I remained silent.

As expected, Tobias couldn’t inflict any harm on me beyond a scratch. Soon, a look of anxiety surfaced on his once indifferent face.

That’s not to say he sheathed his sword. The cold metal continued to press against my neck. However, he was unable to cause me any injury beyond a scratch.

“If you wish, I will let you go the moment the door is opened.”

I was certain.

Tobias could not kill me, the only key to opening the door.

‘I need to buy time.’

By now, Amy would be looking for me. It had been a while since I should have returned to the room.

Since knights had seen me leave with Tobias, finding our trail wouldn’t be difficult.

I decided to provoke Tobias to buy time until then.

“I cannot betray His Highness.”

“……Hmph.”

As expected, Tobias scoffed.

“Do you love my brother that much? More than your own life?”

I blinked. To outsiders, we should have appeared like a loving couple, and Tobias should have thought so as well.

However, I felt something more in Tobias’ gaze as he looked directly at me.

‘Could it be?’

A ridiculous speculation bubbled up in my mind. I lowered my head to dismiss those thoughts.

Tobias was simply using me. There was no way any special emotions were involved. No, there shouldn’t be.

“I thought you were a wiser woman.”

However, Tobias’ trembling voice only supported that absurd speculation.

“Pouring your loyalty into my brother won’t end well for you. After all, he is Duke Donovan.”

“……”

I hesitated for a moment.

Frankly, I wasn’t curious about the past between Tobias and Hades Croitner. Escaping this crisis was more urgent than satisfying my curiosity.

And I wasn’t curious about Tobias’ feelings for me, either.

However, I needed to buy time, and if Tobias was willing to waste time by spilling his own secrets, it was good for me.

“What do you mean?”

Tobias’ face twisted strangely.

“You really… know nothing, do you? Has that maid Amy not told you anything?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Angelica.”

Tobias called my name with a stiff voice.

“Have you never wondered how my brother ascended to his position at such a young age?”

I frowned.

“No.”

It was true. Hades Croitner was a character in Leodel, and I was wellversed in what I needed to know about him.

So, I had never wondered about trivial facts like his predecessor, Duke Donovan.

“Duke Donovan was obsessed with women.”

“……What?”

For a moment, I doubted my ears. I knew the words, but the meaning didn’t register.

Tobias laughed coldly.

“I mean he was a womanizer, Angelica.”

“……”

“And my mother was his most beloved consort.”

I swallowed dryly. I had guessed Duke Donovan was promiscuous because he had a bastard, but what Tobias was saying went beyond mere ‘promiscuity.’

“No, calling it womanizing would be disrespectful to those unfortunate women… more like hunting women.”

My mouth went dry. Could it be, what I’m thinking right now…?

“It wasn’t forced.”

Tobias spoke slowly.

“But what average village girl could refuse when a Duke says he wants to make her his consort?”

He clenched his teeth.

“That man made sure his consorts took medicine so they couldn’t bear any child that might threaten his precious heir. Poisonous medicine that would ruin their bodies within a few years…”

I lost my words. The story was so horrifying that even the thought of escaping grew faint.
Women who sensed something wrong with their bodies and rejected the drug were all driven out. But my mother was an exception. She stubbornly stayed with that man’s regime.

Tobias looked at me directly.

“My mother was smart, you see. Smart enough to concoct a new drug to counteract the poison.”

“So, that’s how you were able to be born.”

“Yes.”

Tobias nodded his head.

“Do you know what happened as soon as my mother became pregnant? They forced her to take the drug and then drove her out. That man then brought a new woman by his side.”

He moved closer to me, close enough to feel his breath.

“But that man didn’t know. He didn’t know that my mother protected me. That she lived a few more years after being abandoned by him. So that I could come back and take revenge on my brother, who was his only pride.”

The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. Why the people of the duchy were so hostile towards me, why my relationship with Hades was misunderstood from the beginning, and why Tobias was nice to me from the start.

‘It was for revenge from the beginning.’

I didn’t need any more explanation. Tobias must have planned to seduce me to snatch me away from Hades.

And yet he failed because there were no feelings between Hades and me.

But was it really a temptation born out of pure vengeance?

I lifted my head. A clear, unmistakable desire was visible on Tobias’s face.

He slowly opened his mouth.

“Angelica, I am…”

Now was the time. The only time he let his guard down.

I grabbed the necklace hanging from Tobias’s chest, ‘Tatiana’s Luminescence,’ and threw it on the floor.

“Setun!”

Tobias’s eyelids twitched heavily.

“Setun! Setun!”