In the end, what came out of his mouth was the gratitude he had already expressed several times.

“…Thank you.”

Ophelia immediately replied to him.

“You express gratitude when you have received help from someone.”

It was only after a long time had passed that Idren learned it was an elegant way of drawing a line.

She was saying that she did not help him, and likewise, there was nothing to be reciprocated, so there was nothing between them.

But by then, Idren already liked Ophelia so much that he didn’t care about the hidden meaning of her words, so he pretended not to know and buried it. Even though he knew she wouldn’t accept it, he pushed himself onto her.

And that wasn’t much different from him when he was young.

This time, it wasn’t that he intentionally ignored it, but rather that he really didn’t understand her words properly.

“But you did help me.”

“I said I didn’t help you, didn’t I?”

“But it’s true that thanks to you, I got out of a difficult situation…”

And Idren closed his mouth. For some reason, his eyes stung. His face flushed and his voice trembled.

Ophelia must have also noticed his change. She let out a small sigh and turned to look at him.

Her eyes, which looked a little dark due to the night, seemed to hold the entire sky. Idren lowered his eyes slightly to avoid her gaze.

When Ophelia wasn’t looking at him, he kept glancing at her, but now that she was looking at him, he felt too embarrassed.

Ophelia asked him, who was acting frustratingly.

“What’s your name?”

“Idren Sigrasal.”

Honestly, the surname attached to his name still wasn’t familiar to him.

Ophelia replied to him.

“My name is Ophelia Mevasa.”

Idren didn’t tell her that he already knew.

He didn’t tell her that he recited her name every time he saw the early morning snow, or that he entered this banquet hall only because he wanted to meet her.

Unable to say anything and only looking down, Idren was asked by Ophelia.

“How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“Same as me.”

And she looked back at the sky. She placed her arms on the balcony railing and rested her head on top of them.

“It seemed like your family was treating you badly.”

“…”

“I’m glad it seems to have improved a lot now.”

Unlike the princess of Aegelbamod, Ophelia didn’t seem to know that it was because he would be sent to the battlefield in their place.

While thinking it was fortunate, Idren felt a little sad. It was definitely a welcome thing to look fine in Ophelia’s eyes, but the fact that he wasn’t really fine pierced his heart.

It was then that Ophelia asked him, who was clenching his jaw and neck as if swallowing something.

“When your family treats you like that, don’t you want to run away?”

Run away.

Idren was a little surprised to hear those words.

From the first moment he entered the castle until now, he had never tried to run away even once.

Of course, he had thought about it a few times. Rather than living like this, wouldn’t it be better to just go far away and live alone? Wouldn’t it be good to hide in a countryside where no one knows?

But he never dared to attempt it.

“I have thought about it.”

Hearing his answer, Ophelia tilted her head and blinked.

“You’ve never tried it?”

“As you can see, because of my eye color…”

And Idren realized that she wasn’t looking at his eyes.

When he was flustered by the contradiction in her words that he would have just let pass at any other time, Ophelia let out a chuckle. Idren’s eyes widened as he heard the girl laugh out loud for the first time.

“Indeed, that’s true. Your eyes are golden. Anyone can tell you’re a Sigrasal descendant.”

Likewise, anyone could tell that Ophelia was a Leyden princess.

Was that why? Idren unknowingly asked her.

“Have you ever had such thoughts?”

“Thoughts of wanting to run away?”

Ophelia blinked again. Her long and thick silver eyelashes moved in a gentle curve. Soon, she answered in a nonchalant tone.

“I have thought about it.”

“…Do you also have a bad relationship with your family?”

At that, Ophelia closed her mouth for a moment. Idren carefully observed her face that still had a youthful appearance. She looked white, pretty, soft, and fragile.

So she seemed like a fundamentally different person from him.

Just as he was about to think that the deepening silence was awkward, Ophelia opened her mouth again.

“No. It’s just suffocating.”

“…”

“You may not know, but Leyden is quite a small country.”

She added indifferently. Especially the royal palace is even more so.

