Chapter 2

02.

Garrett walked away without looking back.

Trembling, I picked up the garment from the floor and draped it over my shoulders.

Yet the miraculous healing I prayed for never came.

Instead, sharp needles seemed to dig into my back, causing such excruciating pain that I thrashed on the ground.

I tried to tear the garment off, but the moment my fingers touched the fabric, it tightened violently.

It squeezed harder and harder, suffocating me until my ribs felt ready to snap.

Right before darkness took me, I heard passing servants whispering with cruel giggles.

"Does she really think that is the Rainbow Cloak?"

"That is the Ironthorn Shroud! It looks bright like the holy cloak, but it is made for death-row convicts."

"Once it touches skin, the barbed needles burrow straight into the flesh. You cannot take it off until you are dead."

"Speaking of which, I saw a fabric that looked just like the Rainbow Cloak being used as a footrest under Lady Chloe's vanity table the other day."

Even though I knew Garrett despised me, hearing this froze my blood.

He hated me so much that he gave my life-saving cloak to my sister as a rag, while tricking me into wearing a torture device.

I coughed up a mouthful of black blood and passed out from the unbearable agony.

When I opened my eyes again, three days had passed.

The side hall remained dead and desolate. Staggering up from the icy stone floor, I realized no one had checked on me during those three days.

It made sense. Ever since I was born with a large brownish-red birthmark across my face, even my own parents had treated me like an outcast.

Only when the chieftain named me the Dragon Prince's destined bride and the reincarnated goddess did I receive a sliver of respect.

Yet I would never forget the disgust in Garrett's eyes when he first saw me, nor the instant adoration in his gaze when he looked at Chloe.

I had always comforted myself, believing I was his true love.

I believed that once my powers awakened, I would prove to everyone that I was worthy of him.

Fate had played the cruelest joke on me.

Chloe was the chosen one.

And I was just an ugly thief who stole someone else's throne.

None of it mattered anymore.

I was dying anyway.

I closed my eyes and waited for the end, but a sudden drop of cool water splashed against my cracked lips.

Startled, I wondered if a servant had finally noticed the dying princess.

Opening my eyes, I saw a tiny butterfly spirit struggling to hold a miniature water pitcher, pouring drops into my mouth.

I remembered her. The day I left my ruined homeland, I saved an injured butterfly with a broken wing.

Pitying her, I brought her to the Dragon Palace.

Chloe suffered from nightmares constantly, and Garrett, hearing that merfolk scales could soothe bad dreams, ripped scales from my body every single day for her remedies.

Whenever he tore off extra scales by accident, I washed them and placed them in the butterfly's nest.

Miraculously, she had grown a new pair of wings.

Seeing me open my eyes, joy flashed across her small face.

"Princess, you are finally awake!"

"Hold on, I will go find a royal healer for you!"

I weakly caught her tiny hand.

Chloe's ascension ceremony was approaching. Every healer in the palace would be attending to her.

I just wanted to lie here in peace and finish my final journey alone.

The little butterfly burst into tears. "No, Princess, you cannot die!"

"I… I will dig out my spiritual core and feed it to you!"