<p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]"><em>"This time, without fail — I swear I will not love that man."</em></p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">Those were the words Averifa Regira Gadiel da Nozenleefs spoke to the gods as she lay dying in the underground prison of Nozenleefs Ducal Castle. She had once been the wife of the lord of that house.</p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">The Winstein Empire — the greatest nation in the world, said to have been founded by the gods themselves, possessing a history stretching back across tens of thousands of years. Blessed from its founding by the protection of the Supreme God Tutira and the five gods once hailed as the strongest of their age, the empire's glory has never dimmed.</p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">Separate from the imperial family, there existed five ducal houses known as the Five Divine Dukes — families descended from those very gods, wielding immense influence throughout the empire. Averifa was the daughter of one of those houses: the Shberim Duchy.</p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">Though she had been killed, Averifa found herself suddenly returned to the past. Overcome with gratitude and believing this miracle to be a gift from the gods themselves, she resolved that in her second life she would never again love the man who had once been her husband.</p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">But contrary to her intentions —</p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">Ares Uriel Gadiel da Nozenleefs, the man who had been her husband in her first life, begins to take notice of the woman who now turns away from him.</p> <p class="font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]">This is the story of a love so great it would shake the foundations of the empire itself.</p>