Ruhan, who had reached Prince’s Palace where Tarek was with quick steps, found Tarek arrogantly lying on the carpet in the reception room.

“What brings elder brother Ruhan here? I heard Grand General Hades came to the palace, but you didn’t rush there.”

On Tarek’s left shoulder, leaning against the cushion, was a tightly wrapped white bandage.

“I heard my younger brother Tarek was badly injured, so I came to visit.”

Ruhan spoke gently and sat down across from Tarek.

“Ah.”

Tarek didn’t even glance at Ruhan, puffing on his water pipe and staring out the window.

“Tarek.”

“I don’t want to hear mockery. Everyone in the Grand Bazaar must be laughing at me, so please don’t bother me, elder brother.”

From Tarek’s voice, which sounded like phlegm was bubbling, Ruhan could guess that he was very angry.

“I didn’t come to fight. I came to talk for a moment.”

“Mother went to the Sultan’s audience chamber to participate in the trial, so go there and talk. That will be a more enjoyable and beneficial time for you, elder brother.”

Seeing Tarek with no will to converse at all, Ruhan was at a loss for words.

Originally, he hadn’t gotten along well with Tarek since childhood, and it was rare for them to visit each other personally like this.

Ruhan hesitated, thinking of the words he had carefully selected in his mind.

“I regret the incident with the lion.”

“How could I overturn the scheme you and that great general plotted together? Isn’t it fortunate enough that I didn’t lose my life there?”

“……”

“If I don’t catch and punish Hades’ Frau… that Frau wench, I won’t be able to vent my anger.”

Looking at Tarek, who still wasn’t facing him directly, Ruhan calmly asked.

“Is that your anger, or your mother’s anger?”

“Can’t you see who’s injured right now, elder brother?! It’s my anger, whose anger else could it be?!”

Tarek suddenly burst out in anger and threw the water pipe onto the floor.

His left arm, which struck the pipe down so forcefully, didn’t seem to be deeply injured at all.

“Hades has insulted the royal blood. Letting him go without paying for his crime is an insult to our Basili dynasty, and furthermore, it’s committing an act of disrespect to the Sultan.”

Ruhan, fiddling with the small woman’s bracelet in his grasp, said to him.

“Your anger is not directed at Hades, but at me.”

Tarek looked at Ruhan with eyes burning with anger.

“Tarek. I swear, the lion incident was all planned by Hades without my knowledge. Please understand that I didn’t intend to deliberately tease you.”

“Put away that pathetic pretense and just state your business. I’m an injured person, so I need to rest comfortably.”

Ruhan told him with a stern expression.

“Persuade Iota at the trial.”

Tarek looked at Ruhan as if he couldn’t believe it.

**

“Is that the palace?! It’s, it’s amazing…!”

As Latifa looked ahead, there was the Grand Bazaar’s palace, even more magnificent than the Empire’s imperial palace.

The white walls and round dome-shaped roofs were so huge and beautiful that their ends couldn’t be seen even from afar.

The hot desert wind carrying an exotic scent made her eyes sting, but she couldn’t bear to close them in the face of the beautiful exterior of the palace.

“It’s even more wonderful than the Empire’s imperial palace!”

“Have you been to the Empire’s imperial palace?”

“Ah, well. I saw it once when I went to the capital.”

Latifa mumbled, making up a lie.

Hades snorted and said proudly.

“I destroyed half of that imperial palace.”

“……”

It would have been better if he hadn’t added the last part.

Thinking so, Latifa let out a small sigh.

“I left half of it. Someone among you imperial people will start to act high and mighty, claiming to be a founding contributor after rebuilding that palace. When that time comes, you too will begin to write a new history. It’s better for a rotten country to start anew by cutting open its festering wounds.”

“Why didn’t you occupy our empire?”

Latifa cautiously asked him.

“From the beginning, our goal wasn’t to occupy that place. The Sultan ordered us to punish you who invaded our land first, and we just followed that order.”

As Hades answered nonchalantly, they arrived at the large triumphal arch at the main gate of the palace.

