The muggy night air brushed across Parnes’ parched face.

Pulling out his pocket watch, he saw the hands had already far surpassed 10 o’clock and narrowed his eyes.

She wasn’t the type to break a promise.

The sense that something was amiss irritated his keenly alert nerves.

“Your Majesty, are you taking in the breeze? Or perhaps waiting for someone?”

“Come to the upper ballroom and dance with me.”

A few noblewomen, who had been lingering near the entrance to the ballroom, approached naturally with their budding daughters, hoping to introduce them to the emperor and forge a connection.

“Excuse me.”

Indifferent to the ball, Parnes paid no attention to them and crossed over to the corridor.

Duke Ludwick and the knights, who had been waiting at a distance, followed him.

“Your Majesty, the ball has already started. It’s the final event, you should at least show your face.”

Parnes seemed oblivious to Ludwick’s advice.

He hastened towards Casalyn’s room.

“Casalyn, are you there?”

He expected her to clumsily answer “Just a moment!” with her cute voice from inside.

But today, it was eerily silent.

Not a hint of her presence, sending chills down his spine.

He wondered if she might have fallen asleep, forgetting the note, but quickly remembered she wasn’t one to sleep early.

Instinctively, something was screaming at him.

Open this door now and check if Casalyn is alright.

Parnes turned the doorknob.

The air inside was cold, and she was nowhere to be found.

“Ludwick.”

After scanning the dark room, Parnes quietly closed the door and instructed,

“Find out where Casalyn is, right now.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

At first, he thought it was nothing serious.

Perhaps a whim or a change of heart, not wanting to come to the ball, or an urgent matter had come up.

But the news Ludwick brought was enough to confound even Parnes.

“Your Majesty, it’s strange. Miss Casalyn isn’t anywhere in the palace.”

Suddenly, the thought struck him that she might have returned to the Khan Kingdom.

If she wasn’t in the palace, that was the only place she could go.

Imagining her getting into a carriage without looking back filled him with an unpleasant emotion, twisting his heart.

An aggressive urge surged within him to bring her before him immediately, to embrace her so tightly his chest might burst, to inhale the scent from her soft skin.

‘Why?’

What did it matter to him if she returned home or left, whenever she chose?

Wasn’t she just a momentary amusement to relieve the monotony of his life?

Parnes felt disoriented by his unfamiliar emotions.

It was the first time his tranquil life was disturbed so violently.

He leaned on the window sill.

Upon cooling his head and rethinking, he concluded she wouldn’t have left on a mere whim.

The Casalyn he knew was painfully meticulous and responsible.

Had there been an unavoidable reason, she would have left some form of farewell.

But her disappearance was peculiarly ‘sudden.’

Like snow melting into the ground.

As if the dense fog had suddenly vanished.

“Your Majesty. Several carriages of the Khan Kingdom and knights following them were seen leaving through Gate 6.”

Duke Ludwick approached with an unusually anxious expression.

Something simultaneously burning hot and freezing cold seemed to seep deep into his chest.
The grand festival was nearing its end, and since Parnes had already bid farewell to the Khan Kingdom’s delegation a while ago, it wouldn’t have been unusual for them to leave at any time.

Parnes closed his eyes and took deep breaths to calm his mind.

If Casalyn had willingly walked out with the delegation, it would be one thing.

‘But what if that’s not the case?’

If Challen Ricci, that despicable man, had crossed a line he shouldn’t have.

Parnes masked his quietly rising anger with a facade of calmness and set out.

His fists, tightly clenched, seemed ready to burst with tension.

“Everyone, listen. Immediately organize a search party and discreetly follow Challen Ricci’s carriage.”

“Yes, Your Majesty!”

As the heavy gates opened with a thunderous noise, Parnes spurred his horse and dashed out fiercely.

Exiting the palace, a sharp wind that seemed to herald a downpour scratched his face.

‘Casalyn, I have to check this myself.’

Why does your existence cause me such turmoil?

Why do I want to keep you, whom I thought was just a pastime, by my side?

I need to know so I can get rid of this irritating nuisance from my life and return to my usual self.

Initially, she thought the warm drops falling on her face were rain.

It was too warm for a downpour, making Casalyn think she had died and arrived in the afterlife.

Her consciousness, thin as a thread, flickered on and off like a lamp light.

‘What’s happened to me…’

As the rain grew heavier and pelted her face, Casalyn realized this wasn’t the afterlife but reality.

Somewhere faintly, she could hear the sound of flowing water.

She seemed to be alive, yet strangely couldn’t move her body at all.

‘I can’t feel my lower body.’