“Ah. What a mistake.”

Justin clenched and unclenched the hand he had used to throw the dagger at Frost, then laughed as he waved his wrist.

Sapphire-like blue eyes curved sweetly under long golden lashes.

“My hand has gotten rusty from only wielding a pen all day. Are you startled?”

“No, not really. I’m fine, Your Majesty.”

Frost wiped the blood trickling down his cheek with the back of his hand, his expression indifferent.

“No, you’re the lucky one. And I’m the one who’s disappointed. I was aiming for your neck. Isn’t it the most vulnerable vital point on the body?”

Justin drew a boyishly fresh smile on his lips.

“Is it because my hand is clumsy, or is it because my dagger is a dull sword with many jewels attached that I missed the target? Tsk. Would a true knight’s sword make no mistakes?”

The Emperor drew the dagger sheathed on the thigh of the guard standing beside him.

At the same time, Leo took a step forward, readjusting his grip on his sword toward the Emperor. And the Emperor’s shadows revealed themselves, surrounding Justin in a circle.

Aaron and the Emperor’s knights also stepped forward, tensing their bodies tightly and gripping their sword hilts with both hands as if they would stab Frost at any moment.

“You must have been quite bored during your days at the palace. The seat of the master of the empire should not be so leisurely that you can come all the way to the north to play such silly games.”

“Silly games, you say.”

In the air, dark and indifferent blue eyes and lighter blue eyes clashed with a sharp sound.

“If you were a little startled, older brother, your younger brother would at least feel the game was worth playing.”

Justin raised his hand and signaled Aaron and his guards to lower their swords.

“Is that so?”

At the same time, Frost summoned the ice sword Iello to his hand.

In the blink of an eye, a sword aura that seemed to freeze bones rushed at Justin, and Frost stepped up close to the Emperor.

Aaron and the guards rushed at Frost in shock, but with the explosion of sword energy, they flew into the air and crashed into the walls and pillars.

And then.

Flutter~. The ends of Justin’s shimmering golden hair were cut off by the raging sword aura and fluttered.

Frost retrieved Iello and lifted the corners of his mouth.

“Is this what you meant?”

The smile disappeared from the Emperor’s face, which had been relaxed.

“……”

“Oh my. Are you very startled? I thought we were cousins but had nothing in common. It seems I’ve gotten rusty like you, Your Majesty. Unfortunately.”

Frost sarcastically remarked, gently narrowing his eyes.

“How impudent!”

As Aaron wielded his sword and rushed at Frost, Leo blocked the sword and pushed Aaron toward the door.

At the same time, the shadows surrounding the Emperor swung their swords toward Leo in unison like the wind.

Clang.

Alexis, the head butler standing by the door, dropped the tea tray on the floor and stiffly froze, gaping at the swords pouring toward Leo, who stood right in front of him.

From behind Alexis, the Emperor’s direct knights who had rushed from the hallway leaped into the air and wielded their swords.

The servants who had followed the head butler fell flat on the floor, trembling.

Between Leo and the knights, Alexis stood rigidly, only rolling his eyes round and round.

In an instant, flap~ The cloak Frost threw off flew through the air, cutting through and interfering with the swords rushing toward Leo and Alexis.

And then.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The knights fell to the floor as if huge hailstones were pouring down.

The transparent blade of Iello with blue aura rippling changed its target and drew a large parabola in the air.

The Emperor’s knights, who had been dazedly looking at their fallen comrades on the floor, stiffened like herbivores encountering a predator, their heads sticking up and their whole bodies stiffly frozen, just staring at the oncoming sword aura.

All they could do was close their eyes tightly and wait for the predator to take their heads.

But Frost’s sword energy did not reach them and stopped in midair.

The moment felt like an eternity. And the knights creakily turned their stiff necks.

The tip of Iello’s sword held by the Grand Duke slowly moved towards the neck of the head butler Alexis.

More precisely, toward the blue silk cravat tied around Alexis’s neck.

It was the cravat he had personally tied around Yuriella’s wounded bare feet.

Frost tilted his head slightly to the side, and his eyes seemed to ask his head butler.

