A man stood at the edge of the cage, stamping on the hard-won sunlight that had managed to shine inside. He gently lifted the stubborn woman’s chin, his fingertips cold as ice. In the cage, the woman sat in ragged clothes and simply raised her head with a faint smile. Year after year, everything he did had one purpose: to keep her trapped. And she did only one thing: draw a line around herself and make it her prison. The only thing she could not afford to lose was her heart, no bigger than a fist.
This was a cursed and chaotic age. She had been a princess, until her kingdom fell in a single night. Reduced to the lowliest of slaves, she eventually rose to become empress. She planned every step with painstaking care, all for the sake of revenge.
He was the king of the Feng Kingdom, his robe patterned with poppies as he stained the land with blood. Whenever night grew still, the rose on his chest throbbed with pain. He existed only to protect a secret of the royal family.
He was a prince of one kingdom, yet he had traveled far away to a foreign land. Roses bloomed throughout the city, yet they were destined to wither.
“Everything you want, I’ll give you.”
Schemes, struggles, submission, a blood-soaked land painted like a picture. Would the vows they once made end up as nothing but empty words?
