I Became The Wife Of The Cursed Grand Duke

In the past, when Evelyn learned the truth about her mother’s death, she did everything she could to escape their clutches.

 

But the Lawrence estate is much larger than she had imagined.

 

It would not be easy to escape on her own through the heavily guarded grounds and dense forest.

 

She fled, was captured, recaptured, and assaulted.

 

Then a visitor came to the Count’s manor.

 

It was the same man who had lusted after her body in her dreams.

 “Your Highness, I beg you to take me under your guardianship.” 

Evelyn went to the patron of the man’s outbuilding and clung to him for dear life, begging him to help her.

 “I have the healing powers to purify your curse, and I can stop your highness from running amok, so please…!” 

* * *

 

Kalian Van Orpheus, the cursed Grand Duke.

 

He was a descendant of the first Empress who, thousands of years ago, helped unify the continent by summoning the demon Babel.

 

Shortly before he was sealed in a dungeon for his betrayal. Babel cursed his family name.

 [When the Guardian’s Mark rises, the boundary between this world and the next will be broken and the gates of the Otherworld will be opened. Only he will bring me to rest]. 

Forced by an unwanted fate to spend his entire life in a pile of demonic cachets, he was the only Sword Master on the continent to emanate a black aura.

 “You’re listening to everything I say?” 

The moment Evelyn lowered her gaze and the man replied in a cold tone, she thought it was all over.

 

‘I thought it was a miracle that such a great man listened to me in the first place.’

 

Of course, the man had his weaknesses.

 

He had made a pact with a demon to acquire a black aura, and if he overused his powers or drank too much blood, his inner demons would emerge and he would go berserk.

 

Only a purifier of transcendent power, a saint, could completely quell it.

 

Even so, it was unlikely that a man of such immense power would show mercy to a bastardized child.

 

But the next words that left his lips made Evelyn stiffen in horror.

 “If you want to control my curse, you must fight alongside me. Then I should ask you to be my wife, not just be your guardian.” 

She was puzzled. He may be a man whose soul is stained with demon blood, but Kalian is a man at the pinnacle of power.

 

Such a man would not only accept her proposal, but he would be her husband.

 

Evelyn wondered if he fell in love with her at first sight.

 

The corners of Kalian’s mouth tilted upward, as if he were laughing at her own ridiculous speculation.

 “You have not heard of the Shroud of Darkness? The North is closed, and no one may cross its borders except by blood or marriage.” 

Johansen, the region he rules, is sealed off from the south to prevent the creatures from traveling south.

 

True to his word, it was nearly impossible to get in or out without a connection.

 

In her last life, Evelyn had bonded with Kalian, and she had traveled with him through the dungeons, pouring her healing powers into him with all her might.

 

Her healing powers, which had had little effect on others, had made a small difference to her husband.

 “I don’t want you to get sick, that’s all I want for you.” 

She loved him for his sweetness.

 

Just thinking about it made her eyes water and her heart ache.

 “So if it’s for his sake, …it’s right that we don’t get involved in this life.” 

She remembers how he suffered from the imperial family and vassals because of her. Everyone was against the marriage, outright hostile.

 

The Lawrence family had demanded a ridiculous dowry and tribute for her healing powers.

 “To think that the monarch of Johansen would suffer such humiliation for a worthless bastard! The late High King would jump out of his coffin!” 

No one in the world, no matter how brilliant, would honor a woman who would bring her monarch to his knees.

 

‘But… I must have Kalian’s help to uncover the secrets of the Primal Stone and the Temple.’

 

And now that she knows it was the curse that killed her, a meeting with the archmage Innes in the north is inevitable.

 

‘Can I rely on him one more time…?’

 

Evelyn feared that her abominable selfishness would bring him to the brink again.

 

But how many people can perform in the face of death’s horrors, she soothed herself with the pretense of weakness.

 

Just then, a light that could hardly be called moonlight filtered through the window, illuminating the dank interior of the prison.

 “……!” 

Startled by the sudden onslaught of light, Evelyn barely managed to raise her hand to shade her forehead.

 Thud! 

The shackles around her ankles clinked and dragged as she moved.

 

Stepping toward the light, Evelyn gripped the palm-sized grate of the window.

 “I must be looking in the wrong place.” 

The light was gone, and all that remained was a month’s worth of fingernails. Evelyn looked to the sky, measuring the passage of time.

 “When the full moon rises, …Kalian will visit the estate.” 

Then everything would be clear.

 

Would the past repeat itself, or would a new phase begin.

 “Huh.” 

