Chapter 1 – The Ordeal of the Princess of the Sapphraine Holy Kingdom
It all happened one month ago.
I, Katia Sapphraine, First Princess of the Sapphraine Holy Kingdom, was in a conference room in the royal palace.
The atmosphere in the room was heavy and tense. I stood there, mouth agape, staring blankly at my older brother, the Crown Prince.
I was there because he had summoned me. I’d arrived only to find him surrounded by a dozen ministers, knight commanders, and other nobles, and he’d just told me something utterly outrageous, all while smirking.
“Huh? What did you just say?”
I had heard him perfectly clearly, but I couldn’t believe my ears, so I had to ask him to repeat it.
He responded with a heavy, theatrical sigh.
“Hah. Making me repeat myself. You’ve gotten awfully high and mighty, haven’t you? I said, you are to marry the Emperor of the Zaldein Empire!”
My eyes flew open in shock, and I desperately protested.
“Th-That’s impossible! I’m supposed to be marrying Duke Neuendorff! My wedding dress is already finished, and the ceremony is scheduled for three months from now…”
I was so flustered I was just stating the obvious, which earned me another sigh from my brother.
“You really are dense, aren’t you? Can that dress only be used for your wedding to Duke Neuendorff? Of course not! The wedding to the Emperor of Zaldein is in two months. You can just wear it then.”
“T-Two months!?”
A wedding for an emperor of a nation requires at least a year of preparation. To hastily throw a wedding in just two months is unheard of. No, more importantly, it’s bizarre that a marriage proposal from the Emperor of Zaldein—a country we’ve had no relations with for ages—would even come up.
Startled, I looked around at the ministers. Every single one of them was pale and staring at the floor. Seeing them like that, I belatedly realized that something truly terrible must have happened.
I pressed a hand to my pounding heart and swallowed hard, just as my brother barked at me again, full of arrogance.
“The Emperor of Zaldein has actually agreed to take you! We can’t risk him changing his mind, so we’re scheduling the ceremony as soon as possible! You’re not the least bit charming, what with being a woman who holds the highest post in the Knight Order and bearing the highest title of mage! If he finds out what kind of princess you really are, the whole thing will be called off. That’s why we’re rushing!”
He paused, twisting his lips into a sneer.
“Not that any of it matters. That post, that title—those were only given to you because of your rank! Don’t you dare delude yourself into thinking you earned them with your own talent!”
There were several knight commanders present in the room. The moment they heard my brother’s words, they clearly couldn’t restrain themselves and began to object.
“Your Highness, with all due respect! The Princess has spent ten years among the knights, ever since she was six years old! She has eaten with us, slept alongside us, and learned the duties of a knight! In recent years, she has guided us as a magnificent leader! It was in recognition of those splendid achievements that she was granted the post of Knight Commander General!”
“Furthermore, she was granted the title ‘Witch of Ruin’—the strongest mage in the land—precisely because she is the strongest mage in this country! With that power, Her Highness has led us to victory in countless battles!”
“The only reason we are still alive today is thanks to Her Highness’s immense magic as the ‘Witch of Ruin’ and her guidance as our Knight Commander General!”
My brother gave the indignant knight commanders a thin, cold smile.
“Hah. See, Katia? They’re all falling over themselves to defend you. In a Knight Order packed with men, even an uncharming woman like you must seem appealing just for being female. Hahaha! I wonder what tricks you used to get them all eating out of your hand.”
He was mocking me, just like he always did. He never visits the field, so he has no idea what my actual skills are. He just spouts whatever baseless nonsense he can imagine to belittle me.
His words were so far from the truth that the knight commanders grit their teeth in anger, but I held up a hand, signaling for them to hold back. Then, with a slightly clearer head, I addressed my brother.
“Your Highness, this talk of marrying the Emperor of Zaldein has come as a complete shock. If you wouldn’t mind, could you please explain the circumstances that led to this?”
He snorted in derision.
“Are you really that stupid? Can’t you even figure out why a useless little girl like you gets to marry the emperor of a great empire? You only have one thing of value. It’s the fact that you are the only princess of the ancient and storied Sapphraine Holy Kingdom!”
