Yuriella looked up at Frost with wide eyes.

“Why not?”

Frost’s head tilted crookedly as he looked at Yuriella.

“I don’t like where you’re trying to go now.”

“You don’t even know where I’m going.”

“Aren’t you trying to go to Empress Dowager’s Swan Palace tea party?”

Yuriella’s large eyes widened even more.

“How did you know? Are you checking my incoming mail in advance?”

As Yuriella frowned, Frost gently rubbed the wrinkles between his wife’s two eyebrows with his thumb to smooth them out.

“Of course not. I just tried to recall what kind of tea party you might go to today.”

“Why are you saying I can’t go?”

“I want to ask the same thing. Why do you suddenly want to go there?”

“It’s not sudden. Just as you are working hard to represent the North in the aristocratic council, I have been thinking that as the lady of the North, I should do what I can in the noble ladies’ gatherings.”

Yuriella smiled brightly at her husband who was weak to his wife’s smile, closing her sparkling red eyes beautifully.

Frost smiled sweetly, pulling up the corners of his mouth. However, the words that flowed from his lips that seemed to melt were different from what Yuriella expected.

“No. Where do you think you’re going? Absolutely not.”

“It’s not like I’m going to a battlefield. It’s just the Empress Dowager’s Palace tea party. I heard the guests invited by the Empress Dowager are noble ladies and young ladies around my age. Miss Dabano is also coming.”

Frost kissed his wife’s forehead, who was claiming the harmlessness of her outing, and tucked her fallen hair behind her ear, pressing his lips firmly behind her ear.

“I can clearly see what my brave queen is thinking with this little head of hers. You’re going to slip away in the middle of the tea party under the pretext of fixing your makeup to find out where Cassandra is being detained, right?”

Yuriella, whose motives were completely exposed, rolled her eyes to the side to avoid Frost’s sharp gaze.

“Oh, no way.”

“Not only that. You’ll try to find a way to bring Cassandra out of the Swan Palace somehow. You also secretly winked at the Matap Master to ask him for something, didn’t you? Like borrowing Popo because you have to take him with you?”

The red eyes that were rolling to the side widened again as they turned upward.

“Your Grace. Can you read minds too?”

“No.”

Frost bent down and whispered as he kissed Yuriella’s cheeks tightly.

“From the moment I open my eyes until I fall asleep. No, even when I’m asleep, my clever mind that only thinks about you can clearly read what’s going on inside your head.”

Yuriella’s ears turned red as she pushed Frost away and took a step back, glancing at Ricarion.

Annoyed that his wife pushed him away while being mindful of another man, Frost took two steps forward, wrapped his arm around Yuriella’s waist and pulled her tightly to him, leaving no gap.

Yuriella wrinkled her freckled nose bridge.

“Okay. I won’t go. I won’t go, so please let me go.”

Frost quietly looked down at his wife as if searching, then shouted loudly towards the outside.

“Leo!”

At the duke’s call, Leo, who was waiting in front of the stable and giving instructions to his subordinates about the mansion’s security, ran in.

Releasing his arm that was holding Yuriella, Frost ordered Leo.

“Escort the queen to her room. Don’t take your eyes off her for a moment.”

“Pardon? Ah, yes… Please come this way, Your Majesty.”

“What escort inside the house-”

“I can clearly see that you’re thinking of reassuring me by saying you won’t go and then sneaking out. I’ll say it again, no.”

Yuriella, whose intentions were exposed once more, complained in a sullen voice.

“You said to do everything as I wish. That you’ll do anything I want, no matter what it is.”

As Yuriella frowned, Frost gently hugged her as if to appease her.

No matter how hard she pushed, his huge, rock-solid body only clung closer, trapping her.

“Let’s make an exception this time.”

“I heard Miss Helena Figueira was also invited. Isn’t she the most likely to be the dark mage? It’s a good opportunity to see and confirm it up close.”

“That’s all the more reason you can’t go. Miss Helena Figueira is the person most likely to be the dark mage who turned Plama into a demon sword.”