While the gatekeepers stood in line guarding the gate, Hades jumped off the camel first and then approached to help Latifa down.

“Grand General Hades, just a moment. I need to look like a goddess, right?”

Latifa smiled and stopped him as he was about to approach.

He looked puzzled for a moment but paused as she said.

Latifa gently stroked the camel’s head and attempted to communicate with the camel’s spirit.

‘Thank you for the ride. Could you help me down?’

The gentle and intelligent camel spirit flicked its ears with a ‘whoosh’ and slowly bent its knees to lie down on the ground.

At this, the surrounding soldiers and gatekeepers murmured in awe, their gazes fixed on Latifa.

“It really is a Kalendein as rumored!”

“The camel moved on its own without a whip. It’s not some kind of trick.”

Hearing the amazed gatekeepers’ exclamations, Latifa proudly lifted her face and looked at Hades as if to say ‘how about that?’

“Your act is quite cute.”

Hades whispered just loud enough for Latifa to hear and extended his hand to her.

Pleased to see Hades’ expression quite satisfied, Latifa happily placed her white hand on top of his.

‘As goddess-like as possible… Gracefully.’

Latifa recalled the elegant walking and etiquette she had learned in the empire as she slowly descended from the camel’s back.

“My Frau.”

Hades kissed the back of her hand with an exaggerated gesture and naturally put his hand on her waist, pulling her close.

Although it was a romantic pose like receiving an escort from a noble English lord, and it should have been embarrassing with so many people watching, Latifa had already been through thick and thin with his touch.

‘I’ve really become bold.’

The past when she used to tremble at just making eye contact with Hades flashed by like a kaleidoscope.

Would she have known then?

That she would come to the Grand Bazaar like this and go to meet their king in a friendly manner with Hades.

As Latifa thought this while walking close to Hades’ side, Hades took out a handful of gold coins and gave them to the man who looked like the head of the gatekeepers, saying:

“Take good care of this desert dog who brought the goddess. Who knows? Her merciful grace that clings to it might transfer to you.”

With those words, the gatekeepers competitively created a small commotion, each claiming they would take care of the camel that Latifa and Hades had ridden.

Hades chuckled at the sight and waited for the huge palace gates to open.

‘His personality is really… strange.’

Hades was truly strange, to say the least.

– Creeeeak.

Finally, through the slowly opening doors, the inner riad of the palace came into view.

The white columns of the colonnade, standing in perfect alignment without a single error, and the elegant corridors filled with splendor were inlaid with tiles of soft, dignified colors.

The geometric gold leaf decorations engraved on each white outer wall shone brilliantly in the setting sunlight.

Along with the splendor, the beauty of restrained white and the beauty of symmetry were fully utilized, and next to the colonnade, small shrubbery and tropical flowers blended together, encompassing the beauty of nature as well.

“Wow…”

Latifa, forgetting that she had just acted gracefully like a goddess, entered the palace looking around in awe.

The desert fox, which had been hopping along playfully, also paused for a moment at the unfamiliar scenery, wagging its tail.

‘Fox, follow along well.’

At the excited voice of the fox, Latifa smiled brightly and made a comment about the palace to Hades.

“The Grand General’s house was nice too, but the palace is really on another level!”

“Why? Do you want to live here?”

Hearing Hades’ voice, which somehow sounded a bit sulky, Latifa quickly changed her answer to something favorable.

“No, no! I like the Grand General’s house better.”

“Why?”

It was unclear why he even asked for a reason. This guy’s mouth is really loose.

Latifa hesitated and made an awkward excuse.

“Uh, there’s Yanan at the Grand General’s house, and the other children are nice too… Uh, and… the fruit is delicious…”

Even to Latifa herself, it sounded like a really unconvincing reason, so her voice grew smaller and smaller.

“What else?”

But Hades, seemingly thinking he had caught another opportunity to tease her, asked quite persistently.

“There’s Caesar too… and, the location is good.”

“Your reasons are really pathetic.”

‘That’s what I want to say.’