With that, he looked down at me, his expression full of contempt.
The Sapphraine Holy Kingdom.
It is the name of the nation that rules an island located east of the Dodory Continent. Although it’s an island, its landmass is vast, rivaling the size of the great nations on the Dodory Continent itself.
The most noteworthy thing about it is that the Sapphraine Holy Kingdom is a nation of humans. The inhabitants of the Dodory Continent are non-human races like beastmen, ogre-kin, dragonkin, and elves; humans, by and large, live on the Lemya Continent, which lies to the east of Dodory.
The Sapphraine Holy Kingdom is located between the Dodory and Lemya continents, but it is many times closer to Dodory than it is to Lemya.
Therefore, despite being an independent island, Sapphraine’s choice to establish itself so close to the Dodory Continent made it an extremely unusual case compared to other human nations.
In that kingdom, there is one prince and one princess. I am the princess, Katia Sapphraine. I have waist-length pink hair, blue eyes, and features that people say I inherited from my beautiful mother. But even though I was a princess, my father was only interested in my brother, the next king. As a result, I’ve been completely neglected since the day I was born.
So, ever since my mother passed away when I was young, I’ve spent all my time with the Knight Order. The knights were all good-hearted men. They never treated me unkindly, but instead doted on me as if I were their own daughter or little sister.
It sounds strange, I know, but the Knight Order was the first place that ever truly felt like home to me. That’s why, when I discovered I could use magic, I decided I wanted to become a shield to protect those knights.
Magic-wielders are extremely rare in this country. However, I was also shockingly frail and had a constitution that completely rejected all forms of healing magic. Because of this, the knights vehemently opposed the idea of me setting foot on a battlefield.
“Many people get injured on the battlefield! With your constitution, Lady Katia, any injury could be fatal!”
It was an extremely reasonable argument. To convince them otherwise, I had no choice but to obtain overwhelming power. Power so great that their desire to have that power on the battlefield would outweigh their fears about the danger to me.
So, the truth is, my obtaining the title ‘Witch of Ruin’—the highest rank a mage can achieve—was really just a side effect of my efforts to be allowed onto the battlefield. I’d never say that out loud, of course. The knights would make such sour faces if I did.
In the midst of all this, I fell in love with my childhood friend.
Duke Neuendorff, a loyal vassal of the kingdom.
He was a handsome, silver-haired man three years my senior, and someone I had known since we were children. He was also sensible, caring, and always, always looked out for me when it mattered most.
And… he proposed to me.
So, we got engaged, and we were scheduled to be married in the grand cathedral in three months. And now, with that wedding just around the corner, my brother had ordered me to marry the Emperor of Zaldein instead.
—That day, my destiny was thrown in a direction I could never have imagined.
“Listen up! You are marrying the Emperor of Zaldein. That’s final! It will not be overturned! So, you all sort out the details! Got it!?”
Having said his piece, my brother stormed out of the conference room, his footsteps echoing loudly. I was left biting my lip, still completely in the dark about why I was being married off to the Zaldein Emperor. Just as my brother left, my fiancé, Duke Hubert Neuendorff, entered the room.
He was a duke renowned for his sharp intellect, and he also served as our kingdom’s Prime Minister. I felt a wave of relief at the sight of my familiar fiancé, but Hubert was acting differently. He sat down in a chair far from me, deliberately avoiding my gaze.
I felt a knot of unease, but as if Hubert’s taking a seat were the signal, one of the ministers clutched a stack of documents and began to explain the situation. The circumstances… of why I was being forced to marry the Emperor of Zaldein.
—According to the minister, the entire incident began with my brother.
My brother is the only direct-line male heir to the Sapphraine Holy Kingdom’s royal family. Because of this—and despite his flaws of being thoughtless and impulsive—his position as the next king was considered absolute in our country, which prioritizes male succession.
My brother has another flaw: he’s reckless when it comes to women.
Six months ago, all of these flaws combined in the worst possible way. While traveling abroad, my brother fell into what he called a ‘fated love.’ He and the young lady, his ‘fated partner,’ quickly pledged their futures to one another.
