Chapter 1

The Withered Court gate was not very high. After stacking two washbasins beneath the lintel, I finally managed to hook the cloth and haul myself up.

I was almost home.

The thought struck like stepping into a warm room after a blizzard. I ached to see my family again. I kicked off hard. Pain exploded at my throat, and the air vanished. The world collapsed into a brutal, ringing squeeze.

My thoughts blurred at the edges. Somewhere far away, lively, bright palace music continued to play, yet utterly indifferent to me. Each beat faded, as if someone were slowly lowering the volume.

Then everything I had lived through here rushed past in shattered, glittering fragments.

Twenty-one years in the Great Wayland Dynasty. I had been reborn into this body before I could even form words. I had four targets. The System had laid out the rules with brutal clarity: earn Absolute Affection from any one of them, and the version of me in my original world would be cured of the terminal illness waiting there like a sealed door.

Four chosen men, brilliant and untouchable, upheld the nation. Every one of them came to hate me to the bone because of the heroine. This was not the kind of hatred that sought explanations or apologies. It demanded a corpse.

In the end, the System marked my mission with a single verdict: Failure.

Thus, I gave them what they wanted. I was leaving.

Through the haze, I thought I heard someone shout my name. Then my breath caught, and for a brief moment, I couldn't inhale. But in the next instant, my lungs finally gave way, pulling in air once more.

A basin of icy water crashed over my head and face. I choked and coughed as the shock tore sound from me in harsh, broken bursts.

Water streamed through my hair and down my neck, soaking my thin clothes.

I blinked hard and looked up.

A man in a purple robe stood before me. Prayer beads slid between his fingers. His expression was dark and flat with disgust, as if I had crawled out of a ditch and polluted his air.

That face was far too familiar.

My mind lagged behind my body. The name escaped before I could stop it. "Henry?"

The moment the word left my mouth, regret punched through the remaining dizziness.

Disgust creased Henry Somerset's brow. "Do not call me by my name. You are not worthy."

Of course.

The cold young man before me was Great Wayland's infamous Grand Administrator, powerful enough that people lowered their voices when they spoke of him. He was also one of my targets.

When Henry's family was slaughtered, I had risked my life to drag him from a pile of corpses. He had been half dead, broken, and clinging to life by a thread. I had taken him home and treated him for months with my own hands.

At that time, he had lost everyone. He had been like a wounded animal, all teeth and terror, rejecting every scrap of closeness I offered.

I had forced his fingers to loosen their grip, one by one. I had coaxed him back toward living. I had guided him away from the ways he hurt himself when grief became unbearable.

He had sworn he would clear his family's name. He had entered the palace under a false identity, climbed step by step through filth and blood, and forged himself into the most feared power behind the throne.

I had seen him at his lowest. I had been the person he trusted most. But that had been four years ago.

Four years ago, on the night of the Lunaris Festival, I married the Crown Prince. Everyone came to congratulate us. Everyone offered blessings. Even the System believed success was within reach.

Then the heroine, Roxanne Frostwell, left a letter and vanished.

She wrote as if every stroke tore at her flesh. She named me outright. She claimed I had lured her to a ruined temple, where beggars violated her.

She stated she no longer had the dignity to face anyone. She could only leave and grow old alone in a place where no one would ever find her.

My biological brother threw me out of the house and swore to sever all ties.

The Crown Prince stripped me of my title as Crown Princess and reduced me to a lowly consort of the Eastern Palace.

Henry used the convenience of his position as Chief Palace Administrator to have me sent to the Withered Court. Every day, I washed the staff's clothing until my hands split and bled.

"Roxy is out there suffering who knows what," he had said, calm as a judge passing sentence. "A vicious woman like you should pay for your sins every single day."

For four years in the Withered Court, people wore me down. They humiliated me and used me. No matter what I said or did, no one believed me.

Now Roxanne had returned. The Crown Prince decided he wanted one life, one love, and one woman. Even the Withered Court was no longer a place I was permitted to rot in.

Thus, the System made its call: mission failed.

All I could do was die quickly, return home, and use whatever time remained there to live out my final days.

Henry snapped his fingers. Two young stewards stepped forward and dragged me up, one on each side. My feet barely brushed the ground.

When he noticed the red marks around my neck, mockery flickered in his narrow eyes. "The stage is not even built, and you are already addicted to acting."

His lips curled. "Do you wish to die? You chose the wrong place. The Withered Court is too remote. No one will be here to watch your performance."

A bitter laugh tore at my throat. He truly believed I had staged it all.

"Administrator Somerset," I said hoarsely. "If the Withered Court is so remote, why are you here? Did you come on purpose, just to see me?"

For a brief instant, his face tightened. Then he sneered, "Roxy is back. On a reunion day like this, I will not allow you to ruin her happiness. If you insist on dying, fine. Die somewhere farther away."

He ordered them to throw me out of the castle gate, tossing me and my small bundle aside like refuse. He looked down at me from above, as if I were filth stuck to his shoe.

"Once you are out, do you think I will still care whether you live or die?" he said coldly.

I lifted my chin and gave him a bright smile.

That was perfect.

I took nothing with me. I ran straight to the moat bridge outside the palace walls and hurled myself over.