“You want me to accompany Your Highness on your honeymoon?”

The Archmage tilted his head slightly, as if it was an unexpected request.

“Yes. I’m sorry to keep bothering you, but could you come with us?”

“Well, that’s not difficult-”

Before Ricarion could finish speaking, Frost hurriedly interjected.

“If you need a magician, I’ve already sent many to Collina Rosa, Yuriella. If necessary, I can call as many non-Tower mages there as you want.”

Yuriella shook her head and whispered softly.

“No. I need the Archmage’s abilities. I don’t need other magicians.”

At Yuriella’s words specifying that only the Archmage was needed, Frost frowned deeply and glared at Ricarion.

He had kept the Archmage close by because Aerie said they needed to monitor whether Yuriella’s body and soul were stable after being fused, but now he was coming along to the honeymoon destination.

Since the Archmage had settled in as a freeloader, Frost had become extremely sensitive, developing a habit of spreading his senses wide to check where that Archmage fellow was and what he was doing from the moment he woke up until he went to bed.

After confirming that the Archmage was lingering around Yuriella, he would get so worked up that he couldn’t focus on his work.

Now the thought of having to see that leech even at the honeymoon spot became unbearable.

“The Archmage isn’t a magic lamp that can conjure up anything, Bi. There’s already a villa in Collina Rosa where you can stay comfortably. I’ve also arranged staff to attend to you. There won’t be any need for the Archmage’s help. Even if there is, I can do it better than him. Whatever it is.”

Yuriella shook her head again.

“No. I’m not going there to relax comfortably. What I want to ask the Archmage is-”

Before Yuriella could finish speaking, Ricarion offered the answer.

“You’re planning to go to Collina Rosa to do acupuncture treatment for the refugees and patients, right?”

“How did you know?”

Yuriella’s eyes widened.

“There will be many people needing treatment for the aftereffects of the subjugation, so it will drain a lot of your energy. I believe you requested my company in case you collapse again.”

Yuriella nodded and smiled at the Archmage’s sharp words. Her beautiful smile and young red eyes sparkled clearly in the light.

Frost’s shoulders slumped.

‘So she was planning to go to Collina Rosa to treat people…’

To think that even a mere Archmage who just waved around a staff infused with earth energy had guessed his wife’s intentions, while he himself had no idea.

If Ricarion Greco knew that the owner of the Holy Sword was being referred to as ‘mere’ and the master of the Magic Tower as ‘a mere’, he would have been appalled. Anyway.

‘To lose to such a guy.’

Frost felt like an idiot who had always gotten perfect scores but suddenly got a zero.

He was infuriated by the thought that he had lost Yuriella’s beautiful smile to that fellow.

It was a very pretty smile that was hard to see lately because she had been asleep for so long, and after waking up, dark clouds often hung over her face for some reason…

‘Damn it.’

Pure anger and jealousy bloomed in Frost’s chest.

“Rejected! Rejected! A patient treating patients, does that make any sense?”

A fine crease appeared between Yuriella’s delicate brows.

“You’re wrong. I’m not a patient, Frost.”

Although his wife said his words were not correct, Frost did not back down.

“Let me rephrase. Not a patient, but someone who was lying there like dead until just the other day, making me worry sick!”

“I’m fine now. I won’t make you worry. I asked the Archmage just in case-”

“That’s why I’m asking why you’re creating situations that need precautions! Do you know what hell I went through while you weren’t waking up! I can’t allow this! I forbid it!”

As Frost’s voice rose, the kitchen fell silent.

The apothecary group brewing medicine and the kitchen cooks who were helping to learn the exotic Eastern treatment methods all closed their mouths and rolled their eyes, carefully watching the Grand Duke who had suddenly raised his voice.

Ricarion simply crossed his arms and leaned casually against the wall, observing Frost’s pitiful struggle. How could he miss such a rare scene of defeat that money couldn’t buy?

“Why do you keep shouting?”

