Chapter 1

The burial grounds outside the imperial prison were the coldest, most desolate place in the capital.

Dragging a straw mat behind her, Elena hauled a "corpse" out of the reeking pile of bodies as the moon was swallowed by clouds. She was here to search for her brother's remains. The day the Reith family was wiped out, her fifteen-year-old brother was sent here, and they claimed he died of illness. But after unearthing seventeen young bodies, none belonged to him.

She didn't stop searching until her fingertips brushed against something warm.

It was the "corpse's" hand, still held a lingering warmth, like someone barely clinging to life.

She moved the messy hair away from his face. In the strange, faint green light, she finally saw his face clearly.

His brows were sharp as blades, cutting into his temples, and his nose was straight and proud. Even with his face smeared in blood and dirt, his noble bearing couldn't be hidden. It was Victor Losuven, the Prince of Frosthold, rumored to have died in battle up north just half a month ago. The King, furious and suspecting him of treason, had refused to let even his body be brought home.

But he was still alive.

Elena checked his neck for a pulse. It was fast and uneven, like tangled thread. He must have been poisoned with Lethe Poison, a famous poison from the north that had no cure. But in the Reith family’s secret medical book, there was a forbidden cure, that was using blood to make the medicine work, exchange life for life.

She should have just turned and walked away.

When the Reith family was slaughtered, it was his father who served as the executioner. Elena only survived because her wet nurse swapped her own daughter in her place. Now, she lived for one reason: to find her brother and clear the Reith family's name.

But her fingers seemed to be stuck and couldn't be moved.

She remembered that three years ago, at a palace banquet, she had spilled her wine by accident. The Prince of Frosthold used his sleeve to protect her from the hot soup. He only said, "Elena, your hands are for healing, not for scars."

She'd held onto those words for three years.

Now, he lay at her feet, like a dog cast out from its home, utterly lost and defeated.

"Consider it a debt I owe you," she said through gritted teeth, dragging the straw mat back into the abandoned roadside church.

The statue of the local god had long since been beheaded, and a thick layer of dust covered the altar table.

Elena rinsed his wounds with rainwater. There were thirteen sword slashes, six arrow holes, the worst one just half an inch from his heart. She tore strips from her skirt to bandage him. When she ran out of cloth, she pressed her silver hairpin into her palm and let her blood flow. Using her own blood as ink, she drew symbols on his skin to stop the bleeding.

This was a forbidden technique of the Reith family, fueling vital energy with blood.

She never told him that each time she used it, she lost one year of her own life.

Victor groaned in his fever, holding Elena’s hand tightly, as if it was the only thing keeping him alive. He murmured, "Cold…"

Elena gathered him into her arms, letting her own warmth seep into his frozen body. That night, the chill reminded her of another, when the Reith family was marched through the rain to the execution grounds. It was just as bitter. Her father, moments before the blade fell, had shouted, "Elena, don't cry! The Reith family is innocent!"

Back then, she couldn't change anything.

Now, at least, she could save one life.

Even if that life belonged to the son of the man who destroyed her family.

Seven days passed, and the elixir was finally complete.

Elena sliced open her wrist, catching half a bowl of blood to mix with the final ingredient. Lethe Poison demanded fresh, living blood as its guide, three measures worth each day, for seven days. She bled herself twenty-one times, her wrist now covered in scars, layered like a centipede's legs.

She was so weak by the time the elixir was finished that she could barely stay on her feet.

She slipped the steaming elixir into Victor's mouth, then dropped beside him, completely spent. Before she lost consciousness, she slipped the Sovereign Blood Pendant, the Reith family's ancestral token, into his arms as the proof of the Reith family's engagement to the crown prince, and her only evidence of who she truly was.

"Victor," Elena whispered, her voice barely a whisper, "I didn't save you for gratitude… I want you to live, and see for yourself how dirty this world can be."

When Victor woke, the sky was just beginning to lighten.

He felt something smooth and warm against his chest. He reached inside and pulled out the Sovereign Blood Pendant. It was finely made, with a dragon and phoenix wrapped around each other. Delicate patterns were carved into the surface. The moment his fingers touched it, he recognized the Reith family’s unique carving style, the “twining lotus” design.

"Prince of Frosthold, you're awake!"

A soft, gentle voice rang out. Victor looked up and saw Yvonne Smith in a pink dress, cradling a bowl of medicine, her eyes red from worry. "I was worried sick about you..."

"Did you save me?"

She looked down, blushing, and nodded. "That day at the burial grounds... I just couldn't bring myself to walk away."

Victor didn't say a word. He just clenched the Sovereign Blood Pendant in his fist.

He remembered that while he was unconscious, someone singing a children's song in his ear, mellow and sweet, with a southern lilt. He remembered gentle fingertips tracing the arch of his brow, calling him "Rowan". It was the childhood name his mother had given him, known only to those closest to his heart.

But the woman in front of him spoke in the sharp, formal accent of the capital, and her voice was much rougher than the gentle lullaby he remembered.

He lowered his head and looked at the blood pendant. Stains of blood had soaked into it, deep into its surface, as if they had become part of it.

It was the blood of his savior.

He looked up at Yvonne and said, "I swear I will repay this kindness."

Yvonne lowered her gaze, cheeks flushed. "Your Highness, you overstate it..."

Outside the mountain church, Elena staggered away, her body weak from blood loss. She heard the voices inside, but didn't pause. She just hid her wounded wrist further up her sleeve.

Victor being alive was all that mattered.

Who he remembered or forgot, it was just the way things were meant to be.

What she didn’t know was that the Sovereign Blood Pendant carried a tiny inscription, one that would only appear after it had been fed with blood for three days.

[Elena Reith nourishes you with her blood.]

Outside the Smith residence, the wedding procession lined up for three full blocks.