The problem was that just a few months after that fated love, my brother fell into a new one. He began to find his previous ‘fated’ partner a nuisance, and the frequent letters they’d been exchanging tapered off.
It was right around then that the first woman contacted him, saying she was pregnant. My brother, having completely lost interest in her, responded by unilaterally issuing an ultimatum: “I’ve found someone else. We’re through. I’ll take the child, so contact me after it’s born.”
The woman was so devastated by the coldness of his reply that she collapsed. The stress, they said, caused her to miscarry the child. Tragically, a series of unfortunate accidents followed, and soon after… the woman herself also passed away.
This is where it became an international incident. It was only discovered later that the deceased woman was the daughter of a high-ranking noble from the Zaldein Empire—the dominant power on the Dodory Continent.
During their affair, my brother had hidden his identity, claiming to be the son of a count. As it happens, the woman had done the same, claiming to be a count’s daughter.
Apparently, both of them believed the lie.
But after the woman died, her relatives launched a frantic, blood-soaked search for the man who had betrayed her. As a result, my brother’s deception was exposed, and his true identity as the Crown Prince of the Sapphraine Holy Kingdom was revealed.
At the same time, the woman’s true identity was also revealed: she was from one of the ‘Eight Holy Ducal Houses’ of the Zaldein Empire.
Worse still, she was a young woman who had been educated since childhood to be an empress, and was considered an official candidate to marry the Emperor of Zaldein.
It was the worst possible scenario imaginable. By the time the minister finished speaking, I was deathly pale.
“How could my brother have done something so stupid! Oh, that poor woman… how much pain she must have been in…”
I sank to my knees right there and offered a prayer for the souls of the woman and her lost child. Then I stood and turned back to the minister who had read the report.
“So, what compensation is the Zaldein Empire demanding? Favorable trade agreements? A cession of our territory? Though I can’t imagine the rulers of the continent would be satisfied with so little…”
All the nations on the Dodory Continent look down on the ‘weak’ human race, so our kingdom has almost no diplomatic relations with any of them.
The Zaldein Empire was one of them. Formal relations had been severed for ages, so I had no idea what they could possibly want.
I asked the question, but no one answered. I looked around. All the gathered ministers were as white as sheets. I understood their feelings perfectly. I bit my lip, hard.
Yes, the situation was just that hopeless. So hopeless it silenced the entire room.
On the Dodory Continent, nations are formed by race—a nation of beastmen, a nation of ogre-kin, and so on—and they all exist within a strict hierarchy. The nation that boasts the number one rank on the entire continent… is the Zaldein Empire. And our Sapphraine Holy Kingdom had just made a catastrophic blunder against that empire.
Our Crown Prince had seduced and then discarded one of their candidates for Empress. If the woman were still alive, perhaps the matter could have been settled by having my brother marry her. But she was dead. Now, the only thing our kingdom could do, as a desperate second-best measure, was to show the utmost sincerity.
The most obvious solution would be for my brother to marry an imperial princess from Zaldein, but… I was fairly certain the empire had no princesses. And as I thought that, my brother’s words from earlier came flooding back.
“You are marrying the Emperor of Zaldein. That’s final! It will not be overturned!”
“Ah!”
I finally understood. The meaning of his words hit me, and the shock sent me collapsing onto the floor. I was trembling all over.
“…Don’t tell me… I’m the one being sent to Zaldein? As compensation for my brother’s mess?”
My voice echoed, small and lonely, in the silent conference room. No one spoke up to deny it.
The fact that not a single person denied it meant I was right. I was being sent to Zaldein to pay for my brother’s mistake. And if my brother announced it so decisively, it must mean the empire had already agreed to this arrangement.
My brother had probably proposed a marriage between me and their emperor as a way to maintain peace, no doubt grossly exaggerating my ‘value.’ And the empire must have accepted.
It was true. I was the most valuable ‘commodity’ the kingdom had to offer. To resolve this peacefully, marrying me off to their emperor was likely the best, and only, solution.
My head could logically arrive at that cold conclusion, but my heart screamed in protest.
