Prologue

“Your Majesty, please allow me to end my engagement with Her Highness. Our kingdom will take full responsibility.”

The first prince of the Romuir Kingdom, Nolan Romuir looked determined as he knelt in front of the emperor. His handsome face was flushed with love.

“What is the meaning of this?” Gaius, the emperor of the Samara Empire, questioned him without concealing his fury.

“I have fallen in love with Lady Adrianne Reis.”

This was already the sixth time.

“How dare you, the fiancé of the princess, fall in love with her attendant? Why are all princes of the continent the same?”

Prince Romuir was Princess Apollonia’s sixth fiancé even though she was only twenty-two years old, and now he was about to be the sixth one to break off the engagement. The procedure was always the same: they visited the empire, held their engagement ceremony with the princess as planned, and then they cheated on her with her attendant before their visit ended.

Three of them, including Prince Romuir, had cheated on the princess with Adrianne Reis, an attendant close to the princess herself. She would already be dead if she was just an ordinary attendant. However, Adrianne Reis was alive and kept seducing the princes, and the reason for that was simple.

“Father, please grant his request,” Apollonia’s calm and soft voice quietly rang out next to the furious emperor, “I give their love my blessings.”

Apollonia, who was supposed the one Adrianne served, stood up for her without even knowing that she was betrayed by her.

“Nia.”

“I don’t want to marry the prince. I want to live with you forever, Father.”

She spoke as if she was okay doing so, but her voice, as well as her eyelashes, were trembling. Her blond hair drooped down as she lowered her head to hide her tears. She, who would blush from a single glance from the prince until just yesterday, ended up bursting into tears.

“I-I’m, really… fine.”

Everybody there thought she was pitiful, pathetic, and above all, frustrating.

‘She’s so fainthearted. No wonder all her fiancés get stolen.’

The emperor clicked his tongue. Apollonia couldn’t keep her fiancés even though she was of high status, being the only princess of the empire, and with a face that wasn’t even that ugly either. She just didn’t stand out because she was too quiet, and she wasn’t charming because she was too innocent. She didn’t even like to drink or enjoy banquets because she was weak, unbecoming of her lineage.

On the other hand, Adrianne was a beautiful woman with sparkling green eyes and was always so lively.

‘She isn’t even charming, yet her attendants are all beautiful women. How stupid can she be?’

To the emperor, Apollonia was a pathetic daughter who stood up for the attendant that stole her fiancés, and that made him sigh.

“I don’t want to get in the way of their love.” Apollonia sobbed pitifully.

She did the same when the other attendants who were close to her stole her other fiancés and pleaded with him not to punish them. When one of her fiancés abandoned her to save her attendant when she was attacked by a monster, when she found one of them in bed naked with an attendant in her palace, and even when she saw one publicly kissing an attendant in the banquet hall, she would just lower her eyes and stand back.

“I wish for the two of them to be happy.”

She even permitted those attendants to marry the princes and gave them congratulatory gifts.

There were even rumors that being an attendant of the princess was a gateway to a good marriage, which led many women to line up to work as one. That led to her having even more beautiful attendants, and the princess’s fiancés evidently enjoyed it. Adrianne would’ve already become a queen if she wasn’t the foster daughter of a low-class noble.

“You foolish girl!” The emperor glared at his daughter as she stood there with her head hung low.

She was his daughter, but he never treated her as such. There was nothing about Apollonia that he liked, ever since her birth. Everything about her bothered him, including the fact that she resembled her mother, her frail personality, and even her noble bloodline. The only way he thought she could be useful was if she got married, but evidently, she couldn’t even do that.

He could gain so many business rights and riches if he married her off to a rich kingdom, but he had lost six chances to do so all because of his dim-witted daughter.

‘Was it worth it keeping her alive?’

However, the emperor had no choice but to do as Apollonia asked.

“Begone! I don’t want to see you any longer!” he shouted and disbanded the occasion.

Everyone, including the vassals and attendants surrounding them, clicked their tongues and pitied the future of the princess.