Yuriella put her hands on her hips and stepped closer to Frost, looking him up and down.

“You said spouses are equals. Yet you’re being so rude to me, something you wouldn’t do even to a lowly maid?”

“Huh? Ah, no, I wasn’t shouting, I was just…”

Frost shrank his large frame slightly.

“You were just shouting, Frost.”

“I heard it too, Yuriella. I thought my eardrums were going to burst.”

Yuriella’s new father Thomas nodded vigorously while stirring a pot.

“I thought it was thunder. Your Highness, were you not startled?”

Ricarion grinned as he looked at the Grand Duke.

Cornered, Frost anxiously looked around the kitchen.

Unfortunately, there were no allies for Frost. The butler and head maid were busy attending to the vassals waiting for the Grand Duke’s return in the banquet hall.

Moreover, the enemy’s reinforcements that had failed the first recruitment rushed into the kitchen.

The wind spirit, visible only to the Grand Duke couple and the Archmage, fluttered its wings and sided with the Archmage.

[I heard it too! The Grand Duke is so rude! A husband who shouts is the worst! Learn from the Archmage. Men should have manners. It’s a crime for a man without manners to get married.]

Aerie, who had lightly landed on the Archmage’s shoulder, opened her triangular eyes and set fire to the already miserable Grand Duke’s heart.

[Can’t allow it! Forbidding and rejecting! You said Yuriella wasn’t your subordinate, but she is. Yuriella, shouldn’t this be a divorce trip rather than a honeymoon?]

Frost was overcome with the urge to freeze Aerie solid right then and there, but he admirably passed the test.

As if in reward, Yuriella gently scolded Aerie and made her shut her noisy mouth.

“Aerie! If you keep being rude to the Grand Duke, I’ll erase ‘saying I love you three times a day’ from the contract.”

It was satisfying to see Aerie deflate, her wings drooping.

But Frost was shocked to learn that this arrogant wind spirit heard Yuriella say “I love you” three times a day, every day.

To think she had put such a wicked condition when making a contract with Yuriella. She was quite the schemer.

‘Should I have written a contract too…?’

Frost became depressed. After losing to the Archmage, he had now lost to Aerie as well.

Moreover.

“Frost. Who am I?”

He was glad to be called by name, but it seemed the test wasn’t over yet. A surprise question came out of nowhere.

“Who am I, you ask?”

When he couldn’t answer, the question came again.

Frost’s eyes darted around busily. The question was very profound.

It couldn’t be just asking what her name was. He was anxious about giving the wrong answer and upsetting Yuriella again, so he couldn’t readily respond.

“Why can’t you answer?”

Did he take too long? Frost closed his eyes tight and blurted out whatever came to mind.

“You are Yuriella Ielheim. The Mother of the North and the Grand Duchess.”

“That’s correct.”

A spark of life returned to Frost’s eyes, which had been cowed. Was he free from the test?

“And then?”

Ah. It still wasn’t over. Frost’s brow furrowed again.

“What comes next?”

What could be the examiner’s intention? No matter how hard he racked his brain, he couldn’t think of an answer. What was the correct answer?

“So, there’s nothing after that? Is that all?”

At the pressing question, Frost’s mind went completely blank.

“You don’t know something this simple?”

Yuriella sighed heavily as if frustrated.

“The answer was in what Frost said earlier.”

“Then I did get the answer right?”

The Grand Duke’s face lit up brightly, but.

“No. Since you can’t answer now, it’s the same as getting the earlier answer wrong too.”

Told that he had even lost the points he’d accumulated, Frost’s shoulders slumped even more.

“Frost. I want to help. I don’t know what I can do or how far I can go, but. For the North, for Collina Rosa, I want to do everything I can. The position of Grand Duchess is one that should comfort and soothe the injured and sick people of the North.”

Yuriella’s words were right. That heart was beautiful and appreciated.

Despite the relationship having started with an end in mind, the sincerity of thinking that far was precious and welcome.

