#55
She neatly arranged her gaze and once again refined the corners of her mouth.
Her makeup hadn’t crumbled, and her posture hadn’t become disheveled.
Today was an important day for Isabella.
A day when she had to draw all gazes and monopolize the Crown Prince’s attention.
The Second Prince, who had lost consciousness and collapsed limply, came to mind.
That scene strangely remained in her mind.
The appearance of his unfocused eyes and drooping head.
Blood beading at the corners of his mouth, and hands falling like blankets.
She strangely felt like she had seen it somewhere before… but what mattered was that it looked good.
His collapsed appearance.
The frail vitality when the weak could no longer hide their weakness.
That was a scene that gave Isabella pleasure.
‘He seems to be fundamentally incompatible from the roots.’
She thought.
A fundamentally different grain from someone like herself who had been chosen and lived controlling abilities.
No matter how much he wore the exterior of royalty, the sense of alienation couldn’t be hidden.
Then wasn’t that itself a mortal sin?
Isabella nodded with an assertion rooted deep in her heart.
The logic that society’s center should be pure-blood, and the center is protected by excluding the weak.
In her world, that was right.
After convincing herself alone, Isabella smiled briefly.
The corners of her mouth rose softly, and the nobles passing by bowed their heads courteously upon seeing that smile.
No one knew the inner workings contained in her smile.
Thinking about it again, considering the impulse of wanting to kill him in that moment, it didn’t seem like a complete loss.
Emotions always seemed like meaningless choices, but Isabella often got swept up in them.
Today was the same.
The jealousy and anxiety that surged from her heart dyed her fingertips with the vibrations of black magic.
‘I’ll have to be careful from now on.’
She had received a warning and felt the price.
Repeating the same mistake like this wasn’t Isabella.
She had to be more cautious in front of the Crown Prince.
He wasn’t simply someone swayed by emotions.
An attitude that always analyzed, questioned meaning, and excluded unnecessary emotions.
The moment she showed him an opening, all plans would come to nothing.
‘Never reveal anything other than fear magic in front of the Crown Prince.’
Her oldest principle.
This was the foundation of self-control she had thoroughly maintained for years.
That was a belief she had built up over several years.
To stand at the pinnacle of high society, to remain by the Crown Prince’s side.
She had suppressed countless emotions and trained herself in numerous scenes.
A principle she had maintained to make all gazes in high society turn toward her, and to eliminate any room for the Crown Prince to think of anyone other than her.
Isabella had lived with the conviction that she could control everything.
Calculated smiles, refined speech, intentional approaches and distance control.
All of that was simulation to become ‘his only person.’
Though she had broken that today… it wouldn’t be a big problem.
A small mistake.
That much could be covered with refined attitude and perfect image.
It had been that way until now, and would continue to be so.
‘As long as I don’t get caught.’
She arranged the corners of her mouth again and shifted her gaze to the Crown Prince’s absent seat.
Right now he would be somewhere, looking at something.
In fact, this was all because of that ridiculous Second Prince’s provocation.
It was never Isabella’s mistake.
He was simply—a vermin who didn’t know his place.
The Crown Prince had looked at the Second Prince with eyes different from usual. It was a very brief moment, but definitely a gaze that couldn’t be missed.
She knew it was the kind of affection that might exist between brothers.
It was the type of bond anyone could recognize.
The compassion contained in the eyes looking at the other, movements where consideration melted into even trivial actions, the subtle curves at the end of words.
That was the expression of natural, long-standing intimacy possible only between blood relatives.
When Isabella first saw that scene, she doubted her eyes.
She hadn’t known that such compassion could appear on Crown Prince Theodore’s face.
Someone stronger and more restrained than anyone, who always managed refined speech and emotions, was making such a soft expression toward some being.
The fact that the target was the Second Prince was even more shocking.
But the Crown Prince’s speech, eyes, expression. All of it was too natural.
Isabella intuited that it wasn’t something forcibly created.
It was completely different from the method she had simulated countless times, all those ‘acts’ of having to pretend warmth while seeming emotionless.
