Chapter 1
Betrayal in the Snow
The snow was falling again.
Each flake drifted from the heavens like a fragment of some unreachable purity, dissolving into the crimson pool beneath me. My breath came in shallow gasps, the cold gnawing into my bones as if eager to claim me before the blood loss could.
The pain was everywhere, sharp where the blade had cut, dull where my strength was leaking away, and aching in a place no weapon could reach. My heart.
I turned my head, the snow clinging to my lashes, and saw Noah. The Second Prince. My… husband.
The black strands of his hair swayed with the winter wind, brushing against his sharp jawline. His sword was still in his hand, though the blood dripping from its edge told me the truth my heart refused to believe.
My voice cracked, hoarse from the scream I had never let out. "Why?"
The single word left my lips like frost. I had asked questions in the past questions about politics, about strategy, about the lives I risked in battle, but never had a question carried such weight.
Noah's eyes, dark as storm-swollen clouds, didn't waver. A smile touched his lips, cruel and calm. With a flick of his wrist, he cast the sword aside, letting it land in the snow with a muffled thud.
"I never loved you, Crystal," he said, his voice as casual as if he were discussing the weather. "I needed your family's power to become the new king. It was the only way."
The words struck harder than his blade.
I stared at him, trying to reconcile the man before me with the one I had fought besides, the one who had kissed my hands after victories, who had whispered promises in the quiet hours of the night.
I coughed, the taste of iron flooding my mouth. My eyes drifted upward again to the snow-filled sky. The flakes danced, soft and indifferent, as if mocking the scene they blessed with their beauty.
"So… that was why you and my cousin planned this?" My voice trembled, but the bitterness in it was sharp enough to cut. "I gave you everything. The throne. The kingdom. Using my family's name and power, I fought wars for you and bled for you just so you could love me. And after everything I've done… this is what you give me?"
My chest burned, not from the wound, but from the weight of it all.
Noah said nothing at first. His silence was worse than denial. It was an affirmation.
I thought of my family of my grandfather, the former general of the kingdom, who had raised me after my parents' deaths. A man of iron will and unshakable honor, whose back never bent to tyrants… until the day he died.
My eyes widened. The pieces fell together like jagged shards.
"You planned it too," I whispered, my voice gaining a hollow edge. "My grandfather's death. You and my cousin… you killed him, didn't you? So that you could control me. Even my cultivation…" My throat tightened. "You poisoned it too."
The memories rushed in those nights of inexplicable weakness, of energy that refused to circulate properly, of medicines that only made me worse. I had thought it was an illness brought on by war. But now…
A small, almost bored sigh left Noah's lips. "Yes. And it's too late to regret anything. Just die."
The finality in his tone cut deeper than the sword.
The snowflakes kept falling. I watched one land on the blood pooling around me, turning translucent as it melted. My vision blurred, the white and red bleeding together until I could no longer tell them apart.
Somewhere beyond the ringing in my ears, I heard a voice.
"Crystal!"
It was a man's voice, urgent, desperate, calling to me from somewhere I could not see.
My lips moved, but no sound came.
And then the world went dark.