Chapter 1
Prologue
It started one late afternoon at the end of summer.
The paths in the Royal Park of the Royal Capital, lined with ginkgo trees, were bustling with people enjoying their strolls.
Among the crowd walked many happy couples, arm in arm.
Conrad and I, engaged to be married, also walked arm in arm along one of the tree-lined paths, just like everyone else.
I glanced up at his handsome profile.
He noticed and smiled down at me. I returned his smile.
We had been engaged for two years, and it still felt like a dream that I would marry someone as wonderful as Conrad. He was like a fairy-tale knight.
I never imagined that it would truly end as just a dream.
Suddenly, Conrad's smile disappeared, he stopped walking, and he pulled his hand away from mine.
Everything changed when he spoke.
Seraphina, I want to break off our engagement.
For a moment, I couldn't understand what he was saying.
But a chill spread through my entire body as I gradually processed those words,
What? W-what do you mean? Did I fail somehow as your fiancée . . . ?
No, that's not it . . .
Conrad is going to marry me instead, dear sister.
My heart nearly stopped the moment I heard that voice.
My sister, Miriam Archibald, appeared with a triumphant smile on her face.
She was a year younger than me and beautiful as a princess.
Conrad's eyes crinkled with a smile as Miriam smoothly wrapped her arm around his.
It was an intimate expression he had never once shown me.
Miriam, didn't I tell you to wait quietly over there?
But Conrad, you were taking too long. I got tired of waiting.
Conrad turned back to face me.
So that's how it is. You understand, right? Seraphina's always been the kind one after all.
Of course I didn't understand.
But I couldn't say that out loud.
Seeing how intimate they had become without my knowledge, I knew that anything I said now would be futile.
I also realized that Miriam, with her superior magical ability and beauty, was far more suitable to stand beside Conrad—the eye-catching, dazzling man praised as The Wonderknight—than plain, ordinary me. On top of that, my parents had arranged our engagement.
From Miriam's confident attitude, I could tell that both sets of parents must have already approved of their union.
I was probably the only one who didn't know . . .
