The day she was to be crowned queen, Eva turned her back on the throne within her grasp and chose the cold and unforgiving stone of the city wall instead.

As the darkness swallowed her, a distant, sorrowful sigh reached her ears.

“Eva, last descendant of your line. Once, you traded your gift of divination to save Dylan’s life. Now, you sacrifice your very essence to enact the Retribution Curse.

“When this circle is complete, Dylan will be returned to his destined path. But you, the caster, will be cast adrift from the mortal world, walking alone for the rest of your days.

“Will you come to regret this?”

A surge of hot, coppery blood rose in Eva’s throat.

“My only regret is that I ever saved him.”

And that I ever gave him my heart.

Today was supposed to be her coronation. Yet before the crown could settle on her brow, the Imperial Guard had dragged her to the execution ground at the palace gates.

Her wedding robes trailed through bloodstains on the jade steps. Stumbling, she looked up.

One hundred and one heads hung from the ramparts.

In the center, hair frosted at the temples, was the mother who had smiled and brushed her hair just yesterday.

“Mother! Father!!”

A raw scream tore from Eva’s throat as she staggered toward the wall.

Lifting her head, she saw the familiar faces—Father, Mother, Uncle, Aunt, Cousin… her little niece, barely ten years old.

One hundred and one heads. One hundred and one faces frozen in terror.

They hung high above, blood still dripping from severed necks.

Drop by drop, it fell onto Eva’s upturned face.

“Who did this… WHO?!”

Her scream was ragged, hysterical.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dylan approaching. Like a drowning woman grasping at straws, she lunged toward him.

“Dylan! There are traitors in the court! My family—my entire clan—has been slaughtered! You have to catch those beasts, have them torn limb from limb—”

Her words died in her throat, choked off by the icy darkness in Dylan’s eyes.

“Dylan…”

He pried her fingers from his sleeve, one by one.

“Eva,” he said, his voice devoid of warmth. “I gave the order. Are you going to have me torn limb from limb as well?”

Eva refused to believe it. She shook her head violently. “No… you couldn’t. You would never…”

Years ago, when Dylan had fallen from favor and been exiled to the borderlands, assassins left him for dead outside Eva’s village.

She saved him.

Later, to help him achieve his ambitions, the long-secluded Eva Family emerged from hiding. They located a lost imperial treasury for him; they aided him in quelling the rebellion of the three lords.

Her grandfather, Walter, had even sacrificed years of his own life to alter the heavenly mandate in Dylan’s favor.

Eva could not—would not—believe the man she was to marry today was responsible for slaughtering her entire family.

But Dylan’s expression was cold and pitiless. The Imperial Guards surrounding them held spears, their blades still stained with unwashed blood.

Eva felt the world tilt beneath her feet.

“Why?” she whispered. “Why would you do this?”

A faint, chilling smile touched Dylan’s lips as he turned his gaze aside.

Only then did Eva notice the woman in plain white robes standing at the base of the steps.

Susan. Daughter of the former Imperial Astrologer.

Dylan drew Susan close, his arm around her shoulders, his voice dripping with a tenderness Eva had once known.

“Twenty years ago, when the former Astrologer, Wayne, resigned and returned to his homeland, his caravan passed through your village. Your people saw his wealth and murdered his entire family.

“If Susan had not escaped by sheer luck, I would never have known the true, venomous nature hidden beneath your family’s righteous facade.”

The words struck Eva like a physical blow.

Two decades ago, the Susan family had been slaughtered by mountain bandits. It was the Eva Family who took pity and buried the bodies. How could they now be branded the murderers?

Instinctively, Eva protested. “That’s not what happened! We were the ones who—”

“Enough.”

The handle of a whip pressed against Eva’s throat, cutting off her words. Ice filled Dylan’s eyes.

“Susan witnessed it herself. How could it be false? Moreover, she produced your family’s jade pendant as proof.

“Eva, at this point, your denials are nothing but excuses. Do you wish to join your family on the wall?”

A cold blade seemed to twist in her chest. Her lips trembled; the metallic taste of blood choked her voice.

She stared into Dylan’s cold face, forcing the words out. “Then kill me. Just kill me.”

Dylan’s eyes narrowed, a flicker of something unreadable passing through them.

Susan clung to his arm. “Is Sister Eva trying a reverse tactic? You know perfectly well Dylan would never kill you. Are you trying to shame him?”

Disgust swiftly hardened Dylan’s features.

“Eva,” he said, his tone sharp. “Susan is merciful. She is willing to forgive your family’s crimes. If you renounce your identity as a member of the Eva Family, I will, for the sake of our past, grant you the title of Queen.