‘Why is that there?’

Alexis raised his hand to gently push the ice sword aside and preciously stroked the cravat tied around his neck, resolving his master’s curiosity.

“The young lady said to throw it away.”

Like a head butler who had raised the owner of the holy sword Iello, Alexis quickly regained his composure and returned to his usual neat and peaceful expression.

The Grand Duke’s lips twitched, having resolved one curiosity but giving rise to another.

‘Throw away? Why?’

Frost narrowed his eyes and alternately glared at his cravat and the head butler’s face.

Alexis added a supplementary explanation to the Grand Duke, who had furrowed his brow.

“According to the head maid, the young lady sighed deeply several times while glaring at the cravat tied to her feet. When I washed the dirtied cravat and ironed it neatly for her, she said she didn’t need it. Somehow, her expression looked very dark and sad.”

He hadn’t expected her to cherish it preciously. But still.

Commander Leo, unable to even turn his head due to Aaron’s sword pressed against his Adam’s apple, rolled his eyeballs and called out to his lord in a low voice.

“…..Your Highness?”

What are you going to do about this situation?

The knights, who had been chilled by Iello’s overwhelming sword aura, also looked at the Grand Duke with puzzled faces.

“Haha! Hahaha!”

The Emperor, who had been stiffly frozen glaring at the Grand Duke, suddenly began to laugh merrily.

“Haha. Ah, haha.”

Wiping the teardrops gathered at his pretty eyes, Justin couldn’t hold back his laughter.

His blue eyes, more beautiful than jewels revealed under long and lush golden lashes, were fixed on the blue cravat around Alexis’s neck.

“Haha. So that’s what it was? Ah, haha.”

Frost slowly turned around to face the Emperor, his eyes flashing bright blue flames.

The eyes that had shown no agitation when the Emperor’s dagger had grazed his cheek were now brimming with murderous energy.

“Living life, I come to witness such a spectacle. The great Frost Ielheim. The iron wall of my brother, said to be higher than the ice cliffs of Zenith. Crumbling, because of such a woman. Haha.”

Justin barely stifled his laughter and waved his hands at his knights to lower their swords.

The Grand Duke and his knight commander had dared to draw their swords in front of the Emperor. That alone was enough to incur great wrath.

Yet even though they had swung those swords at him and his knights, the Emperor looked extremely merry.

As if the indigestion tormenting him had subsided. As if he had refreshingly resolved a puzzling question.

As if that alone could make up for today’s treasonous acts.

“I thought it was a political marriage without love. But the Grand Duke was sincere? But what to do. It seems the young lady’s heart is not at all the same.”

Justin burst into laughter again, looking at Frost clenching his tightly closed jaw.

From the moment he had met Yuriella Grande’s burning red eyes, the boiling anger of unknown origin had drained away, replaced by cynicism bordering on dejection.

“You should have given her gold instead. You should have gifted her jewels that would make her eyes grow wide. You should have saved that kind heart, kneeling before dirty feet to wrap those wounds, for someone befitting your status. Even if you hang pearls on a pig’s neck, it will just trample and discard them.”

Frost slowly lowered his silver eyebrows and raised them again.

The agitated gaze had at some point settled deeply like a winter night sky.

“Pearls on a pig’s neck, you say. Yes. There was someone I wanted to say the same thing to.”

A voice as cold as to chill the surroundings flowed from the straight lips with a sneer.

“Solas Moretti.”

Justin’s face instantly lost its smile.

“The wielder of the fire sword Flamma and the former head of the Imperial Knights.”

Syllable by syllable. Frost slowly enunciated with emphasis.

As the name of the former commander Solas, a taboo word in the palace, sprang from the Grand Duke’s mouth, the faces of Aaron and the Imperial Knights turned ashen.

Solas Moretti. That name that drove the Emperor mad.

“I regret it. Not having spoken. I regret it. Not having stopped it.”

If only I had stepped closer before the horrific end came. So I could have separated her from the Emperor.

If only I had tried to stop her from returning to the Imperial City with Flamma rippling with demonic energy. Then she could have avoided the cruel blade of her master.

“Grand Duke!”