I don’t want this! I don’t want to marry the emperor of the empire!
On paper, the Emperor of Zaldein was the best possible match.
In terms of status, there was no one higher on the entire continent. He was twenty-two years old, a reasonable match for my sixteen, and I’d never heard any rumors questioning his competence as a ruler. On the contrary, his willingness to use marriage to resolve this international incident so quickly was probably a sign of his intelligence and decisiveness.
But no matter how perfect the conditions were, or how capable the emperor might be, I couldn’t imagine finding happiness in this marriage. For one, he’d just had his potential bride stolen and killed by my brother; he must hate me simply for sharing that brother’s blood. And for another, I’m human. The emperor and every citizen of his empire would undoubtedly look down on me as a member of an inferior race.
There was no way I could be happy as the empress of a country like that. And on top of everything, I already had a fiancé! One I was supposed to marry in three months!
My heart screamed that this marriage to the Zaldein Emperor was impossible, but it was obvious that if we played our cards wrong here, the alternative was war.
This all started because of the faithless actions of our Crown Prince. Because of that, our kingdom had no other solution but to offer the empire its highest-ranking woman as a show of good faith.
—Me, marrying outside the kingdom.
Normally, such a thing would be unthinkable. Not a single person in this kingdom would ever wish to send me away. Who would want to lose the ‘Witch of Ruin,’ the kingdom’s greatest weapon? And yet, not one of the ministers in this room was objecting to it. That just showed how desperate the situation truly was.
“…Marriage to the Emperor of Zaldein…”
Saying the words out loud made the future feel terrifyingly real.
A powerful wave of rejection washed over me. I didn’t want to marry this emperor I’d never even met. I didn’t want to. I didn’t. I didn’t want to marry anyone but Hubert.
It was the honest truth of my heart. But I also knew that now, it was nothing more than a selfish desire.
I am the Princess of the Sapphraine Holy Kingdom. It is my duty to protect this country.
“…In three months, I was supposed to marry Duke Neuendorff. It seems that ‘supposed to’ is all it will ever be. I’ll be wearing the wedding dress I had made for my wedding to him… to marry the emperor of Zaldein instead.”
My mind knew I had no choice, but my heart was a poor loser, stubbornly clinging to what I was losing.
Oh, someone please stop me before I say something even more pathetic. As I looked around, my eyes met Hubert’s.
Duke Hubert Neuendorff. My fiancé since childhood. The man who had always been on my side. The man who was supposed to become my husband.
I suddenly remembered the day he proposed to me. He had knelt before me in the palace garden, offering me a rose the exact same shade as my hair.
“I love… just you, exactly as you are.”
He had taken my hand, pressed it to his own forehead as he knelt, and confessed those words as if he were making a solemn vow.
I could still remember the passion in his expression from that day… but the Hubert standing in front of me now was perfectly composed. His eyes were cold.
“Hubert…”
The moment I saw his face, I understood. He had made the decision to abandon me.
A violent tremor ran through my entire body.
Ah, my fiancé… the one who was always by my side, always my ally. Even you are going to let me be married off to the empire.
—Tears began to streak down my cheeks.
I, who had never once cried in front of others as a princess.
…Please, Hubert. Object to this marriage. Tell them no. Tell me to stay in this kingdom, by your side!
I knew it was an impossible request, but I clung to that last shred of hope, my gaze pleading with him.
Hubert, if you would just object to this marriage, I…
“If Your Highness accepts, you will become the Empress of the Zaldein Empire, and the most valuable woman on the entire Dodory Continent. …My congratulations.”
Hubert replied in a quiet, steady voice. He didn’t tremble. He didn’t raise his voice. His expression was perfectly calm, showing not a hint of distress.
His eyes met mine directly, and I could see no trace of hesitation or doubt in them.
“………………I see.”
I wonder, what expression did I have on my face right then? Was it one of utter resignation? Or was it the lost, helpless look of a frightened child?
Either way, I had just received the one answer I hadn’t wanted from my fiancé. I couldn’t bring myself to say yes or no. I just stood there, stunned, in that conference room deep within the royal castle.
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