On a night without stars or moon, Yuriel was too dangerous.

Frost, who had been frozen with his cheeks held between her small hands that held no strength, used all his energy to grasp Yuriel's slender shoulders and gently pushed her away.

"You're very drunk. Let's go to your room−."

However, Frost couldn't finish his sentence.

Yuriel's hand touched his face, which had become defenseless as he pushed her shoulders away.

"This is cheating."

Yuriel pursed her thick, red lips and wrinkled her freckled nose bridge.

"Pardon?"

"It's unfair. Being too pretty is cheating."

Frost laughed lightly and bent his waist to meet Yuriel's gaze.

"Am I pretty?"

Yuriel took a step forward, rested her round forehead against his, and nodded slightly.

"So pretty. You're so pretty that I can't take my eyes off you."

"I'm glad this face is of use to you. I should tearfully thank my parents."

"Where are you getting this from? I'm saying you're so pretty that it's bad for the heart."

Yuriel raised her eyebrows and lifted her head to protest, but seeing Frost's blue eyes close to hers, her eyes melted as if they would melt.

"See, I can't even get angry. Don't you know Duke is more dangerous than the holy sword Iel?"

Phew~. Yuriel sighed heavily and shook her head.

Yuriel's fingers traveled up his face and lingered slowly near his silver eyelashes that draped over his blue eyes.

"Do you know these silver eyelashes sparkle when hit by sunlight? Your silver hair too. Makes me want to keep touching it."

"Touch it as much as you want. You're the only one who has the right to do so."

"Thank you."

Politely bowing even while heavily drunk, the wife stroked his thick eyelashes. Frost's blue eyes deepened.

"You know what? Looking into Duke's eyes makes me feel like my blocked insides are clearing up. Even though it's such a cold blue color, why do your blue eyes feel hotter to me than red rising flames?"

Frost's Adam's apple moved slowly.

The woman, not realizing that she ignited those flames, tilts her head as if wronged and sighs deeply again, phew.

"It's a problem, a problem. If you're going to be this handsome, at least have a bad brain or something."

Her hand stroked Frost's hair like a child's head, then entwined the sparkling strands between her fingers.

"Our Duke who knows everything. Do you know how surprised I get? I can see why that Justin kid is so eager to get his hands on you."

"Am I smarter than the Emperor?"

"Of course!"

"Is it obvious?"

"Yes! Just by hearing news that the Emperor sent a hawk to the North, you figured out right away that it was a ploy to bring Cassandra and try to stab you. You even made plans to use the Emperor's trap as your own trap instead. I was really surprised."

A satisfied smile appeared on Frost's face.

He had never felt competitive with the Emperor, but seeing how he easily beat that unluckily handsome bastard, he must have cared quite a bit to feel this overwhelmingly pleased.

"If that Sereno bastard knew he fell into Duke's trap, his plaster mask-like face would probably turn red and blue. Ah, it's such a shame I can't see it in person."

Yuriel chuckled.

"Sereno?"

"The Emperor's first hawk."

"Does he look like a plaster mask?"

Duke's blue eyes looking affectionately at Yuriel contained peculiarity.

"Even if you smeared poop on his face, it would feel less dirty than seeing that bastard's face. His face has no color like plaster. His hair and eyebrows are pure white. Eugh. After killing his target, that bastard always smears their blood long under his eyes. Like tears. He's a nutcase, I tell you."

Yuriel shuddered as if just thinking about it gave her goosebumps.

"Luckily or unluckily, no one has seen his face except me and the Emperor. He always has to cover his face tightly with a hood like that. What a nuisance, a nuisance."

No way.

His wife knows the Emperor's most trusted shadow. Moreover, she says only the Emperor and her know. How?

But the clever brain his wife admires so much could no longer continue its smart train of thought.

Because Yuriel's slender hand that had been stroking Frost's hair came down to caress his neck. Then it fumbled further down and quietly stopped on his left chest.

"But the coolest part is here."

Frost's heart, which had slowed for a moment due to thoughts of the Emperor's first hawk, started beating wildly again as if under a spell.

"I knew even from far away. I knew, but. Seeing it up close every day. Every single day. I realize more and more. How much bold dreams and future pulsate in this heart that goes thump thump, thump thump like this. How much you try to protect your people and land with your big heart. How touching that is to me."

Yuriel placed her ear on his chest and closed her eyes.

She held her breath and quietly listened to the sound of his heartbeat.

"Huh? Duke's heartbeat sounds really loud. Is it always like this?"

Laughing lightly and looking up, her eyes curved beautifully like a crescent moon.

"No. I think, you made it that way."

Frost's voice became husky.

"Me? To have this level of heartbeat, you'd need to run fifty laps around the training grounds."

The wife laughs again. Frequently laughing seems to be one of her drunk habits too.

She doesn't know that the man in front of her would have a calm heart even after running fifty laps. She also doesn't realize how much his heart wavers at her every little gesture and breath.

"Do you, like me?"

At the cautious question, Yuriel's eyes widen.

Looking at him with fresh eyes as if she's never heard such a stupid question before, she lowers her gaze and grabs his large hand with both her small hands, fondling it.

"I'm, scared of Duke. Really scared."

The sweet scent of "Enchanting Night" mixed with Yuriel's deep sigh tickled the tip of Frost's nose.

Frost let out a deep sigh.

Has the "Enchanting Night" flowing through his wife's veins been passed onto him as well? He feels dizzy and nauseous.

