The two of them should run away!

The emaciated Ostaine princess, his wife, shouted with all the strength left in her body, unleashing her fury.

It seemed like a belief that they absolutely had to do so. The words of the frail princess, who looked like she might collapse at any moment, did not carry much authority in the Crania Empire.

But to Peon, her words were absolute, though even she wouldn’t believe it.

It’s ridiculous and pathetic that after giving her such a miserable and humiliating death, he’s now so hung up on Kaella, who is no longer anything to him. Kaella will find him disgusting. He knows.

But Peon, who had always been bound by duty and responsibility, couldn’t dare defy her. Whether Kaella reacted completely differently from before her regression or not, he had to at least try as she said.

It must be either the atonement of a fool or Peon’s typical lingering attachment.

“It’s hard to meet these days.”

As soon as he left the Ostaine family townhouse, he went to meet Beatrice Lavalle.

She had been avoiding him with various excuses after he proposed without a ring, without sincerity, and without even mentioning the word marriage. It was natural. She had no intention of marrying Peon as her mother, the Duchess of Monde, wished.

But Peon, who had already assigned a loyal observer to her, could easily appear unexpectedly when Beatrice was alone.

“Peon.”

Beatrice was very flustered. Why had Peon, who rarely met her out of consideration even when he came to Crain and didn’t attend social events, come to see her again?

She quickly looked around in case anyone was watching. But Peon calmly looked only at Beatrice.

Beatrice hurriedly ran and hugged him.

“How did you come? Other people might see…”

“It’s alright. No one’s here.”

She looked up at Peon. With just that expression of gazing up at men with doe-like eyes, Beatrice could steal hearts and capture gazes. Peon looked down at those lovely pink eyes without emotion.

There was a time when he found comfort in those eyes. There was a time when he dreamed of marrying her someday. When he was twelve, no, thirteen perhaps. It was when the innocent boy’s first love briefly passed by.

To Peon, now living his twenty-eighth year for the second time, it was a gaze that had faded too long ago. After seeing the disgusting truth hidden behind those eyes, and after breaking free from the taboo, all that remained was the fact that even his memories had been deceived.

“…I heard the news. That His Majesty the Emperor… you and that Kaella…”

Beatrice couldn’t finish her sentence and her eyes welled up with tears.

Peon knew she had the talent to shed tears at will if she wanted. At the same time, he noticed the long-held contempt in the words “that Kaella”. Beatrice looked down on Kaella.

“What do you want to do?”

So those tears weren’t worth responding to individually. Or rather, he was too annoyed to do so. Peon had a personality that was indifferent to the point of being cold to those he deemed worthless, just as he had been to Kaella in Lucenford.

“What do you mean, what do I want to do? How can you ask such a question, Peon? Of course I want to be with you, but how can I defy the imperial order?”

Beatrice, knowing she had no power, only shed tears. She just desperately held his hand.

Through her tears and hand, a pitch-black taboo seeped into him. Every such word was a spell. With each added word, the spell endlessly reinforced the taboo. It was designed to make Peon take those words at face value.

“Peon, are you, are you going to forget me? No. I, I’m alone here. You know. I have no one but you.”

Forcibly suppressing the corners of his mouth that were trying to twist involuntarily at the words that were no different from a curse spell, Peon asked as Kaella had cried out.

“Shall we run away?”

He spoke the words he would never say. Beatrice turned pale.

“Th-that… how… that’s impossible, Peon. Come to your senses.”

If she was going to pretend to be a lover mad with love, she should have at least played along a bit. Even Beatrice, who could control how many tears to shed, couldn’t act perfectly in a moment of great surprise.

“It’s an imperial order, an imperial order!”

Imperial order. Isn’t that the biggest word they had brainwashed Peon to ultimately obey? Why is Peon suddenly acting like this?

“So you’re fine with me marrying another woman.”

His tone was calm. Everything fit as he had known, so he wasn’t very surprised.

But his voice was fundamentally a very low bass, and even when he spoke plainly, listeners would often startle and become afraid for no reason. Beatrice, surprised, examined Peon’s unreadable face.

“How could that be okay? I only have eyes for you! How can you say such a thing, Peon…”

As Beatrice buried her face in his chest and cried with shaking shoulders, he couldn’t shake off the feeling of annoyance.

He was annoyed and disgusted. Because of this abominable taboo disguised as tears, he kept realizing anew how foolish he had been.