“But it will be a title in name only. I will confer upon Susan the rank of Imperial Noble Consort. All affairs of the inner palace will be under her control.

“Eva, your crime warrants death. You should be grateful.”

Eva stared at him, unblinking. “How do you expect me to renounce it?”

Dylan tossed the whip at her feet. “One hundred and one bodies of the Eva Family lie at the South Gate. Whip each corpse once, in order. Then, I will bestow a new name upon you.”

Eva stumbled back a step, a deafening roar filling her ears.

“You want me… to whip their corpses? To whip the bones of my parents, my kin? To whip those who fought and bled for you?”

Dylan’s face was a mask of stone. “The Eva Family deserved their fate. Everything they did for me was for their own wealth and status.

“By sparing your life and making you queen, I am repaying their so-called ‘kindness.’”

A laugh burst from Eva’s lips, but from the corners of her eyes, two trails of bloody tears rolled down.

A fierce wind swept through the gateway, causing the heads on the wall to sway gently—a silent, mournful accusation.

In that moment, Eva knew with absolute certainty:

The young man who had once sworn to cherish her forever had died the day he ascended the Dragon Throne.

Shaking her head slowly, Eva turned and threw herself with all her remaining strength against the bloodstained bricks of the wall.

Three days had passed when I awoke again.

The wound on my forehead had been treated, yet it still throbbed with a dull, persistent ache.

“Miss.”

My maid Mila knelt beside the bed, her eyes rimmed with red.

Eva pushed upright. “Mila—my father. Their bodies?”

Mila could not meet her gaze. “His Majesty has decreed… he says you may only collect your family’s remains… after you have carried out the public flogging of the corpses.”

Eva’s fingernails dug deep into her palms.

The taste of copper filled her mouth. “How dare he?”

A trickle of blood escaped the corner of her lip. Mila grasped her hand, weeping. “Miss, you must take care of yourself. Your family… you’re all that’s left.”

A tremor ran through Eva’s heart.

One hundred and two souls. Now, only she remained.

And all this ruin… because she had loved the wrong man.

Eva closed her eyes. When she opened them again, nothing remained but a bone-deep cold.

Since the mistake was hers to make…

Then she would be the one to end it.

In the darkness behind her eyelids, a pattern only she could perceive slowly formed—a diagram of deep, bloody crimson.

Until it was complete, she could not leave Dylan.

Ten days. That was all she had left.

She would use that time to settle some debts.

“Mila,” she said, forcing the tremor from her voice. “Go to Jacob, the rice merchant in the west market. Tell him to spread the word. Tell everyone how my family was slaughtered and left to rot.”

“My father spent our entire fortune to save those refugees. Dylan may have forgotten his debt, but the people haven’t.”

Dylan had just ascended the throne. He could not afford to ignore the people’s wrath.

Two days later, the capital’s main thoroughfare was packed with mourners in white hemp.

Merchants and farmers who owed their lives to Eva’s family knelt before the palace gates, holding petitions written in blood. Even the most urgent military dispatches from the border spoke of crumbling morale. The Imperial Censor delivered a death-defying remonstrance at court, declaring that only a tyrant would desecrate the dead.

Cornered, Dylan finally ordered the heads taken down from the city wall. The bodies were dumped without ceremony into a mass grave.

Soon after, he had Eva brought before the throne.

Her wound still raw, Eva’s face was as pale as parchment. Dylan looked right through her.

“Those rumors spreading through the city. Your doing?”

A faint, bitter smile touched Eva’s lips.

“Since Your Majesty already knows, why ask?”

“Audacious!” Dylan hurled an inkstone at her.

*Thud.* It struck her squarely in the chest.

A dull pain radiated from the impact, but Eva laughed.

“Your Majesty might as well kill me, too.”

Susan coiled around Dylan’s side like a water snake, her voice a sugary purr. “There goes Sister Eva, threatening His Majesty with death again. If you truly wished to die, why control the force of your headlong dash so… precisely?”

Eva almost laughed aloud.

She had seen the wound herself—a hole that deep was no mere performance.

But Dylan only believed Susan now.

He cast a cold glance at Eva. “Since you care nothing for the title of Empress, then kneel outside the door and listen well. Hear for yourself whether I am truly lost without you!”

Sweeping Susan into his arms, he strode toward the bedchamber.

“Guards! Throw her out! Let her kneel—she does not rise without my command!”

The storm that night came without warning.

Eva knelt on the white marble steps, listening to Susan’s breathy moans from within the chamber.

Icy rain drenched her in moments.

