His visit was expected since they had planned a morning walk, so it wasn’t surprising.
But the woman standing before her was unfamiliar.
“Who are you?”
Looking at the two, Rosie closed her open mouth and hardened her expression.
It was because she belatedly recalled her duty.
“I am Rosie, the maid of Princess Kelita. I came to tell you that the princess has invited a guest for tea time this morning.”
Bercheria recalled Kelita’s smiling face.
At the same time, she recalled Lakrahan’s face.
“Ah, actually, I have a place to go now.”
“Will it take long? Would you like to change the time?”
“No.”
Just moments ago, the Prince of Deransis was awkward, but now it was grateful that he could be used usefully.
Moreover, she had to question how he knew that she was Bercheria.
Since they hadn’t had a chance to talk since meeting at the window, she hadn’t asked yet, but it was a matter of life and death to her.
“I’m sorry, but I have to decline tea time…….”
“Wait.”
Loren quickly interrupted Bercheria’s words.
He stretched his long legs and squeezed in between Bercheria and Rosie.
“May I answer for you?”
“No.”
“Thank you for permitting me, My Lady.”
“……?”
Smiling at Bercheria, Loren looked down at Rosie and opened his mouth again.
“How about this? I will attend tea time with you.”
Rosie’s lips parted.
“What?”
“The three of us. How is it? Quite a good combination, isn’t it?”
Loren smiled charmingly at Rosie.
In Feriat, you can’t refuse tea time when someone of higher status requests it.
Bercheria probably didn’t know that, and Princess Kelita would have used that fact.
But by that rule, Princess Kelita also couldn’t refuse the proposal of Loren, the prince of a neighboring empire.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Fair enough.
Suddenly, a low bass voice intervened.
“I’ll join you as well.”
Loren and Bercheria both looked towards where the bass voice had come from.
Northern Duke Lakrahan, who would be the ultimate power player in this game, was leaning in the corridor, looking at them.
Behind him, Wyatt and Timothy were standing, perhaps having been overseeing the morning tasks.
Without hiding the coldness in his expression, Lakrahan checked the time on the pocket watch he had pulled out.
“30 minutes from now, in the greenhouse.”
Lakrahan left those words and turned away.
With long legs stretched out, he walked with precise spacing, and Wyatt and Timothy closely followed him.
Lakrahan, walking with measured steps, spoke to them.
“We should not admit guests for a while.”
His mink fur cloak fluttered and swayed in the wind.
“A real headache.”
A white snowflake fell beside his smooth eye, bumping against his broad shoulder and melting away.
[Star Icon]“The Northern Portal, you say?”
Feriat’s chancellor pulled his glasses close to the size of a coin and quickly skimmed through the ledger.
“North, north. Many people seem to be looking for the north lately.”
The Emperor’s escort knight was unusually large, and his presence alone was highly intimidating.
It felt like facing a wall, and the shadow on the ledger made it twice as hard to find the writing.
“Who else went besides Princess Kelita?”
The chancellor looked up over his glasses, then put his eyes back down on the ledger.
“It was the Emperor of the Deransis Empire.”
“The Emperor said there would be a place left.”
“Yes. I think there’s one spot left too…….”
Without even looking up, the chancellor, who was skimming through the list with his hand, clicked his tongue.
“Oh, a lizard has taken the last spot.”
The escort knight’s forehead twitched.
“A lizard?”
“It seems that the lizard written in this blank is the problem since there should have been one spot left. The portal is very sensitive, so you have to care about even the smallest things.”
“When can I leave then? Tomorrow? The day after?”
“It’s impossible. You have to wait at least 8 more days for the north.”
Even as the chancellor straightened his crooked back, no clear response came, so he raised his wrinkled forehead and widened his eyes.
The escort knight relaxed his fierce expression and looked at the chancellor with cold eyes.
“Then I request 8 days later.”
“Yes, do so.”
The escort knight quickly turned around and disappeared outside the office.
“Heh. It’s amazing how someone that big doesn’t make a sound when they walk.”
The chancellor adjusted his glasses and rearranged the spreadout ledgers.
[Star Icon]Kelita, who always had a smiling face, didn’t look so good today.
She was the one who arranged the teatime, but once the place was set, she looked anxious, as if she had come to a place she shouldn’t have.
Loren looked alternately at Lakrahan and Kelita and then lifted the teacup in front of her.
The movement wasn’t restless, but if you watched her, it felt like a puppy that needed to go to the bathroom……
“Princess Kelita. Do you have something urgent?”
“Yes?”
“Then you can go and come back now.”
“Oh, no.”
Kelita’s face turned red.
Loren, who swept up her red hair, was looking at Kelita with an innocent face.
The smiling smile that seemed to ask what was wrong was not unpleasant in a strange way.
Kelita looked at Bercheria, Loren, and Lakrahan sitting around the round table in turn and slightly lowered her head.
“Thank you for asking anyway.”
Her hand, tightly clutching the hem of her dress, was pale.
“Prince Loren.”
Lakrahan lightly pushed Loren’s teacup with his hand.
It was a polite suggestion to close her mouth about the situation around her for a moment and drink this.
Lakrahan tried hard to ignore Kelita’s cheeks turning red at that sight.
The Male lead Always Seduces Her with His Beauty (Matriarchy)
Xin Jiao Zhou is the leader of the world’s premier sect. She has just experienced betrayal from all sides, was poisoned in an assassination attempt, and faced death squad attacks while the poison was taking effect. After finally clearing out the scum from her sect, she was drugged again while trying to detoxify.
After waking up from a night of unconsciousness, she gained a “beautiful and kind-hearted” husband.
Xin Jiao Zhou: “???”
He fell ill.
She came to see him, bringing breakfast.
As she put down the breakfast and was about to leave, his hand slipped while holding the spoon. “Clank!”
She turned around upon hearing the noise.
He looked up at her, his eyebrows drooping: “My hand… has no strength.”
“Shall I… feed you?” she asked tentatively.
He opened his mouth cheerfully: “Ah—”
Thinking she was drowning, he jumped in without hesitation to save her, but nearly drowned himself. In the end, it was she who swam over to rescue him, giving him air underwater.
After emerging from the water, his ear tips turned red. He lightly brushed his cheek, tucking his sideburns behind his ear, revealing delicate, pink-tinged ear tips. He lowered his gaze, too embarrassed to look at her.
Xin Jiao Zhou: He’s truly beautiful, kind-hearted, and adorable.
A certain someone when disciplining subordinates behind the scenes: “If they don’t obey, just kill them.”
What’s that? She might already have someone she cares about in her heart? A certain someone: Find out who it is, kill them, and then there won’t be anyone.
What? She met a man by the riverside? What? That man even hurt her? A certain someone: Whichever hand hurt her, chop off his entire arm.
Love at first sight without realizing it, gradually falling in love, slowly getting closer…
Family and national grudges, schemes and desires, good and evil, crime and punishment, she and he face the future together, seeking justice with passion!
A naturally dark female lead who could accidentally destroy the world but is actually an honest person VS a weak, pitiful, and helpless but skilled fighter, beautiful white-cut black male lead
My heart is not of stone, how steadfast is your love? — Tao Yuanming “Imitating the Ancients (No. 3)”
— Reading Guide —
Cold female lead & dramatic black lotus with hidden yandere traits male lead
