Renév felt an inexplicable sense of relief in Icar’s calm and low voice.

Regaining her clarity for a moment, Renév slowly spoke.

“Do you remember the promise I made to you before?”

“Is it Young Ae’s secret?”

“Yes. I promised Your Majesty that I would reveal my secret when you overcome your injuries and open your eyes.”

“That’s right.”

Renév took a moment to catch her breath and then opened her mouth.
“……I once had a very long dream.”

“A dream?”

When Renév talks about what she experienced, someone might dismiss it as fanciful and vague. However, she had faith.

At least Icar wouldn’t just brush off her story.

“Yes. It was such a vivid and realistic dream…….”

Icar didn’t ask anything and instead attentively listened to Renév’s continuing voice.

Thanks to that, Renév could calmly disclose the events before regression.

In that dream, she was the empress of Paradisium, and her husband was the emperor.

For some reason, she couldn’t conceive a child for several years after marriage, and the life of the barely conceived child extinguished in the womb.

As if waiting, her husband brought in a successor, and shortly after that, her father passed away in the battlefield.

And finally, she was forcibly separated from the newborn she had barely given birth to, witnessing her family’s deaths before her own demise.

Thinking back to those memories still made her teeth chatter.

But in front of Icar, Renév could talk fairly calmly, as if it were someone else’s story.

“……I seem to have gotten too worked up. Was my dream story boring?”

After hearing all of Renév’s secrets, Icar remained silent.

Then, after a moment of contemplation, he raised his head.

Rather than telling her to quickly forget about having had such a long and strange dream, Icar asked Renév this:

“So, what does Young Ae want to do? About the people who appeared in your dream.”

Renév said it as if joking.

“Well…… I guess I don’t want revenge after all?”

Although they were events she had experienced in reality, Renév presented them to Icar as if they were dreams.

‘Being victimized by figures in a dream and seeking revenge in reality.’

Even thinking about it, it seemed absurd, but Icar didn’t take it lightly.

“If Young Ae wants it, I’d like to join in that revenge.”

Icar said without a hint of movement, just staring at Renév. It was as if he was saying that if she wished for it, all she needed to do was nod.

Renév wanted to seek revenge on those who had tainted her family and her honor and led them to death.

Even during the three years she spent away from Vaskyr, seemingly escaping for a different future, such thoughts persisted.

Now that the peace agreement had ended, Renév was free. It meant that she wasn’t bound by the situation in Vaskyr as before.

And today, she brought up the dream story to Icar on the road to the Paradisium palace because of the changes that were to come.

Once she brought up the events before regression to Icar, it couldn’t be undone.

“……. ”

Renév swallowed her dry saliva and locked eyes with Icar. Then, she nodded slightly.

“Okay. If you have any more wishes in the future, just say that one word.”
Icar whispered into Renév’s ear. His voice seemed deliberately low and subdued.

After getting off the carriage, Renév looked at the Paradisium palace for a moment.

The expansive building exterior, with towers soaring so high that the entire view couldn’t be captured at a glance, seemed to represent the prosperity and glory of Paradisium.

“It’s been almost three years since I revisited. How does it feel to come back?”

As he asked, Icar extended one arm courteously.

Renév placed her hand on his firm arm and replied, “……It feels unfamiliar.”

Icar asked with interest, “In what way? Young Ae, who lived here in the dream, should have been here all along?”

The Paradisium palace seemed unchanged from three years ago.

Or rather, there seemed to be no significant difference from before the regression, but it didn’t look familiar.

“In the dream, I always looked down from inside to the outside.”

Before the regression, there was almost no occasion for her to look at the palace from the outside like she did now.

So, it felt unfamiliar for her, who had lived here for more than ten years.

Understanding what she meant, Icar lightly raised an eyebrow, as if his analogy was fitting.

“Like a bird confined in a cage?”

Icar’s metaphor was remarkably apt.

Renév laughed self-deprecatingly. Although no one had confined her, she felt as if she had confined herself to the cage.

“That’s right.”

If the cage inside was the palace, Renév had chosen to live confined inside it again in this lifetime.

Icar, being the emperor, and marrying him implied the same thing.

“It seems the cage was unreasonably narrow for Young Ae to play around in.”

Icar mumbled, and Renév looked at him with a familiar eye.

The Paradisium palace was one of the largest among several empires.

So, how could it be narrow?

“There’s a significant difference between the empresses of Paradisium and Vaskyr.”

“What is it?”

Icar whispered to Renév so that only she could hear.

“Firstly, in Vaskyr, there’s a magic of transportation that Paradisium doesn’t have. So, if you feel confined in the cage, just ask to be taken anywhere.”

In fact, there had never been a moment before regression when Renév felt the palace was cramped.

It was just that there was nowhere in the vast palace where her heart could settle.

But instead of adding such words, Renév smiled lightly.

She disliked her past self, immersed in melancholy and defeat, and wanted to break free from it.

And now, with Icar as a reassuring support like a sturdy wall, she felt she could do just that.

“Yes, if there’s a place you want to go, please tell me anytime, and take me there.”

Satisfied with Renév’s answer, Icar lifted his chin confidently.