I had a dream.
In my dream, I was making a sword.
It was the stage where the hot river began to be forged.
I was working in front of a hot furnace, and the flames, which had turned bright red, almost white, were burning the left side of my face.
Kang!
Kang!
Kang!
The bright red river shortened, lengthened, thickened, and stretched out with every blow of my hammer.
"Don't forget, Diana."
I heard my father's voice next to my ear.
Amidst the loud noise of hammering coming from all around, my father's voice easily cut through the noise and reached my ears.
"You must be careful when handling fire and iron."
Still, I was listening to my father's words with my ears turned a deaf ear.
I was so entranced by the fact that I was making my first proper sword that I was lost in my soul, my eyes fixed on the hot iron.
"Never forget that what you are making is a sharp sword. That sword is born to tear human skin."
Yeah. At that time, I had no idea what it meant for a sword to tear human skin.
I was just amazed at how the iron, heated to such a high temperature that it would burn my flesh when I put my hand on it, took shape in my hand, and most of all...
"You too, Leon."
I wanted to beat my father's other unskilled boy next to me.
What a boy.
He was already nineteen years old at that time, so you couldn't call him a boy.
He wielded the hammer with forearms that seemed to be twice my size, and his hammering strokes quickly shaped the blade.
I lived with him since he seemed smaller than me.
Leon Kowalski.
That name was also given to him by my father.
In the past, Leon Kowalski would have disappeared into ashes in the burned-down town.
Back in the day, when I didn't know it would happen, I was jealous of Leon, who could make swords faster than me.
My father was a man of great skill that I could not surpass, but Leon was the one who learned swordsmanship with me.
I tried to beat him and always got scolded by my father for it.
My father always said that a blacksmith should never try to beat someone.
Still, I wanted to beat Leon that day too.
Slower and weaker hammering than Leon's would cool the iron before it could take shape.
I put the cold iron back into the furnace and heated it up again.
Leon said while his father went to check on another oar.
"Don't let it sit too long."
"..."
I just glared at Leon.
Leon, who had grown to be more than an inch taller than me, looked at me and sighed.
"Listen to me. If you heat it too long the iron will break easily."
"Shut up, Idiot."
I swore at him and heated the iron for longer than my father had told me.
Leon forgot to hammer my sword and started watching my forge, so I took out the hot iron, placed it on the anvil, and started hammering it.
Kang!
Kang!
Kang!
The cow screamed...
I gritted my teeth and just hammered hard.
My father said that hitting the hammer too hard was useless, but that didn't matter.
I wanted to beat Leon and reach my father.
And then finally, at the end of the anvil, I brought the hammer down hard.
The iron is broken.
The sharp end shot out towards me.
Someone hugged my body and rolled me over to the side.
The iron powder that had settled on the floor covered my whole body.
There was a thin scar under Leon's eye as he hugged me.
I heard my father's voice.
[The sword made of anger cannot defeat me.]
But when I heard it again, it wasn't my father's voice.
It was Gram's voice.
***
When I opened my eyes, there was an unfamiliar ceiling.
A clean and tidy room where no iron filings fly around, leaving a bitter taste when entered into the mouth.
I realized that I was in Wilhelm Castle.
That meant that Armin Wilhelm had decided to save me.
I was told to get an antidote.
From the beginning, the decision to drink Armin Wilhelm's poison together was nothing short of a gamble.
Armin Wilhelm, who has developed a tolerance to various poisons since childhood, does not die even after drinking a glass of poisoned wine.
Even though Armin was unconscious and no antidote was used.
But Diana Isla, my body is a little different.
This body has absolutely no resistance to poison, and is in a state no better than a piece of paper, unable to even hold a sword with both hands.
A body like this can die quickly even if it ingests just a small amount of ophiur poison.
However, the only one who knows about my condition is Armin Wilhelm, so I can only survive if he decides to detoxify me before he collapses from the poison.
But Armin Wilhelm decided to save me.
The man who said he would die, the man who in Diana Isla's memories held out until the end without finding the antidote, this time found the antidote and fed it to me.
As proof, I am alive and breathing.
To some extent, this was expected.
Nо.
To be honest. I was sure of it.
Because I saw it.
The eyes of Armin Wilhelm holding my gram in Diana Isla's memory.
That hot flame that looks like it's going to burst.
Once a person has ignited such a flame in his heart, it is not easy to put it out.
Like me.
So when I told him that I had information on the Marquis of Isla, when I told him to use me, Armin Wilhelm must have felt the embers of his heart rekindled.
As proof, I am alive here now.
As proof that the drunkard who was desperate to die actually wanted to live more than anyone else.
