Harchen groaned in an even more agonized voice and pressed his lips against her protruding spine.

“Well then, I’ll quickly go tell Eva about this…”

As Patricia put her hand on his thigh and stood up, he urgently embraced her waist and laid her down on the bed.

“Where do you think you’re going? Solve my problem.”

“Is there a problem?”

Harchen held both her struggling wrists with one hand, pinning them to the bed, and quickly unbuttoned his shirt with his left hand.

“It’s a serious problem. And we’re on our honeymoon, so only worry about my problem.”

Patricia covered her eyes with both hands.

“I can see the sky. It’s too bright.”

“I love you! I love you so much.”

He took her hands covering her eyes and kissed the hollow of her palm.

Though it was broad daylight, it was suitable for tasting the ecstatic sensation of melting into each other.

Until the fading light fell, Harchen held her body and exhaled passionate breaths. Red twilight streamed through the round glass in the ceiling.

Ecstasy intertwined with the red sunset.

*

Eden unfolded a large paper on the conference table in the multipurpose banquet hall of Notos Palace. He carefully examined the small pieces of paper drawn in fragments and placed them in position.

He gauged the distance of the maze-like paths on the paper using his thumb and index finger. He drew lines against the sharply folded paper.

He drew the secret passages in the inner walls and underground of the Tane main palace and Queen Pamila’s Pyropus Palace.

Knock knock, tap.

“Come in.”

A man dressed in black clothes and a robe entered. He removed his hood, knelt at Eden’s feet, bent his arm and greeted.

“Master.”

It was Kin, Eden’s confidant, the Black Wall.

“The old woman?”

“She has been re-incarcerated in Bihar Prison.”

“Any contacts?”

“None yet.”

“Take a look at this.”

Eden pointed to a spot on the map showing the inner walls and underground secret passages of Pyropus Palace.

“When I entered this point, it was blocked here. Was the wall broken through afterwards? This is what you drew, Kin.”

Eden showed a small piece of paper.

“I remember. When you went, it must have been a disguised wall. From what I observed, it wasn’t newly opened. The wall and stones were worn and eroded.”

“Then, if you turn from here to here, it’s the Queen’s prayer room, but do you know where this passage connects to?”

“Yes. It’s the Queen’s bedroom.”

“Ha! So they have a deep relationship after all?”

“It’s not unrelated. Yesterday too, Duke Parse was in the reception room connected to the Emperor’s bedroom.”

“Yesterday too?”

“Yes.”

“Ha, when did you first witness Duke Parse using the passage?”

“The first sighting was about a month ago, and for the past two weeks, I’ve seen it once every three days. I was standing on this side of the wall.”

“Then he might not be in the Emperor’s bedroom on the Queen’s birthday.”

“That’s my guess.”

“Leave ‘Black Ash’ for the old Hunsok woman and send ‘Black Butterfly’ to Duke Parse. And from today, you are Prince Patrick’s wall. Luken and Torun Kingdom… let’s go together.”

“With you, master. That sounds good.”

“Go to His Highness now. I’ve reserved two rooms on the second floor of Arteum on Ephi Street. I’ll come a little later.”

“As you command.”

‘Going to the Kingdom of Torun.’

Even just pronouncing “Kingdom of Torun” made Eden’s heart ache.

“Eden, when all this is over, I’m going to the Kingdom of Torun with Eva. We’ll eat seafood cooked by Eva in a small house overlooking the sea, and swim in the sea on sunny afternoons.”
“Yes, my lord. I’ll go with you.”
“Then you can catch the fish.”

The death of Empress Aldisha. Emperor Kazan held a simplified funeral under the pretext of the red death plague outbreak.

After the funeral, he ordered the coffin to be taken to the Kingdom of Torun by the Empress’s guard knights. Two guard knights and his lord loaded the coffin onto a carriage and went to the Kingdom of Torun.

Eden couldn’t follow due to the Queen who was weighing Patrick’s death from the red death plague. Until Patricia returned, torrential rain poured down, and Eden swallowed red tears as much as the pouring rainwater.

Tap.

Eden’s bedroom door opened.

“Go.”

At Eden’s command, the Black Wall disappeared without a reply.

“Ex…cuse me.”

Julia, who was coming out covering her mouth with both hands, stopped in her tracks when she saw Eden.

‘Lord Eden? But why am I…? In the same space as that person?’

Eden Patterson.

Among the female students at Tane Academy, portraits 1, 2, and 3 were famous. It meant a man who couldn’t do anything but appreciate, but couldn’t help but keep looking at.

The Crown Prince Harchen of the Golden Empire was arrogant, and female students didn’t dare approach him due to Julia who was always stuck to him like a glove.

Prince Patrick was kind to everyone, both female and male students, and listened attentively to what others had to say.

He had a sharp and persistent side that refuted the arguments of conservative and authoritative professors, but he carefully listened to opinions that expounded proper theories regardless of status. He was especially active in discussions with young nobles of Tane.

However, there was a rumor that he had a congenital disease and was terminally ill, and he was in a situation where his life was hanging on the battlefield flag due to the war-maniac Emperor Kazan’s war observations.

He was kind to the young ladies but didn’t go as far as romantic relationships and skillfully rejected young ladies who took courage.