The warmth that settled on the Crown Prince’s face was sincere and arose from instinct.
If all of that had been acting, Isabella would have been more reassured.
But it wasn’t.
That wasn’t the face of a planned politician, but the sincerity of ‘someone worried about another.’
That’s why it was unbearable.
Something hot rose from deep in her chest.
The feeling of something she had built and accumulated countless times crumbling at once.
The feeling that the world she had so carefully controlled was being mocked by just one person’s collapse.
‘Mine. Mine.’
He is mine.
Whether social alliance, emotional bond, or the sum of all those things.
Isabella had come to define Theodore that way at some point.
It was both affection and power.
For her, Theodore was ‘the path to achieve everything she wanted’ and also ‘proof of the only emotion she had chosen.’
For Isabella, Crown Prince Theodore wasn’t just a future spouse, but a key figure on whom her social position and political survival depended.
He is the empire’s next emperor.
Whoever stands beside him becomes the empire’s queen.
That one reason alone was sufficient justification for having to possess Theodore.
But Isabella harbored emotions beyond that.
Obsession, possessiveness, wariness—and unconscious anxiety.
No, something beyond that.
The Crown Prince was proof that made her exist in this world.
Looking lovely in his eyes meant she had value as a living being.
For her to live respected and remain an object of desire, all that was needed was his ‘gaze.’
Such a person showing a face she didn’t know to others was unacceptable.
An expression Isabella had never seen even once.
Even an emotion permitted only to someone other than herself.
That was rude and simultaneously humiliating.
Whatever being was in the direction that gaze was aimed was ‘wrong.’
The Second Prince was insignificant. Yet she couldn’t tolerate such a being standing confidently beside the Crown Prince.
He was abandoned royalty, mixed-blood, and an emotionally unstable being.
Isabella had believed that.
It made no sense for someone inferior in every aspect—social status, bloodline, honor—to stand on the same level as ‘her’ Crown Prince.
Not even for a single moment.
There was a moment when she even held her breath.
When the Crown Prince carefully grasped Ersen’s wrist, when they exchanged that gaze in front of hundreds watching in the ballroom.
Isabella swallowed her breath at that moment, and her vision momentarily went white.
She couldn’t permit even a single moment.
Even the few seconds until that gaze disappeared felt like several hours.
Her secret teacher had always said so. If you want it, grasp it, and to grasp it, you may destroy anything.
Words whispered to her since childhood.
Those words that gave blade-like truths with a prettily smiling face.
The lesson that whether it’s a person’s heart, body, or honor—you must destroy it to make it yours.
As a child, those words were frightening.
But from some day onward, they felt like the natural order of the world.
To obtain what you want, emotions, pride, and the other person’s body are merely tools…
Tonight, Isabella had acted according to those words.
Not calculated, but moved like instinct.
The moment the Crown Prince’s gaze passed over her—she didn’t think.
Her fingertips reacted automatically, and the flow of mana was faster than her brain.
Tonight, she had simply acted as she had learned.
Like a trained blade, in a familiar way.
Isabella had always done so.
She had rarely failed to obtain what she wanted.
The result was somewhat more violent than expected, but ultimately the direction was the same.
The poison was excessive.
The backlash was also great, and it caught attention faster than expected.
But the purpose was achieved.
The Second Prince had collapsed, people’s gazes began to suspect him, and the Crown Prince left the ballroom.
All these results weren’t bad.
‘It’s something that can be managed.’
The one who spat blood would rise again.
And she would be smiling in the middle of the banquet hall as if she had done nothing.
There was no evidence that she had fed him poison.
Black magic left no traces.
Logi was perfect poison that worked without revealing the caster’s existence.
Externally, she was a Lady who had never learned black magic. In noble society, she was the heir of the Marsien ducal family, an exemplary social figure, and a mage with low-level dark attribute mana.
She was perfectly maintaining the shell of reputation.
The ducal family’s successor, the perfect flower of high society, a beautiful and virtuous Lady.
That image had never crumbled, and today would be the same.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