Thunder rumbled, mingling with Dylan’s low growls. A flash of lightning illuminated Eva’s face—waxen, fragile, devoid of life.

She knelt the entire night. She listened the entire night.

Memories surfaced: of her time with Dylan in Eva’s Village.

He had knelt outside her family’s ancestral hall for three days and three nights, begging her grandfather for permission to marry her.

He would silently drape his cloak over her shoulders while she studied the stars.

On her birthday, he had walked twenty miles of mountain trails just to bring her a single wildflower he’d picked himself.

He had once said, voice thick with feeling, “If my Eva frowns, my heart aches.”

And that same man now let her grow cold, inch by icy inch, in the pouring rain.

It was not until the first grey light of dawn that the bedchamber door finally opened.

The palace maids and eunuchs filed out, each casting a final, pitying glance at Eva—as though trying to force an answer from her.

Only when Eva saw the love bite on Dylan’s neck did the dread finally sink into her heart.

Darkness swam before her eyes—then she fell, fainting.

Dylan frowned slightly and took a step toward her.

Just then, Susan clutched her stomach with a pained groan. “Your Majesty, I feel so unwell.”

He turned to her at once, his concern immediate. “My love, what’s wrong?”

Sobbing, she confessed, “Last night, I didn’t wish to trouble you… but I… I’m with child.”

Dylan froze. Then joy lit his face. Scooping Susan into his arms, he barked over his shoulder:

“By imperial decree, court is canceled today.”

“Summon the imperial physician—now—to examine Lady Susan.”

Carrying her, he hurried toward the inner chambers without another glance at Eva, still lying on the ground.

She didn’t know how long she lay there.

Without the Emperor’s command, no one dared help her up.

And Dylan, lost in the joy of Susan’s pregnancy, had completely forgotten Eva lying in the pooled rainwater.

Her consciousness drifted in a haze, between wakefulness and oblivion, until the old physician’s voice finally cut through the rain.

“Your Majesty, while the pregnancy is most auspicious, it has been cursed by one of tainted blood. I fear the child may be difficult to preserve!”

Dylan erupted. “Tainted blood—that means Eva, doesn’t it? How dare she!”

“Drag her in here!”

By the time the drenched Eva was thrown to the floor, Dylan finally took in her wretched state.

His eyes held no pity, no remorse—only pure hatred.

Striding forward, he seized her throat, his voice a snarl. “You venomous witch! Who gave you the right to curse my heir!”

The fragile column of her throat buckled under the pressure. Pain was an ocean, despair an abyss.

Eva managed a ghastly smile. She offered no defense.

What would be the point?

Her silence was confession enough.

“You deserve death a thousand times over!”

Dylan squeezed harder, his grip tightening until the bones in her neck gave a sickening crack. Only then did his expression falter; he released her abruptly.

Air rushed back into her lungs, sending her into choking coughs. Her already pale face turned a deathly gray.

Clenching his fists, Dylan spoke coldly. “One last chance. Tell me how to break the curse, and I will spare your life.”

“Hah… haha…” Eva laughed between coughs, her voice shattered. “Death… what is there to fear? You slaughtered my clan—my family—down to the last soul. Why let me linger in this world alone?”

A tremor passed through Dylan’s eyes as he looked at her, a flicker of hesitation.

Susan shot a glance at the physician, who immediately knelt.

“Your Majesty, this humble servant knows a method to break the curse. It will, however, require the young lady to endure… considerable suffering.”

“Speak.”

“The one who cast the curse must be imprisoned in a place of profound darkness and stagnant energy. Then, her heart’s blood must be drawn daily for medicine. Forty-nine days in total should suffice.”

Dylan considered this, brow furrowed—until a soft whimper from Susan cleared his expression.

“Forty-nine days. Barely over a month. A lenient sentence for her.”

“Guards. Confine Eva to the Water Dungeon. Begin the bloodletting today.”

Cold iron manacles snapped shut around Eva’s wrists, suspending her in the center of the flooded cell.

The old physician pressed a hand over her heart, then drove the blade in without mercy.

Eva bit down hard, swallowing the scream.

By the time a full bowl of blood had been drawn, pain blurred her vision; the taste of iron coated her tongue.

Withdrawing his silver knife, the physician sneered down. “Do try to last, my lady. This torment must continue the full forty-nine days.”

Eva’s pale lips twisted into the ghost of a smile.

She wouldn’t need forty-nine days.

In just nine more, the Retribution Ritual would activate.

Every ounce of suffering inflicted upon her today would be repaid to him a hundredfold.

From then on, their paths would diverge for good—their futures unfolding under separate skies.

Bound by nothing at all.