Justin della Ponti’s cracked voice savagely growled, grating his vocal cords.

It was a voice filled with fury, indicating he would no longer listen or tolerate this.

But Frost could finally say to the Emperor what he had long wanted to say, what he should have said.

“I thought the pure beauty of those flames, what I had seen, her master would have seen it too. The blind loyalty towards her master. The heart that tried to protect her master even if it meant being damaged and hurt herself. I foolishly believed the master would recognize it.”

“Do you want to settle this today, once and for all?”

Justin’s eyes, provoked by treason, flared with madness.

“Go ahead, if you wish.”

Commander Leo closed his eyes tightly and groaned.

His lord had crossed the line.

When the Emperor had set foot in the North through the magic teleportation circle, the Emperor’s soldiers had also been deployed to advance to all the roads leading to the North. And if the Emperor so much as twitched a finger, his soldiers would move.

Even though His Highness the Grand Duke must know this well, why was he making such reckless provocations?

“I am.”

Justin uttered a single phrase and then fell silent, just quietly looking at Frost.

The eyes that had been flickering with maddened fury gradually subsided and persistently swept over Frost as if trying to find something.

“I envy you.”

“…..?”

“I envy you.”

At the Emperor’s sudden words after a long pause, Frost narrowed his eyes.

“Some days, I envy you so much I want to kill you. And other days, I envy you so much I want to keep you alive and close to me so I can keep looking at you.”

The room’s atmosphere, which had been taut as if it would shatter at any moment, wavered at the unexpected development.

“Today, ……yes, I think it’s the latter. Go back now. Everyone leave.”

The Emperor waved his hand as if everything was bothersome, ordering everyone to clear out.

Only the shadows concealing themselves could see the Emperor’s eyes turning red with moisture as he turned his head.

*

Frost, who had been silently walking down the corridor, stopped.

[I, envy you.]

The Grand Duke’s brow furrowed as he glanced back at the Emperor’s room he had just left.

[Some days, I envy you so much I want to kill you. And other days, I envy you so much I want to keep you alive and close to me so I can keep looking at you.]

He’s crazy.

It seemed Shavell was right.

[His Majesty will probably wander all over the palace searching for traces left by Commander Solas.]

Searching, searching, is he now trying to find traces of her even in me, the enemy he must kill?

The memories he shared with the wielder of Flamma on the battlefield. The times they had protected each other’s backs while overcoming life-and-death crises together. The moments that had been passionate as flames.

Is the Emperor envious of that?

That foolishness. That sickening obsession.

Frost’s mouth tasted bitter as if he somehow understood.

‘Solas Moretti…..’

The heart that had been shaken in that single moment I had faced her.

That dazzling red I had wanted to protect more than my land and my people that I had to defend at the crossroads of life and death.

Even though I knew well it would go against the Emperor’s temper.

Even though I knew it could instantly twist the path I was to take.

Still, unable to hold back, I uttered that name.

Because it was deeply engraved in Frost himself and he could not escape it……

− Solas! The best! Solas! The best! Solas is the best!

“Hey, Ren! No! Don’t go that way!”

The red eyes of the woman chasing the fluttering yellow parrot at the end of the corridor entered Frost’s view.

− Solas! The best! Solas!

“Please stop calling that name, you dummy!”

Whenever Yuriella jumped lightly to catch Ren, her deep green dress fluttered in the wind and settled.

“Oh. Grand Duke!”

The red eyes, receiving the pouring summer sunlight, widened largely upon discovering Frost, then gently curved like a gentle breeze.

“His Majesty is still here, right?”

Yuriella threw a worried glance toward the Emperor’s room and whispered as if asking.

“……”

When no answer came back, Yuriella turned her head and tilted it, then approached closer.

“Grand Duke?”

“……”

The red eyes discovered the long wound on his cheek and scrunched up with concern.

“What’s with that wound?”

“……”

“……? Grand Duke?”

“……”

“Did His Majesty do that? Why? What happened?”

Yuriella urged for an answer with a face full of worry, but.

Emotions that he could not explain or understand the reason for surged like waves, and Frost just blankly stared.