Frowning slightly and pondering, Latifa finally spoke carelessly with a ‘whatever happens, happens’ attitude.

“Um… That’s right! There’s also Grand General Hades there.”

“Alright! I’ll accept your prostration!”

Only then did Hades chuckle at her answer and continue walking towards the inner palace.

Several doors blocked the way to the main palace, but the gatekeepers immediately recognized Hades and bowed their heads, clearing the way, so the journey was smooth.

“People seem to fear you.”

“A mad dog should be kept at a distance and approached with caution.”

Then he suddenly barked like a dog at a gatekeeper standing quietly beside them.

“Woof!”

“Eek! I’m sorry, Grand General Hades!”

“You looked too stiff, so I played a little prank. Isn’t it fun?”

The poor gatekeeper trembled in fear and immediately prostrated himself just from that one bark, while Hades burst into laughter, finding something incredibly funny as he passed by.

‘There’s a serious problem with his personality… That person must have had some issues when he was young. Like abusive parents.’

Come to think of it, curiosity arose about Hades’ parents.

Hades seemed too young to have lost his parents.

‘What kind of family education did he receive?’

As Latifa looked at him with a blank face, he raised one eyebrow as if silently urging her to agree quickly.

“…It’s fun. Wow, so fun.”

Despite Latifa’s ambiguous tone, Hades seemed greatly satisfied and grabbed her hand strongly, pulling her along.

“Now, we’re about to enter the main palace where the Sultan is. In the audience hall of the main palace, the person sitting in the center seat is the Sultan, and the woman who will look at you most arrogantly and mockingly will be Iota. When we enter, pay your respects to the Sultan and don’t make any response to Iota.”

Suddenly serious, Latifa nodded in understanding and began to climb the high stairs leading to the main palace, following him.

The desert fox also followed them up the stairs, tumbling and playing around.

The feeling of slowly climbing the foreign palace stairs, which would have been impossible to ascend in the high heels and voluminous dress worn in the empire, was strange.

Exciting and thrilling.

But also somewhat frightening.

“Are you afraid?”

As if reading her thoughts, Hades quietly asked from beside her.

Am I afraid?

Of course.

Since the day I opened my eyes in this Grand Bazaar, there hasn’t been a single day when I wasn’t afraid.

The unknown world I had only read about in books was overwhelmingly vast for her to handle.

The food, the clothes, the speech, all the desert people she encountered, and the exotic animals she saw for the first time.

All of it was frightening.

Latifa looked at the crimson sunset light falling on the palm tree planted in the middle of the staircase and answered honestly.

“Am I afraid, you ask? I haven’t had a single day without fear since I came here.”

“…That’s unfortunate.”

“But Grand General Hades. The strange thing is…”

Latifa turned her head to face him.

Because Hades was standing with his back to the sun, his face was shadowed, making it difficult to see his expression clearly.

“Since the day I came here, I can’t explain it precisely in words, but. It feels like ‘I’ as an existence is being filled with more diverse colors by this intense desert kingdom. Before… I was empty.”

When she lived as the princess of Tania, she had hidden her abilities as much as possible and lived without any purpose.

She had lived anxiously, trying not to get involved in the struggle for the throne, and thought that someday she would be married off as a hostage to another kingdom or noble family.

“I never even thought that I could do something for myself, or for someone else.”

Until she met Hades, she firmly believed without doubt that Latifa Gleicia, as a woman, would fade away after existing so faintly that it was questionable whether she had ever existed in this world.

But everything changed after meeting Hades and coming to the desert.

Although Hades said he brought her to use her abilities, Latifa was feeling that her own existence, which had been so feeble that she couldn’t even raise her voice until now, was gradually growing.

‘Although his method was a bit rough.’

The sun that had been hot during the day was setting, and it was time for darkness to come.

“Everything changed after meeting you. Everything here is frightening, but Grand General Hades. I—”

“Lord Hades!”

Before Latifa could finish her sentence, another woman’s voice urgently calling his name rang out loudly from behind.

“Lord Hades, it’s me! Amira!”