“What’s your request?”

“You have to come with me.”

“Where?”

“You’ll know when we get there.”

The Empress silently led the way.

Casius quietly followed behind her.

After all, since he agreed to grant the request, shouldn’t he at least pretend to follow along?

The place the Empress headed to was a secluded cave.

Perhaps due to the late hour, there were generally no people around.

Well, the area near Keshtain Palace in the south wasn’t crowded except during vacation season, and the domain’s residents would be busy with farmland work at this time.

Casius frowned at the feeling of heading to such a gloomy place, but decided to consider it fortunate.

At least they weren’t heading to the bedroom, so wasn’t that fortunate?

Hurriedly heading somewhere as soon as they arrived, and with the Empress no less, was annoying, but if it was a problem to be dealt with, it would be better to get it over with quickly.

The cave was so large and deep that even after going in for quite a while, the end was not in sight.

He gazed at the blue back of the Empress who walked ahead silently.

The voice asking for his heart overlaid like a ringing in his ears.

When the Empress said those words, her eyes held desperation as if pleading for something crucial.

Human desperation is unmistakable when seen up close.

The ripples spreading in those amethyst eyes were serious, unlike the smile on her lips.

‘Why? Does she really intend to win my heart?’

It was a chilling thought, but either way, the Empress was a good card that couldn’t be discarded until thoroughly used.

While Casius was roughly organizing his thoughts, the Empress’s steps came to an abrupt halt.

The place where she stopped was in front of a large rock located in the center of the cave.

The massive rock situated deep in the cave wall was shaped like a dragon and emitted a mystical aura.

Seeing that shape, the story associated with this rock fleetingly crossed Casius’s mind.

After a story spread about a noble couple having their wish granted here, people lined up to make wishes at this place.

Now it’s the off-season and tourists are scarce in the domain itself, so there are no people, but normally it would have been a place bustling with crowds.

That was evident just from the stone towers piled up in front of the rock.

The Empress turned around and gazed at him with a bright smile that didn’t match the dark cave.

“You know about this rock, don’t you?”

“Isn’t it the wishing rock?”

Honestly, it was unexpected.

‘Did she really come just to do this together?’

When she asked to grant her request with a meaningful expression, he thought she would ask for something significant, but once again, she defied expectations.

Well, it was fortunate for him.

“I really wanted to come and make a wish together.”

“Does the Empress believe in such things?”

In reality, Vivian was a realist who didn’t believe in such superstitions at all.

Nevertheless, she came here because she knew this rock all too well.

This lump of stone, famous as a wishing rock, was actually something she had brought here long ago.

One night, returning from slaying a magical beast, she had smeared its essence and offered it here as a sacrifice.

The dragon, known as a spiritual being, received this offering and said it would grant one of her wishes someday.

She didn’t know how such a rock came to be designated as granting everyone’s wishes and even became a famous site… but it meant that the ownership of this rock clearly belonged to her.

Although she didn’t expect the ungrateful dragon, who only received the offering and now disappeared without a trace, to grant her wish, she still wanted to make a wish at least once.

Because it seemed like it would ease her mind, at least.

And for that wish, the subject of the wish necessarily had to accompany her.

More precisely, the dragon had said that’s how the wish would be fulfilled well.

“I don’t believe it, but that’s how desperate I am.”

“…”

“It’s the feeling of wanting to try something. Like these stones piled up here.”

Casius’s view took in Vivian’s bitter-looking profile.

The feeling of wanting to try something.

“Everyone has something they’re desperate for.”

Yes. He was desperate.

Even now, he was living and enduring with one desperate heart.

Ever since Rachel disappeared, there hadn’t been a single moment when he wasn’t.

Did the Empress have something like that too?

“You don’t seem to lack anything, Empress.”

“Did it look that way?”

“Born into the Snowfel family and living with everything in your grasp.”

“That applies more to Your Majesty. Born grasping everything as the sun of the empire.”

“How ridiculous. People like us coming here to make wishes.”

Casius let out a hollow laugh and then stiffened his expression.

Known to have everything, but in reality, a life with nothing left but an empty shell.

