Chapter 2
She was not even a real princess, just a slave. If she spread her legs like a w***e, who would lament it? If anything, surviving in exchange for offering herself to his embrace would be nothing short of a stroke of luck.
But not here. She could not bear it here. With just a turn of her eyes, severed heads rolled across the floor, and among them, the emperor’s footprints leading toward her were stamped in bright red. If she was violated in a place like this, something human inside her would break forever.
“Not here, just not here… please.”
As she wept, the emperor frowned as if irritated. But only for a moment. The gaze sweeping over Lena’s crying face grew viscous.
“Those legs of yours had better grip me tight.”
Her face went pale at the unimaginably vulgar whisper.
“Then I’ll let you live.”
The emperor pulled the trembling woman tightly into his arms.
That was the day Godfrid, Emperor of the Taringia Empire, conquered the Kingdom of Aitalos.
* * *
Lenasia. Lena was born the daughter of a maid in a noble household in the capital. Whenever her mother returned from her grueling labor, she would slip a piece of sweet chocolate into Lena’s mouth. They were leftovers from the young masters and misses of the estate, things she could take with the steward’s tacit permission.
Lena remembered the sweetness spreading across her tongue, but her mother’s face was hazy. She had been taken from her mother’s arms at a very young age to live in the royal palace.
<Your name is now Lenasia Aitalos. Do you understand?>
Lenasia Aitalos. With the kingdom’s name, the royal surname Aitalos, now attached to her own, the weight of it was so absurdly heavy that she felt she might stumble at any moment.
<Of course, only until Regnos grows up safely and becomes a fine prince.>
Young as she was, Lena did not know it at the time, but Aitalos was then in the midst of a bloody feud between the second and third princes over the right of succession. Under such circumstances, the fourth queen, whose faction was relatively weak, had to devise a scheme to protect her young son.
As it happened, on the night Regnos was born, the king was abroad attending a diplomatic event. Once she confirmed the child’s s*x, the fourth queen immediately put her plan into action. Thanks to her quick wit and the tight lips of her loyal confidants, the sixth prince was known to the world as a princess. By the laws of Aitalos, no woman could ascend the throne.
With the aid of the queen’s family, the Duchy of Maido, the secret was well kept for years. But as the prince grew and his body began to differ from that of a girl, a new measure became necessary. That measure was to bring in a slave girl of similar appearance and raise her as the princess.
In short, it meant setting up someone else’s daughter as a shield in place of her own son’s life, a girl with no strings attached. But to Lena, the fourth queen did not seem wicked.
Because the queen spoke in a gentle tone and wore a beautiful smile. Back at the noble estate where she had lived before, even the smallest mistake had brought down vicious reprimands upon Lena and her mother.
They were scolded harshly for making errors, for moving too slowly, or simply for standing where they stood. On unlucky days, they were struck.
Compared to that, the queen before her looked like an angel sent from heaven. No, perhaps this really was heaven. They said she would live wearing the very clothes a princess wore, eating delicious food. When Lena glanced sideways at the chocolates piled on a plate, the queen noticed at once and nudged the plate toward her.
<Eat as much as you like.>
Lena hesitated, then picked one up and put it in her mouth. The chocolate melting softly on her tongue was far more delicious than the single piece her mother used to bring.
Another one, and then another, one after another, disappeared into her small mouth. The queen quietly watched, then wiped the corners of Lena’s lips with her own handkerchief.
<You really do look alike. Just like a brother and sister.>
The queen’s eyes thoroughly examined Lena’s plump cheeks, her blue eyes, and her silver hair that shone almost translucent under the sunlight.
<Say hello.>
Regnos, who had been clinging to his mother’s side, stepped before Lena. She bent her short legs into a curtsy just as she had done for the queen, and the moment she lifted her head, her eyes widened.
<Hello, Lena.>
He looked astonishingly similar to her, but more than that, he was a truly beautiful boy. Little Lena even felt a kind of pride in the fact that she would be protecting such a child.
From then on, Lenasia appeared at public gatherings in Regnos’s place. She devoted long hours to matching his mannerisms, speech, and gestures exactly. The two children, slowly growing to resemble each other, became at last as alike as twins.
The fourth queen’s choice had been a wise one. Caught up in the strife between the second and third princes, the other princes died one by one from mysterious causes.
Each time a prince died, Lena had, in effect, proven her usefulness.
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