I slowly got up.
My body felt heavy, but I didn't feel any particular pain or anything.
"You're awake."
That was when.
As I was getting up, staggering, I heard someone's low voice.
It was only then that I noticed a woman leaning against one wall of this huge room.
Because she was sitting right next to a window where sunlight streamed in, the woman's face was in the shadows.
Purple eyes flashed in the shadows.
There were dark shadows under her eyes.
A woman who looked a little tired approached me.
"The doctor said you should have woken up yesterday, but I was worried because you kept sleeping."
The woman tugged at the rope next to my bed.
Then she ordered the maid who came into the room to call the doctor.
The process was so smooth and flawlessly precise that I had no room to interfere.
"Are you okay?"
"..."
"Of course, you are not okay. The doctor will come and check where and how it hurts Your Highness."
I didn't answer.
I already knew this meticulous woman's name, but she introduced herself meticulously.
"Sorry, I am late in introducing myself. My name is Hannah Vlad. I have been assigned to be your maid of honor. I need to check a few things before the doctor arrives. Is that alright?"
Hannah Vlad.
How could I not know that name?
In this castle, Diana Isla hated the woman the most after Armin.
I hated it so much that I would play a game just by hearing the name Hannah Vlad.
[Those gloomy eyes. An expression that doesn't react at all to the harsh words I say. I hate even the tone of voice that doesn't convey any emotion.]
[We will make sure to correct It.]
The relationship between the two continued like this.
Hannah Vlad was also assigned as Diana Isla's handmaiden during her lifetime.
'It's the same in this life too.'
"Ask me anything."
"I'm surprised you're not offended."
Surprisingly, there is almost no change in the face.
This is just like the Hannah Vlad I know.
"Someone has poisoned His Highness's cup. I don't think we have the luxury of feeling personal discomfort in this situation."
At my words, a subtle change came over Hannah Vlad's face.
"Did you really.... know that there was poison in that glass? Did you..."
Hannah Vlad trailed off as if in disbelief.
Perhaps she had heard that I knew the glass was poisoned.
I probably told you that fact...
It must be Armin Wilhelm.
"Does that mean you drank it knowingly?"
"... Yes."
It is not accurate to say that he drank.
I didn't drink the poison. I just licked the poison that was left in his mouth.
"..."
When I think back to that time, I find myself cringing without realizing it.
A kiss like poison.
That was my first kiss, it was as tragic as a knife cutting into flesh.
"I knew it."
"Then why didn't you let His Highness know in advance? He didn't have to drink the poison in the glass..."
"Because he probably wouldn't believe me."
I looked at Hannah Vlad with cold eyes.
The woman seemed unaware that Armin Wilhelm had also drunk the glass, knowing that it was poisoned.
Armin Wilhelm's drive for death was probably his oldest secret.
I decided to keep it.
Even if I told her that in the first place, I don't think she would believe me.
"I am the daughter of the Marquis of Isla, and I am Walter's lover."
"..."
Walter's lover, Hannah avoided my gaze at those words.
It was a rare look of trouble on her face.
She straightened the hem of her clothes, then raised her head again and asked.
"So you really got that information from Walter?"
"To be exact, let's say I overheard something. I often visited the Imperial Palace with my father. At that time..."
Even after her marriage to Amin was decided, Marquis Isla often brought Diana Isla into the palace.
There was also a malicious intention to make Diana Isla the Emperor's mistress, but at the same time, there was also an intention to use Diana Isla as a shield to make some kind of deal with the Emperor.
The two men exchanged dangerous stories while Diana Isla was in the next room.
Diana Isla used to hear secret, thrilling voices coming through the fireplace through the stones of the wall.
She overheard their conversation not because she wanted to take advantage of their secret conversation, but because she desperately hoped that Walter's feelings for her might be hidden in those stories.
"I heard that Walter had someone secretly planted in Wilhelm Castle. I also heard something about Ophir poison."
I would say that Walter 'cautioned the planting instead of saying that he "planted" people.
The reason was simple.
The work of planting spies was not done directly by Walter.
A family that has contacts with the Wilhelm Castle, is well-versed in the internal affairs of the castle and is geographically close to Wilhelm.
Even though it was a foreign family, it was a family that would not arouse the suspicion of Archduke Wilhelm.
It was done by using the Marquis Rochen.
However, this was something that was only discovered much later, and the current Wilhelm family maintained friendly relations with the Margrave of Rochen.
In that situation, there is no way you would want to believe my words and doubt Marquis Rochen.
That is, the fact that Marquis Rochen was behind it must be passed off as evidence along with other evidence.
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