“That’s what I’m saying. If I take Popo with me, he can confirm if Miss Helena is really a dark mage. And if she’s really a dark mage, she won’t just leave the Swan Palace after drinking tea. Since Cassandra touched Plama, she’ll naturally try to meet Cassandra.”

“No.”

“I won’t act recklessly. I won’t even set foot in dangerous places.”

“The Swan Palace itself is dangerous.”

The Swan Palace, where the Empress Dowager resided, was even more difficult for Frost’s reach to penetrate than the Imperial Palace.

In the Imperial Palace, there were several attendants who have been spies for generations, and the Imperial mages who were in direct contact with Frost also had access.

But the Empress Dowager, perhaps having more to hide than the Emperor, built her new residence after demolishing the original palace as soon as she became the Empress Dowager, and named it the Swan Palace.

From the very beginning of the construction of the Swan Palace, the Empress Dowager was involved in every little detail. A few architects mobilized for the construction disappeared without a trace. There must be secret rooms or spaces for special purposes that should not be leaked to the outside.

“Entrance to the Swan Palace is prohibited. Don’t go anywhere in the Imperial Palace. No, it would be better not to take a single step out of this mansion while you’re in the capital. From today, going out is forbidden.”

At Frost’s words, Yuriella’s face darkened coldly.

However, Frost, who was blindly in love and found his wife lovely no matter what she did, failed to notice the change in Yuriella’s eyes.

Rather, he kissed his wife’s nose bridge where cute freckles were densely gathered from frowning so much, and came down to her nostrils, whispering sweetly.

“If you want to help me, just stay still. I’m not a weak man who needs to rely on a frail woman.”

While being held in the duke’s arms, the Matap Master saw Yuriella’s expression grow colder and colder, and expressed his condolences to the duke with a tsk tsk.

“Don’t do anything and just be surrounded and protected by Your Grace and the Angelus Knights like a greenhouse flower?”

Even with a new shell, Yuriella was the same warrior as Solas from her previous life.

A knight who would not hesitate to face death to protect what was precious, and the noble owner of a passionate and valiant sacred sword with fiery blood flowing through it.

The one thing she wanted in her new life after losing Plama, which was like her other half, and even the life she should have enjoyed, was to save and protect the duke whom she had harmed with her own hands.

And yet, being treated like a frail woman.

Being told not to go anywhere like a greenhouse flower and just be protected by his knights.

The duke, who lacked any tact, couldn’t take his hands off his wife who was only lovely to him, and called for Leo again.

“If the queen steps outside my mansion’s fence after this time, I will hold you and the knights responsible, Leo. Be prepared to give up your salary or even your life to watch over her.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

Leo unconsciously approached Yuriella, but stopped abruptly with a start.

An unprecedented cold energy was emitting from Her Majesty’s red eyes.

Leo shivered at the somehow colder and sharper aura than the eyes of his lord, who was called the Ice Duke.

His survival instincts warned him not to go any closer to her.

Slowly turning his head to the side, the Matap Master nodded slightly, conveying that he had the same thought.

The Matap Master and the Knight Commander took long strides back with their legs.

Even Blanca, who knew her master’s temperament well, stepped back from Yuriella, being mindful.

“Frost Ielheim, Grand Duke Your Grace.”

At Yuriella’s call, Frost stiffened with a chilling feeling. It was not the voice of his lovely wife that he was familiar with.

This was clearly…

The tone of Commander Solas, who fought back to back with him, slaying monsters and barbarians on the battlefield.

A voice as hot as fire and as sharp as a blade.

If Commander Solas in his blood-soaked black armor called someone in that voice, it meant that very day was the day they had to make his coffin.

Frost, with his arm still around her waist, slightly pulled his shoulders back to examine his wife’s expression.

The red eyes that stared at him expressionlessly, having erased all emotions, emitted a sharp energy resembling her voice, like a hot fireball or a sharp sword.

