Prologue

“Why don’t you ask me if I had breakfast these days?”

The male lead asked me while signing the document. I was writing hard at the table, and then I looked up and smiled.

“Your Majesty, you’re healthy now.” Do I still have to?

Male lead’s eyebrows wriggled when I answered without thinking.

“If I’m healthy, you won’t care about me anymore?”

“Ah, why are you saying that? You know my lifelong wish is your health.”

I comforted the male lead, and his expression loosened as if it had never tightened.

“I’m so proud of you.”

I approached him, looking happily at his handsome face.

It had been two years since I took care of his health. I made sure he ate three meals a day and put him to sleep.

Finally, the day had come when all of it would end.

Today!

“Your Majesty, I have something to tell you.”

I put a piece of paper on his desk. His gaze shifted from me to the paper.

“We’re getting divorced, ” I said proudly.

“What?”

As soon as I spoke, the male lead’s face hardened.

Oh, wrinkles! I smiled gently, stretching his forehead to both sides.

“Your Majesty doesn’t need me anymore. I have to find my own life now.”

“Will you leave the Palace?”

“Yes. Anyway, it was a political marriage, and I know that my father annoys Your Majesty. I’ll leave you now.”

The male lead was now healthy, and the empire was strong and peaceful. There’s nothing more I want!

“My dream is to live peacefully in a quiet countryside, cultivating medicinal herbs and knitting, until I become a grandma. So, divorce, you’ll agree, right?”

The male lead listened to me, and for a while, he looked at the divorce paper silently before nodding.

“See you at tea time in the afternoon. Let”s talk then.”

“Wow! Really?”

It was faster than I thought. I returned to the empress palace with joy.

In the afternoon, I followed the maid to where we would be having tea.

****

Clink!

“Your Majesty? Blood in your mouth! Blood!”

The male lead—who had emptied the teacup as a farewell drink—fell.

“…Lea, I’m sick,” he said with a smile.

I doubted my eyes as I ran to his side.

Wait. Something’s weird.

Then people rushed in, and the doctor examined the fallen male lead.

“Your Majesty is poisoned! I’m sure he had noticed it because it tasted different, but why did he drink it all at once…”

I groaned, hugging my forehead.

“No way…”

Male lead, did you drink the poison deliberately…?

How did this happen?

-To be continued