Could it have been a dream?

Kasallin quietly spent a day and a half, repeating Parnes’s proposal in her mind over and over again, as it felt utterly unreal.

In fact, if one were to be strictly precise, it couldn’t be called a proposal at all.

It was merely a kind of suggestion devoid of pure love.

“When you’ve made up your mind, come find me. I’ll be waiting for your answer.”

Saying that, Parnes turned away, his face as cold as ice, showing no trace of emotional disturbance whatsoever.

The boyish appearance of someone at a loss with first love, who had just moments before let hot breath flow between parted lips, had vanished in an instant.

Then what was the meaning of that terrifyingly tender kiss?

Kasallin touched her lips with her fingertips.

The inner flesh that had been persistently tormented by him still throbbed strangely even now.

‘If I were to accept his proposal here.’

Kasallin imagined the scene of herself becoming the Empress of the Renel Empire.

The imperial wedding would be held grandly, and for some time after marriage, they might even spend time together quite intimately.

But truly, how long could that last?

‘After the honeymoon passes, nothing but bleak tedium and weariness would remain.’

Conversations would gradually decrease, daily life devoted only to official duties in their respective offices.

Like colleagues with only minimal courtesy remaining.

Before long, Parnes would realize he no longer felt any freshness from his wife and would welcome a mistress in search of new interest.

However, Kasallin felt that even if Parnes changed to become quite different from now, she wouldn’t be hurt as much as when she was abandoned by Shallen.

With Shallen, she had lived in the illusion that he wouldn’t change, but now she knew the reality that Parnes couldn’t possibly remain unchanged.

When late night came and darkness could cover her face, Kasallin went out alone to walk in the garden.

While doing so, she thought about what would happen if she rejected Parnes’s proposal and returned to the Kahn Kingdom.

As a mere maid, giving any kind of fatal realization to Shallen and Rose was actually close to impossible.

Returning to her country without any plan would only bring back Shallen’s repeated verbal abuse and confinement.

Crushed under the rock of the king’s power, unable to even make a proper rebellion, she would inadvertently become his mistress as if swept away by waves.

Rather than that, it might be wiser to accept Parnes’s proposal, such thoughts began to fill Kasallin’s mind.

‘I’m scared.’

Whichever of the two paths she chose, she feared losing herself as Kasallin Robepon.

She felt like she was lost in the middle of a forest where all directions were thorny paths, no longer knowing which way to go.

When she came to her senses, Kasallin realized she was crouched in a corner of the garden, trembling all over.

Like a small injured animal, unable to make proper sounds and only letting out thin moans, a deep shadow fell over her head.

“……Kasallin.”

The man who approached through the moonlight was Parnes.

“Become my one and only companion.”

Having come out to the garden because he couldn’t sleep, Parnes was calmly repeating his thoughts, chewing over the words he had spoken several times.

How could he make her his companion and empress of this country without frightening her or making her anxious?

When his thoughts reached that point, Parnes couldn’t help but ask himself a question.

‘Why am I trying to make her empress?’

Like thick roots buried in the ground suddenly revealing themselves due to a violent earthquake.

That single line of brief doubt was enough to create rough waves in Parnes’s life, which had barely maintained peace until now.

Come to think of it, why do I want this woman called Kasallin specifically?

Actually, if he wanted to have an empress, there would be plenty of other options besides her.

He could simply choose a woman with a decent background that would help the imperial family’s development and seat her in that position.

Imperial marriages are that kind of thing to begin with.

Considering the best conditions and joining hands for each other’s benefit.

It’s like business partners signing a contract saying “Let’s work well together from now on.”

Parnes had grown up watching with his own eyes his father, who had been blinded by love or fate, make wrong choices and crumble meaninglessly.

‘But why?’

Parnes walked and walked through the dark garden as if he had some destination.

Then suddenly he saw a familiar figure from behind.

Even though the surroundings were so dark, she alone, trembling behind the shrubs with her small body crouched even smaller, came clearly into view as if a bright light had been turned on.

“……Kasallin.”

The moment their eyes met, the complicated distracting thoughts that had been filling his head disappeared cleanly as if it were a lie.

What expression, what words, what tone of voice should he convey to her?

All the things he had thoroughly planned in his mind while wandering aimlessly through the garden shattered to pieces, and at the end, only fragments of unknown strange emotions remained.

He couldn’t yet know what the name of those fragments was.

When he came to his senses, Parnes’s arms were already embracing Kasallin’s slender body as if to crush her.

“Kasallin. It’s okay.”

Something suppressed was trying to burst out from Parnes’s chest, which had been as unwavering as a frozen winter lake.

Though his head knew this couldn’t be right unless he was crazy, his mouth let out completely different words from his thoughts.

“It’s okay, so you can cry.”

“No. I won’t cry.”

“People don’t have to shed tears to be crying.”

Kasallin seemed slightly flustered, but soon relaxed her body and embraced him back with both hands.

When her small, soft hands like cotton touched his back lightly, Parnes felt like he was facing a massive threat he had never felt once in his life.

And at the same time, he realized.

If things continued like this, either she would ruin him or he would ruin her—one of the two would surely fall into ruin.