“I want to visit many places outside of Leyden. I want to do all the things that can only be done there.”

It was a common wish that daughters from well-off families would have, but on that day, Ophelia looked strangely melancholic.

However, before Idren could further examine the gloom on her small face, Ophelia quickly wrapped up the topic.

“But it will change once I get married, so it’s okay.”

And Ophelia stood up from her seat and arranged the hem of her dress.

As she slightly bent her waist, Idren unconsciously thought that he wished he had a lot of possessions while looking at the cascading silver hair and the flowers and jewels adorning it.

If he had a lot, he could have immediately granted her what she wanted.

But at that time, he couldn’t even use his own body as he pleased, so he had no choice but to keep his mouth shut.

While Idren remained silent, Ophelia finished tidying herself up and looked at him. With a face that had all traces erased, she bid farewell.

“I’ll be going back now. I hope we can see each other again next year.”

However, Idren could not respond to her words.

As soon as the following year arrived, he was sent to the border region. And he endured five years in the cold air that felt like one of his limbs would fall off.

After five years had passed, when he turned twenty-one, Idren could no longer endure being there.

It was because the situation became truly unendurable rather than due to mental issues. It had been three months since supplies ran out on the front lines.

He thought there was nothing he could change with his own strength, but when pushed to the brink, even that had to change.

When he came to his senses, Idren had already stabbed his father in the neck. He was at peace with Ragal, whom he had fought to the death with for five years.

Idren killed the king and hanged the three princes. It was a choice he made not because he had personal ill feelings, but because he couldn’t let them live. If he had let them live, it would have been his neck that was hung.

After killing his family like that, he sat on the throne. Again, it wasn’t because he wanted to sit on it, but because he didn’t know how to handle the situation if he didn’t.

People often mistakenly thought that a child killing a parent who was a king was for the throne, but when doing it directly, parricide was closer to something done with the heart rather than the head. It was something done when cornered by the situation rather than for a firm purpose like the throne.

Politics that started in a life that changed in an instant felt like walking on thin ice. There were many things to do, even more things that shouldn’t be done, and even more things that couldn’t be done.

Idren handled the tasks that came his way without knowing what he was doing. The more he learned about politics, the more he thought he was fortunate not to be a scholar. If studying had been his profession, he felt like he would have died early.

When he couldn’t even sleep at night because there was work left from the day, he sometimes thought he had killed the former king in vain.

The necks of the Ragal soldiers and the necks of his family members were the same, one each, but after slashing the latter, everyone became his enemy.

The Senate, the maternal family of the former king, Tessendot, and even Brinwell, the country of origin of the former queen, all sharpened their swords while looking at him.

“But isn’t it better now that you have a lot?”

When he said he would die like this, Salode would say that. Then Idren would blankly stare at the finance advisor who appeared at the right time from somewhere and guided him to make the best choice.

In fact, Salode’s words were right. Although he came to worry about who might invade tomorrow every day, Idren thought it was better now that his family was dead than when they were alive.

And that thought became even more firm after meeting Prince Mahanas of Leyden.

After he staged a rebellion, the summit was virtually suspended. Originally, Luntaris and the previous dynasty of Aglante were close.

Aegelbamod couldn’t look kindly upon him who had killed all the Sigrasal royalty except himself.

But the dead were dead, and wasn’t it the living who sat on the throne? The peace-loving crown prince of Aegelbamod invited him to the summit again.

Thus, Idren went to the Aegelbamod summer palace he had last set foot in seven years ago.

Perhaps because quite a lot of time had passed, Ophelia was not there. The only Leyden royalty there was Prince Mahanas.

Idren asked the prince about Ophelia. The prince told him, as if he had been waiting, that she was not yet married and didn’t even have a fiancé.

How his heart raced upon hearing those words.

Idren remembered what Ophelia had said on the last night he spent at the summer palace. He had never forgotten anything from that moment.

“But it will change once I get married, so it’s okay.”

Now he had enough to bring change to her.