“I can’t envision a future, Your Highness.”

Floyd could feel Roxiana looking at him, but she didn’t turn to face him.

“My brother Ian proposed to Elizabeth after knowing her for just 3 months. I was curious. How could he decide to spend his life with someone he’d only known for 3 months? So I asked, and he said this. He could envision the future.”

-“It’s the first time. A woman I can envision a future with.”

“He said he could see himself walking along the Bebe River that runs through the capital, holding hands with her and their children. The image of holding hands with a daughter who resembled her and a son who resembled him was so vivid that he couldn’t let it go.”

And they did have a daughter. There was no son, but perhaps if he were still alive, a son might have been born someday.

Roxiana tightly clasped her hands that were neatly placed on her skirt.

“But Your Highness, I can’t envision a future with you. No matter how hard I try, I can’t picture it. Because my mind is full of Lucas and Elise, only their future, I can’t envision a future with you.”

“I know.”

Floyd said in a low voice.

“I know what that’s like.”

Roxiana turned to look at him. She took in his gray eyes that were gazing at her with sadness. Even in this moment, only Roxiana was reflected in his eyes.

How wonderful it would be if she could envision a future with only this man. How wonderful it would be if she could dream of a clear future with this man, just as Ian had.

“I want to help Your Highness envision a happy future, but I can’t make you envision a future that I can’t even picture myself. And yet.”

Roxiana reached out her hand towards his cheek. Her fingertips caressed his rough cheek.

“And yet I love you this much.”

At first, he seemed not to understand what she meant, narrowing his eyes and only feeling Roxiana’s touch.

“Every time I see Your Highness, I feel so overwhelmed.”

His eyes slowly widened.

“I can’t withdraw my heart.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. He was staring at Roxiana’s lips with an expression of disbelief.

“There’s so much I should be thinking about, but right now my mind is filled only with Your Highness.”

Roxiana cupped his face with both hands, making him look into her eyes.

“Even knowing that we might hurt each other someday, I want to become ‘us’ with Your Highness.”

Roxiana let the emotions that had been filling her heart flow out, not even realizing that tears were streaming from her eyes.

“I love you.”

Like a person who has found an oasis after extreme thirst, Floyd’s lips came crashing down. His dry lips met hers, becoming moist. He was hot as he pushed into her parted lips. His warmth, moving as if trying to swallow every corner of her mouth without leaving anything behind, was bitter and sweet.

Roxiana clung to his neck, fully accepting him.

Even in this moment, the heat flowing from him filled Roxiana’s insides with vitality.

The separated bodies drew closer. His thick arms firmly wrapped around her waist, pulling her to him. As if not wanting to let go, as if wanting to keep her here, he held her to his chest filled with intense possessiveness and careful affection.

The hand that had been holding the back of her head gently slid down through her hair. His large, rough palm caressed Roxiana’s delicate shoulders.

Roxiana’s shoulders were cold from sitting outside for a long time without wearing a coat. He realized then how cold her body was and pulled his lips away.

He took off the coat he was wearing and draped it over Roxiana’s shoulders. Even as he closed the front of the coat, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Roxiana was the same.

She liked his gray eyes that suppressed various emotions. Having said “I love you,” she felt unreasonably good, her mind already full of him became even fuller, and she couldn’t turn her eyes away from him.

He gently wiped Roxiana’s lips, which were glistening with his saliva, with his thumb, and tucked her disheveled hair behind her ear as he spoke.

“I’ve never envisioned a future anyway.”

His slightly hoarse voice was filled with many emotions.

“I don’t know what kind of future you wanted to help me envision.”

He lightly kissed Roxiana’s lips and pulled away.

“For me, this moment, this visible reality is enough. As long as the words from these pretty lips are sincere.”

The look in his eyes waiting for an answer was desperate. Roxiana took his hand that was near her ear and gently placed it on her cheek as she whispered.

“I’m sincere, Your Highness. I love you.”

At last, a faint smile spread across his lips. He pressed his forehead against Roxiana’s and said.

“Then that’s enough. It’s sufficient.”

Unlike other lovers, there were no promises of making each other happy or spending a lifetime together.

