The walls of the Palace were thin—not in stone, but in silence. Whispers slipped through cracks like smoke, wrapping around ears that were never meant to hear, and still somehow always did. It wasn't just the courtiers with painted smiles and glassy eyes who listened. It was the maids who bowed too deeply, the guards who blinked too slowly, the petals swept up from the floor—everything in this place seemed to have a mouth, a memory, and a master.
Kiyomi had learned this quickly and brutally. There were no accidents here. No private moments. Just a performance that never ended. She had learned to bow low without breaking, to smile without showing teeth, to speak with the softness of someone who might be punished for every wrong syllable. And yet—despite every inch of caution she wore like armor—she knew it wasn't enough. Not anymore.
She'd overheard two senior maids whispering outside the garden wall:
"The new girl in Violet Wing... gone. Just gone. Vanished like steam."
The silence that followed had chilled her blood. The palace was not just a cage. It was a battlefield dressed in brocade. And she was still blind to the weapons.
What made it worse was how the danger hid beneath silk and civility. A single missed curtsy could be a declaration of war. A glance too long at the wrong noble might mean a whisper about poison in your tea. Kiyomi felt the eyes on her constantly—probing, weighing, doubting. She didn't know what they were looking for exactly, but she feared they'd find it.
That hesitation in her tone. That flicker of modern knowledge when she referenced something too exact, too anatomical. Her body wore Lady Kiyomi's face like a costume, but every breath she took felt like she was pushing against the edges of someone else's skin. If they found out she was not the disgraced noblewoman they thought they knew—but something far stranger—they wouldn't just exile her. They'd bury her.
The second test loomed in two days. She didn't even know what it would be. And worse, she didn't know enough about her past self. What lies had been carved into her name. Who had Lady Kiyomi no Tsukihara been? What had she done to earn the nickname "The Noble Whore"? What sins had people decided she committed? .
If she didn't find out soon, she would stumble into the test not as a contestant, but as prey. Today, she couldn't afford to be clueless. Not when the vultures were already circling. Not when every move she made was being watched by people who smiled too sweetly and bowed too low.
She began her hunt at the edge of dawn, feigning illness to avoid the morning court offerings. Her maid Hana covered for her, whispering,
"You'll be missed, my lady—but not mourned."
It was the closest thing to a warning and a joke. Armed with only her observation and a servant's key, Kiyomi slipped into the lesser-used northern archive—an abandoned library of scrolls, deeds, and discarded ledgers. The air smelled of paper, ink, and something decayed. Like forgotten sins.
She found her name—Tsukihara Kiyomi—on exactly three documents. One was a reprimand from the Royal Treasury: Overspending. Indulgence. Scandalous debts. Another, a record of cancelled marriage negotiations: House Masaki withdrew support due to
"irreconcilable shame."
The final scroll was not written by a scribe, but by a noblewoman, anonymous, but vicious:
"She sold more than smiles to the crown's foreign guests. And once, to a visiting prince. Ask her maid. They say she never wept after."
But the deeper Kiyomi dug, the more the story twisted in on itself like a snare. The scrolls were meticulous in ink but chaotic in truth. One record claimed she'd been confined to a sanatorium for an entire moon cycle, diagnosed with "female hysteria" after a public breakdown. Yet another document placed her at a royal gala that same week, adorned in sapphires and smiling on the arm of a foreign emissary. It wasn't a clerical error—this was deliberate.
Either someone had gone to great lengths to forge her past and drag her name through mud… or the former Kiyomi had truly lived a double life. Was she a pawn crushed under court cruelty—or a cunning seductress who danced with devils by choice? The contradictions were maddening. And Kiyomi knew one thing for certain: the truth had been buried for a reason.
Footsteps echoed in the cavernous silence of the royal archives, too sharp, too deliberate. Kiyomi froze. Her pulse leapt in her throat, and she instinctively slid the half-open scroll back into its case. The air smelled of aged paper and dust, but now, there was something else—cologne and danger.
She turned slowly, already suspecting what kind of predator lurked behind her. And there he was. Leaning lazily against a shelf of imperial records, arms crossed like a bored nobleman at a play, stood Prince Naoya Tsukimura—the King's step-brother. His tunic was loose, his sash untied as though he'd wandered in by accident, but his eyes told another story. They glittered like broken glass in moonlight—amused, but edged with warning.
"Digging in dead soil, Lady Kiyomi?"
