The Villainess's Letter
Your Highness,
Do you remember the day we first met? That night, the moon suspended in the sky shone with a particularly solitary light. On that day, you sat alone in the palace garden, keeping company only with loneliness. Had I not appeared, you would likely have remained there by yourself until your birthday celebrations ended.
Yet when you discovered me wandering like a lost lamb, you generously offered your warm hand. To me—sitting hunched in a corner of the garden like a lone skiff adrift on a sea of despair—that hand was salvation. The shadows in the darkness appeared to me as monsters. So terrifying. So frightening. I have not forgotten those emotions even now. After all, they were what led me to meet you.
Were it not for your help, I might still be shivering alone in that darkness.
From that moment, I fell in love with you. Why must love have some grand justification? My heart simply rang out that way. That is all.
From that day on, this girl devoted everything to becoming a woman worthy of standing at your side. She studied not only etiquette but also broadened her knowledge and mastered the refined arts of music and painting. It was hardly an easy path. A pain like having my bones carved away assailed me like a raging storm. Nevertheless, the reason I could not abandon it was because my love for you burned that fiercely. Even now, I believe this to be true.
And then, finally, on the day you accepted our engagement, the realization that our hearts were one brought me greater joy than any reward for my efforts. I could not help but shed tears. So it was not a moon I had cherished alone. You felt the same way. Foolishly, I let myself believe that.
Even if that child you cherished so dearly had never appeared, would those feelings have been nothing more than an illusion destined to melt like snow on a warm spring day?
When you first brought that child into the palace, I did not think much of it. I was merely impressed by your benevolence. But as time passed, I could see your heart changing. Though you claimed to restrain your emotions as much as possible, I already knew everything. I knew that your heart had already drifted far from me.
I was furious. I was jealous. But as time went on, one grows accustomed to such things, does one not? At first, I fought to win you back, strictly observing the royal family’s austere laws. In duels, in refinement, in scholarship—none of them could that child possibly rival me.
However, witnessing how you defended that child until the very end, I finally understood. Ah, I am finished.
It was only when my golden hair—once praised by my mother as brilliant even amid her worries—had completely lost its luster that I accepted it. Even if I could not be your principal wife, even if I were merely a concubine, it would have been enough. I simply wished to remain by your side.
But you would not permit even that. You scorned me, and furthermore, you coldly denounced me and publicly branded me a villainess. Me, who had fought with honor according to the law. Me, who was once your intended.
Is it any surprise that people now call me a villainess and point accusing fingers? Yet what pained me far more was your suddenly altered demeanor.
Your Highness. Did you despise me so intensely? Was I so repulsive that you could not bear the sight of me? Why do you lavish such affection on that child alone, while treating me—who has devoted her entire life to you and you alone—with such heartless cruelty?
If those were truly your sincere feelings, then why did you accept our engagement? If only you had rejected me harshly from the beginning. If only we had not spent so much time together. Then it would not hurt this much.
Your Highness. I resent you—who has stripped away my family and my honor—more than anyone in this world. Yet at the same time, a small fragment of my heart still wishes for your happiness.
I ask for nothing more. Simply remember this: that there was once a foolish woman who loved you more than anyone else.
I must now depart for the north. Most likely, the day we meet again will never come. Still, that is fine. If it is what you desire, I will go gladly. Until the day my life ends, may the goddess watch over you.
— The Foolish Woman Who Loved You