Even that was so lovely that Frost had the urge to lift her up and kiss her, but he had enough sense to know that now was not the time for that.

Yuriella removed Frost’s arms that were still around her waist one by one.

It was a touch without any force, but Frost dropped his hands without any resistance.

And she took one step, two steps, three steps back.

Not with the clumsy imitation of a noblewoman’s gait, but with a knight’s rhythmic steps, she stepped back to put distance between them.

“I’m going to the Swan Palace.”

A voice as cold as her expression flowed from her red and plump lips.

“I won’t disappoint you. I won’t come back empty-handed either.”

Frost looked at his wife, who transformed into his loyal knight at every dangerous moment, with resentful eyes.

“Yuriella.”

“Please remember that before I am Your Grace’s queen, I am a vassal who has pledged loyalty to you.”

Why couldn’t she understand?

That what he feared was a single hair on her head being harmed. And what he wanted was not some measly gain, but simply for her to be by his side.

“If you try to protect me from the position of a vassal, not my wife. Fine. As a vassal, follow my orders. Disobedience is not a virtue of a loyal subordinate.”

Yuriella’s face cracked like a thin fissure.

“Disobedience, you say?”

Frost wanted to grind his own tongue into a pulp, feeling a sense of dismay.

In an attempt to break his stubborn wife’s will, the word “disobedience” came out.

The reason Solas Moretti was executed was precisely because of disobedience to the Emperor.

Thanks to that disobedience, he was able to save his own life.

But the words had already slipped out. To break his wife’s stubbornness, he couldn’t back down here.

“Yes. I cannot tolerate disobedience.”

“If my lord is swayed by personal thoughts and does wrong. Yes! I will disobey! Ten times, a hundred times if I must!”

Yuriella’s voice rose a notch higher. It meant that she was quite hurt.

“The reason I stand by Your Grace’s side is because I want to devote my meager strength to protecting you. That is the promise I made and the principle I will uphold. If I cannot keep my promise and principle, what reason do I have to be by Your Grace’s side?”

The stubborn wife, with her back straight, threw away the cumbersome lady’s manner and delivered her ultimatum to him.

That if he tried to break her promise and principle, she could no longer, no, would not remain by his side.

“How can I trust and keep someone who blatantly disobeys under my command? Such a person is not even a proper vassal, so I have no need for them either.”

Instead of the apology lingering in his mouth, Frost also delivered a cold ultimatum and swiftly left the stable.

“Your Majesty. Please reconsider. His Grace the Grand Duke is not wrong.”

Yuriella remained silent at Ricarion’s words.

Reading a determination harder than stubbornness, Ricarion let out a shallow sigh.

“If you must go, go with me.”

Only then did the quiet eyes resembling ruby-red blood turn to the Matap Master.

“No. Just lend me Popo. I know well that even that is an unreasonable request.”

“…We still haven’t found out anything. Why the magical tool I planted on Cassandra didn’t work. If there really exists a dark mage that surpasses my abilities… If so, I need to be by Popo’s side to handle it.”

While the Grand Duke was investigating the Figueira women, Ricarion had not been idle either.

Ricarion was also keeping an eye on Miss Helena Figueira, who was classified as a person of interest.

However, since coming to the capital, Helena had been quiet, only occasionally showing her face at banquets and tea parties like other young ladies, without any unusual movements.

Ricarion was unsettled by that quietness that was like the calm in the eye of a storm.

“If what you’re worried about happens, your identity as the Matap Master will be revealed.”

“But… I can’t let Your Majesty go there alone without any protection.”

“In the first place, Cassandra was the Emperor’s move to capture the Grand Duke. But if you, the Matap Master, get caught in that trap, what will the Imperial Family think? They’ll misunderstand that Matap has joined hands with the North. Will that be alright?”

Sharp as a sword, Yuriella pierced the issue Ricarion had been averting his eyes from all along.

“Shall I rephrase the question? Can you break neutrality, the principle Matap has upheld?”