Kasallin was bewildered.

It wasn’t because of Parnes, who had fiercely embraced her with eyes blazing blue the moment their gazes met.

She was bewildered by herself for feeling relief when helplessly drawn into his embrace and even embracing him back.

“Have you calmed down a bit?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

Before long, Parnes released Kasallin and stepped far back as if trying to avoid some threat.

As if nothing had happened, he had returned to his original frost-like cold face.

In the awkward atmosphere, Parnes was the first to break the silence between the two who had maintained it for some time.

“It’s cold. Let’s go inside.”

Kasallin nodded silently.

The place she followed him into was his personal study, where he spent private time alone, a place absolutely no one could enter freely.

“Would you like to drink something?”

“Oh, I’ll do it.”

When Kasallin tried to step forward, he stopped her.

“It’s fine. Sit there.”

Kasallin sat awkwardly near the fireplace.

The sound of dry firewood wrapped in flames crackling and splitting filled the room.

Parnes tilted the teapot that someone had brewed on the table to one side.

“This room is……”

“The study that Father and Mother used together.”

He replied while offering her a teacup.

Kasallin carefully accepted it while looking around with unfamiliar eyes.

The atmosphere was completely different from his official office, which was organized without a speck of dust.

Could those boxes containing old trowels and seed pouches be his mother’s belongings?

She thought it seemed too rough and crude for a hobby of someone who had once been an empress of a country.

She had heard that she came from an ordinary merchant family, not even nobility, but how could she have become empress?

“There’s no particularly complicated story. It was because Father fell in love with Mother.”

Parnes spoke as if he could see through Kasallin’s thoughts.

He stood leaning against the window slightly away from where Kasallin was sitting.

“Ridiculously, Mother didn’t want to marry Father. The ministers also opposed it, saying there was no precedent for a commoner becoming empress. Mother becoming empress was solely the result of Father’s endless stubbornness and arbitrary decision.”

“I heard somewhere that the previous emperor and empress dowager didn’t have a bad relationship.”

“It wasn’t bad. That was the problem. Everything went wrong because they loved each other too much.”

Parnes gripped the moisture-laden window frame tightly.

“So I made a resolution. I would never make the same foolish marriage as Father. I would never make mistakes by being blinded by love like Father.”

His gaze fell on Kasallin’s face.

His face was so cold that it was impossible to imagine he was the same person who had just embraced her with a confused and fevered face.

“I can bring you everything you want. And you too are excellent material capable of leading my country, the Renel Empire, to great peace and prosperity.”

“……”

“I think you can’t deny that we need each other right now. So, answer me right here and now.”

Parnes took a step closer and continued.

“Will you become this Parnes’s first and last companion and take the world?”

Parnes’s face was too indifferent and dry for someone making a marriage proposal.

It didn’t sound much different from suggesting “Shall we join hands and work on something together?”

So Kasallin was rather able to maintain her composure.

If he had confessed passionately with flames in both eyes, she wouldn’t have been able to accept it.

Cooperating with each other, giving and receiving what they want, quietly maintaining a symbiotic relationship.

If it was that kind of political marriage, at least there would be no abandonment or betrayal.

“Yesterday and today, through countless thoughts, I realized something. I need someone who will put a sword, not a flower, in my hands.”

Kasallin approached him while slowly pulling her waist cord.

The ribbon that had been binding her waist came undone with a rustling sound, and Kasallin slightly lifted her dress hem.

The whitish firelight illuminated her white abdomen—precisely, the hideous scar that remained across her waist and lower belly.

Parnes quietly held his breath with slightly trembling eyes.

“People say revenge is futile and only makes one’s heart desolate. But Your Majesty. Every night I wake from nightmares hearing the resentful cries of the baby who couldn’t be born.”

Kasallin lowered her dress hem and tied her waist cord again.

Parnes was quietly but fiercely grinding his teeth with silent but fierce anger in both eyes.

“Shallen and Rose. I still don’t know what those two are hiding from me, but I think I’m too pitiful to forgive them. So if I become empress, I plan to use Your Majesty for my personal desires.”

Are you really still okay with that?

Kasallin asked again.

“My body is severely damaged from several accidents, and the possibility of having children is also slim. Even so, do you really want me……”

“What kind of sword would be good?”

Kasallin slowly raised her head.

“……What?”

“You said you needed someone who would give you a sword, not a flower.”

At that moment, Kasallin saw an unidentifiable deep murderous intent and desire for revenge rising in Parnes’s eyes.

But it disappeared in the blink of an eye, so she couldn’t know exactly what emotion it was rooted in.

“I will gladly become your sword and anger. And someday when the smell of blood remaining on that blade fades.”

Parnes grabbed Kasallin’s soft cheek and pulled it without causing pain.

Kasallin looked up at him with a strangely stretched face like glutinous rice.

“Then I will personally draw a bright smile on your face. I promise this in the name of the Emperor of the Renel Empire.”

Kasallin awkwardly blinked her gradually warming eyes and lowered her head.

How could he always exceed expectations like this?

“Good.”

Having made her decision, Kasallin looked straight at him and said.

“I will become your empress.”