The first night as the bride of Emperor Taizai. Before the tragic events of that fateful night.
It wasn’t like any happy ending TV drama. It was only the beginning of a terrible misfortune. The dagger in my hand was red, stained with the blood of my husband.
After the wedding, I waited for my husband in the bridal chambers, Ruby Palace, but he did not make his appearance.
Tired of waiting, without even removing the heavy wedding robes, I fell asleep after drinking the wine, handed by a lady-in-waiting. Then, I awoke to the shrill screams of others, the prince had been murdered!
As I looked at the crown prince’s clouded pupils, resembling those of a dead fish, I realized he was no longer breathing.
Crimson blood was splattered everywhere on the bed where he was lying, the dagger in my hand was dripping with blood that hadn’t cooled yet. Trembling, I dropped the dagger with a rattling sound.
My heart throbbed hard enough for it to resonate through my ear. No matter how hard I tried to understand, my mind drew blanks.
I was accused of murdering my husband on the first night of our wedding ceremony.
“His highness has been murdered by the crown princess! Seize her at once!”
The guards surrounded me all at once.
“Let me go! You dare to lay your filthy hands on me!”
I twisted my whole body in resistance, screaming no, but there was no one to listen.
I was dragged into the dungeon and, no matter how hard I thought about it, I couldn’t understand what was going on. The marble floors of the imperial palace felt cold against my feet.
What went wrong? What’s pushed me to this point of being punished for the death of the crown prince?
He was someone whom I had never properly seen the face of, not to mention exchanging affectionate gazes. Rather, I, the one raised to become a merciful crown princess, had been the only one to receive the cold shoulder from him.
Over the past two years, he had been a cold-hearted man, even when our eyes met from a distance, he never acknowledged it. He disdained me even coming remotely near him.
It was only a week before the wedding that I got to see his face clearly.
I’d never seen such a rigid smile coming from a person. At first, I regretted becoming his fiancee, when he only sent me numbingly cold glares.
Whatever I did, father and mother were always proud of me. Looking at my brother, he probably thought I would become a crown princess who pursues the love of the people, not the love of the prince.
However, I, who had been living for two years learning the imperial education in preparation of becoming a member of the imperial family, was charged with the murder of the crown prince.
What was the point of my life then?
As long as I can remember I’ve always…
Did I spend all this time trying to learn how to honor the imperial family, just to be imprisoned in a dungeon that doesn’t shed light on the truth?
What’s more distressing than being in this dark, cockroach infested dungeon was the inability to hear news of my family.
It was a close friend that woke me in the suffocating silence. No, I was the only one who thought we were friends.
“Did they not even feed you? Poor pitiful Vennita. How could this happen? I made this myself. Come on, eat it.”
As she looked at me with a pitious expression, she tossed a sandwich in my direction.
“T-This, what the hell do you think you’re doing? Rosalie!”
“What am I doing? Vennita, do you know how much I loathed hearing you every time you puffed out your whining about not wanting to be the crown princess? You were fortunate enough to rise to the position I wanted, and yet dare to say “I don’t want to be a crown princess” in front of me?!”
Rosalie’s voice was filled with anger and hatred. She stared at me with a cruel and twisted expression.
“That said, why didn’t you tell me? You never looked down on me! You always tried to comfort me and understand me! Why are you doing this now!”
“You still don’t get it? Are you really that stupid? Pretending you know and understand how I feel, it’s quite amusing, actually. You’ve never understood who was truly your ally, who only used you to become closer to the crown prince. Tsk tsk, how unfortunate.
I grabbed the sandwich, clenching my fists, filled with feelings of hurt, disappointment, and betrayal. I never would have imagined, Rosalie, my closest confidante, had such thoughts all this time. She’d never shown her true self, until now.
“So… that’s why you’ve been by my side all this time… I thought all this time I spent training to become a crown princess was only spent in vain. I envied you, I had been so naive,to not notice such a snake, a desperate clown, had been around me this whole time. Hiding your disgusting, jealousy filled self behind a disguise of a compassionate friend.”
Rosalie’s eyes flashed with a vicious glare. She began to stare at me with a fierce look, resembling the eyes of a vicious predator, ready to strike its prey.
“What? A clown? Ha! You’re not even one step ahead. Well, how would you be able to. The only reason I stuck by you this whole time was for this very moment, to see that devastated look on your face. That look of pure agony, when I, whom you believed to be your closest friend, betrays you!”
