The Princess Who Died and Woke Up in Another Empire

"Your Majesty, if I may..."

Anna, the closest handmaid to the Queen, hesitated before speaking.

"Don't listen to them. They don't know you like I do. You would never..."

She stopped, swallowing her words.

"Thank you, Anna," Brietta replied calmly.

"I just need a moment alone."

The girl bowed and quickly left the room.

Brietta was not suposed to be queen.

After Arabella's tragic death ten years earlier, Brietta had been hastily named Crown Princess to uphold the peace treaty with the Solem Empire. The court needed a bride. A political solution. Not a ruler.

And when the groom arrived… it wasn't the weak Second Prince they had expected. It was Kaydan, the First Prince.

The one raised to rule.

The one the Emperor favored.

The man the Empress's faction hated… and Brietta had been ordered to marry.

"If it weren't for you..." she whispered, a tear slipping down her cheek.

She hated him.

But deep inside… there was a shameful part of her that didn't.

The savage who took away her son. Her only light, her Leo.

Prince Leonid.

Heir to Gardenia.

Her only child.

After the plague, Brietta had been declared infertile.

And Leo, her beloved Leo, was gone.

And where was Kaydan during it all?

In his homeland.

Celebrating ten years of peace. Ten years of her quiet agony.

If I could only go back in time…

They whispered in the halls: "She killed Arabella for the crown."

Brietta laughed bitterly.

The crown? They can keep it.

She knew the truth.

It wasn't a plague. It was him.

His greed. His obsession.

The throne of Gardenia would never be enough.

Kaydan always wanted more. Even if it meant poisoning the kingdom. Even if it meant destroying her.

Even if it meant turning against his own blood.

My Leo... none of this was your fault.

If someone was to blame, it was herself, for letting her son be born the child of a monster.

In that quiet room, she stepped onto the stool.

The rope tightened.

Her breath left her body.

She didn't fight it.

And so, in the year 897, the Queen of Gardenia took her own life, shattered by the loss of her son.

"Brietta!" Kaydan roared as he burst into the room.

"Don't you dare!"

He caught her body as it fell, cradling it like a broken vow.

"Wake up... you always call me ridiculous when I scream. Wake up and say it again, won't you?"

He held her tighter.

"You'll tell me you despise me… that you hate Solem… that I have no right to call Leo my son."

His voice cracked.

"I know all of that. And still..."

Tears streamed down his face.

That night, the King of Gardenia sat on the cold stone floor, rocking the lifeless body of the woman he claimed to love.

By morning, the Gardenian High Priestess put him to sleep with a sacred spell.

She took her daughter's body.

And disappeared.