“Oh, this will fetch quite a pretty penny.”
The sound of a man’s voice and the light of a handheld lantern on her face woke Westalia, but she kept her eyes closed, peeking out from under her eyelashes. After all, she was supposed to be dead.
Good, it seems like it worked.
Westalia felt relieved, but there was still a man rifling through her coffin. He was what was commonly known as a “grave robber”—the unscrupulous individuals who ransacked tombs to steal and sell the relics buried with them, or who stole the corpses themselves and offered them to researchers for dissection. Westalia was the villainess who had tried to kill the princess; she had been poisoned and buried. No one would believe that she was still alive. However, she was not actually dead; she had faked it. Before her execution, Westalia had hidden the antidote behind her tongue and forced it down her throat along with the poison.
In order to fake the perfect death, she’d bitten down on her tongue so that blood would come out of her mouth, and the wound was now throbbing.
Lily’s mistake was that she didn’t have my head chopped off.
Westalia wasn’t sure if it was Lily’s decision or someone else’s that had condemned her to death by poison, going out of their way to make her suffer rather than just beheading her. But it had kept her alive. It was also fortunate that the guards hadn’t discovered that she had obtained the antidote and that they hadn’t checked her mouth before the execution.
Quickly, she reached out and touched the wrist of the thief who was rummaging through the coffin. Without him noticing, she pressed her favorite ring against it, turned the jewel setting to the right with her thumb, and drove the concealed anesthetic needle into his skin. Westalia had studied poisons as a self-defense measure in order to survive in a royal palace filled with enemies. She also carried on her at all times a number of concealed weapons with poison in them, including that ring.
“Guh!” The man collapsed into the coffin with a thud. Westalia moved him out of the way and sat up.
She smiled sweetly at him. “What a careless thief! To think he’d fall asleep in the middle of burgling.”
A huge quantity of priceless jewelry had been placed around her in the coffin. The hoard of jewels was so dazzling it was almost tasteless; they were practically begging to be stolen.
I must get out of here before the guard patrol comes. As an anti-grave-robbing measure, the guards would sometimes do night patrols. Should any of these guards happen to run into her, it would be obvious that she was still alive.
She took the leather bag from the comatose thief and crammed it full of jewelry. The missing body and jewelry would be written off as the work of a thief. No one would think that the dead woman herself had woken up and run off.
Here’s a little reward for your hard work, she thought as she placed the most expensive-looking necklace in the hands of the thief lying at her feet. If he hadn’t spotted her grave and dug it up, she probably would’ve suffocated. It was too small of a reward, really, for saving her life, but the amount he could sell it for would be enough for a commoner like him to live the rest of his life on. “Well, as long as a night watchman doesn’t find you,” she whispered to the man, then calmly walked away.
Westalia left the graveyard and began making her way down a secluded, narrow path. Above her head stretched the brilliant indigo of the predawn sky. The morning sun in the distance seemed to be unusually dazzling today.
From here, Westalia planned on leaving the country in a horse-drawn carriage. Her destination was the Archaites Empire, which was the grandest nation on the continent in terms of both territory and power—bigger than her home country of Lhumzia. In Archaites, she had one goal: to participate in the selection process to choose a consort for the new crown prince. The woman selected through this grueling process would become an object of admiration for all the women in the country.
Lily, her former friend, was the sort of person who desired to dominate all others, which was why she’d gone so far as to strong-arm Westalia out of her position. If you become queen of Lhumzia, Lily, then I shall simply have to acquire more power than you and prove my innocence. That will be my revenge, and I will accomplish it by any means necessary! Westalia thought as she hiked across the wet ground in her silk stockings, her fists clenched tight. She had worked so hard to become queen, even though she’d been imprisoned in a separate royal villa. But in the end, she’d lost everything, never experiencing the happiness that other people did.
Westalia wouldn’t stand for that. All she’d wanted was to wear her favorite dresses and dance at balls, make friends, contribute to the national government, and get involved with the citizens of her country. Yet she hadn’t done any of that. She hadn’t been needed by anyone, hadn’t been of use to anyone. None of her hard work had been put to any good use. She had decided when she was locked in the dungeon that she would instead go to the Archaites Empire to stake a new claim on what she had lost and to make her own dreams come true.
The empress of Archaites was chosen in a very special way. Every woman in the country was eligible, regardless of age, social standing, or experience, as long as she was a citizen of Archaites. However, there were several phases of the selection, and the woman who found herself on the throne would be only the finest—the one with the highest intelligence, prettiest looks, most winning personality, and various other abilities.
Westalia found a stream by the side of the road and dipped her hair into the water. The red safflower dye she had crafted herself washed away, and her hair regained its original silver color. Though this was her natural color, in Lhumzia, white hair was characteristic of old age, so she’d taken to dyeing it. She would return to her true self, a far different figure from the wicked woman that everyone around here recognized her as.
Since Westalia had been hidden away since birth, only a few people other than her family knew what she really looked like. Her family, however, had spared not a thought for her, despite their own power-hungry ambitions.
Westalia Lejainne is dead. I can no longer bear that name. She would no longer be a helpless woman who could do nothing but throw herself at the mercy of those around her. The Westalia who’d been but a meek, well-mannered young maiden was no more. From now on, she would live for only herself, however she liked, without a care for her position.
Looking around, Westalia saw a chameleon plant blooming on the riverbank. She recalled seeing them in the garden of the palace as well, but they’d always been ripped out because of their foul stench and impressively prolific growing speed. Despite all this, the plant wasn’t toxic, yet still it was rooted out and destroyed based on prejudice—just as Westalia had been. The flower petals were even the same color as her hair. Westalia allowed herself a wry smile.
“My name is now Cordata. It fits perfectly for a discarded, miserable woman.”
Cordata was the scientific name of the chameleon plant. Princess Lily was also named after a flower, and as her name suggested, she’d been praised extravagantly as she grew up. Westalia’s name came from the wisteria flower, but nobody ever bothered to look up and admire them blooming quietly overhead. It would be the greatest irony for a woman with the name of a weed to become empress. She would prove that a weed could shine brighter than any lily.
I’ll regain everything I’ve lost with my own two hands. You may have won this time, Lily, but just you wait... Westalia stood and looked across the river.
And with that fateful drink from a poisoned cup, Westalia’s tale was well underway. Executed as a villainess, she had lost everything and started over. Her new goal: to become the empress of the largest empire on the continent.