It might sound like complaining on a full stomach to ordinary commoners who don’t even have enough to eat, but it truly was so.

Wasn’t his life just like an empty husk, hollow and without any substance left?

Rachel.

Because I couldn’t protect you.

Even after rising to a position where I could have everything, you’re not by my side.

Because I miss you so much.

He had lived every day with that resentment pent up.

Granting wishes, they say.

If there was a god who would grant such things, life wouldn’t have turned out this way in the first place.

That’s why he quietly picked up a stone.

To him, who was thoroughly filled with disbelief, this little stone tower was nothing.

It meant it was more than enough as a token of compensation to show the Empress, a trivial matter.

“Well, wishes are made with a desperate heart. Trying to do something.”

Casius silently picked up a stone and received the pen Vivian handed him.

“You can write your wish here and place it on top.”

He frowned slightly but then grasped the pen.

Holding the pen firmly, he wrote something without showing the slightest tremor.

As if making a wish he had kept for a very long time.

Vivian, who had been watching his wish that she could guess without even looking, turned her head away.

As she picked up a stone, she felt its smooth surface with her fingertips.

Writing a wish on it wasn’t a difficult task.

It was words she had repeated so many times that she didn’t even need to think about it.

Watching him insert the stone into the center of the tower, she warned him one last time.

“You must never look at someone else’s wish. You know that, right?”

“The Empress should follow that properly.”

Casius nodded with a face that showed he had no interest at all in other people’s wishes.

Usually, when someone hides something this much, one might become curious at least once, but he showed no sign of that at all.

Should she laugh or cry at this?

Well, she hadn’t expected anything like that anyway.

He was originally someone who wasn’t very interested in anything outside his own domain.

The only one who could be included in his domain was the me of the past.

It means I am no longer a person in his domain.

It was bitter, but she tried to pull herself together.

Even so, the conclusion would eventually reach the desired outcome.

It would, and it had to.

With that, she inserted the stone on top of the wishing rock.

Looking at it fitting in snugly, the two people bowed their heads in a final silent prayer.

The two people’s wishes were beautifully engraved, shining on the stones.

Throughout the journey back to the carriage, dining at Keshtain Castle, and moving around, only formal conversations passed between the two.

Casius tried his best to maintain proper etiquette.

Vivian, reading the unnaturalness in his words and breath, tried to match it.

The only time the conversation naturally intertwined was when the topic of Duke Diarob came up.

Both Casius and Vivian were as passionate as if their eyes would pop out when it came to that issue.

“I hear Diarob is holding a celebratory banquet.”

“He may be doing so now, but he’ll soon be shedding tears. As long as I help Your Majesty, that’s how it will be.”

The Empress’s eyes were bloodshot as she gripped the knife.

Casius quietly observed her.

Wasn’t he the one who should be making such an expression?

‘Was the abuse she suffered in childhood that severe?’

The scars that had been on her body flashed through Casius’s mind like an afterimage.

“You seem to have quite a grudge against Duke Diarob?”

“As much as Your Majesty.”

Casius closed his mouth for a moment.

If she knew what he had gone through, such words would never come out.

But perhaps everyone considers what they’ve experienced to be the most significant, so maybe that’s how it is from the Empress’s perspective.

“But why did you attack Bashuvir? If you wanted to strike Snowfel, it might have been faster to build up Winterdell and eliminate them.”

Casius’s eyes sparkled as if testing her.

The Empress’s eyes rolled.

Well, isn’t the reason obvious? Since Iblina actually attacked first, there was no reason for the Empress to endure it.

The Empress is human too, so she probably wouldn’t have felt good about it.

Although it might have been better to leave Winterdell to attack Snowfel, she likely acted out of anger.

But.

“Because the Winterdell family would be poison to Your Majesty.”

Casius swallowed his laughter.

It would have been more convincing if she had said she did it because she couldn’t stand the sight of Iblina.

To say she did it for him.

However, the Empress’s appearance was too solemn to be called a lie.

It was the same look in her eyes as when she asked him to love her in the carriage.

That appearance strangely invoked credibility and made Casius tense.