The one that noble young ladies and commoner ladies alike stuck their tongues out at was Eden Patterson.

Tall with platinum blonde hair reaching his shoulders and red eyes, a face as white and sharp as a sheet of paper.

Even wearing just a black shirt, his shoulders fell as if padded, and his chest and waist looked sleek and firm, making one want to wrap their arms around him.

In terms of personality, he was the most unpleasant. He had never answered when spoken to by any student, male or female, except his lord Patrick. He just stared into the distance with his red eyes.

Julia was shocked and dizzy at the fact that such a man was in front of her eyes, and her body swayed.

‘Could it be, did that person undress me? No, it can’t be.’

“…Lord! Explain why I’m here.”

As expected, Eden didn’t even look at Julia and got up from his chair to pull the bell rope.

“I called for a maid.”

Eden neatly folded the papers he had spread out on the table. Julia walked over to the table where Eden was sitting and placed her hands on it.

“You, explain directly.”

Julia was aware of her usual sleeping habits. The maids had told her numerous times, and she herself vaguely remembered.

She had a lot of anger in her nature and lacked patience. In moments of anger, she would throw anything to suppress her anger, and she would beat maids who didn’t listen to her or irritated her nerves.

Some of it was learned from seeing the Duchess Leak, but it was also her innate nature.

She had been raised with excessive indulgence from a very young age, and had a temperament that she had to get what she should have, even if by force.

At seven years old, if a young lady from a viscount’s family confessed her crush on the Crown Prince, she would be locked in Julia’s room and beaten with a fan.

Even looking at the Crown Prince, whether it was a young lady from a count or baron’s family, or a princess from a neighboring kingdom, required Julia’s permission.

She couldn’t even stand a little heat and would take off her nightgown in her sleep if she felt hot.

Especially on days when she drank alcohol, she would loosen her front collar because her chest felt tight. It was a fact well known to her as all ten out of ten maids and servants unanimously told her about her rough sleeping habits.

Then surely last night, she must have thrown off not just a loose nightgown, but the uncomfortable dress and pannier.

But when she woke up in an unfamiliar room, all the ribbon knots on the front of her dress were neatly tied, the hem of the dress was tidy, and even the blanket was snugly covering her up to her neck.

This was surely someone’s touch that had been tidying up to hide her sleeping habits until just now, she surmised, and she was convinced that person was Eden Patterson.

‘Then shouldn’t he explain?’

No matter how much she had drunk, she wasn’t so weak to alcohol that she would lose consciousness like this, and there was no way she would have fallen asleep somewhere she didn’t even know.

Surely, she jumped to the conclusion that Eden, that guy, must have done something improper.

Moreover, in her hazy memory, it felt like she had hugged someone.

‘…No way?’

“Lord! You’re Prince Patrick’s knight, right?”

Eden finally lifted his gaze to look at Julia. Seeing his indifferent red eyes, Julia introduced herself with the feeling of ‘Surely, he doesn’t know me?’

“I am Lady Julia of the Duke Leak family from the Karsik Empire.”

“…”

“…Lord? You don’t know me?”

“…”

Even a wall would seem to answer once.

“How can you not know me? We bumped into each other so many times at the academy.”

‘The Emperor’s woman. How rude.’

At that moment, the maid who had been called entered.

“Please arrange for the young lady to return home.”

Eden said to the maid, then gathered the folded papers and stood up.

“Lord! I told you to explain the circumstances, didn’t I?”

“You were found collapsed in front of this palace last night and were laid in an empty bedroom.”

“Is that all?”

“…”

“Should I request an official explanation through my father Duke Leak and the guard? Tell me the truth, in detail.”

“How willful.”

The Emperor and his woman, huh. I’d like to expose it all to the world, but I’ll hold off for now since it would hurt my lord’s feelings.

He glared coldly at Julia, then turned sharply and went outside.

Eden went out to the courtyard where sunlight fell in straight lines and leaned against the Minerva statue. Julia didn’t occupy even as much space as dust in his mind.

He glared at the sunlit ground with his red eyes.

The spider and red ants?

I’ll kill the spider and red ants for you.

Sentences added respectively to the carrier pigeons exchanged between Patrick and Patricia. That false charge made Patricia a sacrificial lamb for the national marriage.

After the national marriage was decided, Eden diverted the document that a guard knight was about to put in the furnace. The handwriting was ingeniously similar, but you could tell if you looked closely.

Patrick’s handwriting was neat but a languid script that didn’t apply pressure, while Patricia’s was a script where you could feel the force of pressing hard even at a glance. But those two sentences were all written in neat block letters.

Such an absurd and sloppy plot working due to blind malice.

Emperor Kazan and Empress Pamila, add one more there, Duke Parse. He pondered how to call these three to one place.

Eden leaned against the statue and looked up at the sky. He blankly stared at the deep blue sky, the white clouds passing by the green spire of the not-too-distant palace.

Now that the national marriage has been done, is it unreasonable to live in the Kingdom of Torun?

Prince Patrick, my lord, I will go against your will and do it, and after that, like those clouds…

“The statue wasn’t put there for you to lean on.”

The voice of Harchen, Emperor of the Golden Empire, was heard.