The silence that fell over her choked her like a curse. Evelyn exhaled sharply and gritted her teeth.

 “You’ll see. I’ll survive this life, somehow, some way.” 

A draught of wind from the window ruffles her hair ferociously. She stirred, wiped the tears from her face, and deeply contemplated her husband’s face once more, even if only in her dreams.

 

* * *

 

After her release from prison, Evelyn spent days and days in and out of the library, barely able to breathe.

 

She flipped through the booklets and newspapers that chronicled the genealogies of families within the Cardassian Empire, and began to record the information of the future as she remembered it.

 

Which houses would have what accidents, what crises would befall the Empire and Johansen, and where the next gate would open.

 “Found it…!” 

Throwing down her quill, Evelyn opened the newspaper wide on her desk.

 

It was an article about the gate that had opened a few days ago.

 <Kairos desert maelstrom again! Is it true that no civilians were harmed? Suspicions mounting.> 

So far, the beasts had been confined to the sealed dungeons of Bellatra and parts of the north.

 

But for some reason, the sporadic opening of the gates has shaken the Empire to its core.

 

The scourge of magic pouring out of the gates can only be extinguished by the dark power above the chaos: Kalian.

 

By nature, high expectations breed discontent.

 

As the damage to civilian homes mounted, the public’s faith in him would be shaken.

 

As Evelyn pondered, a memory from her previous life flashed through her mind.

 “I heard that the town of Litchev has been overrun by mutant beasts… Ugh, that’s terrible.” “Yes, a tragedy that would not have happened if the Guardian had not been born.” “Why, there are rumors that it may have been a disaster unleashed by the Grand Duke to gain control of the Empire.” 

The dungeon goes into a period of dormancy if no one is born to bear the Guardian’s Mark.

 

Babel, who opened the dimensional rift in revenge for the House of Orpheus, withdraws his power, knowing that no one can stand against him.

 

If she remembered the order of the gates, she could tell Kalian, and he would be less likely to accuse her of causing chaos in the Empire.

 “If I recall correctly, the next gate is…” 

That’s when she muttered with conviction.

 “Who the hell is this? Someone said something about smelling like a mongrel.” 

She looked up, startled by the voice, and frowned when she saw a face she’d rather not see.

 “Erze?” 

The upturned eyebrows, the thin lips and sharp jawline, the poisonous watery eyes.

 

She looked exactly like Louise, twenty-one years her junior and a year Evelyn’s junior, a half-sister.

 “Er, what?” 

For a moment,

Erze

was taken aback by Evelyn’s unusually confident way of addressing her.

 

Looking down at the hem of Evelyn’s dress, Erze clicked her tongue as if she’d seen something she shouldn’t have.

 “How about a little decency, even if it’s only cloth, and look at your cunt right now. You look worse than a brothel slave.” 

Evelyn didn’t answer, and Erze, stepping a little closer, glared at her.

 “Your mother’s blood must be thick in your veins if you’re still sneaking in and out of the library like a rat… and still haven’t gotten over this lowly habit.” 

Faced with her crooked smile, as if she were treating her like an insignificant creature, a long-buried anger flared up in her chest.

 “Your mother was a prostitute, wasn’t she? That’s why she tricked father into having you, you filthy, filthy thing! 

Her mother wasn’t a sleazy woman but Evelyn didn’t argue.

 

She didn’t want to argue with her stepsister, because she knew she wasn’t much of a talker in the first place, and the more she denied it, the more Erze would insult her mother.

 

‘Endure, for your chance for revenge will come.’

 

While she tried her best to keep her face impassive, Erze continued to press her.

 “In ten days, the viscount will come to fetch you, and I suggest you pay a little more attention to your outward beauty, for a woman of lowly status and cleverness will only tire a man. You stay quiet and don’t be a cunt…” “What?” 

Evelyn stared at Erze’s bewildered eyes, which were curving in a fierce way.

 “Ten days later, what does that… mean?” 

The viscount’s arrival was earlier than it had been.

 “You know that the Viscount lost his son in an accident, and he demanded a woman to bear him a child in exchange for the forgiveness of all the family’s debts… Well, technically, he chose you.” 

In the past, when Louise had first told her the news, Evelyn had cried and clung to her. She begged Louise to find another way to pay for her mother’s care.

 

But now she knew she didn’t have to.

 

Chewing her lip calmly, Evelyn turned back to Erze, who was talking excitedly.

 “So?” “So what, the blood pact between the two houses is already complete?” “Ah, I see.” 

Evelyn’s mouth, which had been set in a straight line, turned upward in an arc.