Reborn as the Psycho Villainess Who Ate Her Slave Beasts' Contracts

The ceremony unfolded with rigid grandeur. Every noble family attended; attendance was not optional. Silks in muted tones, bowed heads, controlled grief—an empire performing mourning.

And yet, beneath that discipline, Elara allowed herself something small. Petty. Almost childish.

Tradition demanded white chrysanthemums, symbols of solemn farewell. Instead, the palace gardens were stripped of them entirely. In their place bloomed waves of red and yellow lilies—vivid, almost intrusive against the somber drapery.

She announced, in a voice calm and unshaken, that the emperor had always favored lilies.

It was a flawless lie.In truth, he despised yellow lilies. The mere scent of them triggered violent reactions; physicians had once warned that prolonged exposure could send his heart into spasms. The memory of his fury at the sight of a single misplaced arrangement had lingered with her.

Now the entire mourning hall was drenched in their fragrance.

Nobles whispered behind folded sleeves, astonished. The fourth princess must have loved her father deeply, they murmured. To remember his favorite flowers so precisely.

The irony almost curved her lips.

From her place beside the ceremonial altar, Elara stood in black silk, posture immaculate. She did not shed tears. She could not. The well inside her had long since dried for him.

But she knew how to shape her expression—how to let her gaze appear distant, burdened by something too heavy to voice. Not hysterical grief. Not indifference. Something measured. A daughter who had endured much and lost more.

Hina stood nearby, equally composed. She, too, did not cry. Yet her face carried that exhausted restraint of someone who had survived a long illness at a bedside—relief disguised as sorrow, fatigue mistaken for mourning.

Incense smoke coiled upward, tangling with the scent of lilies.