry, but all that accomplished was hurting herself.

All food and supplies in the ducal residence were managed by the head lady.

If the Duchess made enemies of the maids, she was the only one whose life would become difficult.

Under the head lady’s orders, whenever the maids submitted their resignations, they wrote the Duchess’s name on them as the reason.

As a result, Essika’s reputation within the Klaus Duchy had long since fallen to rock bottom.

She would probably get out of bed, see the bread and water, and tears would once again well up in those vivid blue eyes.

‘Sella…… the bread is too hard……. Could you please bring me something warm to eat?’

She might even beg.

‘Should I make her get on her knees and beg me? When would I ever get to see a noble kneel before me? Heh.’

Sella raised the corners of her lips.

Then she bent down, grabbed Essika’s blanket, and yanked it away.

She expected to find Essika curled up beneath it.

“……?”

But there was nothing inside the bed.

Only a pile of blankets.

And at that very moment, Sella felt something cold touch her neck.

She was so startled that she could not even scream.