Penrel Soyer, the third child of the Soyer family, was a knight who had served the young king for nearly seven years.

Penrel had known the king before he obtained his crown. This was because the boy had been dispatched to the border where his family resided.

The rebellion occurred around the time the boy became a man.

The prince with whip scars on his back ascended to the throne, and by then, the fortunes of the Soyer family, which had been withering in poverty, also improved.

The killing of relatives on the path to achieving that goal was forgivable. It was a hundred times better to pretend to be blind for a moment than to starve to death.

In any case, Penrel had accompanied the king on that arduous journey, and having stood side by side for years, he knew him to some extent.

Until a few weeks ago.

On a day of the fourth month of the year, when the bountiful spring sunlight was shining down, the king suddenly changed into a different person.

That day, the king was scheduled to meet the princess of Reden, who was to become his bride.

However, the king, who until the day before had seemed like a man in love, started looking uneasy as they crossed the canal, and then suddenly changed.

“I will return like this. You stay here and head north with the princess when the time comes.”

The young man, having exchanged just the necessary amount of conversation with the King of Reden, turned his back without a moment’s hesitation.

Knowing how excited he had been until the day before, Penrel found himself asking without thinking.

“Are you leaving without meeting your future wife?”

At this, the king stopped and stared at him.

As he faced the young man’s calm face, Penrel realized that his eyes were colder than he had thought. He hadn’t noticed before because they were of a warm color, but now they had a metallic, chilling light.

The man with an unreadable expression opened his mouth.

“I thought she might not be happy to see me.”

It sounded like consideration, but the face of the one saying those words was only cold.

Before Penrel could grasp the double meaning of the words he had heard, the man continued.

“It’s a marriage where the princess’s will wasn’t respected, so it’s understandable, isn’t it?”

It was a statement tinged with a strange self-deprecation.

With those final words, the king left the palace.

Penrel started to mull over the young man’s words but stopped. Isn’t marriage a big event in life? Even if the man had been immersed in romance until just yesterday, facing reality could bring many thoughts.

Being a sensitive person, it was understandable for that turmoil to manifest as depression.

Moreover, the king’s worries were far from reality.

“Are you saying that His Majesty has already left the palace?”

The princess of Reden, whom he was ordered to serve, seemed quite interested in her future husband.

Well, that’s understandable.

Whenever she asked something about his master, Penrel felt proud, forgetting that he had once laid out all sorts of praises to gain her attention.

Anyway, the king was young and handsome, and unlike most who possessed those two qualities, he tended to be modest.

Even if rumors were unavoidable due to his past actions, setting aside the circulating talk, there weren’t many better groom candidates.

The princess of Reden seemed to know this as well. The woman with features rarely seen even in the south, known for its beauties, showed unwavering interest in her future husband.

Because of this, Penrel thought the king’s married life would go well.

Most marriages flowed smoothly without much trouble if the man was cherished. So, he thought their royal marriage would go well once the ceremony was over.

And that meant that none of this was what he had anticipated.

As he waited for his charge to come out in front of the reception room where the King of Reden, the prince, and the princess were, Penrel reflected on the events of the day.

This morning, the princess had suddenly gone missing.

Penrel hadn’t known about it immediately.

Although he was assigned to guard duty, he wasn’t free to roam around the Reden palace.

Prince Mahanas, who turned out to be more narrow-minded than expected, had restricted the Aglante knights to stay only in designated areas of the palace.

Yet he couldn’t send them back, probably worried about straining relations with Aglante before the wedding.

Penrel didn’t like the regulation that hindered the execution of his orders, but he couldn’t argue.

“The princess has lived safely in this palace for over twenty years.”

After all, that was true from an external perspective.

“Are you suggesting our palace isn’t safe?”

Because he was still a knight, he couldn’t outright answer that it wasn’t.

Wars started without justification often result in double the reparations.

Although neither the Reden palace seemed safe nor the Mevasa royal family appeared harmonious, Penrel didn’t want to do anything that could tarnish the king’s reputation.

As it was, he had many worries about the young man these days.

“His Majesty has killed Taeran Rohos.”

The knight who brought back the letter from the Reden princess briefly explained the situation beyond the canal with those words.

“Many southern lords have lost their lives, and there has been a large-scale conscription. It seems His Majesty will lead them to march on the capital. He also emphasized again the importance of the Reden princess’s safety.”

