Prologue
Beneath the moonlight came the softest murmur of a sigh.
Sweet breaths, laced with bewitching allure, scattered into the night, while long black hair spilled like ink upon white sheets, shimmering beneath the silver glow.
Tonight, she would belong to him alone. Yet come tomorrow, she might already lie within another's arms.
"Emilia…"
The man whispered her name, his voice breaking as he held her tightly beneath his strong, unyielding frame.
She smiled faintly, her delicate hand brushing through his damp hair.
"This is as far as we go tonight. Our time is over."
A forbidden apple, coveted by all, yet destined to belong to no one.
Emilia D. Velarent — a woman more merciless than a rose steeped in venom.
He surrendered willingly.
He knelt in devotion.
He begged to be used by her.
That haunting figure, that intoxicating vision, would never leave his mind.
But who, in the end, would be the one to claim her heart?
Chapter 1: The Forsaken Princess
The Kingdom of Velarent—a small realm with a history of little more than two hundred years—was born from the secession of a once-great empire, ruled ever since by the royal house of Velarent, whose bloodline wielded formidable magical power.
Every scion of Velarent was blessed from birth with radiant golden hair, the mark of their potent light-element sorcery. The people would say that the royal family of Velarent were children beloved and blessed by the Goddess of Light.
And yet, eighteen years ago, something most unusual occurred.
The first heir born to Emperor Arthur was a child with eyes as black and uncanny as obsidian.
As the years passed under the gaze of the court, that child grew not into the golden splendor of Velarent, but into something unsettling.
No golden hair, no luminous eyes—only hair of midnight and eyes deep as shadow, bereft of any divine light.
The Empress was investigated. Though blood tests confirmed the child bore the true Velarent lineage, she was nonetheless condemned.
And the First Princess vanished, as though erased from the world.
No one knew her true name or face. Her existence remained only as a whispered royal secret.
Few were aware that, in the Forbidden Forest beyond the capital, hidden deep within the trees, there stood a secluded manor. And there, in silence, the First Princess greeted her eighteenth birthday.
Her name, long forgotten by the world, was Emilia D. Velarent.
Eighteen now, Emilia's skin was white as porcelain, her straight black hair spilling like a dark waterfall over her shoulders and down her sides, her eyes deep and glimmering like obsidian, yet shadowed as a bottomless abyss.
This was the place where she had lived since the age of five, when the tests revealed her element was not light, but darkness. She had been sent here at once—banished, attended only by a mute and deaf butler and a blind maid.
"Thirteen years already… time flies so swiftly," Emilia murmured, her gaze drifting toward the distant city.
Since that day, she had been stripped of her right to live as a free being, by the command of her father, the great Emperor Arthur.
For the royal house of Velarent to produce a child not of the light, but of shadow—it was a stain, a living proof that the Goddess of Light had withdrawn her favor.
Her very existence, in the Emperor's words, was blasphemy.
"The fanatical old man…" Emilia whispered with a faint smile.
And yet, the truth was that Emilia had not left this forest for another reason.
The darkness at her feet stirred, black tendrils curling upward to caress her ankles with a lover's devotion.
The shadows adored her, willing to do anything she wished.
At only eighteen, Emilia was already a formidable Fifth-Rank Sorceress of Darkness—a fact unknown to the world, save for one man.
The highest power in Velarent at present was merely Rank Eight: the Emperor himself, a Sword Saint of the eighth tier, and within the palace, an aged Archmage of Light of equal standing, likewise of the royal bloodline.
To stand at Fifth Rank before the age of twenty was a talent beyond definition.
By contrast, Emilia's half-brother, Prince Caesar—the child conceived by Arthur with his former lover, Lady Sophia, before his marriage—was but a Fourth-Rank Swordsman. Yet he was hailed throughout the realm as its greatest prodigy.
Sophia had hidden Caesar's birth after learning that Arthur, before ascending the throne, had pledged himself to Marquess Liliane—Emilia's mother. Only after Emilia was stripped of her right to inherit did Sophia reveal Caesar's existence, and so secured her place as consort.
Emilia, that day, had glimpsed from afar the boy Caesar, her half-brother.
"A child born to be Emperor…" she sighed inwardly.
But no—Emilia had no intention of allowing Caesar to so easily claim what had been stolen from her: the throne, the power to rule, the right of the true heir.
"I have committed no sin. Why, then, must everything be taken from me?" she murmured, her obsidian eyes brimming with defiance.
Suddenly, a soft violet glow shimmered behind her. From within that light came the faint, indistinct voice of a man.
"Emilia, do you still intend to go through with this?"
Her lips pressed tight, her hand clenching the hem of her gown.
"Though you are my teacher, you cannot forbid me from reclaiming what I desire!"
The man fell silent, before answering coldly:
"Then our bond ends here, Emilia."
The light faded.
A fleeting sorrow crossed Emilia's eyes. He would not forgive her. Yet she had resolved never to retreat—even if it meant losing the only soul who still acknowledged her existence.
"Teacher… I will seize my fate with my own hands."
Emilia stepped to her wardrobe and drew forth a splendid gown.
Today was not only her eighteenth birthday, but also that of the Second Princess, Milim D. Velarent—Caesar's younger sister by Sophia.
The forsaken princess had resolved: from this day forth, she would become a wicked princess whose name none could forget.
And it would begin with turning her little sister's birthday celebration into utter chaos