“How pitiful. Her Highness is too nice…”

“I don’t know whether she’s nice or just an idiot. I can’t believe that she still hasn’t banished Adrianne.”

“What’s the point of being a princess if she can’t even hold on to a man?”

“At this point, don’t you think this is Her Highness’s fault?”

Everyone thought that the princess was a fool who couldn’t even eat the feast prepared for her and kept talking behind her back even after she left.

Poor Apollonia walked out of the palace elegantly and headed toward the outer court, checking if anyone else was around as she looked for someone.

“Your Highness! Your Highness! This way,” a cute voice called out to her from behind. Apollonia turned around to see and saw someone behind a pillar, sticking their head out and waving at her. It was that ungrateful attendant. The dog who betrayed its master. The notorious whore.

Adrianne Reis.

“Adrianne!”

Apollonia called out and quickly went over to her. If one of the vassals had seen that sight, they would’ve thought the princess had finally come to her senses and was going over to slap that attendant. However, she did the exact opposite and said something completely unexpected.

“Well done.” Apollonia smiled brightly as she gave a compliment that didn’t suit the situation. There wasn’t even a trace of the tears that had dripped down her cheeks just moments ago.

“I guess we succeeded then?”

“You did a great job. It looks like he’s fallen for you deeply.”

The princess looked satisfied as she talked about her fiancé’s betrayal.

“I only did as you ordered me to, Your Highness. Anyone else would’ve succeeded too,” said Adrianne with a modest sigh. “It’s a shame in a way though. You could’ve had Prince Romuir on his knees had you seduced him yourself.”

“Don’t be sad, the Romuir Kingdom is nothing.” Apollonia smiled coldly. Her cold demeanor was a stark contrast from the teary person from moments ago. “Anyways, if the prince proposes to you…”

“I made it so the King of Romuir would find out about what happened right away. The prince may have broken off his engagement, but their king would never allow a low-class noble to become a princess consort,” Adrianne reported to her master cheerfully, almost as if she had read her mind.

“Good job, my precious. This is why I won’t send you anywhere else unlike the others.”

Apollonia patted her loyal attendant on the head. She had never forgotten how precious Adrianne was to her from the day she become her servant five years ago. Neither of them were interested in the prince from Romuir Kingdom from the start.

Apollonia simply followed the emperor’s orders to get married as usual.

Just that, as usual, she ordered her attendant to induce the prince to break off the engagement.

Just that, she made the already beautiful Adrianne even prettier and had her serve the prince during his stay.

Just that, she investigated the prince thoroughly in the several months there were talks about the engagement and presented Adrianne to her to match his preferences from head to toe.

“Anything from the others?”

“Don’t get me started. The thank-you letters just keep pouring in. Bianca’s worried about your health even though she just gave birth to a second prince herself.”

“I should send her some silver as a gift.”

Adrianne wasn’t the only attendant who was loyal to Apollonia. There were others who married her fiancés and became queens thanks to her, remaining as her trusty allies from then on.

“She’ll send back enough gold to match it if you do.”

Adrianne shook her head and laughed, then she added on.

“Everyone is hoping that you will succeed and are ready to help whenever you need them to.”

Apollonia nodded. “Right, I’ve waited a long time for this.”

“…”

“Well, it’s only natural. It took Father ten years to kill my mother and the former emperor.”

Apollonia smirked as her red eyes gleamed brightly. Her calm attitude while speaking such menacing words sent chills up Adrianne’s spine. Her mistress had always been like that. She was the type that would hide a knife behind her back while smiling like a saint. Her goal was clear, and it never changed.

“Shouldn’t I prepare just as much if I want to take everything back from him?”

Usurping the throne. That was Apollonia’s ultimate goal, Though, to be fair, “usurping” wasn’t the right word, as it originally belonged to her.

Apollonia enjoyed the cool, spring breeze even as she was plotting treason against her father and reminded herself of today’s success.

“Father, I won’t marry the prince.”

Because I want to be the empress, not a queen.

“I want to live with you forever.”

To be precise, I want to live on that exact spot that you’re sitting on, Father.

Please wait, your daughter is coming for you.

To take back what is rightfully hers.