The voice slipped through the silence like a blade drawn from velvet. She turned, and there he was—Prince Naoya Tsukimura, the King's step-brother, the court's smiling monster. He leaned against the high shelf as if the room belonged to him, as if everything did. In the flickering light of the lanterns, his shadow looked twice his size.
"Whatever you're looking for... It's already been burned,"
He said, a ghost of amusement tugging at his lips, though his eyes remained glacial.
He moved closer with a predator's ease, unhurried, savoring the moment like a cat toying with a mouse that hadn't yet realized it was trapped. Kiyomi stood her ground, but the scrolls in her hand trembled slightly. He stopped just inches from her, and instead of striking with words, he reached out—fingers pale and graceful—and played idly with a strand of her hair, letting it slide between his fingers as though weighing silk.
"Still trying to stitch together the pieces of your own story?"
He murmured.
"A noble pastime. Dangerous, though. You never know what you'll dig up. Bones, ghosts… sometimes, the rot."
Kiyomi didn't respond, didn't dare pull away. He was testing her, the way he tested everyone—like a fire tests wax. His cruelty wasn't loud like the King's; it was quieter, colder, wrapped in silk and perfume and whispers. She had heard the stories. A stable boy who went missing after offending him.
A maid who cried too loudly and was later found dead, hanged from a tree. No one ever accused him directly, but everyone knew. Naoya didn't need swords to destroy people. Just access. Just presence.
"And yet here you are,"
He continued, brushing the strand of hair behind her ear with the gentleness of a lover and the intent of a snake.
"Poking around in places the King would never allow. I wonder…"
His smile widened, cruel and amused.
"Is this curiosity? Or something else? Are you hoping to prove something? Or bury it?"
Her heart pounded in her ribs like a drum. She was exposed—caught red-handed reading sealed records, looking for holes in the lies that built her reputation. And now, the court's most merciless mind had her pinned. But Kiyomi met his gaze. If she let him smell fear, he'd never stop.
"Maybe I'm just bored,"
She said, voice level, letting him see the ice in her eyes.
"And you seem like the kind of man who understands that well."
Naoya chuckled, low and dangerous, then stepped back, finally letting her breathe again.
"Boredom,"
He echoed, licking the word like honey off his teeth.
"Now that's a fine excuse for sin."
She raised her chin, forcing the calm into her voice.
"I want the original records."
She said. "The ones not scrubbed clean by court hands. But truth is a dangerous medicine. Taken raw, it kills faster than poison." He walked closer, his footsteps soundless against the polished floor. Then he leaned in, close enough for her to feel the chill of his breath against her cheek.
"Still. If you're desperate enough… I do trade in truths. But my price is always pain."
Kiyomi didn't back away. She understood power—and how it had to be met head-on. "Name it," she said.
"Whatever game you're playing, I'll play it. If it gets me what I need."
The Prince's smirk curved slowly and coldly.
"Very well,"
He said, turning away as if bored. There's a gala tomorrow night. A minor one, mostly generals and trade ministers. The King won't be attending. But I will. And I want you on my arm." Kiyomi blinked, confused.
"As your companion?"
He turned back, expression unreadable.
"As bait,"
He said. There's someone I need to unsettle. A little performance… a scandal, perhaps. You'll pretend to favor me—just enough to get tongues wagging. In return, you'll get access to the original scrolls from the Temple Vault. Unaltered. Unfiltered.
But if the King notices…" He trailed off, his smile sharp. "Well. I suppose that's your risk to take."
She hesitated. The plan was reckless—playing into court games she barely understood, drawing attention she could not afford. But the chance to see the truth, to uncover what had been buried in layers of slander and silence… it was too valuable to pass up. She'd spent days nodding politely and pretending to be the woman everyone loathed. Now she had a chance to see why they hated her—and maybe, just maybe, rewrite that script.
"Deal,"
She said quietly. "
I'll play your game, Prince. But if you double-cross me, I'll burn the whole court down, even if I have to light the match with my teeth." Naoya's laughter echoed through the archive like bells at a funeral. "Now that," he said, "is the Kiyomi I've been waiting to meet."
As he disappeared into the shadows, Kiyomi stood alone amid the scrolls, heart hammering. She had just made a deal with a viper. But vipers had their uses—so long as you never turned your back. Tomorrow, she would walk into a gala draped in lies. But tonight, she had a purpose.
And for the first time since waking in this strange, dangerous world, she didn't feel entirely lost. She felt like a threat.