When Julia heard from her maid that the Captain of the Imperial Guard had come to Duke Leak’s residence, her heart pounded.

‘Ah, finally. Are they announcing the marriage?’

The day before, Carolina had come and told her, as if doing her a favor. She said that the next day, the Empress Dowager would propose to the Emperor to announce the marriage with Lady Leak at breakfast.

It was strange. It was too early for the imperial breakfast to be over.

Moreover, if they were bringing a message about the marriage proposal from the Empress Dowager, the Chief Chamberlain should have come, not the Captain of the Guard.

“Girl, stop brushing.”

Julia pushed away the maid who was brushing her hair and went to the Duke’s office.

In the corridor, she encountered the Duke in full uniform and the Duchess handing him gloves. Julia gave her morning greetings with proper etiquette and then asked.

“Father. What business does the Captain of the Guard have here?”

“Julia. Kazan of Tane has broken the peace treaty and invaded. Stay indoors and keep your mother company.”

“Ah, Father. Is His Majesty participating in the war?”

“I must go.”

Julia lifted her dress hem and walked quickly to match the Duke’s urgent pace.

‘Then, what about the marriage announcement? Is it being postponed again? What if Harchen gets hurt?’

Julia grabbed the Duke’s sleeve as he mounted his horse.

“Father, please. Go to war instead of His Majesty.”

“Having only one daughter…”

The Duke glanced down at Julia with a displeased expression and spurred his horse. The knights followed behind him. The Duke firmly decided that he should try harder to have an heir before it was too late.

Duke Leak also had no war experience. No matter how much his only daughter pleaded, he had no intention of going to war in place of the Emperor where life and death hung in the balance.

Even if not himself, there were plenty of young, passionate knights who would lay down their lives for the Emperor. Even against the war-crazed Kazan, there was no need for the Emperor to lead personally.

They could send the Captain of the Guard or Calip as an advance party to buy time, then form an expedition team with mercenaries mining in the Kaosan and Roche mountain ranges. The longer the war dragged on, the more disadvantageous it would be for Tane.

It would look good if the Emperor and the Duke joined the rear guard side by side.

When Duke Leak and his knights arrived at the entrance of the imperial palace, the Emperor and his soldiers were coming out after finishing the departure ceremony.

The Duke and knights dismounted, knelt on their left knee, and bowed their heads.

The Emperor passed by with his usual cold expression, despite seeing Duke Leak and the knights.

It was indeed an urgent situation, but shouldn’t he at least nod to acknowledge the man who would soon be his father-in-law?

The Duke’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and his earlobes grew hot.

Julia had been anxious ever since hearing that the Emperor was leading the expedition himself. Waiting for news from Pana Fortress was hellish.

Carolina also delivered news that added fuel to her anxiety.

She said that the head maid Anna had purchased a large quantity of ladies’ items from Rose Marie, a clothing shop in Epi Street in the capital, and sent them to Pana Fortress.

Despite her mother the Duchess’s attempts to dissuade her, Julia insisted on departing with a small entourage in one of the Duke’s carriages.

Thanks to traveling non-stop for two days, when she stopped her carriage at the main Pana Fortress, she witnessed ladies’ items being unloaded from the carriage in front.

Julia pressured the butler to uncover the details of the ladies’ items purchase that had filled the carriage reserved for imperial business.

‘The leader of the enemy nation that started the war was a woman? The captured prisoner is the Princess of Tane?’

Julia recalled her days studying abroad at the Tane Academy. It was the first time she had heard of a princess in the Tane Empire. She couldn’t believe it.

Even more unbelievable was that a woman had escaped from the impregnable Pana Fortress.

“Bring the maids who attended to her.”

“My Lady, the two Heun maids are in the underground prison as punishment for negligent surveillance of the prisoner.”

“Then shall I go to the underground prison?”

It was the butler’s first time meeting Lady Leak in person. However, even the butler had heard rumors that she would have married the Emperor if not for the late Emperor’s passing. The butler bowed his head.

“Please wait a moment. I will bring them.”

As the butler left, Julia went to the window of the reception room. She turned to her maid who had come with her from the Duke’s residence.

“You!”

“Yes, I’m Lena.”

“Right, Lena. Come here and draw the curtains.”

Lena went to her side and drew back the heavy double curtains.

Julia looked up at the wide moat and castle walls with sharp eyes. From the first-floor reception room, the castle walls seemed to stretch endlessly into the sky.

“Look. They say a woman climbed over that wide moat and those high walls. She must have a build as sturdy as a man’s. Don’t you think?”

“Yes, yes. It’s dizzying just to look up at it.”

‘But why? A dress? They prepared it for such a prisoner.’

With a knock, the butler entered with two maids.

Julia was also irritated to see that the faces and appearances of the maids brought from the underground prison were clean, without any signs of beating.

“Butler, you may leave.”

Julia sat on the sofa and gestured for the maids to come closer.

“Kneel down here.”

As he brought the maids out of the underground prison, the butler had pondered how to explain about the young lady.

While rumors in noble society confirmed her as the Emperor’s fiancée, there had been no official announcement.

So the butler had simply told them to politely answer what they knew to Lady Leak.

The maids knelt and bowed their heads.

“Tell me everything you know about the prisoner.”

The Heun maids answered without calculation.

“They said she was a princess, but she wasn’t strict, she was gentle.”