"I've, done too many bad things... so I couldn't even die. I guess I didn't even have the right to die..."

Yuriel's eyes reddened.

"So I wanted to, do a lot of good deeds and then go somewhere no one knows, plow fields alone and eat rabbits and fish and live quietly... Live like that where no one knows, be granted my quiet death that no one knows about..."

Frost was confused.

The life of a noble's illegitimate child abandoned before birth couldn't have been smooth. The life of following her new father's medicine peddling and wandering the desolate North must have been tough and rough.

But for her to make such a lonely face, the face of a sinner who hasn't even been granted death, is there a reason for it to that extent?

"But greed keeps trying to rise. Suddenly... greed rises. Then it's really bad... It shouldn't be a life given for that. I'm scared that I'll become even greedier..."

Under her lowered thick eyelashes, a dark shadow spread gloomily. Her flushed cheeks had also turned pale at some point.

Although he didn't understand most of what she said, Frost felt like he knew what that shadow meant.

She, who had taken a step over the line she had drawn between him and her, is trying to take that foot back out of the line.

'But doesn't she want me too?'

She clearly said she's feeling greedy. So if I tightly embrace her so she can't cross back over that line and make it so she can't even breathe, won't she bring her other foot over on her own?

Won't she, accept me?

However, Frost squeezed out every last ounce of strength to detach Yuriel who was leaning against his body. He grabbed her shoulders to distance them again.

"Enough. That's enough now."

Beyond the instinct that desperately desired her, another instinct warned him.

That he shouldn't cheat while drunk on Enchanting Night.

It wasn't because of pride or manners. He had already tossed those to the dogs. He was in a pathetic position where he wanted to cling onto her even if rejected a hundred times.

The reason he desperately gathered his senses was because he remembered the iron rule of life that cheating leads to getting hit with a boomerang.

Like the boomerang used by the barbarians at the southern end of the Eastern Continent, wrong actions always lead to unfavorable results.

If he let go of reason in this moment using her drunkenness as an excuse and did something she would regret later. Then when his wife returned to her sober senses, she would turn her back on him forever.

If he lost her like that, he might really die.

"Frost."

Yuriel called his name.

"Yes."

"I'm not drunk."

You shouldn't believe a drunk person saying they're not drunk.

"I know."

"I mean it."

"Yes. I know."

"I'm not drunk, but. When I open my eyes in the morning, I'll forget everything. I'll forget the words I said to Frost, my actions, I'll forget it all."

"Yuriel."

"There are no stars or moon. No one, will know. If only you and I forget."

Forget? How is that possible?

Frost, who was shaking his head and trying to remove his hands holding Yuriel's shoulders, had his tie suddenly pulled by Yuriel. Yuriel's lips approached his lips that had gotten close in an instant.

"Forget this too. Frost Ielheim."

Her lips brushing against his whispered.

"I like you so much."

With one moment, his wife shattered his persistent efforts to cling to reason.

Frost strongly embraced Yuriel as if tying her up.

One of his hands entangled Yuriel's silky hair between his fingers. The other hand gently stroked her slender waist as if soothing her. Yuriel's bare feet in indoor slippers trembled.

Frost lifted Yuriel in a flash and leapt down, kicking off the rooftop railing.

Yuriel, startled, burst into a clear laugh.

The newlywed couple drunk on Enchanting Night clung tightly to each other, leaving no gap, and shared each other's breath.

On a night where even the stars and moon hid. With no one knowing.

That night.

The Emperor opened his heavy eyelids with difficulty at the sound of the chief attendant waking him up as he lay passed out drunk on the dirt floor of the imperial private training grounds that Solas frequented.

"Your Majesty. The first hawk just reported that he has arrested the dark mage Cassandra Cabesa. There was some resistance but with the involvement of the imperial mages, she was safely captured and no one was seriously injured."

"Dario. Did you see the sky today? The clouds were red like blood. Like her falcon... with wings spread wide, gliding."

"It's just the sunset, and just clouds."

The chief attendant knows that in His Majesty the Emperor's eyes, even just the sunset and just the clouds look like Solas's shadow.

Even just flowers, even just the wind. He also knows that everything he sees are things that remind him of the one he misses even in his dreams.

Chief Attendant Dario, while wrapping a cloak around his master who sat up blankly like a lost child, also gave him words of encouragement to muster strength.

"Isn't the imperial ball being held tomorrow? The day you've been waiting for so much. Duke and Duchess Ielheim are coming too, aren't they?"

The chief attendant, who keenly grasped the Emperor's obsession with the Duchess of the North, mentioned Duke and Duchess Ielheim.

As expected.

A flashing light crossed the Emperor's blue eyes that had been hazy.

Chief Attendant Dario gulped.

Rather than looking worn out from a hangover, the life returning to his face gave off a mysterious and captivating feeling to the point of being eerie.

The Emperor brushed off the dirt on his uniform and stood up.

Stepping out of the training grounds, the Emperor suddenly stopped and looked up at the night sky. And he thought of the red sunset that had disappeared.

In the place where the burning red clouds that had occupied his mind all night were gone, Yuriel Ielheim's clear and transparent red eyes filled the space.

The woman with the color he loved.

The person with the eyes he could never forget.

'Yes. She's not lost. If she's the real Solas...'

A boyish, excited smile appeared on the Emperor's pale face as he bit his pale, chapped lips.

'I can find her again. I will return everything to its original place.'