When he first heard those words, Penrel doubted his ears.

The king killed the southern lords? Especially Taeran Rohos, wasn’t he a lord who had supported the royal family until now?

But it wasn’t his place to question or judge the king’s will just because he couldn’t understand it.

Even if the young man had committed those acts without a single sign, once sworn to loyalty, he had to carry out the orders he received.

Penrel replied to the knight delivering the king’s will.

“Please convey that I will follow as commanded.”

Hazel Chesa, a knight who, like him, had sworn loyalty to the king, stared at him for a moment before nodding.

“Understood.”

However, some responses are given not because they can be followed, but simply to follow.

Although he verbally expressed his loyalty readily, Penrel couldn’t shake off thoughts about the king since that day. He couldn’t understand what the young man was trying to do.

But no matter how anxious he was, he was bound to the Reden palace. It was impossible to know every detail of the news from beyond the canal.

So, while he was just fretting, the princess went missing.

To make matters worse, the day before had been when the Reden side was in charge of guarding the princess, so there were no witnesses or meaningful clues.

Although it wasn’t directly the fault of the Aglante knights, broadly speaking, it was a failure to properly carry out their assigned duty, so Penrel hurriedly sent people out to search for the princess.

Fortunately, the princess returned before noon.

No, can that appearance be called fortunate?

Penrel recalled the image of the woman emerging from the forest, utterly exhausted and disheveled.

Her face pale with fatigue, the small scratches on her soft skin, and above all.

“The second prince of Egelbamont tried to kidnap me.”

The words she whispered with a thoroughly cracked voice.

The princess said, trembling with fear and fatigue, that she had barely managed to shake off the prince’s hand and escape.

“I think he was trying to drag me to the cape, but I don’t remember clearly.”

The image of her stuttering her statement while hugging her knees was still vivid.

Naturally, the palace was in an uproar.

While the princess was treating her injured body and resting, Penrel went to Prince Mahanas to ask for his opinion on the situation. It was less of an ‘asking’ and more of a demonstration of the results of following their way.

And at that moment, Penrel saw the bottom of Prince Mahanas.

“Is Ophelia really telling the truth? Netepel Runtalis isn’t the kind of person to do such a thing!”

He hadn’t had high expectations for the prince’s character, but that response was beyond imagination.

Was he trying to doubt his own sister who had just been through a major ordeal?

“If you’re suggesting that the princess fabricated this incident, that makes even less sense. Didn’t you say it yourself, Your Highness? That the princess doesn’t enjoy outdoor activities and is delicate, having grown up indoors since childhood.”

Southern people considered it a virtue to raise daughters in confinement, so Prince Mahanas had emphasized this point several times.

It was a statement that made him feel sick every time he heard it, so Penrel remembered it clearly.

Suppressing his boiling insides, he added,

“Anyway, it’s now certain that the princess’s safety cannot be guaranteed in the Reden palace. We must escort the princess to Aglante. Although the full term hasn’t passed yet, I hope you’ll understand given these special circumstances.”

The prince ranted that he was being disrespectful, but Penrel didn’t even blink. After all, justice was on his side.

Although the situation beyond the canal seemed ominous, since the royal army had already swept through once, nothing that could threaten the king’s betrothed was likely to happen.

However, what he worried about was that the princess might be shocked if she learned of this fact.

Although they didn’t seem very close, he thought she might be heartbroken to hear her family say such things.

But the princess’s reaction was different from Penrel’s expectation.

“So my elder brother said that.”

“Yes, that’s right. However, the prince might have misspoken out of shock, so…”

“No, there’s no need to defend him.”

And the princess brushed her face, which was still pale. She muttered in a low voice,

“I suffered harm because of a guest he brought, and he won’t even provide the most basic compensation?”

Startled by the coldness in those words, Penrel blinked.

It was then that the princess rose from her seat.

“Stand up. We need to have an audience with my father.”

And that’s how it came to this.

Now Penrel was waiting outside the audience chamber for the princess to come out. Because the palace doors were well-soundproofed, he couldn’t tell what was happening inside.

That’s when it happened. The door suddenly opened, and the one he had been waiting for came out.

With a face that couldn’t hide its sense of victory even through fatigue, the princess said to him,

“Let’s go to Aglante.”