“Run away, how could we run away. His Majesty the Emperor wouldn’t leave us alone. It’s not that I’m okay with you getting married. It feels like my heart is being torn apart.”

Even as she rambled on, she thought Peon, who knew nothing, was a fool, didn’t she? Recalling what Beatrice had raved in madness in front of his wife’s corpse, Peon waited until she stopped on her own.

Although Beatrice said many things, nothing entered his ears. Now, the spells she had carefully built were nothing more than meaningless babbling to him.

“I see.”

Peon just nodded casually.

“You understand what I’m saying, don’t you, Peon?”

“Yes.”

“You mustn’t forget me. Promise me you’ll only love me.”

He didn’t answer the woman who would mock him, saying he should have looked at Kaella instead of her at the moment of marriage.

Another day was passing in Crain, and darkness was falling.

Beatrice cast spells on him several times, saying he shouldn’t abandon her, and then parted as if she had no choice. The man and woman pretending to be in love while in disguise were both very busy.

*

“Come in.”

The Emperor, who had briefly summoned Peon, beckoned to him.

“Come closer. You must be bewildered, being suddenly told to marry?”

The Emperor had been exceptionally friendly to Peon since the Empress collapsed. Peon, who had once properly died by the Emperor’s hand, knew well that this friendliness could quickly turn into murderous intent, so he didn’t attach any particular meaning to it.

However, the nobles, except for him, were amazed. The Emperor had never treated the Empress’s illegitimate child, whom he always sent to the frontlines, so kindly.

Peon was the very embodiment of shame to the Emperor. The Empress’s only child, and a strong son at that, made it even worse.

Among the Emperor’s illegitimate children, there was no one as all-around excellent and handsome as Peon. There were constant rumors about how incredibly good-looking the man the Empress had fallen in love with must have been, though no one knew who he was.

“I’m just cautious about marrying at this time when Your Majesty is worried about Her Majesty the Empress.”

Could he somehow cancel it? Although the numerous lives hanging on his shoulders would be lost in vain if this marriage were overturned, Peon didn’t give up and looked for possibilities.

“Yes, yes. You must not feel good about it. But the Empress’s collapse has made me even more clear-headed. You too should settle down and become a head of household.”

The Emperor nodded and gestured to the chief attendant beside him. The chief attendant came over politely and held out a velvet box to Peon.

Peon took it for now. He wouldn’t have been surprised even if there was a sharp dagger or poison inside.

“Open it.”

But what was inside the box was not a knife, but jewels. There was a bracelet of intricately woven citrine and diamonds emitting beautiful radiance, and a rather large diamond ring.

“It’s one of the Empress’s jewels. It’s still a marriage, so shouldn’t there be an engagement ring when proposing?”

“…Thank you for your thoughtful consideration.”

“A man should prepare the ring.”

There was a ring for Kaella before too. He was so indifferent that he couldn’t remember what it looked like or how he had prepared and given it. He only remembered that Kaella always wore it preciously.

He only remembered seeing her crying and searching for it from afar when she once lost it. A rumor spread in Lucenford that the Grand Duchess had put a spell on the wedding ring to communicate with the Emperor’s side.

‘It must have been Beatrice’s doing. Even the ring’s brief disappearance must have been intentional.’

Lucenford was driven to extremes amidst the Lucenford nobles who bullied the foreign Grand Duchess and the Emperor’s spies. Who could he blame? In the end, it was the fault of him, the Grand Duke.

“It’s an honor, Your Majesty.”

He became good at saying things he didn’t mean, even though it wasn’t that honorable. As he casually used words others often said, the Emperor looked after him as if he were his own son. It made him want to laugh cynically.

*

What to do about this marriage? He had regressed, done his best to prevent deaths, and the Empress, his mother, had quietly collapsed.

Although much had changed, it was absurd that the marriage was still being arranged, but in fact, Peon absolutely could not refuse the marriage according to the plan now. Even at today’s luncheon, Duke Ostaine firmly grasped Peon’s hand.

‘Please take good care of my daughter.’

Adeo knew well that Peon was currently the best groom Kaella could choose.

But Peon knew well that he was the worst of the worst. Kaella was already angry, wasn’t she? Every time he faced her, Peon always realized how shabby and powerless he was in front of her.

No matter how much he thought about it, he could only conclude that he had to marry her to protect her, which made him feel even more pathetic.

“Your Highness, Lady Lavalle has entered the Soleil Palace again today.”

Lord Renard, who had approached discreetly, reported Lady Lavalle’s actions, which now seemed too suspicious, while carefully observing Peon.