But separately from that, there was a desire to show only good things. That was the intention behind proposing the honeymoon.

“And… I have… friends there that I really want to offer memorial flowers to.”

In the days of wielding a sword on the battlefield. Retrieving the bodies of fallen subordinates was what she paid the most attention to. But on the way back after defying the Emperor’s orders, there was no room to take care of that as well.

‘There probably weren’t any kind-hearted Northerners to collect the bodies of the fallen subjugation troops…’

That had been weighing on her mind all along.

“You lost people in Collina Rosa too?”

Frost couldn’t bring himself to stop her anymore, seeing Yuriella’s expression looking so sad.

“What kind of friends were they? I may know some faces too.”

Yuriella, who had been lost in thought with her eyes downcast thinking of her fallen subordinates, raised her head to look at Frost.

There were probably faces he would remember.

More than half of the Imperial Knights’ elite lost their lives to Frost in Collina Rosa. Some of them were the cream of the crop who had given the Grand Duke quite a hard time.

“…”

Yuriella couldn’t casually brush them off as insignificant people the Grand Duke would never know.

She didn’t want to do that.

It may not have been an honorable death, but they were not people who could be said to be nobodies.

It was the last pride of the foolish commander who had pushed those knights with lofty spirits into the mud and driven them to their deaths.

“Yuriella.”

At Frost’s call, Yuriella blinked away the moisture in her eyes a few times and gave a clear smile.

Frost narrowed his eyes slightly as he looked at Yuriella.

Since when had she started building such a high, transparent wall that resembled that clear smile?

Was it from the day her soul that had left on the wedding night returned to her body?

No, no. It seemed like that transparent and solid wall had been blocking between them from the very beginning.

A high and thick wall that seemed to show everything as if it were transparent and revealed,

But in reality, not showing anything that should be seen.

Just like how people knew the Archmage as Ricado, the Grand Duchess’s dedicated physician, and calmly passed by the black mage Cassandra as the maid Sandra.

Am I also not seeing something very important?

What on earth are you hiding behind that wall?

What are you afraid of?

Is it a secret I should be afraid of too?

He couldn’t tell. He had been curious from the start, and that curiosity that kept growing had now almost reached its limit.

Why she had cried so much earlier.

What was the pain that made her hurt so much she didn’t even realize her hands were bleeding profusely.

What kind of special connection could a mere apothecary troupe dancer have with the Archmage. And the reason she could receive Aerie’s protection, who had slept for 500 years, with such a small and fragile body.

Who were the friends she wanted to commemorate in Collina Rosa with such a tearful face.

The more he thought about it, the more depressed Frost became by the fact that he knew nothing about her.

He wanted to know about her. He wanted to ask. He wanted to break down that high and solid wall.

Would asking be the right answer, or the wrong answer?

Having already written down so many wrong answers, Frost found it difficult to make any choice.

Frost let out a deep sigh without realizing it, feeling pathetic that both Aerie and that Archmage fellow knew what only he didn’t know.

“Frost. Can we talk for a moment? I have something to discuss with just the two of us.”

An unexpected lifeline was thrown to Frost, who was floundering in the swamp of depression.

His ears perked up at the words ‘just the two of us’. And his heart skipped a beat at Yuriella’s warm body temperature as she intimately linked arms with him.

[Me too! Me too! Aerie wants to listen too!]

“No. It’s a really important secret talk that only Frost should know.”

[Hng. Yuriella is mean! I hate you!]

Aerie got upset and flew out of the kitchen in a huff.

“Your Highness. You shouldn’t use the word ‘secret’ in front of a magician. We can’t resist our curiosity even if it kills us. By the way, Your Highness’s lifesaver has a very tight lip.”

“Why would a secret be a secret? It’s no longer a secret if others know.”

Even the tight-lipped lifesaver became ‘others’ in one fell swoop. This wasn’t just being pushed down in the rankings, it was tantamount to being kicked out of the exam hall altogether.

The corners of Frost’s mouth curled up slightly.