Rose POV
If there is one word that can explain who I am… it is survivor.
It is not a beautiful word, nor is it something to be proud of—but it is the only thing I have. The only thing left.
Father? I don't even remember his face. Whether he left because he was a coward or for some other reason I never bothered to care about. All I know is that since my memory began to function, he was never there. But clearly, he hadn't left when I was born… the proof is that I have two younger siblings. Two siblings who don't look a bit like me.
This family… it always felt like a puzzle I didn't want to solve. Complicated. Messy. Cold. That was my home.
Mother was too busy with herself—or too busy ignoring us—that I, the eldest child who wasn't even fit to be called an "adult," had to become the backbone of the family. Sometimes I think… maybe I was lucky. Lucky because, at that time, my body wasn't mature enough to be sold. If it were, I might have ended up in a brothel. Or… perhaps that was the only affection my mother had for me: she didn't sell me. Ironic, isn't it? That that alone could be considered love.
But I don't want to know. I don't need to. To survive, you must be able to silence your own curiosity. Knowledge isn't always power—sometimes it is an abyss. An abyss that swallows you without a sound. Since I was a child, I learned to distinguish what I needed to know and what I had to leave in the dark.
That is why, when I woke up with a beautiful ring circling my ring finger… I could only remain silent.
What is this? My instinct—the one that had guided my survival all this time—could not categorize this small object. There was no suitable place for it. No safe box to store it.
I don't believe in superstitions. Not in fairy-tale princes. Not in savior knights. Not in resurrections after tragic deaths. The world doesn't work that way. Life isn't that sweet.
But there is one thing I believe: there are no coincidences.
And that dream… a dream that felt too real, too full of detail to be called a mere figment of sleep… a dream where I saw my own future… a future where I burned alive along with Roady—
My eternal love? Ha. If only.
According to the outside world, we committed suicide together. A tragic couple who chose death to protect the secrets of our race at the start of the Bride War. Honestly, if I were an outsider, I would believe it too.
But the reality… was very different. I didn't die by suicide. I died by being stabbed. By Roady.
The man whose life I held tightly. The man I forged into a blade in my hand. The man I created to be a shield and a tool, not a lover. And he repaid me by stabbing me.
I still remember the taste of that warm metal. The pain… the coldness… a sense of betrayal even sharper than the knife he used. I also remember how he died with me—stabbed by a woman whose face was a blur in my fading vision. But I know I had seen her before. I know she didn't just appear out of nowhere.
I know one thing: We both knew too much.
Was I wrong to become the greatest underground informant in the Procession Tower? No. Not at all. I needed to survive. And to survive in a place like the Procession Tower, you must know more than anyone else—even if that knowledge stabs you back one day.
I built networks, paying with labor, time, and sometimes blood. I collected secrets the way someone collects weapons. And because of that, no one dared to touch me openly. They might have been stronger than me, but they also had fears. They all had something they wanted to hide. And I knew exactly what those things were.
If they killed me? I had prepared enough "farewell gifts" to destroy them all. A massive explosion of secrets that could kill their reputations, their power, and their futures. Kill me, and I drag you all down with me. That was the language of power I used.
But no powerful person is willing to let their secrets be held by someone else. They didn't attack me directly. No, they were more cunning than that. They tried an indirect route—through those closest to me.
But I am not stupid. My lowly subordinates, the little dogs in my network, could not be swayed without my knowing. They were all in my grasp.
All… except for one person.
Roady.
Not because I was falling in love like some foolish girl. No. I never loved him. It wasn't that. Roady loved me—too deeply, too blindly—and that was what made him useful. With a few sweet words, a few soft touches, that man was willing to cross hell for me. I knew that. I exploited that. I held him so tightly that I thought he would never break free.
That is why his betrayal stabbed deeper than the knife in my stomach. Until my last breath, I did not understand. Why? How could the man I had so carefully shaped, controlled, and tamed—turn and stab me with trembling hands… as if he were more wounded than I?
Was it because of another woman? Impossible. I am not the most beautiful woman—I am realistic. But I know love isn't about beauty. Love is about possession. Monopoly. Obsession. And there wasn't a single woman in this world who monopolized Roady more than I did.
Not because I was the most cunning. But because I was the first. I was the one who had been there the longest. I was the one who gripped his heart the deepest. I was certain his heart contained only me. Only me.
Then… why did he stab me?
The answer lies in this ring. Now, I understand.
All this time, I controlled Roady by manipulating his desire to possess and monopolize my life. But that very feeling was what killed me. When he felt I was no longer entirely his… his fear turned into a lethal decision.
If Roady cannot have me—then no one shall have me.
That is the mad logic of a man I bound too tightly until that rope finally strangled him. And at that moment, he was easily influenced. Manipulated. Someone exploited the gap I had left open. Then, the tragedy occurred.
I know exactly when everything began to crumble. It all started when I met that man—the man with white hair and purple eyes. When our gazes locked, I felt something within me move… something I had never felt before.
Desire. Possession. The urge to monopolize. So strong. So sudden. So dangerous.
I fell in love. At first sight. I—who never believed in such things. But it happened. And the world knows no coincidences. Not in Ignisira. Not in the Procession Tower.
Suddenly, everything made sense. Why I fell in love with that purple-eyed man. Why I woke up from a dream of the future with a ring on my finger. Everything stems from the same reason as…
Why the Great War between races is called the Bride War.
Why the world we were thrown into is named the Procession Tower.
No one knows who first uttered those names. Yet everyone says them naturally, as if they are part of the world's basic logic. As if they were planted deep within our instincts. As if… something greater than all of us is moving behind the scenes.
And I know… if this great war is called the Bride War, then I am not the only "Bride." Perhaps I cannot even be called a "Bride" yet. There is more than one candidate. There are many other women involved in this war. Women who are all being directed toward the same center stage. Toward the same altar.
The Procession Tower…
I used to think that name was merely a symbol or a metaphor. Now I know it is a reality. This tower is my path to the altar. Step by step. Trial by trial. The battles, the losses, the manipulation, the blood—all of it is merely a procession toward a single endpoint.
Before the vows are spoken… before hands are held… before the kiss that marks the official ownership is solemnized… there is no certainty as to who will stand as the Bride. Not me. Not the other women who might share my fate.
And yet, one thing feels incredibly clear. Too clear.
That purple-eyed man… is the Groom.
Even before I could understand my own feelings, my body, my heart, and my instincts had already confirmed it. There is something in him that draws, calls, and grips me from within the darkness—as if I had been marked long before that meeting ever took place.
He is waiting. Whether he is waiting for me… or waiting for us, all the Bride candidates, to arrive at the altar where fate is determined.
And when I woke up—when my breath re-entered this body, when that ring circled my finger—I heard it. Not with my ears, but with the same instinct that has saved me all this time. A signal. A faint vibration beneath my skin.
The war trumpets have been blown.
And the Bride War… has begun once more.