From the first report until now, Beatrice had been secretly entering and leaving the Soleil Palace, the Emperor’s residential palace, without missing a day.

It’s too shocking news that the flower of society, who isn’t even married yet, is regularly visiting the palace where the Emperor stays, avoiding people’s eyes. Peon, who had provided just enough information to pinpoint the fact that no one else knew, actually laughed instead.

“She must be busy.”

Lord Renard was detecting that his upright lord had changed a lot recently. Peon gave instructions with unclear purposes, and every time Lord Renard carried out those instructions, he would discover new truths and fall into shock.

“What should we do?”

“Keep watching.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Darkness fell over Crain, and Peon found himself wandering near the Ostaine family townhouse without realizing it. While Kaella was collapsed, he had been running around trying to prevent this marriage, but the diplomatic situation entangled with Keruzhan was too clearly set.

It was the entire empire’s opinion that they couldn’t hand over the Ostaine Duchy to Keruzhan. So the only heir to the Ostaine Duchy should be tied to Lucenford.

‘The Emperor is already trying to arrange the Ostaine princess’s marriage as he pleases.’

Even if Peon overturned this marriage, Kaella wouldn’t be able to have the marriage she wanted. In the worst case, Adeo could die again. That’s why Adeo had asked him to take good care of his daughter.

Before he could gather his strength, such a thing had happened, so there was little he could do. The political landscape he hadn’t understood before his regression now came into clear view, easily readable, greatly unsettling him.

It was then that Peon’s eyes, passing through the darkness, caught sight of someone slipping out of the Ostaine family townhouse.

*

Objectively speaking, Kaella was not in a state to run away right now.

The severe illness had not yet fully subsided, and the ducal family was worried that the princess might fall deeper into sickness. Originally, Kaella had been prone to minor illnesses since childhood.

‘But it’s all death anyway, isn’t it?’

That’s right. She would die if she was sick, the Emperor would put her in a situation worse than death if she refused this marriage, and she would die even if she complied and went to Lucenford.

She’s a cunning spy for the Emperor who pretends to be docile! The people of Lucenford had decided she was the woman who would make the Grand Duke unhappy, not Beatrice who would make him happy.

Hahaha, a clear laugh burst out. Although it was followed by painful coughing, Kaella was already out of her mind.

It would be better if her father, who was already grateful just for surviving, had a troublesome daughter to worry about, rather than burdening him more when he was already tense every time he went to the imperial palace.

The close-knit members of the Ostaine ducal family were each struggling under their own burdens.

‘I didn’t think I could actually do it.’

Kaella looked back at the Ostaine townhouse as it receded into the distance. As the Grand Duchess of Lucenford, everywhere had been terribly quiet, and the winters were long.

Thoroughly isolated, she sometimes developed a habit of regretting and ruminating on the past, and her thoughts would sometimes drift towards meaningless directions. For example, ‘I should have done that then’ would become a more concrete plan.

In the flesh-biting cold, the lonely Kaella had concretely imagined running away before getting married. She had done it so many times that she could execute it right away.

She stole a maid’s clothes, smeared soot on her face, and wrapped her platinum blonde hair in a headscarf. She had learned the harsh ways of the world in Lucenford. Even if she fell to rock bottom, it would be less miserable than Lucenford.

‘If I’m caught, I’ll die.’

Or be dragged to Lucenford. Whatever she did, it was death anyway.

Painful death, less painful death, terrible death anyway. Hahaha. Kaella laughed silently. So, until just before death, she should do whatever she wanted to her heart’s content, and then die as cleanly and quietly as possible.

To the warm south. Unlike Lucenford where it was creepily quiet and snow fell that could easily kill people, let’s go to the noisy and warm south full of warmth. Kaella had always, since Lucenford, wished to die in the warm south.

“Is the Jutilang house closed?”

“I heard they’ve been closing early these days.”

She didn’t mind sharing a smelly hired carriage with several others.

The northern tower where she had last lain was much dirtier. After riding the hired carriage and getting off in a residential area where commoners lived, Kaella decided to walk a lot. She knew well that running away wasn’t something done while riding a fine horse or being escorted.

After walking, she just needed to get past the guards at Crain’s city gate. Which group of people should she blend in with to walk? As Kaella was carefully taking steps, predicting the heightened security due to the recent state of the Empress’s health.

“It’s dangerous to go any further.”

A voice that couldn’t even bring itself to call her princess caught and dragged her away.