“Her face and golden hair were radiant.”

“Yes, that’s right. She was beautiful but a bit lively.”

“She wasn’t just lively. She was vivacious but had dignity.”

The maids described her manner of speaking, cute behavior, and even her vivacious and lively dancing in detail.

“Does a person of dignity start a war? Wielding a sword!”

Julia was infuriated by the maids’ naive praises.

‘How vulgar, dancing in pants in front of the maids.’

What pushed her anger to its peak was hearing that they had tied the prisoner to the Emperor’s bed and let her sleep there.

“Where was His Majesty, where was he?”

“His Majesty slept in the reception room.”

Even with the maid’s answer, Julia’s rage remained as taut as a viper.

“You helped the prisoner escape. You made her pants and gave her scissors, didn’t you?”

Finally, unable to contain her emotions, Julia, overcome with anger, struck the maids’ cheeks with a fan adorned with dangling jewels.

The silver ornaments encasing the jewels scratched the maid’s cheek, drawing drops of blood, and her lip split, blood gurgling out. Shocked by the sudden violence, the maids couldn’t even scream, just swallowing their breath. They cupped their blood-soaked cheeks.

Just then, cheers were heard from the direction of the castle gate.

“Harchen, Harchen, Harchen!”

It was the sound announcing the Emperor’s return.

Julia ordered the maids to leave and instructed her own maid to tidy her face and hair. Lena, who was quickly working with her hands, said,

“My Lady. You are so beautiful.”

Lena was a maid who knew how to say only what the young lady wanted to hear.

“Well then, let’s go.”

*

The Emperor sat with his back straight, slowly crossing his long legs.

He lifted his head towards the ceiling, then lowered only his gaze to look at Julia. He was like a black wolf sitting rigidly on the edge of a high rock.

Harchen saw the moist eyes of the young lady looking at him with a blushing face. For a moment, he recalled Patricia’s indifferent gaze, which had been so calm, and felt irritated.

Most ladies look at me with such eyes. How could they not.

He recalled the moment when he had embraced Patricia from the side as she looked out the window with her wrists bound, when she had asked, “Who are you?”

Ha! Patricia. To not remember this Harchen, this handsome face.

As time passed and he slowly chewed over the incident, he became even more infuriated.

I wonder what reaction she’ll show when she comes before me again.

He thought of the marriage proposal from Emperor Kazan’s negotiation offer and smirked. The fact that he could afford to smile was because he had decided on the royal marriage.

He paid no attention to Julia, who was sitting before him now with her hands clasped, looking at him.

His mind was completely filled with thoughts of the Tane Princess who had been his prisoner. His emotions fluctuated with his thoughts – excitement, anger, anxiety, and even intense thirst.

He lifted the pewter cup he was holding with his long fingers and gulped it down. As the strong liquor went down his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbed noticeably.

Julia gazed at the Emperor’s cold expression as if touching him with her eyes.

His sensitive and prickly-looking face was devilishly handsome, enough to steal one’s soul every time she looked at it.

Sometimes he would smile, lifting the corners of his mouth. When Sir Calip made a silly joke, he would smile as if sneering, and it was so magnificent it could tangle the hearts of those who saw it.

Broad and straight shoulders, a slender waist filled with muscle, veined backs of hands, an Adam’s apple that moved wildly, long and firm legs.

Every thousand times she looked, her heart would boil.

The Emperor undid one button of his uniform and traced the wound on his neck with his fingertips.

Then he glanced briefly at the fan Julia was holding open. Each section of the open folding fan was trimmed with lace, with jeweled decorations hanging in the center.

“Lady Leak, what brings you here?”

Julia, who had been staring as if entranced at the red wound revealed between the high collar of his uniform, barely gathered her wits and set down the teacup she was holding on the saucer.

“Her Majesty the Empress Dowager was worried about Your Majesty participating directly in the battlefield, so she wanted me to deliver some medicinal pills.”

An obvious ploy.

“You came to a war zone with just a knight and a maid, without an escort?”

The Emperor raised his empty pewter cup. The butler standing beside him lifted a bottle of Panian and poured. Julia clutched the hem of her dress with her lace-gloved hand.

“Your, Your Majesty. The ladies’ dresses and items in Pana Fortress, why……”

“……”

The Emperor abruptly stood up. His brusque movement of standing up cut off Julia’s question. The Emperor turned to the butler and said,

“Butler, she says she came to deliver medicine, so receive it.”

Harchen went to the window and looked down at the moat. He recalled Patricia swimming in the dark water that had spread with darkness. Ah, how did she avoid the poisonous snakes?

“Your Majesty. This is my first time in this area. I heard the scenery of Lake Pana is beautiful, especially the forest turning red as the sun sets…”

“Lady!”

Harchen sat on the windowsill with his arms crossed.

“We are at war. Do you wish to see the red blood shed by enemy and ally troops rather than the sunset?”

“Your, Your Majesty. I have something to say to you alone.”

Julia said in a low, trembling voice. The Emperor neither offered Julia tea nor dismissed the butler and Calip. Julia was asking him to send them away now.

For a moment, the air in the reception room froze in silence. The butler and Calip looked at the Emperor.

“Leave us.”

At the Emperor’s dismissal, they left, and Julia turned towards the Emperor, lowering her head slightly, and said,

“Tonight. I will come to Your Majesty’s bedchamber.”