Once he discovered the wound and felt the pain, he became aware of his feelings. I don’t know why I denied it so much until now. It even made sense why Marci looked at me with a face that seemed to want to tease me.

At that moment, sunlight shone over Renaula’s face. Worried that she might wake up, I quickly covered her face with my hand. Instead of waking up, Renaula frowned. Cahillen narrowed his eyes.

Until Cahillen headed to the Second Prince’s palace to find Renaula, he didn’t lose his composure. He had considered locking her in a dark room as a rather ridiculous act.

“She’s fainted! No one can endure being trapped in this room for a day! Most people can’t endure it in their right mind!”

Cahillen glared at Hwanjang. The Renaula Violet he knew was not a woman who would faint due to such an incident.

While Cahillen looked straight at him, recalling the unconscious Renaula, he couldn’t help but feel annoyed by the words he rashly uttered.

When Cahillen opened the door to the underground star room and faced the pitch-black darkness, he paused. It was too dark and too quiet. When he hesitated to lift his foot that had been about to step forward,

“Hey, Jinjo, you damn rascal!”

An empty wooden bucket hit Cahillen directly in the chest and fell to the floor.

Then, the barely conscious Renaula, who couldn’t open her eyes properly, staggered and revealed herself. At the moment Cahillen saw her, surprisingly, he felt a sense of relief.

Holding the collapsing Renaula in his arms, he sighed deeply in his heart.
“As expected, she’s not an ordinary woman.”

Cahillen finally smiled.

As Cahillen tried to take her to the First Prince’s palace, Marci and Randol protested. Hearing that Renaula would be greatly embarrassed when she woke up, Cahillen changed his direction.

Cahillen, who had been silently staring at Renaula lying on the bed, suddenly looked around the room.

Unlike the cluttered opposite side filled with miscellaneous items, Renaula’s spot was neatly organized. It looked simple, as if she would leave at any moment.

Noticing that he didn’t like it, Cahillen turned his head at the groaning sound. Renaula, with a face full of wrinkles and sweating, was lying on the bed.

“Ugh…”

Cahillen, reaching out absentmindedly towards Renaula, who was clutching the blanket tightly, hesitated when he looked at his hand. The crescent-shaped mark on his palm was red.

“When did this happen?”

It might have been when he confirmed the pitch-dark room that he couldn’t see a step ahead, or when he held the collapsing Renaula. Or perhaps when he first heard that Renaula had disappeared.

One thing was certain; Cahillen’s current mood was disgustingly foul. He was more angry than when a plan he had been working on for a long time was unexpectedly twisted.

Why?

The moment he questioned himself, the realization of the sensation piercing his neck made Cahillen burst into a hollow laugh. When the door to the star room opened, the emotion that fell down suddenly was anxiety.

He realized that the actions he couldn’t understand about himself could all be explained by one reason.

Cahillen, wiping his face with one hand and still covering his mouth, looked at Renaula. He thought she was an interesting woman, and he knew he felt favorably towards her, but he didn’t know that his emotions had grown this much.

“Since when?”

Cahillen tilted his head and looked down at Renaula.

Was it when he looked up at himself while she was lifting her dress and looking at herself?

Was it when she demanded calmly to bring tea even though she was clearly frightened?

Or was it when she covered her face with just a champagne glass and took a step back?

No, it felt like it was when he saw her face brightly smiling under the bright sunlight.

Looking back now, there were too many details to notice. Every memory was vivid with colors.

Recalling the past, images flashed before his eyes: one night, an exposed hip popping out of the window, the voice that could only sigh without letting go of the rope, and the green eyes that looked up at him.

From the night she poked her face out of the window, he was already captivated.

“Ridiculous.”

Cahillen laughed at himself.

Suddenly remembering and taking time out of his busy schedule to find her, feeling joy when their faces coincidentally met, and even just seeing her sitting next to that damn guy made him feel annoyed all day. When he finally woke up and held her as she fell, he felt a strange emotion.

“Absurd.”

Cahillen bowed his head deeply. It was his first time feeling such emotions, and he didn’t exactly know what it was. It was all too absurd.
However, this feeling was not unpleasant. No, it was refreshing and quite enjoyable. Cahillen raised his eyes to look at Renaula.

Just by realizing one emotion, everything seemed different once again. Renaula’s forehead, eyes, nose, mouth. Everything felt new in his heart.

He reached out and lightly ran his fingers through her auburn hair. The sensation was as soft as he remembered, and the tingling feeling flowed through his fingers.

Cahillen’s pupils deepened as he looked at Renaula.

Although he now realized his emotions belatedly, once he understood, there was no intention of stepping back. He was the type to move forward without looking back once he made a decision, even on the battlefield.

Renaula would soon come to the First Prince’s palace. To secretly obtain information to help his younger brother.

Cahillen looked at the sleeping Renaula, smiling slyly, unaware of anything.

“It’ll be interesting to see what expression the crazy guy, who I don’t want to show any consideration for, makes when he sees me.”