Queen of Revenge - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 1
Prologue
“I’m going to cut off your head and present it to the Tyrant of Kalande.”
I stared up at my half-sister with vacant eyes.
What had I just heard?
I was in a dark, damp prison cell.
Beyond the iron bars stood my half-sister Catherine.
The eldest daughter of King Elovis and crown princess, she had ascended to the throne at a young age—and she was beautiful.
She carried herself with the grace and majesty befitting her station. Yet the words that fell from her delicate lips were far from beautiful.
“You know who the king of Kalande is, don’t you? The one who took the throne last month—Kairon Winterbark, the man who might have become your husband once. Do you remember?”
Of course I knew.
It would have been strange not to. How many people on this continent didn’t know the name of the Tyrant of Kalande?
Fifteen years ago, the disgraced prince of the Kalande royal house, exiled to the Northern Fortress, had launched a rebellion.
Born of a maidservant, this bastard had slaughtered all his half-brothers and ultimately severed his own father’s head.
Not content with seizing the throne through such depravity, he had invaded the neighboring kingdom of Levia and brought even its king to his knees.
Dark rumors whispered that Elovis would be next.
“Truly an extraordinary man. How fortunate that we didn’t marry you off to him back then!”
Despite the shadow of war looming over the realm, Catherine’s cheeks flushed with color. She looked like a girl in love.
“We needed a peace offering to send him, and he happened to demand you—the bloodline of the Levia royal house.”
“What?”
“So the Royal Council concluded that we have no choice but to cut off your head.”
Catherine thrust her hand through the bars and gripped my chin, laughing with delight.
“It is the duty of a monarch to reassure frightened subjects. And how convenient—we’ve been wondering what to do with you, who had the audacity to covet the throne. Since the king of Kalande has specifically requested you, presenting your head to him accomplishes three things at once, doesn’t it?”
I was utterly dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe these words were coming from the mouth of my gentle, kind sister.
‘Wasn’t I supposed to be released once my name was cleared?’
Two weeks ago, I had been dragged to the Capital and imprisoned on charges of murdering my husband and attempting to steal his fortune.
Of course, I had done no such thing.
But no one would listen to my protests.
I was thrown into prison without even being allowed to attend my husband’s funeral.
And that wasn’t the end. When I was brought to the Capital, I had become not merely a murderer, but a traitor who had conspired to seize the throne using my husband’s territory as a power base.
“Didn’t you incite seditious elements from Levia to launch a rebellion? Isn’t the correspondence you sent to the Capital proof of this?”
“I know nothing of it. I didn’t write those letters!”
I truly had done nothing.
I had been confined in the Royal Palace Tower until I was eighteen, and afterward I was driven from the Capital under the pretense of marriage.
Since then, my life had been nothing but painful endurance.
Whether suffering my aging husband’s crude hands, noticing the watchful gaze of the maidservant stationed nearby, or learning that all news from the Capital had been cut off—I endured it all.
I had believed my sister’s promise that after five years, I would be summoned back to the Capital.
“The Royal Council is spreading rumors that you covet the throne. So it would be best for you to lie low outside the Capital for a while. Just five years, exactly five years. Can you do that for your sister?”
Where had that gentle smile gone? That kind tone of voice?
I looked frantically around me.
There was only one witness who could prove her innocence.
“Duke, are you there? Come out!”
As Iolet’s cry pierced the air like a scream, a figure emerged from the prison’s shadowy darkness.
It was Benedix Valer, the Duke.
He was her childhood companion, raised alongside her from earliest memory, and her former fiancé.
“You know I never plotted treason, don’t you? You’ve read every letter I sent you!”
Despite their broken engagement, Benedix remained her only friend.
He was the one who had told her to send word whenever she was in distress.
“Speak, Benedix! The letters I sent you were nothing but——”
“Letters? You mean these?”
Benedix withdrew a bundle of letters from his breast.
Iolet watched numbly as scraps of paper fluttered down beyond the iron bars.
The pages were filled with her handwriting—words she had never written.
[The Castlaine Territory is small and insignificant, yet it remains a legitimate earldom.
If I eliminate my foolish husband and take direct control of the territory, I can build sufficient power. Within years, I could return to the Capital.
My rebellion begins now, Benedix. Quietly, secretly. But with absolute certainty.]
Benedix regarded Iolet with contempt.
“How shameless. Your duplicity makes my blood boil, Princess Iolet. Or should I say, Countess of House of Castlaine.”
“Ah——!”
“No, perhaps you’re simply a criminal now?”
Tears welled in Iolet’s wide, staring eyes.
This vile creature was her childhood companion?
Yet that was nothing compared to the shock that followed.
Catherine leaned against Benedix’s chest as if to flaunt it.