Trying to stay calm, I clenched my fists, while trembling violently. Hearing her words, meant that she knew that the Crown Prince, Karzan, would die, and that I would be framed for it.
“What do you mean? So you know who killed his highness? Are you saying you knew that I was going to be wrongfully accused of murdering the crown prince?!”
I wanted to stay calm. I didn’t want to feed her ego, but I was too shaken by this sense of betrayal, and the fact that Rosalie knew I would be accused of, for murdering the prince.
Rosalie widened her eyes and smirked, bursting into a fit of laughter. Her vulgar laugh echoed throughout the dungeon.
“You’ll be executed soon, Vennita. You will suffer in this dungeon, crying and groaning with all your delusions until you’re executed! By the way, make sure to finish that sandwich. I’m truly proud to think that the last meal you’ll have is this sandwich I made you.”
“Ju- Just a second! What happened to my parents, my father?! Tell me!”
When I painfully cried out to her, Rosalie stopped walking, turned her head and then looked at me. I wanted to spit on that twisted smile of hers, but I was desperate to hear from my parents more than anything.
“Did you expect your parents to survive after all of that? To help your family, the Duke of Duchro along with all his men and wife were killed. Now you know how many people have suffered because of you! So quietly accept your fate and die! Your death will bring everyone peace!
I gathered all my energy, yet I didn’t even have enough strength to stand on my own two feet, worried that my parents might be in harm’s way.
No, perhaps they were already gone. When I thought that, I felt so distressed that it was too much to even breathe. The anger I felt at Rosalie’s betrayal, the tears shed from the death of the crown prince, neither could even compare to a fraction of what I felt from my parents fate. It was terrifying to think that my parents might have died in cold blood because of me.
At one point, the darkness was so terrible that I didn’t even know how much time had passed. I could hear another disturbance in the silence, and along with someone’s footsteps came a gasp of breath. It was the Empress, Selena, who came to me in the dark with a lamp in her hand and a moist look in her eyes.
“L- Lady Vennita…”
The Empress of Burdan, who was calling to me in a voice close to tears, quickly put her lamp down on the floor and bowed to me, lifting the hem of her dress off the floor.
“Lady Vennita, your noble, beautiful face has become so thin. I decrypted his highness’ diary, but that alone was not enough to prove your innocence. I’m sorry, Lady Vennita. I have no right to face you…”
The woman was unable to speak more because she was crying.
“I’m fine, so don’t worry about it, your majesty. However, what I’m curious about is my family. What happened to them?”
Unable to answer, the empress wiped her tears and handed me something she was holding in her hand.
“First of all, take this, Lady Vennita.“
What the empress handed to me was like a magic book, but I couldn’t figure out what it was for because I couldn’t read the enchanted text.
“What is this?”
“Something from an ancient legend.”
“This is a witch’s score. Go on, open it, hurry.”
“The musical partition of a witch. It was a witch’s song made by the husband of a woman who had been falsely accused and executed as a witch in ancient times. It’s a legendary object that was said to give an opportunity to reclaim life in an unfair situation.”
“Listen well, Lady Vennita. you will be executed soon. Then, by all means, you must use this musical sheet and sing the song of the witch. Be sure to do that. Have you heard? If it works, you can fix everything.”
I took the music score of the witch, handed to me by the empress and held it against my chest.
“Lady Vennita. Next time, be sure to fix all this. I’m sure you can do it!“
As the prison guards approached, her voice grew more rushed.
“Princess Tae will come out soon to receive the crown.”
The prison guards moved past the woman and opened the iron door, trying to gag me. However, she moved in front of me and slapped the prison guard’s face.
“What a shame! Her majesty, the empress of this country, is present! You dare to place a gag on Lady Vennita! You must be crazy!”
“Princess Tae said she must be gagged. The emperor also said ‘You can cut out their tongues if they retaliate.’”
“No! The emperor of this country can go to hell! I’d rather go insane! You bastards!”
Empress Selena desperately tried to stop the guards from gagging me. But then, I grasped her arms gently.
“Your majesty. I’m fine. I will accept the wishes of his majesty. So please, stop.”
Tears welled up in Empress Selena’s eyes. She cried against my chest, grasping my shoulders, as if to say it was unfair.
***
End of Chapter 001