I don’t have confidence in making you, whom I love, happy, and I don’t want you to make me, whom you love, happy either.

Just for this moment, this time, if I love you and you love me, that’s enough. No one knows what shape this love that can’t envision a future will take, but for now, this is okay.

For you. For me.

+++

Nothing changed just because they had expressed their love.

He escorted Roxiana to the Lily Palace, and Roxiana slightly bowed her head in courtesy in front of the arch of the Lily Palace. Only just before parting, his touch as he tucked her fallen hair behind her ear, his warmth that lightly touched her ear, felt sweeter than before.

She wanted to hold onto his fingertips. She wanted to kiss each of his fingers and whisper for him to come to her bedroom. Knowing how desolate his bedroom was, knowing how cold and hard the bed he lay on was, she wanted to draw him into her warm bed.

But knowing his heart and her own heart, it became harder to say those words. So Roxiana barely moved her feet that didn’t want to leave and turned her back on him.

She could feel his gaze until she entered the building.

An intensely hot, affectionate, thirst-inducing gaze mixed with desire, bitterness, and pain. Because her own heart was the same, Roxiana could tell what kind of look he had even without seeing him.

I love you and you love me, and now we both know that fact and have become ‘us’, so why doesn’t the lingering pain in my chest disappear? Is it because ‘we’ can’t promise ‘our future’?

The bedroom was warm from the heat coming from the fireplace, and in front of it lay Lion and the white otter now named ‘Nis’. Seeing the peaceful scene made her heart a little lighter.

Roxiana went over to them and gently sat on the floor. Lion rested his chin on Roxiana’s thigh, and Nis scurried up her arm and settled on Roxiana’s shoulder. With the lovely warmth they provided, Roxiana finally smiled.

“I’m in love.”

To the creatures who couldn’t possibly understand, Roxiana whispered.

“I never thought I could do this, but I’m in love.”

The time when she was Lucas’s fiancée, which now felt so distant. There was a time when she questioned whether she loved him. Because she had never felt ‘the world shaking and something exploding’ when kissing him, there was a time when she wondered if this was love.

Even when kissing Floyd, she never felt ‘the world shaking and something exploding’, but she didn’t doubt that it was love.

So there was no reason to hurt, no reason to be bitter.

Now, at present, we are in love.

+++

When Roxiana fell asleep, the wolf and the otter went out to the bedroom terrace. The otter sitting on top of the wolf’s head said.

“She looked sad even while saying she loves him.”

“…”

“Is it because she can’t find Ranian?”

When the wolf didn’t answer, the otter slapped the wolf’s head with its small front paws.

“You promised to tell her. Why aren’t you saying anything?”

The wolf let out a deep sigh.

The wolf wanted nothing more than for Roxiana’s heart not to be hurt. He didn’t want to see Roxiana, who was just starting to pull herself together from her sadness and walk a new path, fall into despair after holding hope for Ranian only to have it shattered.

In a situation where nothing was certain, he didn’t know how to tell her that Ranian might be in Gania.

But as the otter said, he couldn’t keep putting it off forever.

If Ranian was really alive and surrounded by black magic, it would be difficult for the spirits alone to find him. But if Roxiana went to Gania herself and used her power, she might be able to find him.

“Tomorrow.”

The wolf said.

“I’ll tell her tomorrow.”

+++

Nelly visited the Lily Palace early in the morning.

“Elise Hailis has become the Crown Princess.”

As soon as Roxiana entered the reception room, Nelly said. Roxiana wasn’t greatly surprised by those words and slowly walked over to sit across from Nelly.

“They called a priest and had a private wedding ceremony. They officially filed the paperwork too. Now Elise Hailis is the Crown Princess.”

The corners of Roxiana’s lips turned up slightly.

“That’s good.”

“What should we do, Master? Should we spread rumors?”

“Not yet.”

Nelly was impatient. She wanted to see that wicked woman completely ruined as soon as possible.

But since Roxiana herself was so relaxed, it felt awkward for her, a third party, to keep pushing.

“What are you waiting for? If Elise Hailis has a child, and if that child is really Lucas Pelur’s, it will become more difficult.”

“I won’t wait that long.”