“Oh my, making her cry already, Grand Duke? That role belongs to me.”
Grand Duke was the title bestowed upon the consort of a queen.
They were, by any measure, a perfect pair of lovers.
Benedix kissed Catherine’s hair tenderly.
“Ah, ah…”
Despair and rage crashed over her simultaneously.
Benedix had become the queen’s husband.
‘I never had anyone on my side from the beginning.’
When had this scheme been orchestrated?
Iolet found it increasingly difficult to breathe.
“Did Elder Sister kill the Count of House of Castlaine and frame me for it?”
“A pity. I had hoped you were too foolish to realize even that much.”
“Then… did Elder Sister kill my mother too?”
Iolet’s mother had been the king’s second queen.
After rumors spread that she had committed adultery with a palace knight, the king’s affection withered.
And not long after, her mother took her own life.
It was a suspicious death, yet no one questioned the incident.
Afterward, Iolet was confined to a remote tower within the Royal Palace and broken off her engagement to Benedix.
Fire blazed in Iolet’s eyes.
“Did you kill my mother too?!”
“Your mother? You killed her, Iolet.”
“What are you talking about…!”
“If you had never been born, would I have needed to kill your mother?”
Catherine kicked Iolet, who clung to the iron bars, with her shod foot.
Weakened by days of starvation, Iolet tumbled across the prison floor with a loud crash.
“From the beginning, I wanted to eliminate you. But as long as your mother stood in my way, I had no means to touch you. How it grated on me—that presumptuous air you carried, flaunting yourself as Levia’s royal blood.”
“Why did you do this?!”
Iolet cried out, as if coughing up blood.
“I never cared for the throne. Mother didn’t either! So why…!”
“How should I know?”
Catherine laughed mockingly.
“You should have borne a child to the House of Castlaine, little sister. I told you to consummate the marriage properly. Then perhaps I would have forgiven you and found some peace of mind!”
In Catherine’s cackling face, not a shred of royal dignity remained.
“Honestly, even I would find it difficult to share a bed with an aging, dissolute man!”
Iolet trembled with humiliation.
The past five years spent with her elderly, debauched husband were embedded in her like shards of glass, piercing her entire being.
Abuse poured down like a downpour.
“Your very existence is your sin. You obstruct me. Despite being inferior in every way, you are loved so easily—merely for your bloodline and a pretty face. Without any effort at all.”
A flash of jealousy crossed Catherine’s face as she sneered.
“And yet you pity yourself so much… Well, at least that pretty neck of yours will serve as a foundation for Elovis’s peace.”
Catherine turned away triumphantly, surveying her sister—filthy with sweat and dried blood.
Benedix, as if waiting for this moment, removed his uniform jacket and draped it over the queen’s shoulders.
Benedix glanced at Iolet, his lips curling upward.
“Issue the command, Your Majesty.”
Catherine, having regained her royal composure, smiled gracefully.
“Execute the sentence as scheduled. The execution is at noon tomorrow.”
* * *
Behead the princess who murdered her husband and plotted treason!
The Execution Platform was erected on the highest hill in the Capital. Tens of thousands gathered to witness the execution of the condemned woman whose head would fall there today.
A frail woman climbed the steps of the guillotine, stumbling.
Her long golden hair hung in disarray, and her shoulders were gaunt as withered branches.
The princess’s head for the Tyrant!
The crowd, gripped by the terror of war, cried out for Iolet’s head to be severed and appease the Tyrant.
Iolet clutched the ruby necklace in her hand—a keepsake her mother had left behind.
“Survive, Iolet. As long as you live the life your mother could not, even death itself cannot harm you.”
‘I tried, Mother. But I chose the wrong path.’
A lifetime of surrendering pride and dignity—and this was all it had earned me.
Everything had been wrong from the very beginning.
“Carry out the execution!”
The knights forced me to my knees, their gauntleted hands pressing down hard against my back.
The Executioner, wielding a dull axe, stepped within arm’s reach of me.
Catherine was watching from somewhere—I was certain of it. And Benedix would be at her side.
I clenched my teeth, drawing strength from the warmth of the ruby fragment I clutched.
“If you thought this was the end, you’re sorely mistaken, Elder Sister.”
Blood beaded on my split lips; crimson veins spread across the whites of my eyes.
I would return. I had to.
No one knew it, but I possessed the power to do so.
‘Even if I must cast myself into the fires of hell itself, I will return. I will tear down every last shred of the glory you have enjoyed!’
The Executioner’s axe descended toward my pale, exposed neck. My eyes, wide open until the very end, blazed with fury.
Divine One, receive my soul.
And return me to this terrible place once more!
In that instant, a strange light emanated from the ruby fragment. But no one noticed.
The witch is dead! Peace to Elovis!
Then the world fell into darkness.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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